American Rhetoric — The Power of Oratory in the United States

American Rhetoric

The Power of Oratory in the U.S.

Established 2001 · Founded and Produced by Michael E. Eidenmuller, Ph.D.

Artifact Collections

Online Speech Bank

Political, social, sports & religious speeches.

Full text, audio & video included.

Martin Luther King Jr. at the Washington Mall

Top 100 Political Speeches

The definitive ranking of U.S. political oratory.

As determined by 137 leading scholars.

Rhetorical Figures

40 classical figures with text & audio examples.

Speeches, movies, TV shows & audio books.

Movie Speeches

Iconic cinematic oratory with transcripts and clips covering 8 decades of movie making.

Recent Additions

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Barbara Charline Jordan “Keynote Address to the 1976 Democratic National Convention ” — HTML5 UI and Entire Video Added.

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Franklin D. Roosevelt “Pearl Harbor Address ” — HTML5 UI, Annotations, Enhanced Audio Added.

New Speech

Ronald Reagan “Allocution Après la Catastrophe de la Navette Challenger ” — HTML5 UI, Avec Transcription, et Audio et Vdéo en Anglais..

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Ronald Reagan “Space Shuttle Challenger Address to the Nation ” — HTML5 UI Added.

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Lyndon B. Johnson “Address to a Joint Session of Congress on Voting Legislation ” — HTML5 UI and Entire Video Added.

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RHETORICAL FIGURE “Metaphor” — HTML5 UI Added.

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RHETORICAL FIGURE “Catachresis” — HTML5 UI Added.

New Speech

Benjamin Netanyahu “Press Conference on the Lebanon Ceasefire Framework ” — HTML5 UI, English Transcript, Hebrew Language Video.

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RHETORICAL FIGURE “Exemplum” — HTML5 UI Added.

New Speech

Robert F. Kennedy “Speech at the University of the Witwatersrand ” — HTML5 UI, Authenticated Text, Audio.

Online Speech Bank

Database of and index to 5,000+ full text, audio, and video versions of public speeches, sermons, legal proceedings, lectures, debates, interviews, other recorded media events, and a declaration or two.

See also a special issue: The Rhetoric of 9/11

Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century

Full text, audio, and video database of the 100 most significant American political speeches of the 20th century, according to 137 leading scholars of American public address, as compiled by Stephen E. Lucas (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Martin J. Medhurst (Baylor University).

Movie Speeches

Full text, audio and video database of some 275+ Hollywood movie speeches.

Included are military movie speeches, sports-oriented movie speeches, forensic movie speeches, and social-political movie speeches, among others.

Rhetorical Figures

40 classical figures of speech with examples delivered in text and audio (and occasionally video).

Drawn from speeches, lectures, movies, TV shows, and audio books.

Key figure: Antimetabole

Speech of the Week

Featured speaker

Lou Gehrig

Farewell to Baseball

July 4th, 1939 · Yankee Stadium, The Bronx, New York.

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TXTVID

Key Excerpts

“"Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth."

"Sure I’m lucky. When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift -- that’s something."

"When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter -- that’s something."

"When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed -- that’s the finest I know."

"So, I close in saying that I might have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for."

Speech of the Week & Recent Additions

Speech of the Week Week of June 28th, 2026

Lou Gehrig

Farewell to Baseball

July 4th, 1939 · Yankee Stadium, the Bronx, New York

Jump to Speech

TXT VID

Excerpt · July 4th, 1939 · Yankee Stadium, New York

"Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth."

"Sure I’m lucky. When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift -- that’s something."

"When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter -- that’s something."

"When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed -- that’s the finest I know."

"So, I close in saying that I might have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for."

Lou Gehrig · Farewell to Baseball

Recent Additions

Upgrade

Barbara Charline Jordan — “Keynote Address to the 1976 Democratic National Convention”

HTML5 UI and Entire Video Added.

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Franklin D. Roosevelt — “Pearl Harbor Address”

HTML5 UI, Annotations, Enhanced Audio Added.

New Speech

Ronald Reagan — “Allocution Après la Catastrophe de la Navette Challenger”

HTML5 UI and Ajout d'annotations.

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Ronald Reagan — “Space Shuttle Challenger Address to the Nation”

HTML5 UI and Annotations Added.

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Lyndon B. Johnson — “Address to a Joint Session of Congress on Voting Legislation”

HTML5 UI and Entire Video Added.

Upgrade

RHETORICAL FIGURE — “Catachresis”

HTML5 UI Added.

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RHETORICAL FIGURE — “Metaphor”

HTML5 UI Added.

New Speech

Benjamin Netanyahu — “Press Conference on the Lebanon Ceasefire Framework”

HTML5 UI, English Transcript, Extensive Annotations, Hebrew Language Video.

Speech Calendar

On This Day in American Rhetoric

Stolen Generations

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🇦🇺 Australia

Prime Minister · 2008

Kevin Rudd

Apology to the Indigenous Peoples
of Australia

The formal parliamentary apology the Stolen Generations had waited sixteen years to hear — “sorry” spoken eleven times in a chamber that wept openly.

Indigenous Peoples

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🇨🇦 Canada

Prime Minister · 2008

Stephen Harper

Apology to Indigenous Survivors of
Indian Residential Schools

An unqualified apology naming the policy’s animating logic — “to kill the Indian in the child” — to survivors watching from the parliamentary gallery.

Interned Japanese Americans

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🇺🇸 United States

President · 1988

Ronald Reagan

Remarks on Signing the
Civil Liberties Act

A formal apology for 120,000 Japanese Americans interned after Pearl Harbor — “racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.”

National Socialism Victims

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🇩🇪 Germany

Federal President · 1985

Richard von Weizsäcker

Address to the Bundestag
on V-E Day 40th Anniversary

The first German head of state to reframe the day of unconditional surrender as a day of “liberation” rather than defeat.

Enslaved Peoples &
Their Descendants

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🇳🇱 Netherlands

Prime Minister · 2022

Mark Rutte

Apology for the Netherlands’ Role in
the Slave Trade

The first sitting Dutch Prime Minister to issue a formal state apology for two and a half centuries of slavery — delivered on the 160th anniversary of abolition to an audience that had waited generations for the word — a Dutch first.

Enslaved Peoples &
Their Descendants

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🇳🇱 Netherlands

King of the Netherlands · 2023

King Willem-Alexander

Address at the
National Slavery Commemoration

A royal apology from the same crown that once profited from the trade — delivered at Amsterdam’s slavery memorial one year after the Prime Minister’s apology, completing what Rutte’s statement had left unfinished.