Quotations from Famous American Speeches 2 Quiz

Answer: Patrick Henry

These words are the concluding remarks in a speech by Patrick Henry, calling for war and rebellion against Britain just before the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War.

Patrick Henry lived from 1736 to 1799. The son of a frontier farmer, he was eventually licensed (through influential friends) to practice law. He won a seat in the House of Burgesses. He attended both Continental Congresses, and he was elected the first governor of Virginia.

Earlier in this same speech, he said: "Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable -- and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come! It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, "Peace! Peace!" -- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle?"

Patrick Henry gave this speech in March of 1775 in Virginia, just prior to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War.

About a month after Patrick Henry gave this speech, on April 18, 1775 the British General Thomas Gage ordered 700 British soldiers to Concord, MA to destroy the colonists' weapons depot. War was looming. That night, Paul Revere and William Dawes were sent from Boston to warn colonists. Revere reached Lexington about midnight and warned Sam Adams and John Hancock who were hiding out there.

By June 17, 1775 the first major battle between British and American troops occurred at Boston in the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Answer: Samuel Adams

This speech is known as "American Independence" and was delivered by Samuel Adams from the steps of the State House in Philadelphia, the meeting place of the Continental Congress. This speech was delivered the day before the familiar parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence was signed by the Continental Congress. The vote for independence was on July 2nd. The decision to use the Declaration written by Thomas Jefferson as the tool to announce the decision publicly was made on July 4th. The document was signed by the members by August 2nd.

Samuel Adams lived from 1722 to 1803. He had many setbacks early in life. He squandered his inheritance, helped to ruin his father's brewery business and was unsuccessful as a tax collector. But as a public patriot he was a success. He was one of the most radical and outspoken of the patriots. He was the chief political master-mind behind the machinations that led to the Boston Tea Party in the winter of 1773. John Hancock, a very wealthy man, was a powerful ally to Adams.

A signer of the Declaration of Independence, Sam Adams all but faded from the national picture after the war was over. He held a variety of state offices after the American Revolutionary War.

One person Samuel Adams referenced in this speech was Joseph Warren--a devoted protegé of Adams' who joined the American ranks on Breed's Hill and was killed in the fighting there.

Answer: Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau gave this speech ("On the Duty of Civil Disobedience") as a lecture at the Concord Lyceum in 1848. Thoreau lived from 1817 to 1862 and was a noted naturalist, tax resister, philosopher, and essayist.

Another quote from this speech illustrates the individualism which Thoreau praised and his skepticism about governments: "There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly." Thoreau opposed the Mexican-American War and for a short while refused to pay taxes as a form of civil disobedience.

A student of Emerson's, Thoreau removed himself for a time from typical society by living in a cabin on Walden Pond, near Concord, MA that provided the experiences for his masterpiece "Walden" about living deliberately and simply. Thoreau's writings influenced Gandhi, who adopted his notion of civil disobedience as the means to overthrow British rule in India.

Answer: William Faulkner

William Faulkner, the Southern novelist, gave this Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1950, though he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1949. Faulkner was awarded this prize during a time of worldwide fear over the possibility of atomic warfare. In this acceptance speech, he addresses those fears as they might impact young writers and reminds them of their duty. Critics have noted that this optimistic speech about humanity seems to belie some of the despair, corruption and cruelty found in many of his novels.

Faulkner (1897-1962) was born in New Albany, Mississippi. As a boy, his family moved to Oxford, Miss., the little town that became the setting for much of his fiction. He created endearing characters in classic works such as: "The Sound and the Fury," "As I Lay Dying," and the short story "A Rose for Emily." He often used a method of stream-of-consciousness to convey the inner thoughts and feelings of his literary characters.

Answer: Ronald Reagan

President Ronald Reagan gave this speech on June 6, 1984 on the 40th Anniversary of D-Day (the landings of the Allied Powers on Normandy) during World War II which helped to liberate continental Europe from the clutches of Nazism.

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States. He is widely considered one of the most popular chief executives in American history. President Reagan is most commonly remembered as the man who helped to defeat Soviet Communism and engaged in the Cold War. He is also credited with reviving the national Republican Party during the difficult post-Watergate era, serving as the leader of the modern conservative movement.

Earlier in his life, Ronald Reagan worked as a sports radio announcer and studied at Eureka College prior to moving to Hollywood, California in 1937. Before he entered politics, Reagan was a successful actor, starring in dozens of films and even becoming President of the Screen Actors Guild.

Answer: Jimmy Carter

President Jimmy Carter, the 39th President, gave this speech on July 15, 1979. In 2002 Carter won the Nobel Prize for Peace, the only President to have received this award after leaving office. From 1971 to 1975 he was Governor of Georgia.

This was a bold speech delivered by President Carter in the summer of 1979, in which he attempted to lead Americans out of a kind of collective funk the people had fallen into after a series of disastrous events in recent years. The events included three assassinations in the 1960s, followed in the early 1970s by a costly war in Vietnam and the shattering fallout from the Watergate scandal. Shortly thereafter, Americans experienced another blow, an unprecedented sense of helplessness while waiting in long lines at gas stations amid a punitive oil embargo by seemingly all-powerful Arab oil producers.

As it turned out, Americans did not like to be addressed in such a manner, even by the President. The speech subsequently became known as the "malaise" speech or "moral malaise" speech, although the President never used the term - and it later some derided the speech as too preachy and gloomy.

Worse for Carter, on November 4th, 1979, the American embassy in Teheran, Iran, was overrun by young Iranian militants who took 52 Americans hostage. This was followed by a failed rescue attempt by the U.S. military in yet another blow to American pride. As the presidential election of 1980 approached, with Carter standing for re-election, the people threw their support behind his opponent, the even-toned and optimistic Republican presidential candidate, Ronald Reagan, who defeated Carter.

Answer: Susan B. Anthony

The daughter of a Quaker abolitionist, Susan B. Anthony fought from an early age to gain equal pay and education for women. With Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she organized the National Woman Suffrage Association and helped to forge the first laws in New York to recognize a woman's rights to own property and have control of her children. In the beginning of this speech, Susan B. Anthony cites the well-known preamble of the U.S. federal Constitution: "We, the people of the Unites States."

She worked as an educational reformer, women's rights advocate, temperance supporter, labor activist, campaigner, and abolitionist. In 1900, she persuaded the University of Rochester to admit women. Anthony, who never married, was aggressive and compassionate by nature. She remained active until her death in 1906. She died before the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 which gave women in the U.S. the right to vote.

Answer: Gov. Huey Long

Huey Long was elected Governor of Louisiana in 1928 and U.S. senator two years later and was a rising star on the national political scene. He was killed by an assassin in 1935.

This speech is from a 30 minute radio speech delivered in January 1935. In it, he proposes, in part, to end the Depression by redistributing wealth. He proposed an old-age pension of 30 dollars per month for everyone over sixty years old, but only to those who made less than a 1,000 per year. He also proposed to limit hours of work and guarantee that no American would fall too far below the poverty line.

Long's "Share Our Wealth" program appealed to the resentment of the legions of unemployed against what he called the super-rich. Through the radio, Long built a national following.

According to some close to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Roosevelt feared a challenge from this Democrat and populist Governor more than from any Republican.

Answer: Nathan Hale

Nathan Hale gave this speech before being hanged by the British as a spy. Born in Connecticut, Hale was one of America's most remembered patriots. He was a successful teacher in Connecticut and later became a patriot in the American Revolutionary War. After graduating from Yale in 1774 he started teaching school in Connecticut.

In 1776 when Nathan Hale was crossing back onto American lines the British captured him. The British had discovered his true identity. Hale was taken to see General William Howe. Hale freely admitted his identity and his mission. Rumors said that his cousin Samuel Hale who was working for General William Howe probably betrayed Hale. Samuel Hale however denied the accusations and the rumors were never proven. Nathan Hale told the British that he was willing to die without regret.

On September 22, 1776 Nathan Hale was marched to his death. Before his execution he made a speech to the few attendees. According to tradition he ended his speech with the famous words cited above.

Answer: John Brown

Before hearing his sentence of execution by hanging, John Brown gave this speech during his trial in Charles Town, Virginia in 1859. John Brown was born into a deeply religious family in Torrington, Connecticut, in 1800. Brown was a man of action who would not be deterred from his mission of abolishing slavery in the United States.

On October 16, 1859, Brown led 21 men on a raid of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His plan to arm slaves with the weapons he and his men seized from the arsenal was thwarted, however, by local farmers, militiamen, and Marines led by Robert E. Lee. Within 36 hours of the attack, most of Brown's men had been killed or captured.

Despite his contributions to the anti-slavery cause, Brown did not emerge as a figure of major significance until 1855 after he followed five of his sons to the Kansas territory. There, he became the leader of anti-slavery guerillas and fought a proslavery attack against the anti-slavery town of Lawrence.

Many famous writers of his time such as Thoreau and Emerson praised what they viewed as John Brown's exemplary moral courage. Even some Southerners publicly admired Brown's fierce dedication to his principles and the "death and honor" culture which Brown was influenced by.