Oratory is well defined as the "masterful art." It has marked and precipitated the great epochs of man's evolution and progress. It is the flame of the flower of climacteric issues. It reaches such loftiness of logic, such a robustness of reason, such wisdom of wit, such aptness of appeal, such might of magnetism, as illumines it with inspiration, and gilds it with genius.
Great occasions produce great orators. The history of the American people was been peculiarly rich in those commanding moral issues which have been the chief inspiration of the highest oratory. This great new nation, founded upon, and the outgrowth of, new and lofty ideals of human relations, has made America the theater of some of the most striking and significant scenes in the vast human drama.
The result is that in the literature and annals of no other people is to be found such a vast amount and richness of oratorical production as in the American archives. And no task could one approach with greater hesitation than an attempt to collate and present in brief space typical examples of the best work of American orators.
