The Colonial IdiomDavid Potter, Gordon L. Thomas In The Colonial Idiom, David Potter and Gordon L. Thomas have selected representative and important speeches and exhortations delivered by famous Americans from the beginning of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. To a much greater extent than realized, public speaking and dispuĀtation were important features of daily life in Colonial America, because with the printing presses turning out only limited materials speeches were the major vehicles of expression. Thus the reader not only confronts the ideas and ideals that nurtured the founding of this nation but experiences the impact of freedom to express them, the sense of individual worth pointing the direction of a people "unfolding into sovereignty." The selections are arranged in five categories--those dealing with academic, legal, occasional, political, and religious matters. They are drawn from every stratum of colonial activity--from the classrooms, clerical studies, town meetings, provincial assemblies, and the bar. Great names abound in these pages, but, frequently, expounders of great ideas found here are unremembered figures whose works cannot be found easily elsewhere. The editors have carried out careful research on each speech to assure the authenticity of the text. They have added, for each selection, a note on the speaker and on the place where he delivered his address. This collection, made especially for students of rhetoric and public address, will engage the interest of all students of intellectual movements. The speeches here presented are indispensable sources of information to those readers wishing to follow the political and social ideas that made the history of this fateful century. |
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... universal substratum on which all corporal substances subsist , that the laws of motion are derived . from , and that wings light with angelic swiftness . IF the time would permit , how agreeable the task to dwell on the praises of ...
... universal Consent of the People , exprest in the plainest Manner . " This Position appears to me as strange as it is absurd . It is contradicted by the Experience and Practice of all Ages and Nations . There is scarcely one Government ...
... universal empire . But should America , either by force , or those more dangerous engines , luxury and cor- ruption , ever be brought into a state of vassalage , Britain must lose her freedom also . No longer shall she sit the empress ...
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References to this book
Delightful Conviction: Jonathan Edwards and the Rhetoric of Conversion Stephen R. Yarbrough,John C. Adams No preview available - 1993 |