Boston Athenaeum; WGBH Forum Network; Rhetoric of Elections: A History of Presidential Eloquence

Hello welcome to the third annual Calderwood lecture on teaching and writing. I'm John Barrett and then I direct the cold wood writing Initiative at the Boston Athenaeum since the founding of the Calderwood initiative nearly five years ago. We've been guided by a number of beliefs that writing isn't an important lifelong skill that writing can be taught and practiced that writing is also editing and that successful writing is often the product of several revisions and opportunities to revisit or rethink the subject. And above all that as a primary method of communication writing is quite simply too important for us not to try to improve its teaching in practice. We've distributed factsheets that give a brief overview of the of initiatives current programs in each of our previous lectures we've aimed to connect writing with the contemporary world and his issues. This year we've determined to address directly one of the constituents of all successful writing the art of rhetoric. We are aware that this connects well with the coming Suffolk and Boston

Athenaeum collaboration on civic discourse. Since this is an election year we thought it appropriate to invite someone who's an expert in presidential rhetoric. Who better to talk about the intersection of vulcanize thought of rhetoric and the making of American candidates than Wayne fields. Wayne feels as the Lynn Cooper Harvey distinguished professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis the author of Union of words a history of presidential eloquence and examination of the use of rhetoric and political speeches fields has made a career and a reputation for himself in analyzing not only what politicians say but the way they say it. He's often been called upon as an expert by the Associated Press and The Economist to name just two media outlets to introduce tonight's speaker. Please welcome Dr Bob Rosenthal professor and chair of the Department of Communication and Journalism here at Suffolk University. On behalf of the College of Arts and Sciences at Suffolk University. Welcome to the C

Walsh theater and tonight's program on the rhetoric of elections language and the making of American candidates the word rhetoric is kind of an interesting term. In fact earlier on we were discussing outside and it's often accompanied by the adjective mere As in mere rhetoric and yet rhetoric has played an important role in human existence. Basically since the time democracy was invented by the ancient Greeks the Athenians Aristotle called it the faculty of finding all the available means of persuasion. Last century a noted theorist by the name of Kenneth Burke argued that rhetoric is motive. That by examining a person's use of language we can find out what their true motivations are. In fact he did that with a work on Adolf Hitler that is well known in the field of communication. Tonight we have the opportunity to hear from a true scholar of the rhetorical tradition here at Dr. Wingfield says as

John noted the director of American cultural studies program at Washington University in St. Louis a program which he co-founded and has been there since the program rather since 1996. He is a nationally known expert on American literature as well as on presidential rhetoric. John of course introduced his work to you the union of words a history of presidential eloquence in which he examines the use of rhetoric in Presidential Speeches from declarations of candidacy to nominations acceptance speeches et cetera. Quite an undertaking frankly. And he does so over a period of time that is essentially a compasses American presidential history. He has of course appeared on numerous television radio and something I found very fascinating. He actually has appeared on Radio Free Europe which is I think he's the first person I've ever met who has appeared on Radio Free Europe.

He also has authored a number of books in literature including James spend more Kooper a collection of critical essays what the river knows an angler in midstream which is actually a critically acclaimed book which has its basis in fly fishing kind of an interesting counterpoint to American presidential rhetoric don't you think. And then finally the past leads a life of its own a collection of pieces about American boyhood. It is truly an honor for us then to welcome such a distinguished scholar here to Suffolk University and to the Boston Anthony emissaries I present to you Dr. Wayne fields. Well thank you very much. Thank you Professor Rosenthal for that. More than generous introduction. I don't know that I knew I had been on Radio Free Europe today day the truth and it's a special honor to be here Athenaeum with its distinguished

history of contributing to civil discourse that virtually coincides with the life of the Republic. And they were very exciting. Calderwood writing initiative. For me there is nothing more important in a democracy than learning how to compose yourself and your words which are inseparable activities as far as I'm concerned. Early in President Bush's This President Bush's second term I got a call from a radio station in Texas. And the color immediately told me it was a station that Bush's mother in law always listened to and he had some questions about Bush's rhetoric. And so we talked a little bit and I said he said but we called you because you're an expert and I said Well I'm curious about who told you I was an expert and it was a long pause and he said Well at least you're from out of town.

Thanks John. Jenny everybody at the Calderwood Institute for bringing me from out of town to this occasion and 18:1 the newly installed president of the United States Thomas Jefferson made one of the most curious politically significant and largely at least until the moment he spoke those words unlikely assertions to be found in any American inaugural address during the contest of opinion through which we have passed. Jefferson observed the animation of discussions and the exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think. This oddly worded understatement was followed by a more straightforward assertion. This being now decided by the voice of the nation announced according to the rules of the Constitution. All will of course arrange themselves

under the law and unite in common efforts for the common good. This is not the part of Jefferson's speech hailed either by the journalists of his day or the historians of our own. That honor belongs to the more quotable line. We are all Republicans we are all federalists. That came later in the speech and has generally been regarded as the call in many ways successful for national unity following a virulently offensive and divisive campaign. But Jefferson's brief and dismissing commentary on this contest draws together two fundamental elements of American democracy that despite his flippant reassurance in combination continue to puzzle us two centuries later the first of these is rhetoric generally the second is the office of the presidency itself. When the two are combined in a political campaign Americans are inevitably torn between the surface suspicion with which we regard rhetoric and a recurrent hope with which

we return every four years to the presidency. Whether you call the practice rhetoric or persuasion or oratory or by the old term that has returned in this campaign eloquence it is one in which all Americans have an interest. Most have an opinion but the importance of which few fully appreciate that is because it concerns a fundamental aspect of our communal life that generates deep anxiety and anxiety that we are reluctant to admit and so mask with cynicism and disregard deliberation to rhetoric as the means by which decisions get made into muck. In a democracy what in a free society takes the place of force in governance. This was the connection repeatedly recognized by our founders and early leaders John Quincy Adams himself a professor of rhetoric at Harvard declared in 1896 under governments purely Republican where every citizen has a deep interest in the

affairs of this nation and in some form a public assembly or other has the means and opportunity of delivering his opinions and of communicating his sentiments. By speech where government itself has no arms but those of persuasion where prejudice has not acquired an uncontrolled Ascendence and faction it confined within the barriers of peace. The voice of eloquence will not be heard in vain. Jefferson's more succinct endorsements simply asserted that in a Republican nation whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force the art of reasoning becomes of first importance and to that in the list and rhetoric is a prominent part of the curriculum of the newly formed University of Virginia. The kind of talk these men imagine for their new country was that most dear to them an enlightened exchange of ideas and a shared dedication to the refinement of arguments. It was pre-eminently concerned with a deliberative community of a sort.

Jefferson at least associated with Learned Societies and eighteenth century philosophical debate emphasis emphasis fell upon logical argument in harmony with literary expression a conjunction exemplified by the Declaration of Independence and the strongest evidence that such a lofty ambition could actually be given political expression was the convention that drafted the American Constitution. Of course. Things were much more complicated and that in everyday practice tensions between classes and between regions created a general demand for oratorical champions great men who could represent the interests of these parties in combat with the champions of other sections or other causes orators of the first half of the 19th century with the creation of those interests that they served celebrated at home and almost always vilified elsewhere in an environment that tempted many to

bombast and the Fed the suspicions that drive so much of our political life. It is not surprising then that we inherit from that time to Great important literary legacies. The speeches of the great orators like Clay and Webster and Calhoun alongside the popular parodies of those same speeches by Artemus Ward John Felix and myriad others. The satire was invited by the extravagant efforts of lesser orators bent on gaining the celebrity enjoyed by their betters by outdoing them. There is it seems to me always an entanglement of desires in a democracy that has to do with both of my themes this evening rhetoric and the presidency. A longing for greatness and an urge to be free from the need for greatness a longing for eloquence but an uncertainty concerning its ambitions. At different moments the influential 19th century teacher of rhetoric Harvard's Edward

Channing represented both views in his lectures and 1826 he declared that the United States was a new creation differing from the old republics and Greece and Rome precisely in the way it relocated power from great men with orders or generals to an impersonal system. We never need he said great men. Now to take the place of laws and institutions but merely to stand by them and see that they are unobstructed and unimpaired. A great man is perpetually taught now that the world can do without him. But as it turns out its not so much the need for greatness that has been eliminated and Channing's view is a change in the appropriate applications of greatness even in America he argued will be those who will explode to exploit the blandishments the fair promises the fond appeals to self-love which often make men prefer an error that flatters

to a truth which annoys the greatness. Channing urged on his pupils all of whom attended Harvard in the hopes of being great. His short is that they are to hold in check. Anyone who threatens the Republic's well-being. In short they are hold to hold at bay. The great man we feared to have sway then he taught you must be able to turn against this man. The art of the arts which he uses for his power and so the lessons seemed to be we are a people who can do without great men except to protect us from those strong and talent. But we can virtue. It does not require a Channing to see how much this formulation fits America's brief experience in the 21st century. What might have appeared as preparation for an ongoing battle with evil. The education of an elite to guard the interests of the many elsewhere played into fears of domination by the very elite.

Channing was training in the West where eloquence the Midwest now and before eloquence was to some extent still is often regarded as pretension especially if linked with an Eastern education a crude or unless from magical form of speaking was often used to suggest democratic values that grew literally from the ground up. My favorite example is this selection from a speech recorded in the 1954 history of Illinois given by a candidate running against a college educated gubernatorial incumbent. The candidate as she did merely narrowly was defeated by the incumbent. Fellow citizens I offer myself to you as a candidate before you for the office of governor. I do not pretend to be a man of extraordinary talents nor do I claim to be equal to Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte nor yet to be as great a man as my opponent Governor Edwards. Nevertheless I think I can govern you pretty well. I do not think it will take a very extraordinary smart man to

govern you for to tell you the truth. I do not think you will be very hard to govern. No how. While the wording may seem quaint us the sentiments are familiar eloquence greatness are qualities to be feared more than to be desired. The cause for anxiety where rhetoric is concerned is obvious a mistrust of the intentions of others and an uncertainty about our own judgment. We fear being seduced by those seeking to take advantage of us a fear that implies vulnerability. We are reluctant to acknowledge. So here's the dilemma. We are committed to a system of government dependent upon rhetoric and yet we regard the practice by its very nature as corrupt and corrupting our fears are ancient given perhaps their best voice in Plato's dialogues. When Sophos tenement teachers of rhetoric promised tuition paying students knowledge that will give them power over others and those accounts

domination rather than the public good is the end. Rhetoric a skill with which a speaker can talk an audience into doing what is best for him. Whether or not it serves them well most frequently in 21st century usage rhetoric is dismissed as this kind of manipulation. The word a pejorative term even the mouths of politicians engaging in it rhetoric Typically following with the prefix empty hollow are most especially Mir is something they accuse their defeat deceitful opponents of committing while presuming that their own talk is some more honest form of discourse. Fulsom as well as substantial in this past year primary contests since no party nominees have especially struggled to put rhetoric in its place or place newly enhanced by Barack Obama's rise to national promise and prominence and a presidential nomination based almost solely on its power. A simple dismissal of the sort to which we have become

accustomed is no longer a sufficient response to the enthusiasm of the junior senator from Illinois has generated through eloquence rather the strategy has been to damn with faint praise hail his gift as a lesser one Senator Clinton gently mocked her opponent in the primaries by referring to the celestial choirs. His audiences expected to hear but more seriously and persistently contrasted words with actions speeches with solutions. If you are part of American political history she said on one occasion you know that speeches are essential to frame an issue to inspire and lift up. But when the cameras are gone when the lights are out what happens next. Clinton's strategy was to give eloquence a role secondary to experience to speakers the task of paving the way for Dewar's. Senator McCain has sharpened this line of attack insisting throughout the post-convention campaign that Obama is eloquent but naive

even implying at times that eloquence itself is a sign of Eye of attack and certainly Governor Palin's description a depiction of the Obamas as elitist is based as much on the way they talk as the schools from which they hold degrees. For McCain however the contrast is an old one separating men and it is typically agender assertion of action from men of words. Perhaps his most impressive formulation came from the Romney running for the White House in 1968 Governor George Romney a man inclined to saying such things as to de-centralized our attack on problem solving. When he introduced his wife at a political event with the faint praise she excels in the poetry of words empathy and graciousness. Well I have given my life to the poetry of decisions and work in 1988 then Vice President George H.W. Bush emerging from the shadow of the great communicator offered a similar case on his own behalf and at the same time

justified his personal clumsiness with the English language. I'll try he told his nominating convention to hold my charisma in check. And you know I reject the temptation to engage in personal references. My approach this evening is a Sergeant Joe Friday used to say just the facts ma'am. Twelve years later lacking either his fathers or Senator McCain's resume resume Governor George W. Bush depended even more heavily on the credibility of in eloquence ran in part as a transparent candidate. A man who lacked the words to hide behind for Senator McCain. The poetry of his life that serves a point powerfully demonstrated by his military past his key theme has been that Obama doesn't understand what he himself has a wisdom from experience. Based on the fact that he has literally been there the last presidential debate he tellingly made this contrast with an aside concerning

eloquence. Well you know he began in response to a question about energy. I admire so much Senator Obama's eloquence and you really have to pay attention to words. He said we will pay attention to offshore drilling. Did you get that. And later in the same response as McCain turned to free trade free trade with Colombia he argued is a no brainer. But maybe you. Pointing to Obama ought to travel down there and visit them and maybe you could understand it a lot better. The connection between these two observations provides a summary of the contrast. Both McCain and Senator Clinton were drawing Obama as eloquent a gift McCain undercuts with the phrase so much following I admire but has not been there. In Clinton's case there is the White House and McCain's and there is the world into which his own long career has taken him. The litany of his travels I have been to Iraq. I have been to Pakistan. I have been to Waziristan expanded in every

debate. Is an argument for experience for the knowledge of an intimate connection to places and events for which elephants can offer no substitute. I have he argues walk the walk. Well Senator Obama has merely talked the Tour in this regard. McCain follows a long line of 19th century candidates most frequently generals whose implied version of these arguments allowed them consistently to attain the office denied the most celebrated oracles orators during what became known as the golden age of orator Clay and Webster and the others didn't prefer the Senate to the White House. They just never could top some man of experience other than words. Who is running on the ticket. It's time to return to Jefferson's reassurance about the campaign of 18:1. I know you've been waiting for it. Looks like a contest to which the incoming president suggested that he like us was a mere bystander. Both he and the

man he defeated revered words imagine no higher calling than the composition of thoughts into effective arguments affecting arguments an eloquent expression. But the issues he addressed is campaigning. The ugliness of contending interests that which Jefferson dismissed as nothing more than an animation of discussions of exertions had in fact been an outrageous show of partisan extremism excessive and vilification distortions slander it and those of the special interests of religion class ethnicity and virtually any other affiliation one can think of. New England defines declared Jefferson an atheist. Too much the philosopher to be a Christian who would burn their Bibles and sell their wives and daughters into prostitution. So at least with the judgment of Yales pious president White and that a Republican victory was to be resisted by any means available including

armed force Republican newspapers spread are rumors of John Adams desire to install a hereditary monarchy of Hamilton's commitment to delivering America back to the British. Sexual scandals were exposed or invented immoralities and covered every hand both sides called for state militias with appropriate sympathies to be prepared to make military intervention and things didn't improve even after the Electoral College cast its ballots in a system in which every elector cast two votes and the candidate with the second highest number of votes was declared vice president. Jefferson supporters true to party above all gave the same number of votes to Aaron Burr as to their agreed upon leader. John Adams was thus out of contention but Burr was not. Encouraged by scheming Federalists hoping to skin the same cat a different way as well as by his own unsavory ambitions. The New York Republican did not for

some time capitulate the wallow of indulgent interests that produced the first president of the nineteenth century so emphasized what divided Americans that it seemed after all that had been said and done very little held together. What sharpened the issue was the office at stake was the Presidency the only position in our government that represents the one the union as opposed to the scores that represent the many. Oddly it was that extreme partisan and newly elected presidents who did the re-assuring not only with this conciliatory tone but with the vision he composed of an America of principles and rights that could not be divided. It might have been Jefferson the realist who described the divisive campaign but it was Jefferson the theorist who put the pieces back together who actually made it possible for his audience to unite his word to serve common efforts

for the common good. It is here that we come to the uniqueness of America's executive office and the special role it plays psychologically as well as politically in our national life congress men and women whom we elect to serve are special interests. We expect to be as small minded as we are. The president however must think more largely focus on the whole rather than merely on a part. Hence the Constitution's instructions that as a primary executive duty to report from time to time on the state of the Union explicit direction for the president to explain to the many the condition of the whole. This is what Woodrow Wilson had in mind when he wrote. There is but one national voice in the country and that is the voice of the president. And this is why the office is filled by a national election rather than that is in the parliamentary system by a victorious party here. Greatness is desired if not always

anticipated but a greatness that is neither quite Caesar's nor Cicero's it is to the mob. It is to the model for that greatness did little more than a year by Teano one that Jefferson was indirectly speaking in his inaugural message. The statue of George Washington sculpted in the late 18th century but Antoine hootin for the Virginia Capitol has been replicated more than 20 times and distributed across America most recently five years ago and my own university campus that this 18th century representation should prove so enduring that it would be the Washington of choice in the 21st century. Suggest not only how effectively it depicts the man but also how powerfully it portrays the presidency as we even after so much disappointment prefer to imagine it. Washington himself no doubt would have preferred one of the equestrian tributes he was quite proud of his horsemanship. But he does urge. He is

standing at ease one hand on his walking stick the other arm draped over of ashes a bundle of rods the mound shafts of war axes whose heads he is covered with his cloak. And behind him is a simple plow. All this of course is very Roman and part of a pervasive artistic and political effort to see Washington the Cincinnatus the general who left his farm to defend his country in time of war and who victorious in that conflict in peace yielded power and returned to his agrarian business. He is then the leader as servant. The model Republican who is patriot rather than politician and is guided by virtue rather than ambition. Garry Wills and Joseph Ellis have argued that Washington's ambitious ambition was enormous but it sought to be the patriot rather than the king loved rather than feared and that Washington pursued a reputation that would declare him to the ages. The model of Republican virtue.

But he was as well consciously defining the presidents which came out of the Constitutional Convention only in the vaguest of terms and the Constitution itself doesn't tell us a whole lot about what it might be lending to that office his own authority in imbuing it with his own values what Washington most desired from his countrymen was affection. But I do not mean to suggest by this some personal need to be lumped Washington's presidency was devoted to the promotion of affection and affection for one another as citizens and affection for America's new government. And above all an affection for the union in his first inaugural our first inaugural he declared both an ardent love for my country and the conviction that it was his and the Congress has primary obligation to win this new government in the affections of its citizens. Eight years later in a farewell message from which this theme is repeated from the beginning to the end

he tried to reassure his countrymen that their union could outlive him that the presidency could be transferred to other hands the years which had weakened him he argued had strengthened them by deepening their love for the union and for respect for the bonds that unite them together as countrymen and this extraordinarily ordinary instructional note. He called them us to follow his example to love country above region or district insisting that patriotism must be to the whole and not merely to a part and most remarkably he urged a nation barely committed to its nationality to transfer the affection they felt for him to that more dubious body. This obligation rarely mentioned in textbooks or applauded by political pundits is by Washington's example foremost among presidential responsibilities. Whoever the holder of that office in whatever historical context

is to be above all else the steward of national affection. So Lincoln acknowledged even as he presided over a diminishing Republic insisting that even the presumption of secession could not remove that duty. And so he called in the mystic chords of memory to sustain such sentiment declared even at the moment of victory malice toward none. Charity for all and depression and or Franklin Roosevelt focused his fireside chats as much on the maintenance of a national community as on promotion of his political policies in crisis he reminds his radio audience this is these are his words men can lose confidence in each other and therefore lose confidence in the efficacy of their own united action. And so he used his broadcast to keep Americans made suspicious by deprevation in touch with one another continually reminding them of their inner connectedness of the existence of a larger American family of which they were a part.

This affection was for Washington the soul of patriotism and the foundation of the second great theme of his address's virtue. No word is more important in 18th century discussions both for and against Republicanism and democracy than virtue. If people were to govern themselves take the place of a monarchy or oligarchy. They must be capable of self restraint of serving the common good as well as their own. This of course is the great rub and ultimately the dividing line between conservative and liberal traditions. Washington's position is to whom and how many have such a capacity was as in most things modern. His was an older Republican model rather than a truly democratic one. But he believed in virtue had witnessed it in the travail of war and imagined by example and instruction. It could have an expanding influence as evidence he offered the Army of the revolution

which in his farewell to his troops he describes as overcoming regional prejudice to become one brotherhood the first as well as the foremost achievement of Union of which the United States could boast a part of what he repeatedly called the American experiment was precisely a testing of how their fraternal success could be extended to their fellows outside the military. The first characteristic of virtue he believed to be moderation whose opposite he declared was passion and for Washington the near synonym for passion was party at his first inauguration he promised that no local prejudices or attachments no separate views or party animosities will miss direct the comprehensive and equal. Which ought to watch over the union. Then eight years later one of the expedients a party to acquire influence within particular districts he warned in his farewell is to misrepresent the opinions or names of

other districts. You cannot shield yourself too much against the jealousies and heart burnings which spring from these misrepresentations. They tend to render alien to each other. Those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection partisanship by definition. The lesson goes to by what Washington long to unite. And promotes enmity Overleigh the spirit of party is by nature excessive he explained a fire not to be quenched it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame lest instead of warming it should consume what Jefferson sought to counter at his inaugural ceremony was precisely this warning to that end he suggested only outsiders strangers unused to think freely and to speak and write what they think would find the turmoil of Democratic politics imposing Americans. He implied this became this definitional issue of what makes us American no better. Know that the election over

all will of course arrange themselves under the will of law unite in common effort with the common good. The enormity of Jefferson's presumption is breathtaking. That deftly inserted of course at a point the fetch widespread animosity and social anxiety an indication of the size of the whopper he expects us to swallow. But Jefferson was providing his audience an out. They seemed eager too eager to take that the immoderate campaign rather than threatening the union as most surely believed was proof of America's political confidence its understanding of the nature of free discourse. What was devastating in Washington's formulation is merely a part of the process of Jefferson's version a process that simplifies virtue to the twin recognitions of majority rule and minority rights. Proof that among us if not among the French were a constant issue in the campaign of 18:00 ideas are contested rather than people's lives. What other systems of government gets decided

through domination and bloodshed here is determined by a vote with the voter confidence and the protection of the Constitution no matter the outcome. On this assumption having justified a conflict that would have appalled the first president. Had he not been dead and appalled in other ways. Jefferson issued a call worthy of Washington. Let us Fellow-Citizens unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore the social intercourse that harmony and affection. And this is the most tellingly Jeffersonian line in some ways in the peace without which liberty and even life itself are dreary things. And let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance upon which mankind so long bled and suffered we have yet gained little if we countenance a political tolerance as despotic as wicked and capable of its bitter and bloody persecution this is wishful

thinking. It seems to have been collected and not just personal and it allowed Americans to interpret themselves in a way that contradicts the very anxieties stirred by the preceding campaign. Intellectually that justifies Jefferson's expectation that harmony and affection will be restored after a scurrilous electoral contest is provided by this remarkable assertion. But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have been called by different names brethren but the same principle. Most especially the sacred principles the previously described and Crites in contrast to Washington Jefferson lessoned presidential significance even as he accepted the position stressing the virtue of the citizenry of the Constitution and of the Democratic system. Rather than that of the nation's highest office in true republican style he used the pronoun we more easily than did Washington and imagined a political process that is about

discourse more even than decisions. An unending conversation sustained by sociability as much as by interest one and which we need each other and our differences for the richness of that talk. Virtue in this context is not self-denial but self-fulfilment depended upon that social discourse without which liberty and even life itself for but dreary things in the in republican virtue as a matter of counsel. Of Conflict conducted as discourse. Jefferson profoundly revise the theories of Republicanism and of civic virtue. Most common in this day and in America elaborated by worshipped in America elaborated Washington by asserting that so long as Americans agreed on principle and so long as there were too many things that could be called principles most fundamentally those a majority rule minority rights. They can disagree on opinions without threat to national harmony. It's an

appealing idea no matter how vague of the terms upon which it depends on one to a considerable extent. The result more of desire than reason. Except that in his own time and the more than 200 years since. But there's one crucial difference between then and now. There are many crucial differences between then and now I can only think of one of it I thought that the differing roles played by the candidates in a presidential campaign called upon are the first words of Jefferson's speech introducing a theme of reluctance common for much of the century that followed. For nearly all of those who followed Washington the shred of Cincinnatus to which they could lay claim no matter how fictitious in fact was the idea that they had been drafted into service called upon the old construction of virtue required the presidency be accepted as a duty rather than desired out of any ambition. So it was that Martin Van Buren eagerly as he privately was for the

honor responded to his party's nomination in those days the convention Mitt and sent a letter to the nominee and then the nominee responded in a letter. One nominee neglected to open the letter because it was postage due and consequently after that they sent a delegation to the nominee to make sure they got an answer. No man. Is Van Buren no man. Though many were doing just that can truly say that I have solicited his political support or that I have entered or sought to enter with him any into any arrangement to bring about the nomination which I have now received or to secure my elevation to the Chief Magistrate my country James Polk spelled out the matter more categorically and his own acceptance letter. It has been well observed he wrote that the office of president of the United States should never be sought nor declined. He then reassured his countrymen. I have never sought it. Nor shall I feel the Liberty declined it

if it conferred upon me by the voluntary suffrage of my fellow citizens as late as 1919 by which time candidates had to formally throw their hats in the ring to get on primary ballots in many states. Warren G. Harding informed his Ohio supporters I cannot agree to any personal activity in proposing a pre-convention campaign citing his distaste for unseemly seeking as explanation prompted by advances in transportation and communication as well as changes in the process of nomination modern presidential candidates have necessarily become tireless campaigners on their own behalf for the first Roosevelt and for Truman both extraordinarily successful at this business and to some extent Lyndon Johnson there was an advantage to being in office when first campaigning for it. For them it was completing a job begun after fate had made them precedence. There's the theme of unfinished

business and faithfulness to the dead man they succeeded. But increasingly after World War II with the notable exception of Eisenhower and that's one worth the speech in itself. Who better than anyone since Washington could play Cincinnatus presidential hopefuls could not pretend to be swept up by a draft. Could not wait for others to carry them to the nomination. There were a few exceptions to some extent sadly Stevenson in 1952 but even there it's. Especially since 1968 they have come before us on their own recommendation spent their pre-convention campaigns which now is going to go on forever. In Self Advocacy telling us the story of lives introducing us to their families. In short staking a personal claim on the office and seeking in precisely the way that even thick Harding thought unseemly parties promote candidates whose ambition is

sufficient to the exhausting work of a campaign as much as whose talents and characters for the rest of the job description partisanship of the sort Washington feard is now fiercest where the presidency is concerned. Americans know all this. We pride ourselves on being practical with that illusion especially when politics is concern our cynicism about rhetoric parallels our feelings about politicians or suspicions of one feeding or distaste for the other. And yet every four years Hope springs up again a sense of possibility that seems more powerful than experience having for the most part except the Jefferson's reformulation of how democracy works havoc excepted partisanship is an acceptable part of the Republican package. Still we set this one office apart hoping for more. And those who hold it no matter our disappointments in the past. So what is it that we want.

What. In this age of extravagant ambition and self-promotion do we seek up to this point have had the crutch of history to lean against. But the question for now is immediate. I suspect that America's version of democracy depends hugely. I must admit there was a big deal or he would have used the word like the hugely upon the spark of hope that is represented in those presidential campaigns. It is a reminder that ours is a system dependent upon hope. No matter how cynical and worldly wise we pretend to be. It is as well. One constantly undermined by doubt. And doubt. Americans feel far more comfortable confessing than hope. Washington suggested that we long above all else for affection and service to that desire that he places first among the requirements for the job in his formulation. Hope springs from love and love can never simply be abstract love of country requires

love of country money and so much as the latter is qualified. So is the form that violates almost all modern notions of patriotism which is much more exclusive than Washington's. No other president of the early republic could speak so directly and compellingly of the political importance of love. Perhaps because no other was so loved himself. But Washington's principle endures even at the end even if the conditions of the office he held and the means by which is obtain have so dramatically changed. If we recall those presidents who have generated greatest enthusiasm even in modern times it has been that small number most successful each in his own way and conveying this love. The national service that preceded Washington and Eisenhower's presidency made their love of country apparent. Not just because of military service but because that service was inseparable from a vision of Common Cause and their military careers were noteworthy

not only for sacrifice but even more for bringing people together for encouraging virtue and fellow citizens. Both men and saying farewells to the armies they had led emphasized the love of Conrad of comrades that had sustained them in war. And offered it as a model for citizenship in a time of peace. No small part of Ronald Reagan's popularity was his ability to convey affection without a military background to make his case. He followed the example of Franklin Roosevelt the president whose policies he sought to overturn and his person he seems to have held most dear. Reagan's contribution to the 1980 campaign no matter where others might have taken it was full of confidence and goodwill like FDR. He convinced people he cared for them that it was morning in America because the ties that bind us are strong. The tension obvious in the polls between regard for his policies and for his person

only underlines the importance of this perceived. The Unlikely Rise of Barack Obama is inseparable from the power of rhetoric from his address to the 2004 Democratic Convention to the campaign that has brought him so close to the White House. It has been eloquence that has caused a growing number of people to describe him as presidential Headey John McCain's history of service or had a political record as oppressive as that of any of the Democratic primary opponents. He would not service serve my purposes so well tonight. It is equally the case that we're Americans so cynical as we like to think if our contempt for rhetoric is as deep as we insist Obama could never have come this far. But rare is the gift for eloquence. Maybe it is not unique to him. So what's different about his speeches and those of other talents from those of others talented speakers. In a word the society in the first place Obama's eloquence and

contrasts in contrast to say that of John Kennedy's inaugural address is more of thought and organization than a phrase that's an unusual speech for Kennedy if you look at the what kind of piece do we want speech given at American University. It's very similar to the way in which Obama argues it's the same what I call eloquence of thought and phrase. Typically his opening his opening tone is as conversational as Reagan's often or his 2004 convention speech began tonight. Is a particular honor for me because let's face it my presence on the stage is pretty unlikely. Then comes a narrative as so often the case his life history which tellingly starts with what he calls an improbable love story in 0 4. His words were. And again this is repeated in many of the speeches and on the stump on a fairly regular basis always with the same conjunction. My parents shared not only an improbable

love they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. The only thing remarkable in this slightly corny segue is what it anticipates a conjunction of a biracial identity in a calm growing affection for America. One union inevitably linked to the other. As I watched the now legendary campaign in Iowa I was continually struck with how eagerly audiences particularly young audiences deserted vastly more experienced and informed Democratic candidates to identify with Obamas wholly improbable tale of his American identity and identity that he offered as reconciled rather than divided. They responded because what is so obviously traumatizing the culture at large seems somehow to be at Harmony in his purse. If Washington was right what American audiences longed to believe is that we are indeed one people a possibility as improbable as Obama's American story. His central message in 0 4

was that there is not a liberal America and a conservative America. There is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America there's the United States of America. We are one people. We might expect Senator McCain to be in line for the Cincinnatus role able to offer a version of leadership given his extraordinary heroism in Vietnam similar to that of Washington and Eisenhower but ironically the service record from which he appropriately benefits politically also constrains him. At the level of sacrifice and suffering. His heroism exceeds that of Washington or Eisenhower. Neither of them suffered the physical abuse the indignities the imprisonment that McCain tour. The level of sacrifice and suffering his heroism exceeds theirs and sets them apart by its

singularity. That singularity that apartness However complicates our response to McCain's story in the context of the presidency Washington's Eisenhower's careers are lessons not in singularity but solidarity. Their greatest accomplishments were to bring desperate people with disparate interest together. Their identities are inseparable. Contrast McCain from the armies they led. In contrast to McCain neither stands alone or apart and this apartness is crucial to McCain's version of himself and his insistence upon being a maverick or in the difficulty has getting from the heroic eye to a communal we not surprising then in his version of leadership he is a protector a tested champion. I will find bin Laden friends I can fix this. I know how to do that. Once again he is volunteering to stand between the rest of us and our.

It is a heroic candidacy and a heroic man but his problems are the image of the presidency that it suggests. In his telling a while in his telling Obama's personal narrative is unique. It is never singular. His parents and grandparents are perhaps even more a part of it than he is. His eye is always a win. His campaign is the chance so often heard from a supporter of firm and insist that we can't. Lacking anything resembling McCain's distinguished record the record the Republican nominee rightly asks us to examine what Obama offers us instead is our record with in overcoming oppression dealing with depression defending ourselves against terrible enemies or the subject of his most remarkable speech. Our struggle against bigotry and injustice in ourselves. It is our strength rather than his that he declares sufficient.

His is a holy rhetorical campaign in the sense that it depends upon his ability to talk us back into union with one another. And no small part of his appeal is our weariness. The decade of political division and media ranting from which we are emerging we have been surrounded by the clamor of division. As surely as are Americans and 8900 the fulminations of niche market pundits and the condition that conventional rovin wisdom that it is easiest to win with the ratings or votes by alienating though as it turns out also easier to win than to govern. The title of my talk suggest might suggest that I am most concerned with the people we elect to govern us. Thats a little misleading what most interests me is us why we think the way we do choose the leaders we choose and the profoundly intimate process to which speakers and audiences reveal each other's identities.

I have no idea whether Obama or McCain will win in November I have no idea whether either can rise to the difficult position will put him in what I think I know is that large numbers of Americans want to believe Obama's version of us want to believe that we believe we are our brother's keeper or sister's keeper. In June of last year speaking to a group of churchmen Obama told of his religious experience a story quite different from the one told by Pres.. President Bush one of growth rather than revelation what he calls a choice rather than an epiphany. Like his politics his religion is as much a matter of the mind as of the heart and the root of both his religions both his religion his politics is the desire to be part of something larger. So it's 1985. He told the church men and I'm in Chicago and I'm working with these churchmen and with lots of laypeople who are much older than I am. And I found that I

recognized in these folks a part of myself I learn that everyone's got a sacred story. When you take the time to listen and I think they recognized a part of themselves and me too it is this mutual recognition that allows us to forego our suspicions of rhetoric even to suppress our disappointment at the unseemly seeking that modern campaigning involves. Whatever the outcome of Obama's candidacy. Whether or not more disappointment lies ahead. He reminds us as Colin Powell acknowledged this past weekend of how important eloquence is in our common life of how only eloquence seemed capable of reaffirming the simple truth of how much we depend upon one another and of how far we have come together. We could not be a people without the words that Washington and Lincoln and Roosevelt and scores of others found to affirm a union that we have to first imagine before it can in any way be realized in 18:1 having helped

to undermine an older notion of how republic can be sustained. Jefferson told his audience what was in all likelihood an untruth at least before he spoke it. That the vehemence with which Americans had expressed their contempt for one another's opinions had not destroyed their affection for one another so great was their desire desire to believe this to be the case that they partially fragile Lee made it so. That desire has not died now. Then when someone finds the words to affirm our world our oneness we are inclined to at least hope they are true. Know people accepted a greater challenge than an American when we committed ourselves to being both one and many we realize what the odds are and how heavily they are stacked against that one. Finally it is that idea of the more perfect union that tells us who we are. That is why the singular office which represents union is so

important and why and a country held together by little more than words we still depend upon its occupants to articulate our mutual affection and dependency. Thank you for finally came a professor of public administration here at Suffolk working on six campaigns at this point. They're in this little campaign. You've talked eloquently about the content of rhetoric. Could you talk a bit about the presentation of rhetoric because that's an important part you've alluded to that but talking both historically and possibly in terms of our current candidates about how they are actually able to bring us whatever way through how they present the great content or not so great content depend on the situation. That's an important question. Jefferson's a good case in point because one of the things that I cannot tell you is anything about that speech from the way Jefferson read it because only people in the first row pretended they could hear Jefferson on public speaking events mumbled that and he did it on purpose because he wanted people to read his words.

Every president before Jefferson delivered the annual message what we now call the state of the message in person. Jefferson stopped that he said it over and right he. Said that it was too much like the king going to parliament to go over. But the truth was he wanted his message read. It wasn't until Woodrow Wilson the president's begun and then sporadically at first to go to the Congress to deliver the message and it wasn't till it was broadcasting that made it a national event so that in that early generation for many Adams was an exception of this. I think he much preferred to actually deliver the message. But the question about whether whether this discourse to really be effective and helpful was to be read or to be heard is a complicated issue and in republican theory and an early Democratic light of course now with no choice we hear it now we hear a piece of it again and again for the

continuing time. Two things are striking in this in this campaign and that's the difference that takes place in both what we hear and the manner in which it's given after the conventions. If you think about in Obama's case the most eloquent speeches the last one. For all practical purposes was the acceptance speech at the Democratic convention. And that was arguably a lesser speech. I mean it was it was not as carefully and elaborately composed as the as the speech on race had been part of that is because the presentations after the nominations focus upon some different issues. And the whole tradition of having debates focus upon that the question of demeanor becomes important. The question of whether a candidate seems agitated that study carefully contained comments that has dominated the

most remarkable thing about Obama's performance in the debates not the answers he's given but the demeanor and the approach. For McCain the desire to be believed the desire to have people see how important this is. You've got to look at the record think of the passion with which he says that he has to put his whole body into those things. And I think when you read them you do not get anything like the emphasis that you get when you see them and hear them. The tricky part of all of this is that rhetoric is deeply personal. When we talk about it and teach it in some ways it's more impersonal. But no matter the Speaker this is in a way this is the most intimate of social relations. I mean the presumption of one person trying to persuade another person to do or think or feel anything is huge. So that the fall since the fall person is involved in

these rhetorical moments or the rhetorical moments work against them that the credibility comes not just some of the arguments and not just how learned they seem or the experience they can deliver or how eloquent they are even but how consistent that seems with the larger package and how that match fits with where we are at that moment so that my greatest distaste in modern politics is for handling. I tend to like candidates even candidates out poper. I like and I usually like them best after they've lost one of my favorite human beings is Robert Doyle whom I first talked to the day after he lost the New Hampshire primary in 1988. And it was the combination of conviction and humanness a pissed off ness all the kind of stuff he brought in the conversation that made the candidate situation real and powerful.

But what you have is a whole group of people whose careers are based upon interfering with that connection between candidates and the public I think they present it in other ways that they're helping them get their message across. But I think they need that kind of help and the way they're getting it. There's something wrong in the first place. But just the way politics are set up seems to me these people often interfere and they interfere. Precisely that point. I don't want McCain somehow remade for McCain that deserves to be taken seriously the way is that McCain that comes through in those gestures the McCain that does go up and down that does move around and shows in his body the whole history of his life and symbolize so that I think that the real question is the connection to that presentation and the reality of the person making him. That's a long answer that probably missed your point that I feel better anyway. The question that I have is when you talk about Jefferson in Washington I mean

you had a different country then you had a country that was basically white and basically Mayhill in terms of decision makers and things like that. So now we have a country that is much more diverse and much less homogeneous and the way that you know I wonder how much more difficult that makes it for someone to be able to get up and have the rhetoric of bringing people together. The one of the things that I see I see almost like young people who used to live in a much more diverse world saying to older people listen we have got to get this together. It can't be the old way that it's been. I mean they don't even see the differences that a lot of us older people see.

They they just don't see the difference. And so that's why I think there's such a movement of young people on behalf of Iraq. And I think that's right. I think you and your and your right now you talk about the increasing complexity that step on up this moment. I mean it's not just that this is a moment of all kinds of things coming together that the whole point that that makes it worth being American is moving towards this moment as far as I'm concerned. It isn't fact that it's gotten more complicated. If it were as easy as it wasn't easy then the theoretical constructions are set to make something possible that almost everybody including Americans believe was impossible. But we pushed it this far and we finally got in a moment we're on the threshold of there will never be. I think I could not have imagined that I would ever be saying this in my lifetime there will never be another presidential election in which there is not a serious contender and some marvelous female It just won't happen again.

There it will be rare that there's another presidential campaign which there is not a significant candidate who is a person of color. It's just that there is and it's in large part because what you're talking about I followed the early stages of the campaign in Iowa had some friends who were reporters covering the caucuses and no matter what the New York Times thinks the Iowa caucus is a fundamental aspect of the present system because it forces candidates to come back over and over again often to very small audiences. First I saw Barack Obama speaking there were 12 people from last time I saw Joe Dodd there was one. I mean Christopher Dodd there was one. And I think that was part of his immediate family. I'm not sure. But so that you do that and then you see over the course of it the crowds for one candidate shifting to the other and growing and growing and growing. But when you saw the demographics if you looked at the vote afterwards the same percentage that marked Obama's support among 18 to 22 year olds was exactly reversed in the

65 and over group that were bombed got 60 some percent of that first group. Clinton got them and the older group and part of what we have part of the excitement of the moment for somebody my age because I belong to that second group or the excitement of the moment is two American realities are face to face. The America that Obama represents I can see on my campus but it wasn't there when I started teaching on that campus. And it's not just black and white anymore. I mean 18 percent of our students are Asian-American. A high percentage of that are from South Asia which means that they and their families came to this country immigrate this country after I'd already started my teaching career. So the you see is on one hand an America that is younger America and another one that's saying that can't be us. My home state of Missouri it's that even when it's not about race it's it's the same anxiety but that can't be us. I

don't I don't recognize that. And the younger group saying increasingly this election's about me not about you. So I think part of the excitement of it still an experiment this country. I mean Roosevelt I mean Washington using that language is completely appropriate whether we can do this or whether we can do it one more year or one more generation is never a given. And the excitement of this moment is with doing something that for many of us was unthinkable. We began our life in this country. I don't know how many of you are old enough to have felt what again regardless of anything else in this campaign what it was like to see a black man competing for the presidency on the stage at Ole Miss. The last time I was in the state of Mississippi it was the civil rights demonstrations when I was afraid to have a northern license plate on my car which if drove at night I was terrified of every

light I saw in the rear view mirror and to somehow have that place that that campus which was the most violent campus in terms of defending segregation be the side of this debate. Is it. A fact of enormous enormous significance for Americans. Again not because it's not as though we're going to turn some corner. It's not as though we're going to hit a home run and we won the game. This is an ongoing game. There no such thing as extra innings there just more innings. And what we do every every campaign is to somehow we imagine where we are in that process. That's why despite or even my own nature I think that is that that the rhetoric of the presidency is one of the most unique and powerful political tools that any political systems ever invented. Thank

you