In Learning Module 4, you will read the Declaration of Independence, I Have a Dream, and The Gettysburg Address and consider how Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Abraham Lincoln each crafted his famous document. What rhetorical devices did they use: did they ask questions, repeat phrases, use unusual punctuation or capitalization? After analyzing these famous writings, you will create an original, one-page speech on the topic: “I Have Something to Say.” Your speech should address something about which you are passionate. It really can be about anything, so think about a topic that is important to you—convince others of its importance.
Speeches and Historical Documents: Open this folder to see links to this week’s readings: The Declaration of Independence, I Have a Dream (video included), and The Gettysburg Address. Consider how Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Abraham Lincoln each crafted his famous document.
Declaration of Independence
[Adopted in Congress 4 July 1776]
The Original Version of this Text was
Rendered into HTML by Jon Roland
of the Constitution Society
Converted to PDF by Danny Stone
as a Community Service to the Constitution Society
Declaration of Independence
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The Unanimous Declaration of the
Thirteen United States of America
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct
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object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and
necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate
and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
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He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by
jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended
offenses:
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a
neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totaly unworth the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the
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high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levey war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the
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protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
“I Have a Dream,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Address delivered at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom Washington, D.C., August 28, 1963
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. [applause]
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves, who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. (Audience: My Lord) One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later (My Lord)[applause], the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence (Yeah), they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed to the “Unalienable Rights of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”[sustained applause]
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. (My Lord)[laughter](Sure enough) We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we’ve come to cash this check (Yes), a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom (Yes) and the security of justice. [applause]
We have also come to his hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. [applause] Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy. (My Lord) Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time [applause] to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time [applause] to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. [applause] There will be neither rest nor tranquility in
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America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold, which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. (My Lord) [applause] We must forever conduct our struggle on the highest plain of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative process to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy, which has engulfed the Negro community, must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny [applause] is tied up with our destiny. [applause] And they have come to realize their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make a pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.
There are those who ask in the devotees of civil rights, when will you be satisfied? We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the very victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied [applause] as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. [applause]
We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “for white only.” [applause]
We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and the Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. (Yes)[applause] No, no, we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” [applause]
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. (My Lord) Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution (Yes) and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi (Yes), go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. (Yes) Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends [applause], so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. (Yes) It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day (Yes) 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.” (Yes) [applause]
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I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice (Well), sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream (Well)[applause] that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. (My Lord) I have a dream today. [applause]
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” (Yes), one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. [applause]
I have a dream that one day “every valley shall be exalted (Yes), every hill and mountain shall be made low; the rough places will be made plain and the crooked places will be made straight (Yes) and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.” (Yes)
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. (Yes) With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. (Yes) With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. (Talk about it) With this faith (My Lord) we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, (Yes) to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. [applause] This will be the day [applause continues], this will be the day when all of God’s children (Yes) will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country, ’tis of thee (Yes), sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my father’s died, land of the pilgrim’s pride (Yes), From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring (Yes) from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. (Yes, That’s right) Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado. (Well)
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. (Yes)
But not only that: Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. (Yes)
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Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. (Yes)
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. (Yes) From every mountainside, let freedom ring. [applause]
And when this happens [applause continues], when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city (Yes), we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old spiritual:
Free at last! (Yes) Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last. (applause)
Watch Videos Martin Luther King – I Have A Dream Speech – August 28, 1963
Abraham Lincoln,
THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS
19 November 1863
After a three-day battle against the Union army at Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army retreated on July 4th 1863. The battle was not only a major turning point in favor of the Union Army but was also the largest and most devastating of the war, with total casualties numbering over 50,000. Four and a half months later, the process of reburying the thousands of bodies that had been shallowly interred on the battlefield had begun but was not yet complete. In this sobering setting, Lincoln delivered a brief address to an audience of about 15,000 people, who interrupted him five times to applaud. Newspapers across the North also responded very favorably. Lincoln’s comments that day, however, comprised only a brief moment in the cemetery’s dedication. Prior to Lincoln’s three- minute speech came music, a prayer, and the featured oration, a two-hour discourse delivered by Edward Everett, retired Massachusetts politician and former president of Harvard. While Everett’s speech dwelled on the details of the battle, Lincoln attempted to give meaning to the events at Gettysburg, indeed to the Civil War itself, by speaking about the ideals for which he believed the Union stood. —D. Voelker
Bibliography: Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg (New York: Touchstone, 1992).
[1] FOURSCORE and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new
nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
[2] Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
[3] But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
SOURCE: The Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. IX, Ed. John G. Nicolay and John Hay (New York: Tany-
Write speech of your own and submit it as an attachment to the discussion board. Your speech should be on the topic: “I Have Something to Say.” This does not have to be your title, but it should drive the subject matter of your speech. You must be passionate about your topic, but it can be on anything. Use elements of good writing that we have been studying in the course thus far (see style guide) .
