The American Union Speaker — Reading Notes

A Crisis-Driven Anthology

The preface names over a dozen contemporary authors—Sumner, Douglass, Everett, Boutwell, Bryant, Whittier, Holmes, Longfellow, Boker, Andrew, Beecher—and ties each to a specific rhetorical function: 'Sumner exposes the origin and mainspring of the rebellion, Douglass strips off its pretext, Everett paints its crime.' Philbrick presents these pieces as 'all compact of the passing hour,' breathing 'the fine sweet spirit of nationality,—the nationality of America.' The excerpts confirm this: Longfellow's 'The Building of the Ship' (CLXXXIV) directly addresses the Union as a 'ship of State,' while Cowper's 'The Negro's Complaint' (CLXXXV) is an earlier abolitionist poem that Philbrick repurposes for the crisis. The collection thus functions as a wartime document, not merely a generic reader.

Elocution as Moral Instruction

Philbrick explicitly states his intent to admit only pieces that 'inculcate the noblest and purest sentiments, teaching patriotism, loyalty, and justice.' This pedagogical mission extends to the inclusion of 'masterpieces of oratory' that 'advocate the inalienable rights of man, and denounce the crime of human bondage,' which he notes were 'long excluded from books of this class' until 'the new phase of public opinion' made them appropriate. The selections are thus curated to shape the moral and political views of young reciters, aligning elocutionary practice with the Union cause and abolitionist principles. The excerpt from 'The Negro's Complaint'—with its lines 'Minds are never to be sold' and 'Skins may differ, but affection / Dwells in white and black the same'—exemplifies this didactic strain.

Structure and Range Beyond the Catalog

Although the catalog lists only 'Recitations' and 'education-teaching' as subjects, the excerpts reveal a broader scope. The preface mentions 'nearly three hundred' standard pieces alongside 'about one hundred' new ones, spanning 'every variety of style necessary in elocutionary culture.' The sample poems include a nautical allegory (Longfellow), a protest against slavery (Cowper), and a elegy for a sunken warship (Cowper's 'Loss of the Royal George'), suggesting variety in tone and form. The preface also notes that the new pieces 'will for a time receive the preference over old ones, and some of them will survive the period which called them forth,' indicating Philbrick's awareness of the collection's potential longevity. The volume thus exceeds a simple recitation manual, functioning as a historical anthology of mid-19th-century American political and moral rhetoric.

Readers approaching The American Union Speaker should attend to the preface as a key to the editor's intentions: it reveals the collection as a deliberate intervention in wartime education, not a neutral compendium. The juxtaposition of contemporary Civil War pieces with older abolitionist and patriotic works creates a layered reading experience, where the historical context of each selection matters as much as its elocutionary value. The volume rewards those who consider how the pieces chosen—and the order in which they appear—reflect Philbrick's vision of a unified, loyal, and just American nation.

That rainy afternoon, the 1865 American Union Speaker felt less like a textbook and more like a hushed archive of raised voices—abolitionist lines still warm with conviction. Its preface, so earnest about shaping young hearts, made me pause. Later, drifting through my shelves, I found myself lingering over Among Famous Books — Themes and Context, wondering how those same urgent sentiments had quietly migrated into quieter, stranger corners of literature.