Chapter 15 - Divisions Of The Speech

The Introduction | The Discussion | The Conclusion

The usual divisions of a speech are: 1. The Introduction. 2. The Discussion, or Statement of Facts. 3. The Conclusion, or Peroration.

THE INTRODUCTION

This is a difficult and critical part of a discourse. The immediate object of the speaker should be to gain the attention and good will of the audience. To this end he will begin modestly and with something familiar or acceptable to them. The language and style should be plain, direct and deliberate. While the attitude of the speaker should be deferential, it must be remembered that "nerve" and self-confidence are essential to success.

Dr. Russell H. Conwell suggests three desirable ways in which to commence an address: 1. By anecdote, which places the speaker in a pleasant relationship with his audience. 2. By reference to the importance of the subject to the welfare of the audience, thereby creating an intense interest on the part of the audience who believe they are to receive a personal benefit. 3. By showing personal interest in the success of the audience, which awakens, reciprocally, the interest and sympathy of the audience toward the speaker.

The following introductions, taken from speeches of recognized merit, will repay careful study and analysis:

1. First of all, fellow citizens, I pray that God may inspire in your hearts on this occasion the same impartial good will toward me that I have always felt for Athens and for every one of you.

In His name, in the name of your religion and your honor, I ask that you will not let my opponent decide the way in which I shall be heard I am sure you will not be so cruel! but remember the laws and your oath, which, among the many obligations imposed upon you, require that you hear both sides alike. Not only must you not condemn beforehand, not only must you listen with impartial ear to accuser and accused, but to each you must allow perfect freedom in the conduct of his case.

Eschines has many advantages over me in this trial, fellow citizens, and two especially. First of all, our stake is not the same. It is a far more serious matter for me to lose your esteem than for my adversary not to succeed in making out his case. For me but I will not allow myself to begin by making an unlucky forecast. For him, however, it is merely a game. "The Oration on the Crown." DEMOSTHENES.

2. MR. PRESIDENT: When the mariner has been tossed for many days in thick weather, and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his latitude, and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his true course. Let us imitate this prudence, and, before we float farther on the waves of this debate, refer to the point from which we departed, that we may at least be able to conjecture where we now are. "The Reply to Hayne." WEBSTER.

3. "There was a South of slavery and secession that South is dead. There is a South of union and freedom that South, thank God, is living, breathing, growing every hour." These words, delivered from the immortal lips of Benjamin H. Hill, at Tammany Hall, in 1866, true then, and truer now, I shall make my text to-night.

Mr. President and Gentlemen: Let me express to you my appreciation of the kindness by which I am permitted to address you. I make this abrupt acknowledgment advisedly, for I feel that if, when I raised my provincial voice in this ancient and august presence, I could find courage for no more than the opening sentence, it would be well if, in that sentence, I had met in a rough sense my obligation as a guest, and had perished, so to speak, with courtesy on my lips and grace in my heart.

Permitted, through your kindness, to catch my second wind, let me say that I appreciate the significance of being the first Southerner to speak at this board, which bears the substance, if it surpasses the semblance of original New England hospitality, and honors a sentiment that in turn honors you, but in which my personality is lost and the compliment to my people made plain. "The New South." HENRY W. GRADY.

4. GENTLEMEN OP THE JURY: Mr. Kenyon having informed the court that we propose to call no other witnesses, it is now my duty to address myself to you as counsel for the noble prisoner at the bar, the whole evidence being closed. I use the word closed, because it certainly is not finished, since I have been obliged to leave the seat in which I sat, to disentangle myself from the volumes of men's names, which lay there under my feet, whose testimony, had it been necessary for the defense, would have confirmed all the facts that are already in evidence before you. "Defense of Lord Gordon." LORD ERSKINE.

5. FELLOW COUNTRYMEN: At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. "Second Inaugural Address." ABRAHAM LINCOLN".

6. For more than twenty-five years I have been made perfectly familiar with popular assemblies in all parts of my country except the extreme South. There has not for the whole of that time been a single day of my life when it would have been safe for me to go south of Mason and Dixon's line in my own country, and all for one reason: my solemn, earnest, persistent testimony against that which I consider to be the most atrocious thing under the sun the system of American slavery in a great free republic. [Cheers.] I have passed through that early period when right of free speech was denied to me. Again and again I have attempted to address audiences that, for no other crime than that of free speech, visited me with all manner of contumelious epithets; and now since I have been in England, al-tho I have met with greater kindness and courtesy on the part of most than I deserved, yet, on the other hand, I perceive that the Southern influence prevails to some extent in England. [Applause and uproar.] It is my old acquaintance; I understand it perfectly [laughter] and I have always held it to be an unfailing truth that where a man had a cause that would bear examination he was perfectly willing to have it spoken about. [Applause.] And when in Manchester I saw those huge placards: "Who is Henry Ward Beecher?" [laughter, cries of "Quite right," and applause] and when in Liverpool I was told that there were those blood-red placards, purporting to say what Henry Ward Beecher had said, and calling upon Englishmen to suppress free speech I tell you what I thought. I thought simply this: "I am glad of it." [Laughter.] Why? Because if they had felt perfectly secure that you are the minions of the South and the slaves of slavery, they would have been perfectly still. [Applause and uproar.] And, therefore, when I saw so much nervous apprehension that, if I were permitted to speak [hisses and applause] when I found they were afraid to have me speak [hisses, laughter, and "No, no!"] when I found that they considered my speaking damaging to their cause [applause] when I found that they appealed from facts and reasonings to mob law [applause and uproar] I said, no man need tell me what the heart and secret counsel of these men are. They tremble and are afraid. [Applause, laughter, hisses, "No, no!"] Now, personally, it is a matter of very littie consequence to me whether I speak here to-night or not. [Laughter and cheers.] But, one thing is very certain, if you do permit me to speak here to-night you will hear very plain talking. [Applause and hisses.] You will not find a man [interruption] you will not find me to be a man that dared to speak about Great Britain three thousand miles off, and then is afraid to speak to Great Britain when he stands on her shores. [Immense applause and hisses.] And if I do not mistake the tone and temper of Englishmen, they had rather have a man who opposes them in a manly way [applause from all parts of the hall] than a sneak that agrees with them in an unmanly way. [Applause and "Bravo!"] Now, if I can NOT carry you with me by facts and sound arguments, I DO NOT WISH YOU TO GO WITH ME AT ALL; and all that I ask is simply FAIR PLAY. [Applause, and a voice: "You shall have it, too."] "Liverpool Speech." HENRY WARD BEECHER.

THE DISCUSSION, OR STATEMENT OF FACTS

This is the main portion of an address and should be marked throughout by sound logic and common sense. It is well for the speaker to begin with facts that are familiar to the audience, then they will more readily follow his leadership into new and uncertain fields of inquiry.

The essential elements to be observed are unity, order, movement. By unity is meant singleness of idea and freedom from unnecessary digression. There must be an intelligent order throughout, to give clearness to the spoken word. There must also be movement, or development, that the speech may make progress and bring the hearer to his destination. This is the very life of discourse, without which public speaking would be both uninteresting and unprofitable.

Iteration, the repetition of a word or phrase, if not overdone, may frequently add force and clearness to a speech.

A good illustration of this is $ie following passage from Matthew Arnold: The practical genius of our people could not but urge irresistibly to the production of a real prose style, because for the purposes of modern life the old English prose, the prose of Milton and Taylor, is cumbersome, unavailable, impossible. A style of regularity, uniformity, precision, balance, was wanted. These are the qualities of a serviceable prose style. Poetry was a different logic, as Coleridge said, from prose. But there is no doubt that a style of regularity, uniformity, precision, balance, will acquire a yet stronger hold upon the mind of a nation if it is adopted in poetry as well as in prose, and so comes to govern both. This is what happened in France. To the practical, modern, and social genius of the French a true prose was indispensable. They produced one of conspicuous excellence, supremely powerful and influential in the last century, the first to come and standing at first alone, a modern prose. French prose is marked in the highest degree by the qualities of regularity, uniformity, precision, balance. With little opposition from any deep-seated and imperious poetic instincts, the French made their poetry also conform to the law which was molding their prose. French poetry became marked with the qualities of regularity, uniformity, precision, balance.

A speech should have the two elements of convincingness and persuasiveness. The first appeals to the intellect, the second appeals to the heart of the listener. The interblending of the two qualities produces the most satisfactory address. The first demands mere statement of fact, cold logic and cogent reasoning; the second, by its warmth and color, stirs the emotions and moves the hearer to action.

The following is an illustration of the convincing style, without any attempt to move the feelings:

My lords, the meaning of this maxim, "that a man shall not disable himself," is solely this: that a man shall not disable himself by his own wilful crime; and such a disability the law will not allow him to plead. If a man contracts to sell an estate to any person upon certain terms at such a time, and in the meantime he sells it to another, he shall not be allowed to say, "Sir, I can not fulfil my contract; it is out of my power; I have sold my estate to another." Such a plea would be no bar to an action, because the act of his selling it to another is the very breach of contract. So, likewise, a man who hath promised marriage to one lady, and afterward marries another, can not plead in bar of a prosecution from the first lady that he is already married, because his marrying the second lady is the very breach of promise to the first. A man shall not be allowed to plead that he was drunk in bar of a criminal prosecution, tho perhaps he was at the time as incapable of the exercise of reason as if he had been insane, because his drunkenness was itself a crime. He shall not be allowed to excuse one crime by another. The Roman soldier, who cut off his thumbs, was not suffered to plead his disability for the service to procure his dismission with impunity, because his incapacity was designedly brought on him by his own wilful fault. And I am glad to observe so good an agreement among the judges upon this point, who have stated it with great precision and clearness.

When it was said, therefore, that "a man can not plead his crime in excuse for not doing what he is by law required to do/' it only amounts to this, that he can not plead in excuse what, when pleaded, is no excuse; but there is not in this the shadow of an objection to his pleading what is an excuse pleading a legal disqualification. If he is nominated to be a justiee of the peace, he may say, "I can not be a justice of the peace, for I have not a hundred pounds a year." In like manner, a Dissenter may plead, "I have not qualified, and I can not qualify, and am not obliged to qualify; and you have no right to fine me for not serving."

"The Case of Evans."    LORD MANSFIELD.

The following is a splendid example of both styles combined :

I plead not for a murderer. I have no inducement, no motive to do so. I have addressed my fellow citizens in many various relations, when rewards of wealth and fame awaited me. I have been cheered on other occasions by manifestations of popular approbation and sympathy; and where there was no such encouragement, I had at least the gratitude of him whose cause I defended. But I speak now in the hearing of a people who have prejudged the prisoner, and condemned me for pleading in his behalf. He is a convict, a pauper, a negro, without intellect, sense, or emotion. My child, with an affectionate smile, disarms my care-worn face of its frown whenever I cross my threshold. The beggar in the street obliges me to give, because he says "God bless you" as I pass. My dog caresses me with fondness if I will but smile on him. My horse recognizes me when I fill his manger. But what reward, what gratitude, what sympathy and affection can I expect here? There the prisoner sits. Look at him. Look at the assemblage around you. Listen to their ill-suppressed censures and their excited fears, and tell me where, among my neighbors or my fellow men, where, even in his heart, I can expect to find the sentiment, the thought, not to say of reward or of acknowledgment, but even of recognition. I sat here two weeks during the preliminary trial. I stood here, between the prisoner and the jury, nine hours, and pleaded for the wretch that he was insane and did not even know he was on trial; and, when all was done, the jury thought, at least eleven of them thought, that I had been deceiving them, or was self-deceived. They read signs of intelligence in his idiotic smile, and of cunning and malice in his stolid insensibility. They rendered a verdict that he was sane enough to be tried a contemptible compromise verdict in a capital case; and then they looked on, with what emotions God and they alone know, upon his arraignment. The district attorney, speaking in his adder ear, bade him rise, and, reading to him one indictment, asked him whether he wanted a trial, and the poor fool answered no. Have you counsel? No. And they went through the same mockery, the prisoner giving the same answers, until a third indictment was thundered in his ears, and he stood before the court silent, motionless, and bewildered. Gentlemen, you may think of this evidence what you please, bring in what verdict you can, but I asseverate, before Heaven and you, that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, the prisoner at the bar does not, at this moment, know why it is that my shadow falls on you instead of his own. "The Defense of William Freeman." W. H. SEWABD.

THE CONCLUSION, OR PERORATION

This is the summing up, or culmination, of all that has gone before, and should be marked by great earnestness. It is the most vital part of a speech, the supreme moment when the speaker is to drive his message home and make his most lasting impression. This calls for the very best that is in a man. The style of conclusion may vary according to circumstances, but generally it should be short, simple and earnest.

The customary method is to recapitulate or summarize what has been said, in order to impress it vividly upon the mind of the audience. While an abrupt ending may ruin an otherwise successful effort, the temptation to make the closing appeal too long should be carefully avoided. Whether the speech be memorized throughout or not, the speaker should know specifically the thought, if not the phraseology, with which he intends to end his address.

The following conclusions of well-known speeches should be studied and practised aloud:

1. Advance, then, ye future generations! We would hail you, as you rise in your long succession, to fill the places which we now fill, and to taste the blessings of existence where we are passing, and soon shall have passed, our own human duration. We bid you welcome to this pleasant land of the fathers. We bid you welcome to the healthful skies and the verdant fields of New England. We greet your accession to the great inheritance which we have enjoyed. We welcome you to the blessings of good government and religious liberty. We welcome you to the treasures of science and the delights of learning. We welcome you to the transcendent sweets of domestic life, to the happiness of kindred, and parents, and children. We welcome you to the immeasurable blessings of national existence, the immortal hope of Christianity, and the light of everlasting truth! "Plymouth Oration." WEBSTER.

2. Go home, if you dare, go home, if you can, to your constituents and tell them that you voted it down! Meet, if you dare, the appalling countenances of those who sent you here, and tell them that you shrank from the declaration of your own sentiments; that, you can not tell how, but that some unknown dread, some indescribable apprehension, some indefinable danger, affrighted you; that the specters of cimeters, and crowns and crescents, gleamed before you, and alarmed you; and that you suppressed all the noble feelings prompted by religion, by liberty, by national independence, and by humanity! I cannot bring myself to believe that such will be the feeling of a majority of this House. "Duty of America to Greece." HENRY CLAY.

3. I might, as a constituent, come to your bar and demand my liberty. I do call upon you by the laws of the land, and their violation; by the instruction of eighteen centuries; by the arms, inspiration, and providence of the present movement tell us the rule by which we shall go; assert the law of Ireland; declare the liberty of the land! I will not be answered by a public lie, in the shape of an amendment; nor, speaking for the subject's freedom, am I to hear of faction. I wish for nothing but to breathe in this our island, in common with my fellow subjects, the air of liberty. I have no ambition, unless it be to break your chains and contemplate your glory. I never shall be satisfied so long as the meanest cottager in Ireland has a link of the British chain clanking to his rags. He may be naked; he shall not be in irons. And I do see the time at hand; the spirit has gone forth; the declaration of right is planted, and tho great men should fall off, the cause will live; and tho he who utters this should die, yet the immortal fire shall outlast the organ that conveys it, and the breath of liberty, like the word of the holy man, will not die with the prophet, but survive him. "Declaration of Irish Bight." GRATTAN.

4. I may now, therefore, relieve you from the pain of hearing me any longer, and be myself relieved from speaking on a subject which agitates and distresses me. Since Lord George Gordon stands clear of every hostile act or purpose against the Legislature of his country, or the properties of his fellow subjects since the whole tenor of his conduct repels the belief of the traitorous intention charged by the indictment my task is finished. I shall make no address to your passions. I will not remind you of the long and rigorous imprisonment he has suffered; I will not speak to you of his great youth, of his illustrious birth, and of his uniformly animated and generous zeal in Parliament for the Constitution of his country. Such topics might be useful in the balance of a doubtful case; yet, even then, I should have trusted to the honest hearts of Englishmen to have felt them without excitation. At present, the plain and rigid rules of justice and truth are sufficient to entitle me to your verdict. "Defense of Gordon." LORD ERSKINE.

5. No, my friends, that will never be the verdict of our people. Therefore, we care not upon what lines the battle is fought. If they say bimetallism is good, but that we cannot have it until other nations help us, we reply that, instead of having a gold standard because England has, we will restore bimetallism, and then let England have bimetallism because the United States has it. If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we will fight them to the uttermost. Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold. " 'Cross of Gold' Speech," WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN.

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