Red Cloud's Cooper Union Speech

Red Cloud, c. 1877

“The Good Spirit made us both.” So said Oglala Lakota Chief Red Cloud, speaking at New York City’s Cooper Union on June 16, 1870. In this famous address, Red Cloud established the common humanity that his people shared with the white people. To show that common humanity while also revealing the resultant injustices, Red Cloud used the classic rhetorical device of parallel language structures. 

Red Cloud's simple but powerful language compared and contrasted the two populations. Indeed, one encounters few if any speakers in the American rhetorical tradition who equaled Red Cloud’s simple eloquence. It was an eloquence of connecting power. His parallel words made his thoughts echo off one another. His parallel language established the greatness and yet the injustice of our common humanity.

For, indeed, common humanity was Red Cloud’s theme. “God Almighty has made us all,” Red Cloud said, “and He is here to bless what I have to say to you today.”

As he began by delivering this speech’s most famous passage, Red Cloud compared and contrasted how the white people had received many advantages, while his own people had few and were declining:

“When God Almighty made you he made you all white and clothed you. When He made us He made us with red skins and poor. When you first came we were very many, and you were few; now you are many, and we are getting very few, and we are poor.”

God’s creation creates a frame for that entire passage. That framing helps Red Cloud compare the incidental and meaningless accident of skin color against the contrasting groups’ economic and social status: “you all white and clothed you… us with red skins and poor.” The parallel phrasing contrasted the two groups: “made you… made us.” The repeated phrases linked two opposing thoughts. Red Cloud followed this with a further contrast, still keeping the structures parallel: “now you are many, and we are getting very few.” He concluded the passage, pointing out that his people remained poor. As usual, the rich and powerful overwhelmed the poor – a seemingly

Cooper Union, NYC

inevitable consequence of what we proudly call civilization. 

Then, to establish his credibility, Red Cloud reminded the audience that, “I am a representative of the original American race, the first people of this continent.” Continuing, Red Cloud contrasted the advantages that civilization had given to the white people against his own’s peoples’ struggles:

“The Great Spirit made us poor and ignorant; made you rich and wise and more skillful in things which we know nothing about. The Great Father, the Good Father in Heaven, made you all to eat tame game and us to eat wild game.” 

Again, still sounding fatalistic, Red Cloud continued to compare and contrast. “Poor and ignorant,” he said, contrasted with “rich and wise.” God, “the Good Father,” created the world for the white people to eat tame game and the Lakota to eat wild game. By repeating “game” instead of “meat,” Red Cloud reminded his audience that the cows, chickens, and pigs that white people raised on farms were, after all, just animals that had been tamed. If he had said, “You eat farm stock, while we hunt for food,” the literal meaning would remain, but, without the parallel language, the commonality would have vanished. 

After reviewing the various injustices and broken treaties, Red Cloud made a moral plea:

“I want you to help me get what is right and just.”

Still using parallel language to powerful advantage, Red Cloud pled, not for riches or power, but for justice:

“Look at me. I am poor and naked, but I am the Chief of the Nation. We do not want riches, but we want our children trained and brought up properly. We look to you for your sympathy. Riches will do us no good. We cannot take away into the other world anything we have here. We want to have peace and love.”

As we reflect on that plea, we see more contrasts: Red Cloud was “poor and naked,” but he was also “the Chief of the Nation.” And what did he ask for? He spurned greed, instead pleading for the next generation: “do not want riches, but want our children trained.” Comparing the idleness of wealth against the benefits of doing things the right way! His language followed a familiar pattern, “Not the one, but the other.” Contrasting! Red Cloud showed the power of bringing up children precisely by contrasting that virtue against riches. The comparison and contrast created a plea that inspired just because it was more reasonable.

As he concluded, Red Cloud reinforced his key point, which was that different peoples can still understand and trust one another:

“I am glad I have come here. You belong in the East and I belong in the West. And I am glad that I have come here and that we could understand one another.”

The white people belong in one place, and he belonged in another. “You belong...I belong.” Another comparison and contrast. Yet, as I read those words from so long ago, I could not help but to think of the old Christian hymn, “In Christ there is no East or West.” And as I reflect on that, I, for one, question whether we are ever wise to relegate fellow humanity to different places, fates, or advantages.

Eloquent language is not just beautiful. No! Far from it! Eloquent language makes us think. By comparing and contrasting, Red Cloud gave his audience a chance to slow down and think a little bit. I, for one, am thinking a little bit today. For today, October 13, 2025, some Americans are celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day, while others celebrate Columbus Day. Do we celebrate the conquered, or the conqueror? I hope that thinking about Red Cloud’s powerful, eloquent speech helps all of us reflect on this day of memory.

by William D. Harpine   

_____________

Historical Note: Red Cloud lived a long life and was renowned both as a military and political leader of his people. He converted to Christianity and was renowned for helping his dispossessed population as they adjusted to life on reservations. For people who want to learn a little more about Red Cloud’s life, here is a brief biography.

Theoretical Note: The ancient rhetorical theorists called Red Cloud’s technique “syncrisis,” which means that the speaker compared and contrasted two things by using parallel language structures. It is an excellent speaking technique that slows people down and helps them think. 

People who examine Native American speeches need to be aware that many of the speech texts that have come down to us are of questionable accuracy, as they were often revised to convey a white editor’s version or impression of what the speaker should have said. In contrast, Red Cloud’s speech at Cooper Union appears to be the product of a shorthand record, and therefore probably comes close to what he actually said.

Copyright © 2025 by William D. Harpine

Image of Red Cloud, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Image of Cooper Union: David Shankbone, GNU Free Documentation License, via Wikimedia Commons 

Lawrence Wong's Commemorative Speech: Inspiring People with Personal Stories

Lawrence Wong

“As we learn from history, let us always look ahead to the future and move forward for the common good.”

Such was the lesson taught by Lawrence Wong, Singapore’s Minister for Culture, Community and Youth, speaking at a ceremony on August 27, 2015 to commemorate the 70^th anniversary of the end of World War II. 

To commemorate Singapore’s liberation, Wong wisely looked back at the past and toward the future. After all, we learn from the past. We also understand that individual people experienced every heroic act and every brutal event. We know that each scintilla of hope exists only because a human being carries it. By shining forth the examples of people from the past and present, Wong served the highest value of commemoration. It was not his purpose to lecture people about events they already knew; no, his purpose was to inspire--to teach by relating personal stories. 

World War II, history’s most awful war, created suffering and heroism that defy human understanding. The island of Singapore, which was a British colony at the time, suffered Japanese invasion and occupation. After a few months of fighting, the Japanese captured Singapore’s massive seaport and solidified their control of the region’s sea lanes. The Japanese occupation was notably cruel. More than 30,000 captured Allied troops eventually died in Japanese captivity.  

To emphasize history's lessons, Wong cited personal stories from the past and present. By bringing up his family’s war experience, praising a war hero, and then praising a young student who looked to the future, Wong gave a speech that exemplified the epideictic genre. Epideictic oratory, that is, ceremonial speaking that honors people for their past accomplishments, uses examples to inspire our future actions.

Lessons from the Past

Speaking from the same room in Singapore’s National Gallery where Lord Mountbatten accepted Japan’s 1945 surrender in the Southwest Pacific, Wong began with stories of wartime suffering.

“It was my late grandfather, who would share with us stories of the Occupation – the food shortages, the illnesses they suffered, and also the lives lost, including that of his brother, my granduncle. He was rounded up with several young men in the village by soldiers then, late at night, and they never returned.”

 Continuing, Wong pointed out how important it is to remember the past:

“So we rely on memories like these, as well as the accounts we have just heard from people like Major Singh and Professor Thumboo. We remember the past in this dark and difficult period of our history.”

Those personal stories carried emotional meaning that would have eluded dry historical summaries. In addition, Wong recognized the sacrifices of the heroes who fought for Singapore’s freedom. Toward that end, the event’s organizers had gathered survivors to sit in the front row for the ceremony. Wong told the story of one Singaporean war hero: 

“One example is Captain Ho Weng Toh, who is 95 this year, and is here with us today. Captain Ho trained in the States with the US Army Air Force, and became a pilot with the Chinese-American bomber squadron known as the ‘Flying Tigers’. They were based in the Shanxi province in China, fighting against the Japanese forces then.”

As Wong continued, he explained that Captain Ho was a symbol of the “countless others” who “inspired us through their actions.” Bringing the point to a climax, Wong emphasized that, “We owe them a debt of gratitude that cannot be repaid”

Wong then asked the veterans to stand for applause.

Lessons for the Future

We wisely revisit the past so we can learn lessons and do better in the future. That is why, after praising the heroes of the past, Wong underlined that the occupation taught Singapore to gain strength and compassion: 

“The common experience of Occupation strengthened the people's mettle. It shaped their resolve to ensure that their children should never suffer in the same way. It catalyzed the building of our nation and forged a common identity out of a community of diverse immigrants.”

To emphasize the future, Wong introduced a 17-year-old student, Jamie Ng. He credited her with introducing the idea for the 70^th anniversary commemoration. Drawing from her experience and wisdom, Wong taught a lesson of peace and friendship: 

“Jamie has a keen interest in World War II history, and I understand her grandparents experienced the war. She shared with us that the most important thing her World War II studies have taught her is the need to prevent war, and to preserve harmony, understanding and friendship between nations.”

So, Wong moved from lamenting the war’s horrors, to praising the past’s heroes, and finally to the values that can guide Singapore’s future.

"A New Era:" General Douglas' MacArthur's Speech on the USS Missouri

George W. Bush on 9/11: A Message of Unity; Have We Forgotten?

The Lesson Learned

Wong advised the audience to learn from history and to move toward the time ahead, standing up for one’s values along the way. Good advice for any commemoration: 

“So as we learn from history, let us always look ahead to the future and move forward for the common good. Let us be a people that keeps faith with our past; a nation that stands up for its values; a Singapore that we will always be proud to call home.”

Wong’s approach was vastly more potent than a dry, academic recital of statistics. He could have remarked that perhaps 50 million people died in World War II. He could have stated how many thousands of Singaporeans died during the war, or how many starved, or how many were brutally murdered by Japanese forces. Mere statistics, however, rarely move the human heart. No, it is personal stories that move the heart. Thus, Wong wisely chose to emphasize the personal. His stories of his grandfather, Captain Ho Weng Toh, and student Jamie Ng touched the soul as well as the mind.

by William D. Harpine

___________

P.S. Lawrence Wong has since assumed office as the Prime Minister of Singapore. He is a member of Singapore’s People’s Action Party, the centrist regime that exercises Singapore’s government. Given Singapore’s de facto one-party rule, Freedom House rates Singapore at 48/100, “Partly Free,” as compared with the United States, 84/100 (“Free”) or Canada, 97/100 (“Free”). Finland rates 100/100, so the rest of us have room to improve. 

Research Note: For readers who want to know more about the often-underestimated genre of epideictic rhetoric, Professor Dale Sullivan wrote a terrific article on the topic. More ambitious readers might look at the relevant sections of The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation, by Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca. I have been lucky enough to publish a few pieces about epideictic rhetoric; click on the ribbon link above for William D. Harpine's Publications.

Copyright © 2025 by William D. Harpine

Image of Lawrence Wong: United States Department of Defense, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons  

Carrie Chapman Catt's Speech "The Crisis," A Metaphorical Call for Women's Rights

Carrie Chapman Catt

“I believe that a crisis has come,” said suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt, as she spoke in Atlanta, Georgia, on September 7, 1916, “which, if recognized and the opportunity seized with vigor, enthusiasm and will, means the final victory of our great cause in the very near future.”

“Victory.” “Great cause.” Chapman Catt gave a militaristic speech in wartime, and her militaristic metaphors carried forth her call for women’s rights, democracy, and economic wisdom. She did not just give a political call, however; no, it was a symbolic battle.

How do metaphors work in speeches? A metaphor directly equates two things, for example, “life is a rose.” Unlike similes (“life is like a rose”), metaphors change how we think. When we talk about a table’s legs, we literally forget that a table isn’t a person, doesn’t really have legs, and does not actually stand on legs, or anything else, for that matter. Instead, the metaphor shapes how we think about tables. So, with women’s rights, there wasn’t literally a crisis, not in the sense that Europe was in a crisis, and no bombs were bursting around the suffragists’ demonstrations. Instead, Chapman Catt’s metaphors created symbolic power. And, in the long run, what kind of power is greater?

Indeed, Chapman Catt insisted in warlike manner, “our victory hangs within our grasp.” She talked about a “long drawn out struggle” and “cruel hostility.” Chapman Catt began by reviewing women’s practical wartime contributions, and ended with a symbolic but militaristic call for women’s struggles. Chapman Catt’s military metaphors – “crisis,” “struggle,” “cruel hostility,” stressed the fight for women’s rights.

So, in 1916, World War I was ravaging Europe, while the United States remained at peace. With the world thinking of war – they called it the Great War, for they never imagined that an even worse war was coming – Chapman Catt’s metaphors drew women’s rights from the global conflict.

So, while casting her eyes on the war’s social and economic effects, Chapman Catt recognized that the war would overturn the social order and create a new world.

Woman working in British
airplane factory, 1914

Citing unnamed authorities, she agreed that the war would “lead to social and political revolution throughout the entire world.” She predicted “that the war presages a total change in the status of women.”

To emphasize her point, Chapman Catt reminded her audience of the war’s economic cost in money and human lives. With the men at war, women began to fill traditional men’s roles. In sad contrast, as Chapman Catt pointed out, men who could have contributed economically were, instead, destroyed on the battlefield. Many of the survivors would, she continued. “go to their homes, blind, crippled and incapacitated to do the work they once performed.” In the meantime, she noted that the war forced women into the workplace, growing crops and building bombs, while also giving “tender and skilled care to the wounded.”

With the war bringing women’s economic contributions forward, what choice would the world have, Chapman Catt asked, then to recognize their work?

“The economic axiom, denied and evaded for centuries, will be blazoned on every factory, counting house and shop: ‘Equal pay for equal work’; and common justice will slowly, but surely enforce that law.”

And thus, as the war ripped the traditional economic system to bits, Chapman Catt stated that the violence of warfare would soon release women from their symbolic (and sometimes more literal) enslavement:

“So it happens that above the roar of cannon, the scream of shrapnel and the whirr of aeroplanes, one who listens may hear the cracking of the fetters which have long bound the European woman to outworn conventions.”

Not just freedom, she said, but “cracking of the fetters.” Building on that symbolic but potent connection, Chapman Catt ended by calling, not only for “emancipation,” but for a “bugle call” to lead women as they march toward freedom. The military metaphor had, in her speech, now become a real battle, emerging from the war’s horrors, and bringing liberty to women who fought for their freedom:

“The Political emancipation of our sex calls you: Women of America, arise! Are you content that others shall pay the price of your liberty? Women in schools and counting houses, in shops and on the farm, women in the home with babes at their breasts and women engaged in public careers will hear. The veins of American women are not filled with milk and water. They are neither cowards nor slackers. They will come. They only await the bugle call to learn that the final battle is on.”

Like the fighting men in Europe, American women were, she said, “neither cowards nor slackers.” Instead, they prepared for “the final battle” to begin. Thus, her prescient discussion of the war’s political and economic effects had now culminated in full-grown military metaphors.

Ursula von der Leyen Warned Us of the Totalitarian Winds

 

Eleanor Roosevelt's Speech about the Struggle for Freedom

 

From disaster, Chapman Catt had drawn hope. She expected “that the war will be followed by a mighty, oncoming wave of democracy.” Her reason was that “the conflict has been one of governments, of kings and Czars, Kaisers and Emperors; not of peoples.”

Overall, Chapman Catt and her metaphors tied her themes together brilliantly. Yes, the Great War had brought women into economic roles that men had previously served. The men answered the call to fight. The women answered their call to serve. The war disrupted the economic institutions that the traditionalists mistakenly thought they were preserving. As the war ended, the fight for women’s rights would just begin. The Great War was a war of slaughter. The metaphorical war of American women was a fight of freedom. Symbols helped create the new reality.

Now, Chapman Catt led various women’s organizations, and we remember her today as the founder of the League of Women Voters. One of her predictions came true: the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, passed only a few years later, recognized women’s right to vote. In that sense, her optimistic belief that the war would lead to more democracy had some truth. Unfortunately, the war was also followed by a tariff war, the Great Depression, economic upheavals, and the rise of worldwide dictatorships. Another war, even more evil than the first, would soon ravage the world. Indeed, the second war was delayed only by the need to raise a new generation of soldiers to replace the ones who died the first time. And I, for one, saddened by the rise of Donald Trump and his movement of resentment and reaction, remain unconvinced that the nation ever learned the lessons that Carrie Chapman Catt so eloquently taught.

by William D. Harpine   

_______

Research Note: Many outstanding scholars have written about metaphors, but, as I wrote, I was particularly thinking about I. A. Richards’ The Philosophy of Rhetoric. And many thanks, once again, to AmericanRhetoric.com, co-founded by my graduate school classmate and book editor, the late Martin J. Medhurst, for publishing the text of this important speech.

Copyright © 2025 by William D. Harpine

Image of Carrie Chapman Catt: Joint Suffrage Procession Committee, 

public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Image of woman working in factory, University of British Columbia, 

public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Dame Sarah Mullally, Archbishop of Canterbury, Spoke for a Christianity of Love and Kindness - How Radical!

Sarah Mullally, 2019

“In the midst of such profound global uncertainty, the possibility of healing lies in acts of kindness and love.”

How does a Christian defend kindness and love against their deadliest enemies: fear, indifference, and vengeance? On October 3, 2025, in her first major speech after becoming the new Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverand Sarah Mullally spoke for a Christianity of love, compassion, and mercy. Throughout her speech, she reached out with a larger lesson! She looked to the big picture. She spoke, not just for rejecting fear, but for the larger moral principle – the principle of hope:

“Hope is made of the infinite love of God, who breathed life into creation and said it was good. Hope shimmered in the courage of Abraham and Sarah and the challenging call of the prophets. … Hope is found in Christ’s triumph over sin and death.”

In an era dominated by right-wing rage, love is suddenly controversial? Apparently it is. Conservative Reverand Paula White prayed against “every demonic network that has aligned itself against the purpose and calling of President Trump.” Baptist minister Russell Moore reports that conservative congregations are telling their ministers not to preach from the Sermon on the Mount, because they find it “weak” and too “liberal.” Are such views in any way consistent with Bishop Mullally’s vision of hope and compassion?

Paula White Prayed against Trump's Enemies

Mullally neither named leaders of the right-wing movement, nor did she shame them. Instead, she stood up for the biblical message. She focused on the positive, ignoring the negative: instead of refuting other social trends, she sought to uplift the issue. For example, she said:

"In every church you will encounter Jesus Christ, and his teaching to love one another: our source and our standard. This is both gift and responsibility. Jesus Christ is the life-changing hope that brings us together as church, even in our own brokenness and messiness – and sends us out into the world to witness to that Love."

After praying about God’s “generous mercy” from the Book of Common Prayer, Mullally stated her life’s mission:

“Washing feet has shaped my Christian vocation as a nurse, then a priest, then a bishop. In the apparent chaos which surrounds us, in the midst of such profound global uncertainty, the possibility of healing lies in acts of kindness and love.”

The speaker never mentioned the politicians who seek power by spreading racism and greed. She didn’t need to! Instead, she wisely recognized that those politicians merely symptomize a society that thinks small while clinging to false ideals:

“In an age that craves certainty and tribalism, Anglicanism offers something quieter but stronger: shared history, held in tension, shaped by prayer, and lit from within by the glory of Christ.”

As she pointed out the risks of “certainty,” of course, she implicitly attacked the false feeling that we can overcome strife by clinging to dogma. The evil of “tribalism” arises when we blame our misfortunes on persons outside of our own community or group. 

Antisemitism may be the oldest tribalist evil. So, continuing to oppose antisemitism, Mullally drew a moral lesson from a recent synagogue shooting. Not only did she sympathize with the victims, but she also emphasized the larger point, that we must overcome the “fractures” that separate us instead of uniting us. That larger point reinforced her theme:

“Mindful of the horrific violence of yesterday’s attack on a synagogue in Manchester, we are witnessing hatred that rises up through fractures across our communities.”

Communities, tribalism—Mullally urged the world toward unity. To see the bigger picture, to care about one another with love and compassion.

We do, I have noticed, live in an era when too many people misuse the Christian faith, and other faiths, as weapons to divide us. People express bigotry against those whose faith differs from their own. People too often wish to destroy other faiths rather than to live by the principles of their own faith—principles of love and kindness. 

Rabbi Michael Z. Cahana’s Sermon about the Summer of Love: Is Love the Answer to Nazism?

Pope Francis' Sermon for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees

Throughout this quiet but thought-provoking speech, Mullally repeatedly examined society’s practical and moral failings. Yet she appealed to solve them, not by nuts-and-bolts politics, but by renewing Christian principles: faith, compassion, and service. The big picture is often the best.

by William D. Harpine   

____________

Note: in the Anglican Communion’s structure, the Archbishop of Canterbury exercises direct authority only over her own church region. However, the worldwide Anglican community considers her to be “first among equals.” Her leadership comes not from authority, but from the force of her wisdom, combined with the respect that believers give to her office. What better way is there to lead, then to lead by moral power?  

Copyright © 2025 by William D. Harpine

Image of Most Reverand Sarah Mullally: 

Roger Harris, public domain, some restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

Martin Luther King, Jr. Offered America a Choice

Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us.”

So said Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as he spoke against the Vietnam War on April 4, 1967, at New York City’s Riverside Church. He showed that the Vietnam War was a blow to civil rights in the United States, that the war attacked racial justice just as surely as did racial oppression at home:

In his usual masterly fashion, King employed language to drive home a series of ideas, to impel the audience to make moral choices—not just one idea, but several ways to choose between good and evil. He connected the war with the United States' civil rights movement:

“We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem.”

Just as African Americans were victimized in our own land, King reminded that “We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless.” Narrating the suffering of Vietnamese peasants during the war, King stated that, “These, too, are our brothers.”

That theme led King, step by step, to a trio of moral choices. At the end, King used parallel language to his speech with an emotional appeal. King’s trope offered the audience a choice between, on the one hand, the evils of the present day, or, on the other hand, a chance to choose a world of kindness and love. King’s trope showed the audience that, “If we make the right choice,” we could have one–or the other. 

Riverside Church

Rhetorical tropes like the ones in which King excelled are not just decorations, no, they symbolize our thoughts and structure our feelings. They are among a persuasive speaker’s best friends. As philosopher Ernst Cassirer explained, language creates and develops our concepts, our thinking, and our vision. We can neither think nor decide, he said, without processing language.

So, after reviewing the war’s injustices, King’s language linked choice, conflict, and justice. He quoted the poet James Russell Lowell: “Though the cause of evil prosper, yet ‘tis truth alone is strong.” The truth that King extolled was the need for the entire nation to make positive choices, to turn back from violence.

King reviewed the horrors of bombing, crop destruction, and civilian casualties. Indeed, recounting the war’s destruction, King noted that the violence left nothing behind but sadness and regret:

“Now there is little left to build on, save bitterness.”

And who bore responsibility? It was a choice, a decision to pursue violent solutions to Vietnam's problems. To drive that point home, King, always the master of speech conclusions, finally linked choices, universal moral principles, and world conflict into a chance to reform the world in a spirit of love:

“And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace. If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when ‘justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.’”

The quotation was from the Bible, Amos 5:24. Each “If” started with the violent, chaotic choice—the choice of war and conflict—but then offered an alternate choice of justice and compassion. King contoured his string of parallel phrases into a vision of moral reform. His “If” statements offer a hypothetical list of what humanity could accomplish if we adopt universal (King said “cosmic”) choices.

Each of the three “If” statements offered a different answer. The first “If” statement offered us a chance to make “the right choice,” and, if we made the right choice, we could turn the “cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace.” An elegy, of course, is a funeral oration, and King ironically offered his audience a chance to choose life rather than reified cosmic death.

King’s next “If” statement offered an additional benefit of choice: that the world’s conflicts – “jangling discords” – into a “beautiful symphony” of universal love. His final “If” statement offered us – by which he meant the American people – a chance to make real the prophet Isaiah’s mythical world of justice. In that world, “justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

When we say “if,” we remind people that things can be different. The point that King’s powerful language made unmistakable is that these are choices. We can choose between a cosmic funeral or a song of peace. We can choose to turn world conflict into unity. If we make the right choices, we can “speed up the day, all over America and all over the world,” when the prophet’s judgment of future harmony becomes, not merely a supernatural gift from God, but a decision that we make as a human race.

Speech conclusions carry great power, for they give the listeners the last thoughts to carry away as a speaker leaves the stage. We might pay little attention to the middle of even the greatest speech, but everyone notices an outstanding introduction or conclusion. King’s conclusion challenged the nation to make the right choices.

The Law Can't Change the Heart, but It Can Restrain the Heartless:" Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Speech about Church and the Struggle for Justice
https://harpine.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-law-cant-change-heart-but-it-can.html

This speech offered a choice with three spiritual and tangible outcomes. The threefold repetition, “If...choice, If...choice, If...choice,” underscores that evil is a choice, just as we have the chance to choose what is right. President John Kennedy had said, “here on earth, God’s work must truly be our own;” likewise, King said that whether we have peace or violence, cruelty or mercy, justice or injustice, was a choice. A decision. We can choose good things just as we can choose their opposites.

As a preacher, King gave America a chance to choose to live by God’s law of peace and righteousness. King’s lesson was that, not only are the world’s conflicts a choice, but the possibility of ending them was also a choice, a choice that we made by our own actions. To avoid a choice, however? That’s not an option. A university philosophy major himself, King surely knew Jean-Paul Sartre’s dictum that to refuse making a choice is still a choice. King offered a choice between what was evil, or what is good. Not war and violence foisted upon us, but war and violence that we choose. Just as Cassirer was an idealist of language use, so King was a moral idealist who used language to reshape our failing moral attitudes.

by William D. Harpine

About King's Last and Perhaps Greatest Speech:

Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Mountaintop in Memphis, Tennessee: A Speech for the Ages

Another speech using parallel language:

Rhetorical Flourishes in JB Pritzker's Speech against Militarizing Chicago

For a list of more posts about Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speaking career, search in the text box at the right.

    

___________

Research Note: I plowed through Cassirer’s The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms in graduate school. For people ambitious enough to give it a look, the work is still in print, and available in large research libraries. 

And, yes, my professors also had me read Sartre’s massive  Being and Nothingness. (I must have had far more endurance when I was young!) Whether Sartre was really an atheist or a messianic Jew is a matter that his biographers can debate. His philosophy’s prevailing morality is nonetheless unmistakable.

Rhetorical theorists for centuries have catalogued seemingly endless collections of rhetorical figures and tropes. Here is one nicely condensed list, compiled by Stanford University Lecturer Jonah Willihnganz.

Many thanks to AmericanRhetoric.com for publishing texts of this and many other great speeches.

Copyright © 2025 by William D. Harpine

Image of Martin Luther King, Jr: US News and World Report, released to public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Image of Riverside Church, photo by Bhuck, Creative Commons License, via Wikimedia Commons

"Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself"

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“Fear itself,” President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said in his First Inaugural Address, delivered on March 4, 1933, was the only danger.

Truly, this scintillating speech featured sharp metaphors and forceful language, not to mention a conspiracy theory, but it worked because Roosevelt organized his ideas to pick up the audience where they were—in this case, paralyzed by fear—and lead them step by step to a solution. 

How does a speaker lead an audience to accept seemingly radical ideas? Roosevelt told his audience—the nation— to overcome their fears. He then from problem to solution. From emotion to logic, and then from logic to action. He first inspired the country’s despairing people, and then discussed the economic collapse, stated its cause, and, finally, gave his solution. People think and feel in patterns. Inspiration, problem, solution.  Anything else is chaos.

Lesser politicians might forget that people in despair don’t need games; they need answers. In 1933, the Great Depression had crushed the world’s economy. Despair ruled the land. The stock market collapsed. Bank failures filled the financial papers. Millions of Americans feared the constant foreclosures. Unemployment exceeded 20%. Unable to find employment, city workers waited in soup lines. For all practical purposes, the free enterprise economy had disintegrated. What could be done?


Step One: Do Not Give in to Fear

Roosevelt launched his speech with one of the most inspiring statements in public speaking history:

“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

By the speech’s end, Roosevelt would present dramatic national policies. People obviously feared the economic collapse. However, did they fear change more than they feared the Great Depression? Roosevelt faced that dilemma head-on. Thus, before he gave the details, the new president told people to put aside fear and to advance, not retreat. That started the path to hope. 


Step Two: State the Problem

Before the speech was over, Roosevelt would call for unprecedented new policies. Would 

Soup and Bread line, about 1932

people take the risk? That depends! People only change if they think something is wrong. A speaker gains nothing by telling people that everything is fine when anyone can see that everything is not fine. Not hesitating, Roosevelt stated the problems:

“In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunk to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen.”

Continuing, Roosevelt noted that the financial exchanges were “frozen.” He acknowledged that farmers lacked markets, while families had lost their savings. A brilliant metaphor emphasized the problem:

“The withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side.”

Saving the worst for last, Roosevelt acknowledged the Depression’s vast extent:

“More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.”

No rosy pictures there! No talking points carefully tested in sterile focus groups. Just harsh reality. A problem needed to be solved. How to solve it? That was Roosevelt’s next step.


Step Three: Who Caused the Problems?

One solves a problem by eradicating its cause. Common sense tells us that. The Great Depression was a disaster, and, at the time, economists did not agree on its cause. (To some extent, they still don’t!) So, next, Roosevelt turned to the world’s oldest conspiracy theory. He blamed everything on bankers. Not the banking industry – not the economic system – but the corrupt, morally vacant bankers themselves. Not on what caused the Depression, but who:

“We are stricken by no plague of locusts.… Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply.”

That comment echoed a conspiracy theory that sometimes echoed through my parents’ generation: that the bankers had plenty of money but were too greedy to circulate it. Accordingly, Roosevelt railed against “the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods,” accusing them of “their own stubbornness and their own incompetence.” Noticing Roosevelt’s persuasive technique, Professor Halford Ryan calls this “scapegoating” (see note below). Roosevelt instinctively noticed that the public is more likely to blame malicious actors for their problems than they are to reflect on impersonal economic forces. Roosevelt was not looking for what caused the Depression, but who caused it. Roosevelt used a biblical allusion to accuse the bankers:

“Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.”

Indeed, Roosevelt insisted that the banking industry only knows “the rules of a generation of self-seekers.” Roosevelt would later want to contrast his vision of progress and reform against the bankers. To set the audience up for that next step, Roosevelt attacked the bankers for their lack of vision:

“They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish. Yes, the money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization.”

Since, as we shall see in a moment, Roosevelt would offer a dramatic vision, he set himself up to focus his hire against the bankers for their conservative, unyielding unwillingness to change: their lack of vision.

I don’t think many present-day economists would agree that the bankers themselves were personally at fault, but bankers always present a tempting target. People don't like bankers. So, having pled for moral reform, Roosevelt turned to practical action.


Fourth Step: A Solution?

Only now was it time for Roosevelt to give his own vision. Roosevelt called for action:

“This Nation is asking for action, and action now.” [italics added]

First among Roosevelt’s proposed actions was to address unemployment. He advocated government intervention that would, in coming years, turn into the Public Works Administration and the Tennessee Valley Project:

“Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing great—greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our great natural resources.”

Roosevelt’s call for direct government hiring was as radical in his day as it would be today. Still, Roosevelt’s argument was that a nation in crisis needed to act forcefully. Public employment was a logical culmination of his plea to put aside hesitation and act.

Roosevelt further promised to stop “the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms.” He promised to reform and improve relief activities and to develop public utilities. Pressing the issue, Roosevelt urged speed:

“We must act. We must act quickly.” [italics added]

Roosevelt’s sequence of ideas had reached fruition: the nation had been suffering for years. Patience was running out. Anyone could see Germany, Japan, and Italy responding to the economic crisis by turning to right-wing dictatorships. Russia, in contrast, turned to an equally pernicious communist tyranny. Roosevelt instead offered a constructive solution that mashed broadly with the United States’ traditions of constitutional government. Finally, Roosevelt summarized that the people had voted for “a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action.”

Eleanor Roosevelt's Speech about the Struggle for Freedom

 
Franklin Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” Speech, a Lesson in Positive Justice

Overall

Roosevelt’s brilliant speech started by warning people against fear. It is, however, never enough to tell people not to be afraid. That is why Roosevelt offered hope. He recognized the economy’s collapse. He identified the cause as the bankers’ ethical failures. Finally, he laid out a program of action. From the bankers' alleged lack of vision, Roosevelt progressed to a vision that required dramatic government intervention to help the failing economy work again. His speech gave a step, by step, by step explanation to motivate the nation and initiate dramatic new policies.

Problematically, the modern science of macroeconomics (which investigates national policy, not personal and business economics) didn’t really exist in 1934.  Conservative economists had noticed the economic cycles, although they expected the economy to self-correct. In contrast, a century earlier, Karl Marx had sourly predicted that the business cycle would eventually tear the free enterprise system to pieces. Both views turned out to be problematic. Despite its wonders, the free enterprise system is always unstable and a certain amount of government supervision (neither too much, nor too little) seems unavoidable. 

So, from one viewpoint, Roosevelt was floundering just as badly as his inept predecessor. Unlike Hoover, however, Roosevelt was willing to explore murky financial waters to give Americans courage. From another viewpoint, Roosevelt understood, as Hoover evidently did not, that the status quo had stopped working, the public needed hope, and Americans needed positive action, not reassuring but vacuous words. Problem – solution. That was the ticket.

Overall, Roosevelt led the nation through a logical chain of reasoning. He warned them against fear, knowing that fear blocks our thinking, and that unthinking people will never progress. He did not cry, “all is well.” Everything was not well. Instead, he laid out the problem starkly and vividly. He then explained solutions. Maybe some of the solutions were good, and some maybe were not. In March 1933, however, the important thing was that he was acting. And only from action could people begin to look forward to the future.

by William D. Harpine   

_____________

Research Note: There have been several excellent academic studies of this speech. I particularly admire Halford Ryan’s meticulously researched essay, “Roosevelt's First Inaugural: A Study of Technique,” published in the Quarterly Journal of Speech in 1979. Although it is behind a paywall, many libraries can probably find it for you in their databases. Ryan noted Roosevelt’s use of scapegoating, which I mentioned above, as well as his use of military metaphors and carrot-and-stick language. Looking at the speech’s composition, Ryan shows how Roosevelt worked with outstanding speech writers, including Raymond Moley and Louis Howe. 

Roosevelt’s comment about moneychangers elliptically refers to the New Testament account of Jesus’ entrance into the Jerusalem Temple, Mark 11:15.

Copyright © 2025 by William D. Harpine

Image of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Leon A. Perskie, Creative Commons license, 

via Wikimedia Commons

Image of Bread and Soup Line, public domain, National Archives and Records Administration, 

via Wikimedia Commons

Huey Long's Populist Speech: "Every Man a King!"

Huey Long

“Is that a right of life, when the young children of this country are being reared into a sphere which is more owned by 12 men than it is by 120 million people?”

Those were Louisiana’s United States Senator’s Huey Long’s opening words in a nationwide radio speech, broadcast on February 23, 1934. In this classic speech, “Every Man a King,” Long demonstrated, with rhetorical skill that few politicians have ever matched, how a liberal politician can dominate the conservative South. He made income inequality into a moral, biblical, and philosophical injustice. Income inequality continues to plague the Western economies in 2025, and one suspects that this is the underlying issue that is leading to world-wide political turmoil. Yet, conservative doctrine often blocks the Western nations from solving the wealth gap.

A populist politician represents economic protection for ordinary persons, in contrast to the rich and powerful. As we shall see in a moment, Huey Long brilliantly wielded a trifecta of conservative values to promote his populist policies. Reaching out to America’s poor, Huey Long’s stunning speech did not refute his conservative opponents: no, Long preempted them. A liberal in conservative dress, a speaker who cited conservative values to relieve his voters’ economic oppression, Long was a populist phenomenon. No populist like him has emerged since.

Speaking during the desperation of the Great Depression, and ahead of his time in economic policy, a Keynesian before Keynes, Long pounded against the wealthy oligarchs and huge corporations that dominated the American economy, leaving ordinary workers to struggle in grinding poverty. In contrast to modern-day liberals, who issue tedious economic lectures, Long posed a simple point:

“We have no very difficult problem to solve.” [italics added]

And what was that “no very difficult problem”? The only difficulty, Long insisted, came when the greedy, “super-rich” economic barons wielded political power:

“It is not the difficulty of the problem which we have; it is the fact that the rich people of this country—and by rich people I mean the super-rich—will not allow us to solve the problems, or rather the one little problem that is afflicting this country, because in order to cure all of our woes it is necessary to scale down the big fortunes, that we may scatter the wealth to be shared by all of the people.”

Now, what were Long’s arguments?


Long’s First Traditional Authority: The Declaration of Independence

Declaration of Independence

First, Long cited the Declaration of Independence, the United States of America’s founding document. In that Declaration, Thomas Jefferson spoke for equality:

“How many of you remember the first thing that the Declaration of Independence said? It said, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that there are certain inalienable rights of the people, and among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’; and it said, further, ‘We hold the view that all men are created equal.’”

Long instantly gave that premise startling economic application:

“Now, what did they mean by that? Did they mean, my friends, to say that all men were created equal and that that meant that any one man was born to inherit $10,000,000,000 and that another child was to be born to inherit nothing?”

Now, since Thomas Jefferson was an oligarch among oligarchs, I suspect that he meant exactly that. But Long was on a roll!

“Is that right of life, my friends, when the young children of this country are being reared into a sphere which is more owned by 12 men than it is by 120,000,000 people?”

Having repurposed Thomas Jefferson, Long then turned to the Holy Bible.


Long's Second Traditional Source: The Bible

Long’s audience was, in general, deeply religious. Long accordingly gave a rather long explanation that he intended to refer to the Scriptures and emphasize “the wisdom of the Lord.” What part of the Bible supports populism, the audience might wonder? (I certainly did!) Long eventually got specific:

“But the Scripture says, ladies and gentlemen, that no country can survive, or for a country to survive it is necessary that we keep the wealth scattered among the people.”

To prove this, Long cited the Year of Jubilee:

“50 years seems to be the year of jubilee in which all property would be scattered about and returned to the sources from which it originally came, and every seventh year debt should be remitted.”

Long neglected to say whether the United States should practice universal debt relief every seven years, nor did he mention the economic consequences of revamping the banking system so radically. That, however, was not the point. Instead, Long's point was that debt was overwhelming ordinary Americans, and that biblical morality justified offering relief. Indeed, not content merely to cite the Bible, Long emphasized the moral principle behind the Jubilee:

“I believe that was the judgment and the view and the law of the Lord, that we would have to distribute wealth every so often, in order that there could not be people starving to death in a land of plenty.”

Over the years, conservative Christians, especially the prosperity gospel preachers, cite the Bible to justify leaving the economic structure untouched. Long turned this around. Biblical law, he emphasized at length, required the community to reverse growing inequality and restore a measure of economic justice.

Long insisted that the Jubilee required systematic debt forgiveness:

“‘Then,’ said the Lord, in effect, ‘every seventh year there shall be a remission of debts; there will be no debts after 7 years.’ That was the law.”

It was only then that Long reviewed figures about American indebtedness. He claimed that the total amount of American currency was only about $6 trillion, and that the total amount of American debt was “45 times the entire money supply of the United States.” But he had already established the solution to that shocking, unpayable debt: the Year of Jubilee. And who would pay the price? The super-rich.


Long's Third Traditional Source: Plato's Republic

For his third authority, Long turned to the Greek philosopher Plato:

“Read what Plato said; that you must not let any one man be too poor, and you must not let any one man be too rich; that the same mill that grinds out the extra rich is the mill that will grind out the extra poor, because, in order that the extra rich can become so affluent, they must necessarily take more of what ordinarily would belong to the average man.”

Only as his speech neared his conclusion did Long state his utopian solution, a new kind of society, a new kind of government, a new kind of nation: 

“Now, we have organized a society, and we call it ‘Share Our Wealth Society,’ a society with the motto ‘every man a king.’”

Forestalling an obvious criticism, Long declined to speak for total income or wealth equality. That might have branded him as a communist, not a populist. He slyly moderated his views into something that a conservative voter might find reasonable; Long argued more for a minimum wage and old-age pensions. Thus, as his speech neared his conclusion, Long spoke for moderate equality. Not really “every man a king” at all. The slogan gave way to political realities:

“We do not propose to divide it up equally. We do not propose a division of wealth, but we propose to limit [the] poverty that we will allow to be inflicted upon any man's family.”

Long’s Proposal

Only now, having made his case for change, did Long lay out his economic policy. He proposed reducing the wealth of a superrich person to “less than $50 million.” He proposed a modest old-age pension and a limited work week.

Yet, as he continued his speech, Long reiterated the cumulative, traditional wisdom that underlay his policies: that God, the philosophers, and economics all pointed toward “Share the Wealth:”

“God told you what the trouble was. The philosophers told you what the trouble was; and when you have a country where one man owns more than 100,000 people, or a million people, and when you have a country where there are four men, as in America, that have got more control over things than all the 120,000,000 people together, you know what the trouble is.”

Okay, who was going to argue against God? Long had demonstrated how to use conservative authorities to support liberal policies.

Huey Long Campaign Poster

You could call Long’s conclusion arrogant, or you could call it biblical. You could say that he was wrong, your choice. But no one can doubt that Long was incredibly persuasive. No one in 1934 could ignore him. The man had grown up in the grinding poverty of the Deep South, and he came to prominence during the horrors of the Great Depression, when the capitalist system was falling apart at the seams.

Simple math shows that only very high taxes on the wealthy could have paid for Long’s policies. However, perhaps sensing that no one would vote for higher taxes, at any time, for any reason, Long cleverly depicted himself as an anti-tax conservative. 

Can Later Speakers Learn from Long? 

Modern-day politicians like Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez echo many of Long’s policy concepts. Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are persuasive enough in their own right, but they never seem to break out of the extreme liberal mold into which they have poured themselves. Long, in contrast, started with the conservative mold, stating conservative values that were supported by conservative authorities. He then showed how those ideas could help ordinary people. Long did not carefully smooth around the worries and ministrations of the conservative religious right. Not at all! Instead, he utterly preempted the religious right. And, unlike populists like Donald Trump, who speak for the ordinary people while serving the oligarchs, Long reached out to people who, like him, had grown up poor, neglected, and hopeless.

Bernie Sander's 2019 Democratic Socialism Speech: Is He Trying to Be a Politician or a College Professor?

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the 2024 Democratic National Convention

As a leader, Huey Long was often described as a dictator who bullied people and overrode the Constitution. I do not doubt those criticisms for a moment, and I do not defend Long’s leadership. Long was perhaps less racist than most successful southern politicians of the time, although that doesn’t say much. Long's slogan “Every Man a King” omits women, although the fact that he addressed his audience as “ladies and gentlemen,” not “gentlemen,” put him a bit ahead of his time. All the same, modern-day liberals could learn from the way he spoke, encapsulated by conservative values and pithy slogans: Share Our Wealth (not share the wealth, but share our wealth) and Every Man a King.  

by William D. Harpine

________________

Biblical Note: 

The Jubilee is described in Leviticus 25 KJV:

“And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.”

Philosophical Note: 

Plato’s views about wealth were more detailed and subtle that what Long implied. But, by that point, Long was steaming along, and I wonder how many of his voters had actually studied Plato anyway. Plato did write this (in Jowett's translation):

“Wealth, I said, and poverty; the one is the parent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.” Plato, Republic, 422

Research Note: 

Income inequality continues to plague the Western economies, and one suspects that this is the underlying issue that is leading to world-wide political turmoil. The super-wealthy wield enormous political power today, maybe more than in 1934, and inequality has become entrenched into our economic, political, and moral systems. On a personal note, I suspect that Long was indeed prescient, that, indeed, no nation can survive the degree of inequality that infests the United States economy today. The French economist Thomas Piketty has analyzed income inequality in great historical and theoretical depth. I am intermittently plowing through his magnum opus, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, and it is worth struggling through every word. I understand that some of his later work is a bit more readable. 

Readers might want to look at Professor Ernest Bormann’s brilliant article, “A Rhetorical Analysis of the National Radio Broadcasts of Senator Huey Pierce Long,” published in Speech Monographs. It is behind a paywall, but a good library can probably get it for you.

Special thanks to AmericanRhetoric.com for posting a transcript of Long's speech. 

Copyright 2025 by William D. Harpine

Image of Huey Long, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Image of Huey Long's campaign poster, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Patrick Henry Was Right: Donald Trump, the Army, and a Growing Monarchy

“Will the oppressor let go the oppressed? Was there ever an instance?”

So thundered Patrick Henry in 1788, speaking at the Virginia Ratifying Convention in Richmond. Henry's warning passes from his time to ours, through the centuries. That message is eternal. Such is the way of great speeches. He spoke for liberty. As a lawyer, Henry knew how to look for loopholes, and he noticed a huge loophole in the Constitution. That loophole, which afflicts us this very day, is that a twisted president can apply military force to rob us of our liberty.

Patrick Henry warned that the president, in command of the army, and able to call up the militia, could at any moment become an irresistible tyrant. Looking to the future, with wisdom, insight, and fear, Henry’s words remind us in the 21st century about government’s true purpose. A government’s purpose is, he said, to protect, not prosperity, but our liberty:

“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel.”

Indeed, harping on the theme of liberty, Henry made that one value his paramount goal:

“You are not to inquire how your trade may be increased, nor how you are to become a great and powerful people, but how your liberties can be secured; for liberty ought to be the direct end of your government.”

Still, in this speech against the United States Constitution, Patrick Henry prophesied against the Constitution’s hidden dangers. He warned that the Constitution enabled the president to seize full power:

“Your President may easily become king. Your Senate is so imperfectly constructed that your dearest rights may be sacrificed by what may be a small minority.”

Yes, he warned us about Donald Trump. President Trump recently nationalized the District of Columbia National Guard to move into Los Angeles and Washington DC and rid them of a supposed crime wave. Tennessee, a state that supported Trump, kindly dispatched its National Guard to help. Trump now threatens to nationalize the Illinois National Guard to control Chicago. This is political domination, not an anti-crime move, for Trump carefully ignores Memphis, Tennessee, St. Louis, Missouri, and Jackson, Mississippi, all of which have much higher crime rates than Washington or Chicago, but are in states that supported him in the last election. California, the District of Columbia, and Illinois, in contrast, voted for the Democratic presidential candidate and thus seem ripe for a military takeover.

Now, when we think about checks and balances, we might side with James Madison and think about how the states check the president, the president checks Congress, the courts interpret the law, and so forth. Politics, however, ultimately comes down to power: and that is why Patrick Henry alerted the young nation. He warned that it was necessary to have a check against the president’s command of military power. Indeed, he insisted, the best check was to have no president at all.

“Have we the means of resisting disciplined armies, when our only defence, the militia, is put into the hands of Congress?”

That was accurate, for the United States Constitution does, indeed, empower the federal government to call up the state militias:

 

That, indeed, is exactly the constitutional weakness that Trump is exploiting at this moment. The militias (now called the National Guard) operate under state control, but the Constitution provides for the federal government to call them up.

In our own time, President Trump’s political opponents have repeatedly (and, in my view, correctly) accused him of breaking the law: of stealing government documents, encouraging an attack on the United States Capitol, and arresting people without due process. Yet, he remains free. So what? Patrick Henry warned us that no mere court ruling could be enough if the president commanded an army:

“If ever he violates the laws, one of two things will happen: he will come at the head of his army, to carry every thing before him; or he will give bail, or do what Mr. Chief Justice will order him.”

Henry's comment about “Mr. Chief Justice” was pure sarcasm for, as Henry quickly explained:

“If he be guilty, will not the recollection of his crimes teach him to make one bold push for the American throne? Will not the immense difference between being master of every thing, and being ignominiously tried and punished, powerfully excite him to make this bold push?”

Is this not happening today? In our time, obedient to the president’s authority, the United States military can help Donald Trump intimidate, if not control, cities that resist him politically. It seems that the courts rule against Trump but cannot stop him. Henry’s point: a president with an army can flout the law. 

Did Patrick Henry Warn Us About Donald Trump?

Patrick Henry’s “Liberty or Death” Speech: Greater than the Legend?

Furthermore, Henry warned, once the checks and balances break down under military force, who could stop the president as he marches to absolute power? For Henry gave the lie to the entire constitutional framework. That is, he pointed out the giant loophole in the Constitution’s checks and balances:

“But, sir, where is the existing force to punish him? Can he not, at the head of his army, beat down every opposition?”

That is why Patrick Henry condemned the presidency: for the army would obey the president as commander in chief, while the Constitution gave him power to command the militias:

“Away with your President! we shall have a king: the army will salute him monarch: your militia will leave you, and assist in making him king, and fight against you: and what have you to oppose this force? What will then become of you and your rights? Will not absolute despotism ensue?”

Yes, recently, Illinois’ Governor JB Pritzker has promised to resist Trump’s military occupation, but what can he do, really? With the Illinois National Guard nationalized under Trump’s authority, the state can object but not resist. The Republicans in Congress have long abandoned any influence independent of Trump’s.

Rhetorical Flourishes in JB Pritzker's Speech against Militarizing Chicago

Now, some may say that I’m overreacting, and maybe I am. But Patrick Henry’s warning was prescient, and Trump is following the path that Henry warned about. Faced with opposition in the courts, and uncooperative behavior from Democratic states, Donald Trump has begun to abandon persuasion in favor of force: not the ballot, nor the gift of eloquence, but the power of the rifle.

No one can say that Patrick Henry lacked eloquence. He stated the danger in terms that no one could miss: “away with your President;” “absolute despotism;” “trample on our fallen liberty.”

Yet, Americans today apathetically fret over the price of eggs while a potential despot, who appears neither to understand nor appreciate the Constitution, mobilizes armies against his political enemies. Patrick Henry warned against that lukewarm attitude:

“Let my beloved Americans guard against that fatal lethargy that has pervaded the universe.”

Patrick Henry’s speech prophesied, and the prophesied future arrives. Let us never take our liberty for granted. The United States Constitution has served us well and might yet serve in the future. I tremble at any attempt to tamper with its noble, nearly sacred principles. All the same, the Constitution has its loopholes. A president who notices the loopholes, but who lacks a conscience, can work them to nefarious advantage. The courts cannot stop him. A Second Civil War should be avoided, for it would ravage the nation even more than the first one. Neither, however, do I wish to live under a king. The United States must remain the land of the free, and the Statue of Liberty still guards New York Harbor. Can we preserve our liberty?

Liberty. That word was, after all, Henry’s theme. Nearing his speech’s end, Henry reminded his audience – as he reminds us today – of government’s true purpose:

“The most valuable end of government is the liberty of the inhabitants.”

This speech reaches to our time, for Patrick Henry’s warnings are eternal. Henry's eloquence was neither beautiful nor inspiring: no, it was terrifying. Patrick Henry knew perfectly well that the convention would ratify the Constitution. He understood that his speech was futile. Indeed, he apologized for its length. After he finished, Virginia’s Governor Edmund Randolph (who had served at the Constitutional Convention) immediately complained that the speeches had grown so long as to impede the convention’s business: “it will take us six months to decide this question.” Well, we probably have all attended meetings like that, haven’t we? So, I don’t think Patrick Henry was really speaking just to the convention. He was speaking universally. He was warning us. He warned us about loopholes. Will we listen?

by William D. Harpine

____________

N.B. Yes, like other Virginian leaders of that era, Henry owned slaves. Like most of them, he rested uneasily as to whether enslaved persons were entitled to liberty. It took a horrible civil war to settle that question. Pray that we avoid another one.

Unlike Henry's more famous "Liberty or Death," which was reconstructed many years after the speaker's death, most of this speech to the Ratifying Convention was recorded live by a shorthand reporter. Thus, we are blessed with a good text of what he actually said. 

Research note: The Belgian theorists Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca explain that an audience is best viewed as a construction of the speaker's mind. Patrick Henry was not merely speaking to the delegates, but also to the public audience that swarmed into the building. His words of universal wisdom also reach across time. So, let us not take a narrow view of what an audience is.

Copyright © 2025 by William D. Harpine

Image: Portrait of Patrick Henry, US Senate, public domain