Speeches

Editor’s note: The full title of the speech below is “An oration, pronounced at Hanover, New-Hampshire, the 4th day of July, 1800; being the twenty-fourth anniversary of American independence.” The speaker is Daniel Webster, who was then a junior at the University of Dartmouth.

AN ORATION.

COUNTRYMEN, BRETHREN, AND FATHERS,

WE are now assembled to celebrate an anniversary, ever to be held in dear remembrance by the sons of freedom. Nothing less than the birth of a nation, nothing less than the emancipation of three millions of people, from the degrading chains of foreign dominion, is the event we commemorate.

A campaign speech by General James Garfield, who became the 20th President of the United States a few months later. Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Printed Ephemera Collection.

New York, August 6, 1880

Comrades of the “Boys in Blue” and Fellow-Citizens of New York: I cannot look upon this great assemblage and these old veterans that have marched past us, and listen to the words of welcome from our comrade who has just spoken, without remembering how great a thing it is to live in this Union and be a part of it. [Applause.]