The Columbian Orator: Containing a Variety of Original and Selected Pieces, Together with Rules, Calculated to Improve Youth and Others in the Ornamental and Useful Art of EloquenceCaleb Bingham and Company and sold at their bookstore, no. 45, Cornhill, 1817 - 300 pages The Columbian Orator, Caleb Bingham's classic work of 1797, contains both the oratory of the American Founding Fathers alongside imagined speeches from gifted orators of past epochs. Exceptional both for its contents and greater impact upon the fledgling society of the United States, this compendium of fine speech carries great historical and cultural value. As well as American speeches, this collection contains historic addresses from Europe, ranging back to ancient Rome. From about 1800 to 1820 it was recited and taught widely in schools across the US, instilling the importance of both patriotic pride in the new nation and the value of eloquent speaking. Bingham hoped to create a new generation of passionate American speakers, that leadership in the future would carry a wellspring of honed rhetorical talent from which to draw. Notably, several entries in this collection articulate opposition to slavery, which at the time was legal and widely practiced in the USA. It discusses the lack of ethics enslavement entails, thereby capturing the hearts and inspiring the-then fledgling abolitionist movement of America. Bingham's work was paid tribute in later decades by talented speakers such as Frederick Douglass, who read this book many times as an enslaved child, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, who authored the famous anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin. |
From inside the book
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... auction ! to the highest bidder ! prisoners of all colours ! sorts and sizes ! lately captured ! on the Mediterranean ! and brought fresh into port ! warrant- ed free from sickness , and wounds ! also , a considera- ble number ! a ...
... Auct . Examine for yourselves : who bids ? Oran . Four hundred sequins for the whole .. Auct . That is scarce the price of one good able- bodied slave . Orun . They will not do me half the service at pres- nt . The greater part of them ...
... Auct . Here are a parcel of lads of the first quality ; superfine ; the sons of noblemen . Their relations will give their weight in gold to redeem them . 1st . Purchaser . And their country , twice their weight , rather than have them ...
... Auct . His dreams will be a cash article . Who bids ? 3d . Purchaser . Two hundred sequins a piece , for the three . Hamet . Officer , forward that man ; I wish to speak with him . [ Officer leads Kidnap to Hamet . From whence are you ...
... Auct . Here are robust fellows for you ; reduced to discipline ; hardened by toil ; proof against heat and cold , wind and weather . Now is your last opportu- nity . Who bids ? 4th . Purchaser . Two hundred a piece for the whole . 5th ...
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