Speech at Cincinnati
The Republican National Convention, 1876.

by Robert G. Ingersoll
(1876)

From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (Dresden Edition, 1900–1902), Volume 9.
Source: https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/speech-at-cincinnati/
Public domain. CC0 / Public Domain Mark 1.0.

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• The nomination of Blaine was the passionately dramatic
    scene of the day. Robert G. Ingersoll had been fixed upon to
    present Blaine's name to the Convention, and, as the result
    proved, a more effective champion could not have been
    selected in the whole party conclave.
    As the clerk, running down the list, reached Maine, an
    extraordinary event happened. The applause and cheers which
    had heretofore broken out in desultory patches of the
    galleries and platform, broke in a simultaneous, thunderous
    outburst from every part of the house.
    Ingersoll moved out from the obscure corner and advanced to
    the central stage. As he walked forward the thundering
    cheers, sustained and swelling, never ceased. As he reached
    the platform they took on an increased volume of sound, and
    for ten minutes the surging fury of acclamation, the wild
    waving of fans, hats, and handkerchiefs transformed the
    scene from one of deliberation to that of a bedlam of
    rapturous delirium. Ingersoll waited with unimpaired
    serenity, until he should get a chance to be heard.   *
    And then began an appeal, impassioned, artful, brilliant,
    and persuasive.   *
    Possessed of a fine figure, a face of winning, cordial
    frankness, Ingersoll had half won his audience before he
    spoke a word. It is the attestation of every man that heard
    him, that so brilliant a master stroke was never uttered
    before a political Convention. Its effect was indescribable.
    The coolest-headed in the hall were stirred to the wildest
    expression. The adversaries of Blaine, as well as his
    friends, listened with unswerving, absorbed attention.
    Curtis sat spell-bound, his eyes and mouth wide open, his
    figure moving in unison to the tremendous periods that fell
    in a measured, exquisitely graduated flow from the
    Illinoisan's smiling lips. The matchless method and manner
    of the man can never be imagined from the report in type. To
    realize the prodigious force, the inexpressible power, the
    irrestrainable fervor of the audience requires actual sight.
    Words can do but meagre justice to the wizard power of this
    extraordinary man. He swayed and moved and impelled and
    restrained and worked in all ways with the mass before him
    as if he possessed some key to the innermost mechanism that
    moves the human heart, and when he finished, his fine, frank
    face as calm as when he began, the overwrought thousands
    sank back in an exhaustion of unspeakable wonder and
    delight.—Chicago Times, June 16, 1876.
