George William Curtis, in one of his essays, says that "three speeches have made the places where they were delivered illustrious in our history—three, and there is no fourth." He refers to the speech of Patrick Henry in Williamsburg, Virginia, of Lincoln in Gettysburg, and the first address of Wendell Phillips in Faneuil Hall.

If it was the purpose of Mr. Curtis to offer the three notable deliverances above mentioned as the best and foremost examples of American oratory¹, the author cannot agree with him. In his opinion we shall have but little difficulty in picking out the three entitled to that distinction, provided we go to the discussion of the slavery question to find them. That furnished the greatest occasion, being with its ramifications² and developments, by far the greatest issue with which Americans have had to deal.

The three speeches to which the writer refers were the more notable because they were altogether impromptu³. They were what we call "off hand." They were delivered in the face of mobs or other bitterly hostile audiences—a circumstance that probably contributed not a little to their effectiveness.

John Quincy Adams, who was unquestionably one of the greatest of American orators⁴, made several speeches in Congress that will always command our highest admiration⁵; but the one to which a somewhat extended reference is made in another chapter, when an attempt was made by the slaveholders to expel him from that body, easily ranks among the first three exhibitions of American eloquence⁶.

I quite agree with Mr. Curtis in giving the Faneuil Hall speech of Wendell Phillips a pre-eminent place. A meeting had been called to denounce the murder of Lovejoy, the Abolitionist editor. The audience was composed in large part of pro-slavery rowdies, who were bent⁸ on capturing or breaking up the meeting. One of their leaders—a high official of the State of Massachusetts, by the way—made a speech in which he

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