One hundred and fifty years ago today, Abraham Lincoln delivered one of the best-known and most beloved speeches in American history. To mark the anniversary, we asked three former speech writers to tell us their favorite political orations.
Read through their picks, then tell us yours in the comments. We’ll add your contributions to this post.
Jon Lovett: Ain’t I a Woman? – Sojourner Truth
Jon Lovett is a writer and former speechwriter to President Barack Obama and then-senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. He also co-created the NBC comedy 1600 Penn.
I can’t choose just one. I have two. One is Sojourner Truth’s speech to the Akron, Ohio Women’s Convention in 1851. The speech is commonly knows as “Ain’t I a Woman?” but it’s not clear she ever said those words. There’s no definitive transcript. Some recorded that she was welcomed to the stage warmly, others that there was an outcry. But what we know is that Sojourner Truth’s speech moved that room and those who heard her speak found it hard to convey the experience. I can’t think of a speech that better dispenses with the absurdity of having to argue for one’s own humanity. And it’s not without a sense of humor, too. “The poor men seem to be all in confusion, and don’t know what to do.” Still true.
Another is President Franklin Roosevelt’s acceptance speech at the 1936 Democratic convention in Philadelphia. It’s famous for the remarks in which he talked about “a rendezvous with destiny”. But it is also a powerful argument about what had taken place in our economy, and the need to defend not only political freedom but economic opportunity in the face of concentrated wealth. “For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality.” And FDR does not mince words, decrying the tyranny of “economic royalists” and confidently articulating the role of government. As we confront growing inequality today, it's a speech I often find myself rereading.
Clarence B Jones: What To The Slave Is The 4th Of July? – Frederick B Douglas
Clarence B Jones is the former draft speech writer to Martin Luther King Jr. He's written two books about King and is currently currently the visiting/diversity professor at the University of San Francisco.
A speechwriter should always remember that the choice of words to use for spoken expression is similar to the choice a painter must exercise in choosing the right color of paint to place on his canvas to accurately portray the picture s/he seeks to paint. The power of the words in Douglass’ speech is self-evident. They are reminiscent of power of words used in the King James version of the Bible. The words in his speech are sui generis.
The speech captures the irony of the contradiction between what the real historical treatment of Negroes after slavery and emancipation has been, in reality, in contrast to the principles and precepts enshrined in our Declaration of Independence and bill of rights to our constitution and embodied in the Civil War Freedmans Bureau established in 1865. The reason I choose Frederick Douglass’ speech is because of who he was and the extraordinary “hero’s journey” of his life from being a slave to an articulate spokesman for the abolition of the institution of slavery.
Christian Nwachukwu: President Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address
Christian Nwachukwu, Jr is an appointee of the Obama White House and serves as the senior speechwriter to CEO Wendy Spencer at the Corporation for National and Community Service. Previously, Christian served as a speechwriter to New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg from 2011-13.
Whether the language is plain (as in Harry Truman’s “Powers of the President” speech) or poetic (as in George H W Bush’s inaugural address), a great political speech should speak to you and make you a part of its time and place. John Lindsay’s second inaugural address as New York City’s mayor does that. So does John F Kennedy’s “Poetry and Power” speech, which sings, and Barbara Johnson’s speech making the case for Richard Nixon’s impeachment, which sears. But there is one speech which does all of these – sing, sear, speak and soar – sometimes simultaneously and, as a result, stands alone: President Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address, delivered on the East Portico of the White House on March 4, 1865:
It is my favorite political speech of all time.
Concise, direct, religiously philosophical and deeply affecting, Lincoln’s second inaugural explains the cause of the civil war – “These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war;” outlines the warring parties’ motivations – “One would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came;” and looks beyond the conflict to a time of potential reconciliation and reconstruction – “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in … to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
Reader picks:
Almost anything Robert F. Kennedy said during his 1968 Presidential Campaign.
His speech at Kansas University was one of the most cogent and inspiring calls-to-arms to aim our collective sights higher and strive to do better that I've heard, as well as a call to re-evaluate how we judge success.
Most people know his speech on the night Martin Luther King died, but probably better and lesser-known was the speech he gave the following day to the City Club - the 'mindless menance of violence' speech which I still hold is the greatest political speech ever delivered by anybody, and actually nothing's really that close.
Kansas speech is at: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/RFK-Speeches/Remarks-of-Robert-F-Kennedy-at-the-University-of-Kansas-March-18-1968.aspx
City Club speech is at: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/RFK-Speeches/Remarks-of-Senator-Robert-F-Kennedy-to-the-Cleveland-City-Club-Cleveland-Ohio-April-5-1968.aspx
Robin Cook's clinical dismantling of the case for war with Iraq.
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's Tryst with Destiny speech on the eve of Indian Independence.
And no mention yet of Eugene Debs? For shame Guardian!
Here's part of his Canton speech read by Mark Ruffalo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuGp-0G1p4M
"Every solitary one of these aristocratic conspirators and would-be murderers claims to be an arch-patriot; every one of them insists that the war is being waged to make the world safe for democracy. What humbug! What rot! What false pretense! These autocrats, these tyrants, these red-handed robbers and murderers, the “patriots,” while the men who have the courage to stand face to face with them, speak the truth, and fight for their exploited victims—they are the disloyalists and traitors. If this be true, I want to take my place side by side with the traitors in this fight."
Closing with:
"And now for all of us to do our duty! The clarion call is ringing in our ears and we cannot falter without being convicted of treason to ourselves and to our great cause.
Do not worry over the charge of treason to your masters, but be concerned about the treason that involves yourselves. Be true to yourself and you cannot be a traitor to any good cause on earth.
Yes, in good time we are going to sweep into power in this nation and throughout the world. We are going to destroy all enslaving and degrading capitalist institutions and re-create them as free and humanizing institutions. The world is daily changing before our eyes. The sun of capitalism is setting; the sun of socialism is rising. It is our duty to build the new nation and the free republic. We need industrial and social builders. We Socialists are the builders of the beautiful world that is to be. We are all pledged to do our part. We are inviting—aye challenging you this afternoon in the name of your own manhood and womanhood to join us and do your part.
In due time the hour will strike and this great cause triumphant—the greatest in history—will proclaim the emancipation of the working class and the brotherhood of all mankind."
Surely Neil Kinnock's 'We're all right' speech which had me in tears.
Also inspiring is this advice on political speeches from George Plunkitt
Now, nobody ever saw me puttin’ on any style. I’m the same Plunkitt I was when I entered politics forty years ago. That is why the people of the district have confidence in me. If I went into the stylish business, even I, Plunkitt, might be thrown down in the district. That was shown pretty clearly in the senatorial fight last year. A day before the election, my enemies circulated a report that I had ordered a $10,000 automobile and a $l25 dress suit. I sent Out contradictions as fast as I could, but I wasn’t able to stamp out the infamous slander before the votin’ was over, and I suffered some at the polls. The people wouldn’t have minded much if I had been accused of robbin’ the city treasury, for they’re used to slanders of that kind in campaigns, but the automobile and the dress suit were too much for them.
Another thing that people won’t stand for is showin’ off your learnin’. That’s just puttin’ on style in another way. If you’re makin’ speeches in a campaign, talk the language the people talk. Don’t try to show how the situation is by quotin’ Shakespeare. Shakespeare was all right in his way, but he didn’t know anything about Fifteenth District politics. If you know Latin and Greek and have a hankerin’ to work them off on somebody, hire a stranger to come to your house and listen to you for a couple of hours; then go out and talk the language of the Fifteenth to the people. I know it’s an awful temptation, the hankerin’ to show off your learnin’. I’ve felt it myself, but I always resist it. I know the awful consequences.
I'm as lefty as the come - but this speech by Churchill never fails to make the hairs on the back of neck stand up...
A rat race is for rats. We're not rats. We're human beings. Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice lest you jeopardise your chances of promotion and self-advancement.
This is how it starts, and, before you know where you are, you're a fully paid-up member of the rat pack. The price is too high.
Jimmy Reid in 1972. More valid now than ever.
Gotta be Julia Gillard's misogyny speech. Hands down the best political speech of the last ten years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOPsxpMzYw4
One of the speeches Martin Luther King made (but not the acceptance speech) when he went to Oslo to accept the Nobel Prize in 1964 : (can't find a Youtube link - would love it if someone has one)
In particular when he talks about meeting the great people of the world. He says it is like being on a mountain top :
"This is a marvellous mountain top. I would love to stay here ... but the valley calls me."
and later
"As I go back to the valley I go back with a faith ... it isn't a weak faith. It is the faith that evil triumphant is somehow weaker than right defeated ... It is the faith that Mississippi the closed society can become Mississippi an open society ... I go back with a faith that the mills of the Gods grind slowly but exceedingly fine ... I go back with a faith that you shall reap what you sow."
And on the recording I've heard someone close to the mike - no doubt looking out at the ranks of diplomats and dignitaries - say : "You tell 'em Mr King".
Mandela's "An Ideal for which I am prepared to Die" stands tall as one of the greatest speeches during Apartheid. Poignantly, the speech was delivered at the beginning of his trial in 1964. He opened thus:
I am the first accused. I hold a bachelor's degree in arts and practised as an attorney in Johannesburg for a number of years in partnership with Oliver Tambo. I am a convicted prisoner serving five years for leaving the country without a permit and for inciting people to go on strike at the end of May 1961.
At the outset, I want to say that the suggestion made by the state in its opening that the struggle in South Africa is under the influence of foreigners or communists is wholly incorrect. I have done whatever I did, both as an individual and as a leader of my people, because of my experience in South Africa and my own proudly felt African background, and not because of what any outsider might have said.
What political speeches inspire you?
Tell us in the comments and be sure to include a link to the text or YouTube clip if available. We'll update this post with your contributions throughout the day.