The Political Writings of Rufus Choate

An orator of great renown, a congressman, senator, and colleague of Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate was a strong proponent of protective tariffs to assist domestic industry.

The forgotten speeches of a master of 19th-century oratory are resurrected in this engaging volume of Americana. Choate, a Whig congressman and senator from Massachusetts in the 1830s and 1840s, opposed slavery and revered the Union, but deplored the militancy of abolitionists; he was generally considered a slightly lesser version of his idol Daniel Webster. The editors of the Conservative Leadership Series, of which this book is a part, wish to rehabilitate him as a significant conservative political thinker in the mold of Edmund Burke, with a humane, even progressive outlook, but duly respectful of tradition and the organic ties of society. They offer this selection of his speeches, running the gamut from policy statements to commencement addresses, and from eulogies for statesmen to public meditations on American history and the meaning of patriotism, as a window onto an ideology of Whiggish patriotism and anti-radicalism that they feel holds lessons for the modern age. Their epic length (one address to Congress on the subject of tariffs runs nearly 70 pages) bears witness to an age when monumental speechifying was the chief mode of public entertainment. But Choate's rhetoric, complex but lucid, rhythmically balanced and full of evocative imagery, stands up well even today. Whatever one thinks of Choate's relevance to contemporary issues, politicians can learn from, and readers can enjoy, this artifact of a well-spoken age.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.