the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either.  If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in this dispute there is still no single good reason for precipitate action.  Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty.  In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, are the momentous issues of civil war.  The government will not assail you.  You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors.  You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to “preserve, protect, and defend” it.—­The First Inaugural Address: ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

HOW TO SPEAK IN PUBLIC[1]

BY GRENVILLE KLEISER

[Footnote 1:  A talk given before The Public Speaking Club of America.]

The art of public speaking is so simple that it is difficult.  There is an erroneous impression that in order to make a successful speech a man must have unusual natural talent in addition to long and arduous study.

Consequently, many a person, when asked to make a speech, is immediately subjected to a feeling of fear or depression.  Once committed to the undertaking, he spends anxious days and sleepless nights in mental agony, much as a criminal is said to do just prior to his execution.  When at last he attempts his “maiden effort,” he is almost wholly unfit for his task because of the needless waste of thought and energy expended in fear.

Elbert Hubbard once confided to me that when he made deliberate preparation for an elaborate speech,—­which was seldom,—­it was invariably a disappointment.  To push a great speech before him for an hour or more used up most of his vitality.  It was like making a speech while attempting to carry a heavy burden on the back.

HOW THE SPEAKER MUST PREPARE HIMSELF

There is, of course, certain preparation necessary for effective public speaking.  The so-called impromptu speech is largely the product of previous knowledge and study.  What the speaker has read, what he has seen, what he has heard,—­in short, what he actually knows, furnishes the available material for his use.

As the public speaker gains in experience, however, he learns to put aside, at the time of speaking, all conscious thought of rules or methods.  He learns through discipline how to abandon himself to the subject in hand and to give spontaneous expression to all his powers.

Primarily, then, the public speaker should have a well-stored mind. He should have mental culture in a broad way; sound judgment, a sense of proportion, mental alertness, a retentive memory, tact, and common sense,—­these are vital to good speaking.