Includes bibliographical references and index

Moses proclaims The Ten Commandments -- Isaiah cries out for social justice -- Pericles, in the deathless funeral oration sums up the glory that was Athens -- Demosthenes denounces the imperialistic ambitions of Philip the Macedon -- The conspiracy of Catiline -- Cicero pours on the vitriol -- Julius Ceasar objects to illegal execution of the captured conspirators -- Cato demands the immediate execution of the conspirators -- Catiline rallies his small, desperate army on the eve of battle -- Jesus of Nazareth delivers The sermon on the Mount -- Chrysostom preaches on the fall of Eutropius, minister of state -- Pope Urban II calls for the first crusade -- Bernard of Clairvaux shows that the name of Jesus is a salutary medicine -- Savonarola exhorts the people of Florence to repent -- Luther defends himself at the diet of worms -- Queen Elizabeth rallies her army during the Armada Peril -- John Donne, Dean of St. Paul's delivers his own funeral -- Thomas Harrison, regicide, speaks from the scaffold -- Andrew Hamilton, the day star of the American Revolution, defends the freedom of the press -- John Wesley denounces the doctrine of predestination -- James Otis argues against illegal search and seizure -- William Pitt objects to taxation without representation -- John Wilkes denies the right of the house of commons to reject duly elected members -- Edmund Burke makes a last desperate plea for conciliation with the American colonies -- Patrick Henry prepares Virginia for war against the mother country -- Lord Chatham, formerly William Pitt, would stop the war with the colonies -- Henry Grattan demands an independent parliament for Ireland -- Burke attempts to vindicate himself before his estranged constituents -- Charles James Fox introduces his bill to abolish the tyranny of the East India Company -- Burke supports Fox's bill and lauds its author -- Burke cites the charges against Warren Hastings -- Richard Brinsley Sheridan brings the Hastings trial to a climax -- Thomas Erskine points out the inevitable consequences of empire -- Benjamin Franklin, as the Constitutional Convention closes, has the last wise word to say -- Patrick Henry fears the strength of the proposed Constitution -- Alexander Hamilton wins over the foes of the Constitution in New York -- William Wilberforce, in The House of Commons, pictures the slave trade in all its honor -- William Pitt the younger indicts the slave trade and foresees a liberated Africa -- Mirabeau wars the nobility and clergy of Provence of the impending storm -- Mirabeau defends a desperate financial measure -- Doctor Richard Price, in London, hails the French Revolution -- Mirabeau argues for the King's right to make war and peace -- Vergniaud reveals the desperate position of revolutionary France -- Danton thunders for unity -- Thomas Erskine defends Tom Paine for writing "The rights of man" -- Danton reinvigorates his countrymen -- Vergniaud admits to Rebespierre's charges of moderation -- Robespierre recommends virtue and terror -- Robespierre faces the guilloting -- General Bonaparte addresses his triumphant army of Italy -- Pitt advises against accepting Bonaparte's overtures for peace -- Charles James Fox replies to Pitt -- Henry Grattan flays a turncoat -- Robert Emmet defends the Irish cause before being sentenced to death -- Lazare Carnot opposes a crown for Bonaparte -- Pitt replies to a toast -- Byron strikes an early blow for the rights of Labor -- Napolion bids farewell to the old guard -- Daniel Webster celebrates the American heritage -- John Randolph of Roanoke lays the ground for disunion -- Webster proclaims the doctrine of a strong central government -- John C. Calhoun, disciple of Randolph and antagonist of Webster, Champions states' rights -- Frances Wright, beautiful and fearless, delivers a fourth-of-July oration -- Seth Luther addresses the workingmen of New England -- Ralph Waldo Emerson points out the duties of the American Scholar -- Wendell Phillips, a young Boston Brahmin, leaps into the Abolitionist crusade -- Thomas Corwin, in the most fearless speech ever delivered in Congress, denounces the Mexican War -- Elizabeth Cady Stanton keynotes the first woman's rights convention -- The compormise of 1850; Henry Clay makes his last effort to preserve the Union, The dying Calhoun hears his bitter swan song read by a fellow Senator, Webster, in "The most-heralded speech ever made in America" supports Clay's compromise -- Theodore Parker mourns over a fallen idol -- Daniel Webster -- George Canning sees the world at peace in the shadow of The British Navy -- Daniel O'Connell carries on the fight for Catholic emancipation -- Macaulay makes his first speech for the reform bill -- Lord Brougham, with his ususal vehemence, also supports the Reform Bill -- Macaulay renews his case for emancipation of the Jews -- O'Connell enthralls an Irish multitude -- Richard Cobden argues for free trade and against the corn laws -- Alexis De Tocqueville feels "A gale of revolution in the air" -- Mazzini mourns for martyrs of Italian liberty -- Kossuth, a militant exile, calles for aid to downtrodden Hungary -- Louis pasteur depicts the spirit of science -- Karl Marx, and exile in England, give an after-dinner speech -- Frederick Douglass, an ex-slave, discusses slavery -- Sam Houston, Senator from Texas, closes an ominous debate on the repeal of the Missouri Compromise -- Abraham Lincoln, an Illinois lawyer, returns to political life and delivers his first great speech -- Lincoln argues that a house divided against itself cannot stand -- Lincoln closes his campaign against Douglas -- John Brown explains a martyr's course -- Jefferson Davis resigns from the United States Senate -- President-elect Lincoln bids farewell to his friends at Springfield, Illinois -- Lincoln delivers his first inaugural address -- John Bright educates English public opinion in the cause of the North -- Edward Everett delivers the oration at the dedication of the National cemetery at Gettysburg -- President Lincoln makes a "Few appropriate remarks" on the same occation -- Abraham Lincoln delivers his second inaugural address -- Bismarck recommends the values of blood and iron -- Ferdinand Lassalle attaks the German press -- Thomas Henry Huxley examines Darwin's "Origin of species" -- John Ruskin bemoans the degradation of modern life -- Leon Gambetta begins the reconstruction of France after the German conquest. Disraeli defends the principles of the conservative party -- Gladston supports the right of freethinkers to enter the House of Commons -- Dostoyevsky interrupts the writing of "The Brothers Karamazov" to celebrate the cenetary of Pushkin's birth -- Friedrch Engels says a few words at the burial of Karl Marx -- Charles Stewart Parnell demands home rule for Ireland -- Bismarck pleads for a bigger arms budget -- Emile Zola, on trial for libel, denounces the conspiracy against Dreyfus -- J. Proctor Knott of Kentucky captivates the House of Representatives -- Robert G. Ingersoll nominates James G. Blaine for President of the United States -- Ingersoll speaks at his brother's grave -- Henry George lectures on Moses, prgress and poverty -- Henry W. Grady of Georgia leaps into national fame with an address on the new south -- Booker T. Washington proposes a modest role for the negro -- William Jennings Bryan stampedes the Democratic National Convention -- Bourke Cockran, an eminent Democrat, replies to Bryan -- "Beveridge the brillliant" takes up the white man's burden -- Theodore Roosevelt advocates the strenuous life -- Kaiser Wilhelm II is outraged and adamant -- Sun Yat-sen takes up the yellow man's burdent -- Jean Jaures and Georges Clemenceau debate teh question of capital and labor -- David Lloyd George call for a steep increase in taxes -- Woodrow Wilson, at fifty-four, gives his first political address -- Lloyd George calls for voluteers -- Cardinal Mercier preaches a sermon in German-occupied Brussels -- President Wilson asks Congress to declare war against Germany -- Lenin speaks to a street crowd in Petrograd -- Lenin makes a world-shaking announcement -- Trotsky rallies one of his armies during the Civil War -- Eugene V. Debs makes a statement to the court -- President Wilson goes to the people in behalf of the League of Nations -- Gandhi propounds his faith before an English judge -- Mussolini renders his first account to the chamber of disputes -- Clarence Darrow pleads for justice for the negro -- Sacco and Vanzetti proclaim their innocence -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt gives his first inaugural address -- Roosevelt gives his first fireside chat -- Hitler takes full responsibility for the blood purge -- Mussolini applies the torch of civilization to Ethiopia -- Edward VIII gives all for love -- Prime Minister Chamberlain returns in triumph from Munich -- Lloyd George gives some advice to Prime Minister Chamberlain -- Prime Minister Churchill presents his program -- Churchill reports the miracle of Dunkirk -- Churchill anticipates the Battle of Britain -- General Charles de Gaulle calls free France into existence -- Stalin, ten days after the Nazi invastion, instructs his people -- Roosevelt asks for a declaration of war against Japan -- Henry A. Wallace estimates the price of free world victory -- General Eisenhower conquers London -- Ex-prime Minister Churchill perceives an iron curtain -- David E. Lilienthal offers a definition of Democracy -- Nehru speaks to mourning millions a few hours after the murder of Gandhi -- A.P. Herbert advocates a festival for Britain -- William Faulkner, accepting the Nobel Prize, exhorts the young writers of the world -- General Douglas MacArthur defends his conduct of the war in Korea -- Governor Adlai Stevenson agrees to run for President -- Khrushchev reveals some of the crimes of Stalin -- President John Fitzgerald Kennedy delivers his inaugural address -- Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., speaks to a unique audience -- President Kennedy addresses the general assembly of the United Nations for the second and last time -- President Lyndon Baines Johnson makes his first address to the nation.