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AMERICAN SPEECHES,

FORENSIC AND PARLIAMENTARY,

WITH

PREFATORY REMARKS:

BEING

A SEQUEL TO DR. CHAPMAN'S 'SELECT SPEECHES.'

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District of Pennsylvania, to wit:

SEAL.

BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the sixth day of May, in the thirty-ninth year of the independence of the United States of America, A. D. 1815, John W. Campbell, of the said district, hath deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as proprietor, in the words following, to wit:

"Select American Speeches, Forensic and Parliamentary, with Prefatory Remarks: Being a Sequel to Dr. Chapman's 'Select Speeches. By S. C. Carpenter, Esq. Vol. I."

In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, intituled, "An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned." And also to the act, entitled "An act supplementary to an act, entitled 'An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned,' and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints."

D. CALDWELL,
Clerk of the District of Pennsylvania.

PREFACE.

THE favourable reception given to Dr. Chapman's publication of the Select Speeches, forensic and parliamentary, of British orators, induced several persons, anxious for the literary and political reputation of these states, to desire that a similar compilation might be made of the best specimens of American eloquence. Such a compilation formed indeed a part of Dr. Chapman's original plan, in order, as he states in his preface, 'to vindicate the insulted genius of his native land.' But his appointment to a professor's chair in the University of Pennsylvania, and his increasing avocations as a practising physician, did not permit him to complete his design. Unwilling, however, that it should be wholly relinquished, he imparted the details of his plan, with the materials he had collected for its execution, to the compiler of these volumes.

It is hardly requisite to urge the utility and delightfulness which such a work is capable of combining. The study of eloquence possesses in a very high degree the power of calling into activity all the energies of the mind. In none of its varied exertions, does the human intellect appear with more fascinating splendor, than when an accomplished orator, animated by patriotism and the love of virtuous glory, maintains before an enlightened senate his country's rights, and the universal cause of justice and freedom. The sway of eloquence over the imagination has no limits but those which nature prescribes to the

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