The American Union Speaker

Mr. Webster was an ambitious man. He desired the highest office in the gift of the people. But on this subject, as on all others, there was no concealment in his nature. And amb...

The Old World has already revealed to us, in its unsealed books, the beginning and end of all its own marvelous struggles in the cause of liberty. Greece, lovely Greece,

By rejecting the posts, we light the savage fires, we bind the victims. This day we undertake to render account to the widows and orphans whom our decision will make,--to the wr...

The enemy is at our gates,--the Æsquiline is near being taken,--and nobody stirs to hinder it! But against us you are valiant, against us you can arm with diligence. Come on, th...

There is but one thing that stands in the way. There is but one thing that at this hour stands between you and the Government--and that is slavery. The institution, cursed of Go...

----" throne of royal state, which far Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand, Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,"--

The capital peculiarity of the eloquence of all times of revolution, is that the actions it persuades to are the highest and most heroic which men can do, and the passions it wo...

You are in the last crisis of nations. To be free or to be slaves--that is the question of the hour. By every obligation of man or States it behooves you in this extremity to co...

But if he bar New England out in the cold, what then? She is still there. And give it only the fulcrum of Plymouth Rock an idea will upheave the continent. Now, Davis knows that...

To the question, "What have the People ever gained but by Revolution?" I answer, boldly, If by revolution be understood the law of the sword, Liberty has lost far more than she...

And, sir, where American Liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood, and full of its or...

Is this fancy, or is it fact? Have you not seen him, after his resurrection from that tomb, after leaving been dug out of the region of death and corruption, make his appearance...

It is eighty-one years since Poland first was quartered by a nefarious act of combined royalty, which the Swiss Tacitus, John Müller, well characterized by saying that "God perm...

In order to speak well, the orator must be able to stand well, that is, he should assume a firm but easy and graceful attitude, the weight of the body resting principally on one...

It was autumn. Hundreds had wended their way from pilgrimages; from Rome and its treasures of dead art, and its glory of living nature; from the sides of the Switzer's mountains...

Sir, I take it upon myself to say, that in no country in the world, upon either continent, can there be found a body of ministers of the Gospel who perform so much service to ma...

If there be one State in the Union, Mr. President, (and I say it not in a boastful spirit,) that may challenge comparison with any other for a uniform, zealous, ardent, and unca...

In vain ye appeal to treaties,--to covenants between nations. The covenants of the Almighty, whether the old covenant or the new, denounce such unholy pretensions. To these laws...

The great event in the history of the Continent, which we are now met here to commemorate, that prodigy of modern times, at once the wonder and the blessing of the world, is the...

Cæsar paused upon the brink of the Rubicon!--What was the Rubicon?--The boundary of Cæsar's province. From what did it separate his province? From his country. Was that country...

127 XCV. CHARLES JAMES FOX was born on the 24 th of January, 1749; was educated at Eton College and Oxford University. He was fond of the classics and took up Demosthenes as he...

The leaders of our Revolution were men of whom the simple truth is the ugliest praise. Of every condition in life, they were singularly sagacious, sober and thoughtful. Lord Cha...

What do I mean by national glory? Glory such as Hull, Jackson, and Perry have acquired. And are gentlemen insensible to their deeds, to the value of them in animating the countr...

Let the case of a busy lawyer testify to the priceless value of the love of reading. He comes home, his temples throbbing, his nerves shattered, from a trial of a week; surprise...

Let us cultivate personal independence in the spirit of loyalty to the State. and may God grant that we may always be able to maintain the sovereignty of the State in the spirit...

Long after this war shall have closed, and its distresses passed away, its moral and intellectual compensations will remain. Every village will have its war-worn veterans to tel...

The design of this book is twofold,--to meet the present demand for new selections suited to the spirit of the hour, and also to furnish a choice collection of standard pieces f...

Intemperance is to be pitied and abhorred for its own sake, much more than for its outward consequences. These owe their chief bitterness to their criminal source. We speak of t...

Cassius. That you have wronged me, doth appear in this: You have condemned and noted Lucius Pella For taking bribes here of the Sardians; Wherein, my letters, praying on his sid...

A command of the low notes is essential to the fullest effect of impressive eloquence. The strongest and deepest emotions can be expressed only by a full, deep-toned utterance....

There were two farmers--farmer A. and farmer B. Farmer A was seized or possessed of a bull; farmer B. was seized or possessed of a ferry-boat. Now, the owner of the ferry-boat,...

SQUIRE EGAN AND HIS NEW IRISH SERVANT, ANDY. Squire. Well, Andy, you went to the postoffice, as I ordered you? Andy. Yis, sir. Squire. Well, what did you find? Andy. A most impe...

Our destiny must be evolved, not from the blending of the world's noblest races in our ancestral stock; not from a position in which we hold the keys of the world's commerce, an...

Old F. What reputation, what honor, what profit can accrue to you from such conduct as yours? One moment you tell me you are going to become the greatest musician in the world,...

I come, then, to emancipation. And, first, I ask my countrymen to proclaim emancipation to the slaves as a matter of necessity to ourselves; for unless it be by accident, we are...

This step, once taken, can never be recalled; and all the baleful and withering consequences that follow will rest on the convention for all coming time. When we and our posteri...

The amendments to the Constitution which constitute the Bill of Rights, declare that "a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the...

O! how our hearts were beating, when, at the dawn of day, We saw the army of the League draw out in long array; With all its priest-led citizens, and all its rebel peers, And Ap...

But yesterday the word of Cæsar, might Have stood against the world; now lies he there, And none so poor to do him reverence. O Masters! if I were disposed to stir Your hearts a...

Then fancy her magical pinions spread wide, And bade the young dreamer in ecstasy rise-- Now, far, far behind him the green waters glide, And the cot of his forefathers blesses...

Flag of the Free! under thee will we fight, Shoulder to shoulder, our face to the foe; Death to all traitors, and God for the Right! Singing this song as to battle we go: March,...

But to the hero, when his sword Has won the battle for the free, Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word; And in its hollow tones are heard The thanks of millions yet to be.

The train from out the castle drew; But Marmion stopped to bid adieu:-- "Though something I might plain," he said, "Of cold respect to stranger guest, Sent hither by your king's...

The wounds that are dealt By that murderous steel Will never yield case For the surgeon to heal. Hurrah! they are broken-- Hurrah! boys, they fly-- None linger save those Who bu...

The sea! the sea! the open sea! The blue, the fresh, the ever free! Without a mark, without a bound, It runneth the earth's wide regions round; It plays with the clouds; it mock...

From room to room, from floor to floor, From Number One to Twenty-four, The nuisance bellowed; till all patience lost, Down came Miss Frost, Expostulating at her open door-- "Pe...

Ye ice-falls! ye, that from the mountain's brow, Adown enormous ravines slope amain,-- Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, And stopped at once amid their maddest plun...

The Yankee boy, before he's sent to school, Well knows the mysteries of that magic tool, The pocket-knife. To that his wistful eye Turns, while he hears his mother's lullaby; Hi...

By the widow's wail, by the mother's tears, By the orphans who cry for bread, By our sons who fell, we will never yield Till Rebellion's soul is dead. Anonymous.

Press bravely on! and reach the goal, And gain the prize, and wear the crown; Faint not! for to the steadfast soul Come wealth, and honor, and renown. To thine own self be true,...

O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming-- Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, O'er...

O! sacred Truth! thy triumph ceased awhile, And Hope, thy sister, ceased with thee to smile, When leagued Oppression poured to Northern wars Her whiskered pandours and her fierc...

"Is it far away, in some region old, Where the rivers wander o'er sands of gold?-- Where the burning rays of the ruby shine, And the diamond lights up the secret mine, And the p...

314. CCXXIII. This is considered one of the best martial lyrics in the language. Its author, FITZ-GREENE HALLECK, was born at Gifford, in Conn., August, 1795. He has written but...