CHAPTER V

THE PUBLIC ADDRESS

PERHAPS no other form of literature is more closely related to life than the public address. Its subjects are drawn from great public questions which press upon a nation for solution, or arise out of occasions which commemorate events of deep popular significance. Philosophical discussions, literary and scientific treatises, become orations only when they appeal to wide interests and are connected with the popular life. The purpose of the oration is not to explain truth to scholars and specialists, not to please the cultured man of leisure; it is to bring truth home to the mind and heart of the community and to make ideas and ideals prevail in active life. Moreover the appeal is direct, personal, intimate. Man speaks directly to man without the intervention of the printed page. The tones of the voice, the flash of the eye, the expression of the face, the bearing and the gesture, all combine to make the appeal direct and vital. The whole man speaks to the whole man: reason prevails with reason; feeling arouses feeling; will stimulates will. Intense convictions, high moral endowments, clearness, force, earnestness — these are the tests. As Webster himself phrased it :

"The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward to his object this, this is eloquence."

There are two principal forms of public address, the argumentative and the expository. When a thesis is to be established, a proposition to be proved, a specific course of action to be entered upon or avoided, the address is argumentative. When an event is to be commemorated, a life estimated, the meaning of an occasion impressed, the address becomes expository. Burke's speech on conciliation with America is argumentative; it seeks to prove a proposition. Webster's address on the battle of Bunker Hill is expository; it expounds a theme. Both persuade to action: but one urges directly the reasons for specific acts; the other seeks indirectly to arouse patriotism and raise the ideals of public life.

(a) THE ARGUMENTATIVE ADDRESS

In introducing his discussion, the skillful argumentative speaker explains what is necessary of the origin and history of the controversy and, by setting aside from the mass of conflicting opinion whatever is admitted or irrelevant, narrows the question to one or more special issues. The discussion proper seeks to prove or disprove the special issues by the twofold process of argumentation, stating the facts and explaining the meaning of the facts, presenting the evidence and drawing the logical inferences from the evidence. The conclusion contains the summary of the argument, its application, and the final emotional appeal. This is all admirably illustrated in Burke's speech on conciliation. He points out what both sides admit; i.e., (1) that conciliation is a possible method of procedure, (2) that the grievances of the colonists are not wholly unfounded, and (3) that the proposals for peace ought to come from England. These need not be argued. He further narrows the issue by insisting that the question is not of principle but of policy. It is not a question of whether the parliament has the right to tax America, but

of whether it is wise to do so under existing circumstances. Admitting, for the sake of argument, the right to tax, is it, after all, expedient? This, says Burke, is the real question at issue. The argument then proceeds in two main divisions: (1) an argument on the general expediency of concession, and (2) an argument on particular concessions embodied in specific resolutions. The address closes with an appeal to patriotic emotions.

SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA Burke does not dwell upon the origin and history of the question, for that was well-known to all his hearers. The modern reader, however, needs a preface. The following historical summary by John Fiske explains the situation in parliament at the time the speech was delivered:

"The principle that people must not be taxed except by their representatives has been to some extent recognized in England for five hundred years, and it was really the fundamental principle of English liberty, but it was only very imperfectly that it had been put into practice. In the eighteenth century the House of Commons was very far from being a body that fairly represented the people of Great Britain. For a long time there had been no change in the distribution of seats, and meanwhile the population had been increasing very differently in different parts of the kingdom. Thus cities which had grown up in recent times, such as Sheffield and Manchester, had no representatives in Parliament, while many little boroughs with a handful of inhabitants had their representatives. Some such boroughs had been granted representation by Henry VIII in order to create a majority for his measures in the House of Commons. Others were simply petty towns that had dwindled away, somewhat as the mountain villages of New England have dwindled since the introduction of railroads. The famous Old Sarum had members in Parliament long after it had ceased to have any inhabitants. Seats for these rotten boroughs, as they were called, were simply bought

and sold. Political life in England was exceedingly corrupt; some of the best statesmen indulged in wholesale bribery as if it were the most innocent thing in the world. The country was really governed by a few great families, some of whose members sat in the House of Lords and others in the House of Commons. Their measures were often noble and patriotic in the highest degree, but when bribery and corruption seemed necessary for carrying them, such means were employed without scruple.

"When George III came to the throne in 1760, the great families which had thus governed England for half a century belonged to the party known as Old Whigs. Under their rule the power of the crown had been reduced to insignificance, and the modern system of cabinet government by a responsible ministry had begun to grow up. The Tory families during this period had been very unpopular because of their sympathy with the Stuart pretenders, who had twice attempted to seize the crown and given the country a brief taste of civil war. By 1760 the Tories saw that the cause of the Stuarts was hopeless, and so.1 they were inclined to transfer their affections to the new king. George III was a young man of narrow intelligence and poor education, but he entertained very strong opinions as to the importance of his kingly office. He meant to make himself a real king, like the king of France or the king of Spain. He was determined to break down the power of the Old Whigs, and the system of cabinet government, and, as the Old Whigs had been growing unpopular, it seemed quite possible, with the aid of the Tories, to accomplish this. George was quite decorous in behavior, and, although subject to fits of insanity which became more troublesome in his later years, he had a fairly good head for business. Industrious as a beaver and obstinate as a mule, he was an adept in political trickery. In the corrupt use of patronage he showed himself able to beat the Old Whigs at their own game, and with the aid of the Tories he might well believe himself capable of reviving for his own benefit the lost power of the crown.

"Besides these two parties a third had been for some time growing up, which was in some essential points opposed to both of them. This third party was that of the New Whigs. They wished to reform

the representation in Parliament in such wise as to disfranchise the rotten boroughs and give representatives to great towns like Leeds and Manchester. They held that it was contrary to the principles of English liberty that the inhabitants of such great towns should be obliged to pay taxes in pursuance of laws which they had no share in making. The leader of the New Whigs was the greatest Englishman of the eighteenth century, the elder William Pitt, now about to pass into the House of Lords as Earl of Chatham. Their leader next in importance, William Petty, Earl of Shelburne, was in 1765 a young man of eight-and-twenty, and afterward came to be known as one of the most learned and sagacious statesmen of his time. These men were the forerunners of the great liberal leaders of the nineteenth century, such men as Russell and Cobden and Gladstone. Their first decisive and overwhelming victory was the passage of Lord John Russell's Reform Bill in 1832, but the agitation for reform was begun by William Pitt in 1745, and his famous son came very near winning the victory on that question in 1782.

"Now this question of Parliamentary reform was intimately related to the question of taxing the American colonies. From some points of view they might be considered one and the same question. At a meeting of. Presbyterian ministers in Philadelphia, it was pertinently asked, 'Have two men chosen to represent a poor English borough that has sold its votes to the highest bidder any pretence to say that they represent Virginia or Pennsylvania? And have four hundred such fellows a right to take our liberties?' In Parliament, on the other hand, as well as at London dinner tables, and in newspapers and pamphlets, it was repeatedly urged that the Americans need not make so much fuss about being taxed without being represented, for in that respect they were no worse off than the people of Sheffield or Birmingham. To this James Otis replied: 'Don't talk to us any more about those towns, for we are tired of such a flimsy argument. If they are not represented, they ought to be'; and by the New Whigs this retort was greeted with applause.

"The opinions and aims of the three different parties were reflected in the long debate over the repeal of the Stamp Act. The Tories wanted to have the act continued and enforced, and such was the