From the book:
Included are Patrick Henry's "liberty or death" speech, George Washington's appeal to mutinous army officers, and Henry Lee's eulogy of Washington. Speeches by John Randolph and Henry Clay capture the political passions of the early republic, while three addresses by Daniel Webster--his first Bunker Hill oration, his second reply to Hayne, and his controversial endorsement of the Compromise of 1850--demonstrate the eloquence that made him the most renowned orator of his time.
Speeches by figures who did not hold office are included as well: union leader Ely Moore attacking economic aristocracy; woman's rights speeches by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Sojourner Truth; Henry Highland Garnet's incendiary call for slave rebellion; Frederick Douglass's scathing "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" John C. Calhoun's defense of slavery, Charles Sumner's "The Crime Against Kansas," Alexander Stephens' "Corner-Stone" speech,
and several speeches by Abraham Lincoln reflect the sectional conflicts that culminated in the Civil War.
Volume 2, which includes speeches from the Civil War to 1997 is also available from Bookshare.
