The Columbian Orator: Containing a Variety of Original and Selected Pieces Together With Rules, Which Are Calculated to Improve Youth and Others, in the Ornamental and Using Art of Eloquence.

• By Caleb Bingham (Editor), 1797.
• By David W. Blight (Editor), Bicentenni edition 1998, (ISBN 0814713238).

"I well remember, when I was a boy, how ardently I longed for the opportunity of reading, but had no access to a library", Caleb Bingham, 1803.

"Every opportunity I got I used to read this book", Frederick Douglass, 1845.

First appeared in 1797, The Columbian Orator, a collection of political essays, poems, and dialogues, was widely used in American schoolrooms in the first quarter of the nineteenth century to teach reading and speaking. Many of the speeches included in the anthology celebrated "Republican" virtues and promoted patriotism, and this was typical of many readers of that period.

African-American abolitionist Frederick Douglass first encounters The Columbian Orator around the age of twelve, just after he has learned to read. This book he so cherished, that he would carry with him as he escaped from slavery in 1838. As Douglass becomes educated in the rudimentary skills of literacy, he also becomes educated about the injustice of slavery. Of all the pieces in the book, Douglass focuses on the master-slave dialogue and the speech on behalf of Catholic Emancipation. These pieces help Douglass to articulate why slavery is wrong, both philosophically and politically, as this young fugitive slave emerge as the greatest African-American leader and orator of the nineteenth century. The Columbian Orator, then, becomes a symbol not only of human rights, but also of the power of eloquence and articulation. To some extent, Douglass sees his own life’s work as an attempt to replicate The Columbian Orator.

Web Links

• The Influence of The Columbian Orator - "E Pluribus Unum Project," Assumption College