(NOTE: The website https://www.americanrhetoric.com/newtop100speeches.htm does not include President Coolidge in any of it’s “top 100” speeches of the 20th Century. Still….)
President Calvin Coolidge, Our 30th President of the United States of America, was in office on July 4, 1926, when Our Nation celebrated the 150th anniversary of the first and greatest of Our founding documents, the “Declaration of Independence.”
Independence Hall, Philadelphia, PA
Text of the Declaration of Independence: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
Watch an American Revolution-era reading of the Declaration of Independence: https://youtu.be/H3AfKTXF9wU
In honor of the affects of this one document on all mankind, President Coolidge delivered this speech: https://coolidgefoundation.org/resources/inspiration-of-the-declaration-of-independence
Listen, where?
While important in its entirety, much has changed in the last 95 years that make comprehending the entire speech a challenge and believing it is still relevant today. Unlike the brevity of the “Gettysburg Address” (November 19,1863), for which President Lincoln, Our 16th president, expressed the majesty of the sacrifices, that America required of itself to keep the Union whole, Coolidge had an additional 63 years to account for.
President Lincoln at Gettysburg, PA
Listen here: https://youtu.be/9_EWq6KnPbM
Unlike President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Our 32nd president, who spoke on December 8, 1941 of “December 7th, 1941, a date that will live in infamy,” after Japan attacked America at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Coolidge’s speech was not given at the start of Our national leader galvanizing the citizenry to enter World War II.
Pearl Harbor. December 7, 1941
FDR’s video and text: https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrpearlharbor.htm
There are other famous speeches by presidents. As he left office, President Eisenhower, Our 29th president, spoke on the dangers of the “military, industrial, complex” that many Americans believe was prescient to the circumstances We find Ourselves in today.
“Ike’s” speech here: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/eisenhower001.asp
Watch and listen to “Ike” here: https://youtu.be/OyBNmecVtdU
His successor, President Kennedy, gave a famous speech at his inauguration on January 20, 1961, to “…Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country.”
JFK speech text & video here: https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkinaugural.htm
Soon thereafter, JFK gave an important speech to the American Newspaper Publishers Association on April 27, 1961, warning of threats to the country from “secret societies”.
JFK Speech on “Secret Societies”, April 27, 1961
JFK ‘s text and audio here: https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/american-newspaper-publishers-association-19610427
(NOTE: As had President Woodrow Wilson warned of in 1913. Wilson quote here: http://libertytree.ca/quotes/Woodrow.Wilson.Quote.B249)
Each of the aforementioned speeches pierced the consciousness of Our nation, as did other speeches before Coolidge’s and by some succeeding JFK – Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, and, today OBiden.
There are also those seminal speeches made by great Americans who did not hold the official bully-pulpit but implored the nation towards that which Coolidge’s speech did. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963, is generally acknowledged as the foremost speech and as having had the most forceful impact on the course of federal legislation charted ever since.
Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King at Lincoln Memorial
(NOTE: King’s speech is #1 in the 20th Century at this website.) https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm
What King began with, “…what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of Our nation,” and, later, “I have a dream…,” for that for which King implored on behalf of his children, Coolidge had expressed towards the end of his own speech on July 5, 1926:
Those of Us who believe that, today, #America is on the precipice of falling forever away from “the” Founding document, from Lincoln’s “Four score and seven years ago…”, from Coolidge’s “proof” that the rightness of the ideas of the “Revolutionary fathers” “is final” , and from King’s, “I have a dream that this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed – We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”, must “fight like hell” from hereon to recover the finality of what Coolidge referred to as “this great charter”, The Declaration of Independence. We must prevail or We condemn Our own children to “hell on earth”.
As America was founded on biblical principles, often referred to as “Judeo-Christian principles”, then Our Declaration of Independence was “the memo”, the “word”. We Americans received it as Our birthright but We stowed it at the bottom of some desk drawer for far too long.
Reading and re-reading this passage of Coolidge’s speech implores Us to never again relax and “rest” , thinking Our way of life is safe because it isn’t. Since 1776, it has always been under attack.
There was another seminal speech made by another great American who did not hold the official bully-pulpit at the “The Time of Choosing”. Before his election as the 40th president in 1980, and before being elected to governor of California in 1966, citizen Ronald Reagan spoke in 1964 about that which hounds Us today.
Watch Mr. Reagan: https://youtu.be/qXBswFfh6AY
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