Wherever the principle of Anglo-Saxon freedom and the rights of man have been at stake, the all-animating voice of the orator has kept alive the sacred flame.  In the witenagemote of the earlier tongs, in the parliament of the later kings, in the Massachusetts town-meeting and in the Virginia House of Burgesses, in the legislature of every State, and in the Congress of the United States, wherever in Anglo-Saxon countries the torch of liberty seemed to burn low, the breath of the orator has fanned it into flame.  It fired the eloquence of Sheridan pleading against Warren Hastings for the down-trodden natives of India in words that have not lost their magnetic charm:—­

“My Lords, do you, the judges of this land and the expounders of its rightful laws, do you approve of this mockery and call that the character of Justice which takes the form of right to execute wrong?  No. my Lords, justice is not this halt and miserable object; it is not the ineffective bauble of an Indian pagoda; it is not the portentous phantom of despair; it is not like any fabled monster, formed in the eclipse of reason and found in some unhallowed grove of superstitious darkness and political dismay.  No, my Lords!  In the happy reverse of all this I turn from the disgusting caricature to the real image.  Justice I have now before me, august and pure, the abstract ideal of all that would be perfect in the spirits and aspirings of men—­where the mind rises; where the heart expands; where the countenance is ever placid and benign; where the favorite attitude is to stoop to the unfortunate, to hear their cry, and help them; to rescue and relieve, to succor and save; majestic from its mercy, venerable from its utility, uplifted without pride, firm without obduracy, beneficent in each preference, lovely though in her frown.”

This same spirit fired the enthusiasm of Samuel Adams and James Otis to such a pitch of eloquence that “every man who heard them went away ready to take up arms.”  It inspired Patrick Henry to hurl his defiant alternative of “liberty or death” in the face of unyielding despotism.  It inspired that great-hearted patriot and orator, Henry Clay, in the first quarter of this century, to plead, single-handed and alone, in the Congress of the United States, session after session before the final victory was won, for the recognition of the provinces of South America in their struggle for independence.

“I may be accused of an imprudent utterance of my feelings on this occasion.  I care not:  when the independence, the happiness, the liberty of a whole people is at stake, and that people our neighbors, our brethren, occupying a portion of the same continent, imitating our example, and participating in the same sympathies with ourselves.  I will boldly avow my feelings and my wishes in their behalf, even at the hazard of such an imputation.  I maintain that an oppressed people are authorized, whenever they can, to rise and break their fetters.  This