Make it short and sweet. Brevity is the soul of wit. William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1610).

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1 Great Speech Making. Ten Commandments of Speech (or Historical lessons from the Masters) e:\english\speech\speech.dp1 e:\law\trial\speech.dp1 e:\govt\trial\speech.dp1 1. Plain Style. Use short, clear words that convey emotion. Make it short and sweet. Brevity is the soul of wit. William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1610). Abraham Lincoln Sometimes less is more. The Judds, a mother and daughter country singing group, 1991 In writing fewer words are often better. Item Words Pythagorean theorem: 24 The Lord s Prayer: 66 Archimedes Principle: 67 The Ten Commandments: 179 Lincoln s Gettysburg Address: 286 The US Declaration of 1,300 Independence: The US Government regulations 26,911 on the sale of cabbage: Lincoln, like most writers of great prose, began by writing bad poetry. Early experiments with words are almost always stilted, formal, tentative. Economy of words, grip, and precision come later (if at all). Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, The Words that Remade America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 149. Hugh Blair, who was still the respected expositor of ancient rhetoric in Lincoln s time, had written: The first rule which I shall give for promoting the strength of a sentence is to prune it of all redundant words...the exact import of precision may be drawn from the 1

2 etymology of the word. It comes from precidere, to cut off. It imports retrenching all superfluities and turning the expression so as to exhibit neither more nor less than an exact copy of his ideas who uses it. Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 160. Joshua Speed called his study for composition...to make short sentences and a compact style. Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 160. There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law. Abraham Lincoln, Address at the Young Men s Lyceum, Springfield, Illinois, January 27, No man is good enough to govern another man without that other s consent. Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Peoria, Illinois [October 16, 1854]. The ballot is stronger than the bullet. Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Bloomington, Illinois [May 19, 1856]. As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy. Abraham Lincoln, Fragment [August 1, 1858?]. From Roy P. Basler, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln [1953], Vol. II, 53. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it. Abraham Lincoln, Address at Cooper Union, New York [February 27, 1860]. Truth is generally the best vindication against slander. Abraham Lincoln, Letter to Secretary Stanton, refusing to dismiss Postmaster-General Montgomery Blair [July 18, 1864]. I think the necessity of being ready increases. Look to it. Abraham Lincoln, Letter (this is the whole message) to Governor Andrew G. Curtin of Pennsylvania [April 8, 1861]. Beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories. Abraham Lincoln, Letter to Major General Joseph Hooker [January 26, 1863]. The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea. Abraham Lincoln, Letter to James C. Conkling [August 26, 1863]. On the first day of January in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any state, or designated part of a state, 2

3 the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free. Abraham Lincoln, Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation [September 22, 1862]. Secretary of State John Hay reflects Lincoln s belief when he found an efficient user of modern language in one of his military engineers: The President is particularly struck with the business-like character of his dispatch, telling in the fewest words the information most sought for, which contrasted strongly with the weak, whiney, vague and incorrect dispatches of the whilom General-in-Chief [McClellan]. Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 170. Lincoln s respect for General Grant came, in part, from the contrast between McClellan s waffling and Grant s firm grasp of the right words to use in explaining or arguing for a military operation. Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 170. On August 17, 1864, Lincoln s dispatch read: Hold on with a bull-dog gripe, and chew & choke, as much as possible. Have none of it. Stand firm. On that point hold firm, as with a chain of steel. Watch it every day, and hour, and force it. Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 171. Events were moving too fast for the more languid phrases of the past. As a speaker, Lincoln grasped ahead of time Mark Twain s insight of the postwar years: Few sinners are saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon. The trick was not simply to be brief but to say a great deal in the fewest words. Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 171 3

4 2. Common Touch. Simplicity leads to a folksy connection with your audience. It is the people you are trying to reach and move. Move them with emotional, familiar words. Public opinion in this country is everything. Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Columbus, Ohio [September 16, 1859]. [I feel] somewhat like the boy in Kentucky who stubbed his toe while running to see his sweetheart. The boy said he was too big to cry, and far too badly hurt to laugh. Abraham Lincoln, Reply as to how he felt about New York elections. From Frank Leslie s Illustrated Weekly [November 22, 1862]. The President last night had a dream. He was in a party of plain people and as it became known who he was they began to comment on his appearance. One of them said, He is a common-looking man. The President replied, Common-looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them. Abraham Lincoln, From Letters of John Hay and Extracts from His Diary, edited by C.L. Hay [December 23, 1863]. The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty. And the American people just now are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not mean the same thing. With some, the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men and the product of other men s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name, liberty. And it follows that each of the things is by the respective parties called by two different and incompatible names, liberty and tyranny. The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act... Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty. Abraham Lincoln, Address at the Sanitary Fair, Baltimore [April 18, 1864]. I do not allow myself to suppose that either the convention or the League have concluded to decide that I am either the greatest or best man in America, but rather they have concluded that it is not best to swap 4

5 horses while crossing the river, and have further concluded that I am not so poor a horse that they might not make a botch of it in trying to swap. Abraham Lincoln, Reply to the National Union League [June 9, 1864]. If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all time; but you can t fool all of the people all the time. Abraham Lincoln, To a caller at the White House, from Alexander K. McClure, Lincoln s Yarns and Stories [1904]. 3. Word Choice. Without knowing the force of words, it will be impossible to know men. Confucius, The Confucian Analects, 470 B.C. Lincoln... not only read aloud, to think his way into sounds, but wrote as a way of ordering his thought. He had a keenness for analytical exercises... He loved the study of grammar. Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 162. Lincoln was laboriously precise in his choice of words. He would have agreed with Mark Twain that the difference between the right word and the nearly right one is that between the lightening and a lightening bug. Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 163. Mark Twain said: A powerful agent is the right word: it lights the reader s way and makes it plain; a close approximation to it will answer, and much traveling is done in a well-enough fashion by its help, but we do not welcome it and applaud it and rejoice in it as we do when the right one blazes out on us. Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 164. Lincoln was merciless in pointing out his opponent s loose use of words. Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 164. When the Dred Scott decision said that the Constitution applied only to free subjects in the eighteenth century, Lincoln took Douglas defense of that position and did another of his word substitutions, to reduce his opponent to absurdity: Suppose after you read it [the Declaration of Independence] in the old-fashioned way, you read it once more with Judge Douglas version. It will run thus: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all British subjects who were on this continent eight-one years ago, were created equal to all British subjects born 5

6 and then residing in Great Britain. Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 166. Theodore Parker made a similar substitution in 1848: To make our theory accord with our practice, we ought to recommit the Declaration to the hands which drafted that great state paper and declare that All men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights if born of white mothers; but if not, not. Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, Emphatic Inversion. Blair taught that it was not enough to be plain. The proper words must be thrown into prominence, even if that meant inverting the normal order of a sentence. Mark Twain said that even in swearing you must Study to put the crash-words in emphatic places. The young Lincoln... remained fond of grammatical inversion throughout his life: Broken by it, I, too, may be: how to it I never will. Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, Craftsmanship. The quality goes in before the name goes on. Westinghouse, TV commercial 1950s. We get inside his verbal workshop when we see how he recast the suggested conclusion to his First Inaugural given him by William Seward. Every sentence is improved, in rhythm, emphasis, or clarity: Seward: Lincoln: I close. We are not, we must not be, aliens or enemies, but fellow-countrymen and brethren. Although passion has strained our bonds of affection too hardly, they must not, I am sure they will not, be broken. The mystic chords which, proceeding from so many battle-fields and so many patriot graves, pass through I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every 6

7 all the hearts and all the hearths in this broad continent of ours, will yet harmonize in their ancient music when breathed upon by the guardian angels of the nation. living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, The Words that Remade America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 158. He simplifies the next sentence using two terms (enemies/friends) where Seward had used two pairs (aliens - enemies/fellow countrymen - brethren), but Lincoln repeats "enemies" in the urgent words "We must not be enemies." The next sentence is also simplified, to play off against the long, complex image of the concluding sentence, and to repeat the urgent "must." The bonds of affection become the cords of memory in Lincoln. The bonds and the strings are equally physical images. The "chords" are not musical sounds. Lincoln spelled "chord and "cord interchangeably-they are the same etymologically. He uses the geometric term "chord for the line across a circle's arc-as the cord on a tortoise shell gave Apollo his lute.' Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg: 159. The spare quality of Lincoln's prose did not come naturally but was worked at. Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 161. Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years.... We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address [March 4, 1861]. 7

8 6. Cadence. Cadence is the rhythmic quality of speech. Ta-da-ta-da-boom. Ta-da-ta-da-boom. The boom is an emphatic, stressed, emotional, and powerful word! Lincoln (1854) even shortens his members, as the rhetoricians put it, to suggest the quickening pace toward disaster: The South, flushed with triumph and tempted to excesses; the North, betrayed, as they believe, brooding on wrong and burning for revenge. One side will provoke; the other resist. The one will taunt, the other defy; one aggresses, the other retaliates. Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 162. To end, after complex melodic pairings, with a strong row of monosyllables, was an effect he especially liked. Not only what we do here and the work we are in and the world to know of the above examples. Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 156. The world will little note (nor long remember) what we say here. Cadence refers to the inflection or modulation in a sentence, the flow of rhythm, any regularity and uniformity of beat or measure, as in marching or dancing. Cadence sets up a flow, a lyrical, or musical quality. Cadence establishes a flow, a rhythm, a beat, and a crescendo. Lincoln used to underline and capitalize those emotional words he wanted to stress. with firmness in the right (as God gives us to see the right) let us strive on to finish the work we are in. Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 156. Fondly do we hope (fervently do we pray) that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg,

9 7. Parallel Structure talks about like things. Similarities are played upon. X is like Y, and here is why. Example: Life is like a box of chocolates... Forrest Gump, Lincoln used to space parallel lines so that they appeared under each other in his speeches. I presume that this was intended to allow him to emphasize to his audience, the parallel structure he intended. In the 1970s, Al Johnson, David Vancil and a host of college speech and debate coaches have said, Tell them what you are going to say. Say it, and then tell them what you said. I go for all sharing the privileges of the government who assist in bearing its burden. Abraham Lincoln Letter to the Editor, Sangamon Journal, New Salem, Illinois, June 13, From Lincoln s 1862 message to Congress: In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the freehonorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose the last best hope of earth. Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, Eternal Truth. Speak about Plato s eternal truths. The enduring principles, which do not change over time. Unlike the modern philosophy of situational ethics, the great truths are true for all men, for all times. You can argue against a point by arguing about the facts or by challenging the values which underlie their argument. If you are opposing a mandatory seat belt law, you can quibble about how many lives will be saved, and/or you can question the value of saving lives compared with the restraint on our liberties. This is similar to the legal dichotomy between the facts and the law. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles right and wrong throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face 9

10 from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, You toil and work and earn bread, and I ll eat it. No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle. Abraham Lincoln, Reply, seventh and last joint debate, Alton, Illinois [October 15, 1858]. This is a world of compensation; and he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it. Abraham Lincoln, Letter to H. L. Pierce and others [April 6, 1859]. I have never had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.... I have often inquired of myself what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of separation of the colonies from the motherland, but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty not alone to the people of this country, but hope to all the world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence... I would rather be assassinated on this, spot than surrender it. Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Independence Hall, Philadelphia [February 22, 1861]. This is essentially a people s contest... It is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men -to lift artificial weights from all shoulders-to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all-to afford all an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life. Abraham Lincoln, Message to Congress in Special Session [July 4, 1861]. If there ever could be a proper time for mere catch arguments, that time surely is not now. In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and in eternity... The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, 10

11 and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country... Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the last generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free-honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just - -a way, which if followed the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless. Abraham Lincoln, Second Annual Message to Congress [December 1, 1862]. Dear Madam, I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. Abraham Lincoln, Letter to Mrs. Bixby [November 21, 1864]. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous 11

12 altogether. 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 bind up the nation s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address [March 4, 1865]. Important principles may and must be inflexible. Abraham Lincoln, Last public address, Washington D.C. [April 11, 1865]. 9. Antithesis. Antithesis has two parts. One part creates a couplet for clarity. I want this, and not that. Heat is the absence of cold. The other part of antithesis creates power by use of a comparison. One end of the dichotomy (an extreme thesis/antithesis position) is pumped and the other one deprecated. If you love democracy, you won t like tyranny. Lincoln used to indent contrary ideas. In this manner, he probably sought to set two opposing ideas off visually as well as ideologically. Antithesis is a comparison between polar opposites. Part of its power comes from simplicity. If you wish to persuade, start with an area of agreement. NLP principle. Simplify your arguments and they will have the power of a freight train. Irving Younger, a famous trial attorney, Reality is Complex. By contrast, epic speech making, heroes, lionizing and pumping deal with simplification. Simplify a complex situation by drawing stark comparisons between: right and wrong night and day black and white similarities and differences truth and lies Make stark contrasts. Work on your thesis/antithesis comparisons. Analysis of every permutation of the subject seals off misunderstandings as if Lincoln were quietly closing door after door. Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 167. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, 12

13 or die by suicide. Abraham Lincoln, Address at the Young Men s Lyceum, Springfield, Illinois, January 27, If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing a slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe that what I am doing hurts the cause; and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors where shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views as fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my views of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere be free. Abraham Lincoln, Letter to Horace Greeley [August 22, 1862]}, Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 168. This is the highest art which conceals itself. The opening sentences perform the classical role of an exordium, limiting one s task, disarming hostility, and finding common ground with one s audience. Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 168. While making his own position clear, Lincoln professes a readiness to alter course if he is proved wrong. But he promises to do that only within the framework he has constructed. (He will change only if the change saves the Union.) He sounds deferential rather than dogmatic, yet he is in fact precluding all norms but his own. It is the same kind of rhetorical trap he used in his most famous statement of alternative possibilities: A House divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved-i do not expect the house to fall-but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further 13

14 spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new-north as well as South. Have we no tendency to the latter condition? Abraham Lincoln, Speech at the Republican State Convention, Springfield, Illinois [June 16, 1858]}, Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, Lincoln s own underlinings reinforce sentence structure in suggesting that these two and only these two outcomes are possible. Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 169. The language seems stripped of all figurative elements though Lincoln has begun with a biblical figure that seems to pre-empt criticism of its premise. Lincoln s logic can be, and has been, challenged; but the ordering of the words seems logical, perspicuous. It is also, in its clipped quality, urgent. The rapid deployment of all options seems to press on the reader a need to decide. Lincoln s language is honed to a purpose. Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 169. I am not a Know-Nothing... How could I be? How can anyone who abhors the oppression of Negroes be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation we began by declaring that all men are created equal. We now practically read it all men are created equal, except Negroes. When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read, All men are created equal, except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics. When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty-to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy. Abraham Lincoln, Letter to Joshua F Speed, [August 24, 1855] When... you have succeeded in dehumanizing the Negro; when you have put him down and made it impossible for him to be but as the beasts of the field; when you have extinguished his soul in this world and placed him where the ray of hope is blown out as in the darkness of the damned, are you quite sure that the demon you have roused will not turn and rend you? What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling seacoasts, our army and our navy. These are not our reliance against tyranny. All of those may be turned 14

15 against us without making us weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us. Our defense is in the spirit which prized liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you. Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Edwardsville, Illinois [September 11, 1858]. If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution certainly would if such a right were a vital one... This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address [March 4, 1861]. I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves, it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others. Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally. Abraham Lincoln, Address to an Indiana Regiment [March 17, 1865]. No one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. Abraham Lincoln, Farewell Address, Springfield, Illinois [February 11, 1861]. 15

16 10. Ringing Triplets. Repeating ringing phrases Ringing repeating parallel phrases. Martin Luther King: Now is the time... Let Freedom ring... We can never be satisfied... I have a dream that... The unwillingness to waste words shows up in the Gettysburg Address telegraphic quality the omission of most coupling words that rhetoricians call asyndeton. Triple phrases sound as to a drumbeat, with no and or but to slow their insistency: We are engaged... We are met... We have come... We cannot dedicate... We cannot consecrate... We cannot hallow... The government of the people by the people for the people Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, The speech is surprisingly bare of ornament... By repeating the antecedent as often as possible... Lincoln interlocks his sentences, making of them a constantly selfreferential system. This linking up by explicit repetition amounts to a kind of hook-and-eye method for joining the parts of his address. Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, 172. Repeating words or phrases, when well crafted, has great power. It allows the audience to follow what you say and anticipate what you are going to say. It makes your speech memorable. Lincoln liked the three-word beat or cadence of those short sentence segments. 11. Short Term Assignment. Use what you have learned to first identify these speechmaking techniques in a Great Speech from the past; write a paper on this topic. Then redraft those speeches using those tools and present it, or a part of it to the class. Sign up your topic or section of a speech so that we can have greater coverage. Any great speech can be used, but clear it with me before you begin work. The following speeches are 16

17 already available: Lincoln s Gettysburg Address, Martin Luther King s I have a Dream speech, and Jesus Christ s Sermon on the Mount. 12. Medium Term Assignment. Use what you have learned about speech writing and presenting great speeches to write your own (an original) speech about some historical event. For example, writing a D-Day memorial speech (the Omaha Beach address perhaps) is acceptable provided that you do not copy an actual funeral oration or dedication speech from a historical figure. How about the keynote speech memorializing the Battles of Chancellorsville, Vickburg, Dunkirk, or the Battle of the Bulge? Perhaps a keynote speech Constitution Day, the Bill of Rights, the first anniversary of women s right to vote, a statem of dedication for the Progressive movement, a speech explaining the meaning of Reconstru Brown vs. the Board of Education or the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the proposed national apology for slavery, a graduation speech for Federal High School, or a dedication speech fo Wall. Sign up your topic so that we can cover a wider range of subject matter. Five-minute speeches. You will get points for using each of these rhetorical techniques. When you are looking to write a speech about a great historical event, ask yourself the big questions. What did it mean? Why was it important? What heroic aspects can I underscore? 17