Chapter III: Construction

Spoken matter is a speech only when it possesses three divisions: an opening, a body, and a conclusion. Without possessing these three divisions it may be a talk, but it is not a speech. This can be best explained by the author quoting from one of his previous works:[1]

"Every speech, no matter what its length or what its subject, should possess three parts: an opening or statement, a body or argument, a conclusion or appeal. The opening should contain a statement of the facts to be presented, or the points upon which the argument is to be made; the body should be given over to a presentation of the facts, a narration of the story, a description of the scene, or an argument of the cause; and the conclusion should be devoted to summing up of the facts, an application of the story or the scene, or a deduction from the argument on the points.

"The opening may contain as many statements as the speaker desires, but he must make sure to argue upon and drive home in the body of the speech all that he mentions in the opening. Every statement in the opening must be like a plank in a platform, and all such planks, or statements, must be fastened together properly in the argument, otherwise there will be gaps in the platform, or statement, through which the speaker's argument is liable to fall to failure."

A rambling story is not a speech; a talk that has not a clear opening, a convincing argument, or a logical conclusion, is not a speech; a statement without a body is not a speech. All these things may be talks, but only a well-defined, clearly-mapped-out discourse can be dignified with the name of speech. In order that one may be a speech-maker and not a babbler, he must work in accordance with a well-defined plan. He should carefully gather the material that is to be used, arrange the parts of the speech in their proper places, and deliver the speech in the best possible manner. No matter how excellent the material may be, it will prove of little value to the speaker unless it is arranged consecutively; built, as it were, point on point, or fact on fact, and developed according to his prearranged plan. It should be so knitted together as to cohere and form a structure that, resting on a firm foundation, will be compact and complete. Desultory talking is not speech making. The speaker should possess a definite object, and keep to that object until it has been clearly presented and convincingly demonstrated. Order should reign everywhere--in the arrangement of the words, the presentation of the ideas, and the delivery of the matter. Lack of attention to these details is the cause of many failing as public speakers who, had they given proper attention to the perfection of the means to be employed, might have become clear thinkers and masterly presenters of well-ordered thoughts. Length has nothing whatever to do with the question as to whether spoken matter is a speech or not. One might speak for an hour and not deliver a speech; and, on the other hand, a perfectly constructed speech might be produced in a minute or less. Here is a matter that occupies less than two lines, or, to be exact, twenty-two words, and yet it possesses all the requirements of a speech:

The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be
single, thy whole body shall be full of light.[2]

We have the proposition that "The light of the body is the eye"; the argument, "if therefore thine eye be single"; and the conclusion, "thy whole body shall be full of light."

Specimen divisions of speeches of Demosthenes are here employed to emphasize these points, and students are advised to study closely the means adopted by this master of oratory and rhetoric in arranging his speeches. Two examples of each of the three divisions of a speech, and one example of a complete speech, are here presented in order that students may gain a practical and comprehensive idea regarding the construction of speeches.

DIVISIONS OF A SPEECH

OPENING

_Against the Law of Leptines_ (355 B.C.). It was chiefly,
men of the jury, because I deemed it good for Athens that
the law should be repealed, but partly on account of the
son of Chabrias, that I engaged to support these men to the
utmost of my ability. It is plain enough, men of Athens,
that Leptines, or whoever else defends the law, will have
nothing to say for it on the merits, but will allege that
certain unworthy persons obtaining immunity have evaded the
public services, and will lay the greatest stress upon this
point. I will pass by the injustice of such proceeding--for
a complaint against some to take the honour from all--for
it has in a manner been explained, and is doubtless
acknowledged by you; but this I would gladly ask him:
Granting most fully that not some but all were unworthy,
why did he consider that you and they were to be dealt with
alike? By enacting that none should be exempted, he took
the exemption from those that enjoyed it; by adding that it
should be unlawful to grant it thereafter, he deprived you
of the power of granting. He can not surely say that, as he
deprived the holders of their privilege because he deemed
them unworthy of it, in the same manner he thought the
people unworthy to have the power of giving their own to
whom they pleased. But possibly he may reply that he framed
the law so because the people are easily misled. Then what
prevents your being deprived of everything, yea, of the
government itself, according to such argument? For there is
not a single department of your affairs in which this has
not happened to you. Many decrees have you at various times
been entrapped into passing. You have been persuaded ere
now to choose the worse allies instead of the better. In
short, amid the variety of your measures there must, I
conceive, happen something of this kind occasionally. Shall
we therefore make a law prohibiting the council and the
people hereafter from passing bills and decrees? I scarcely
think so. We ought not to be deprived of a right, in the
exercise of which we have been deceived; rather should we
be instructed how to avoid such error, and pass a law, not
taking away our power, but giving the means of punishing
those who deceive us.

_On the Navy Boards_ (354 B.C.). It appears to me, O
Athenians, that the men who praise your ancestors adopt a
flattering language, not a course beneficial to the people
whom they eulogize. For attempting to speak on subjects
which no man can fully reach by words they carry away the
reputation of clever speakers themselves, but cause the
glory of those ancients to fall below its estimation in the
minds of the hearers. For my part, I consider the highest
praise of our ancestors to be the length of time which has
elapsed during which no other men have been able to excel
the pattern of their deeds. I will myself endeavour to show
in what way, according to my judgment, your preparations
may most conveniently be made. For thus it is. Though all
of us who intend to speak should prove ourselves capital
orators, your affairs, I am certain, would prosper none the
more; but if any person whomsoever came forward, and could
show and convince you what kind and what amount of force
will be serviceable to the state, and from what resources
it should be provided, all our present apprehensions would
be removed. This will I endeavour to do, as far as I am
able, first briefly informing you what my opinion is
concerning our relations with the king.

BODY

_The first Philippic_ (351 B.C.). First, I say, you must
not despond, Athenians, under your present circumstances,
wretched as they are; for that which is worst in them as
regards the past is best for the future. What do I mean?
That your affairs are amiss, men of Athens, because you do
nothing which is needful; if, notwithstanding you performed
your duties, it were the same, there would be no hope of
amendment.

Consider, next, what you know by report, and men of
experience remember, how vast a power the Lacedaemonians
had not long ago, yet how nobly and becomingly you
consulted the dignity of Athens, and undertook the war
against them for the rights of Greece. Why do I mention
this? To show and convince you, Athenians, that nothing, if
you take precaution, is to be feared; nothing, if you are
negligent goes as you desire. Take for examples the
strength of the Lacedaemonians then, which you overcame by
attention to your duties, and the insolence of this man
now, by which through neglect of our interest we are
confounded. But if any among you, Athenians, deem Philip
hard to be conquered, looking at the magnitude of his
existing power, and the loss by us of all our strongholds,
they reason rightly, but should reflect, that once we held
Pydna and Potidaea and Methone and all the region round
about as our own, and many of the nations now leagued with
him were independent and free, and preferred our friendship
to his. Had Philip then taken it into his head that it was
difficult to contend with Athens, when she had so many
fortresses to infest his country, and he was destitute of
allies, nothing that he has accomplished would he have
undertaken, and never would he have acquired so large a
dominion. But he saw well, Athenians, that all these places
are the open prizes of war, that the possessions of the
absent naturally belong to the present, those of the remiss
to them that will venture and toil. Acting on such
principle, he has won everything and keeps it, either by
way of conquest or by friendly attachment and alliance; for
all men will side with and respect those whom they see
prepared and willing to make proper exertion. If you,
Athenians, will adopt this principle now, though you did
not before, and every man, where he can and ought to give
his service to the state, be ready to give it without
excuse, the wealthy to contribute, the able-bodied to
enlist; in a word, plainly, if you will become your own
masters, and cease each expecting to do nothing himself
while his neighbour does everything for him, you shall then
with Heaven's permission recover your own, and get back
what has been frittered away, and chastise Philip. Do not
imagine that his empire is everlastingly secured to him as
a god. There are who hate and envy him, Athenians, even
among those that seem most friendly; and all feelings that
are in other men belong, we may assume, to his
confederates. But now they are all cowed, having no refuge
through your tardiness and indolence, which I say you must
abandon forthwith. For you see, Athenians, the case, to
what pitch of arrogance the man has advanced who leaves you
not even the choice of action or inaction, but threatens
and uses (they say) outrageous language; and, unable to
rest in possession of his conquests, continually widens
their circle and, while we dally and delay, throws his net
all around us. What, then, Athenians, when will you act as
becomes you? In what event? In that of necessity, I
suppose. And how should we regard the events happening now?
Methinks to freemen the strongest necessity is the disgrace
of their condition. Or tell me, do you like walking about
and asking one other, Is there any news? Why, could there
be greater news than a man of Macedonia subduing Athenians,
and directing the affairs of Greece? Is Philip dead? No,
but he is sick. And what matters it to you? Should anything
befall this man you will soon create another Philip if you
attend to business thus. For even he has been exalted not
so much by his own strength but by our negligence. And,
again, should anything happen to him; should fortune, which
still takes better care of us than we of ourselves, be good
enough to accomplish this, observe that, being on the spot,
you would step in while things were in confusion and manage
them as you pleased; but as you are, though occasion
offered Amphipolis, you would not be in a position to
accept it, with neither forces nor counsels at hand.

However, as to the importance of a general zeal in the
discharge of duty, believing you are convinced and
satisfied, I say no more.

_On the Liberty of the Rhodians_ (351 B.C.) One of the
events for which I consider you should be thankful to the
gods is that a people, who to gratify their own insolence
went to war with you not long ago, now place their hopes of
safety in you alone. Well may we be rejoiced at the present
crisis, for if your measures thereupon be wisely taken the
result will be that the calumnies of those who traduce our
country you will practically and with credit and honour
refute. The Chians, Byzantines, and Rhodians accused us of
a design to oppress them, and therefore combined to make
the last war against us. It will turn out that Mausolus,
who contrived and instigated these proceedings, pretending
to be a friend of the Rhodians, has deprived them of their
liberty; the Chians and Byzantines, who called them allies,
have not aided them in misfortune, while you, whom they
dreaded, are the only people who have wrought their
deliverance. And this being seen by all the world, you will
cause the people in every state to regard your friendship
as the token of their security; nor can there be a greater
blessing for you than thus to obtain from all men a
voluntary attachment and confidence.

I marvel to see the same persons advising you to oppose the
king on behalf of the Egyptians, and afraid of him in the
matter of the Rhodian people. All men know that the latter
are Greeks, the former a portion of his subjects. And I
think some of you remember that when you were debating
about the king's business I first came forward and
advised--nay, I was the only one, or one of two, that gave
such counsel--that your prudent course in my opinion was
not to allege your quarrel with the king as the excuse for
your arming, but to arm against your existing enemies, and
defend yourselves against him also if he attempted to
injure you. Nor did I offer this advice without obtaining
your approval, for you agreed with me. Well, then, my
reasoning of today is consistent with the argument on that
occasion; for, would the king take me to his counsels, I
should advise him as I advise you, in defense of his own
possessions to make war upon any Greeks that opposed him,
but not to think of claiming dominions to which he had no
manner of title. If now it be your general determination,
Athenians, to surrender to the king all places that he gets
possession of, whether by surprise or by deluding certain
of the inhabitants, you have determined, in my judgment,
unwisely; but if in the cause of justice you esteem it your
duty either to make war, if needful, or to suffer any
extremity, in the first place, there will be the less
necessity for such trials, in proportion as you are
resolved to meet them; and, secondly, you will manifest a
spirit that becomes you.

That I suggest nothing new in urging you to liberate the
Rhodians, that you will do nothing new in following my
counsel, will appear if I remind you of certain measures
that succeeded. Once, O Athenians, you sent Timotheus out
to assist Ariobarzanes, annexing to the decree "that he was
not to infringe your treaty with the king." Timotheus,
seeing Ariobarzanes had openly revolted from the king, and
that Samos was garrisoned by Cyprothemis, under the
appointment of Tigranes, the king's deputy, renounced the
intention of assisting Ariobarzanes, but invested the
island with his forces and delivered it. And to this day
there has been no war against you on that account. Man will
not fight for aggressive purposes so readily as for
defensive. To resist spoliation they strive with all their
might. Not so to gratify ambition; this they will attempt
if there be none to hinder them; but if prevented, they
regard not their opponents as having done them an injury.

My belief is that Artemisia would not even oppose this
enterprise now if our state were embarked in the measure.
Attend a moment and see whether my calculations be right or
wrong. I consider, were my king succeeding in all his
designs in Egypt, Artemisia would make a strenuous effort
to get Rhodes into his power, not from affection to the
king, but from a desire, while he tarried in her
neighborhood, to confer an important obligation upon him,
so that he might give her the most friendly reception; but
since he fares as they report, having miscarried in his
attempts, she judges that this island--and so the fact
is--would be of no further use to the king at present, but
only a fortress to overawe her kingdom and prevent
disturbances. Therefore it seems to me she would rather you
had the island, without her appearing to have surrendered
it, than that he should obtain possession. I think, indeed,
she will send no succours at all, but if she do they will
be scanty and feeble. As to the king, what he will do I can
not pretend to know; but this I will maintain, that it is
expedient for Athens to have it immediately understood
whether he means to claim the Rhodian city or not; for, if
he should, you will have to deliberate not on the concerns
of Rhodes only, but on those of Athens and all Greece.

Even if the Rhodians who are now in the government had held
it by themselves I would not have advised you to espouse
their cause; nor though they promised to do everything for
you. But I see that in the beginning, in order to put down
the democracy, they gained over a certain number of
citizens, and afterward banished those very men when they
had accomplished their purpose. I think, therefore, that
people who have been false to two parties would be no
steadier allies to you. And never would I have proffered
this counsel had I thought it would benefit the Rhodian
people only; for I am not their state friend, nor is any of
them connected with me by ties of private hospitality. And
even if both these causes had existed I would not have
spoken unless I had considered it for your advantage.
Indeed, as far as the Rhodians are concerned, if the
advocate for their deliverance may be allowed to say so, I
am rejoiced at what has happened--that, after grudging to
you the recovery of your rights, they have lost their own
liberty; and, when they might have had an alliance on equal
terms with Greeks and their betters, they are under
subjection to barbarians and slaves, whom they have
admitted into their fortresses. I would almost say that, if
you determine to assist them, these events have turned out
for their good. For, during prosperity, I doubt whether
they would have learned discretion, being Rhodians; but
since they are taught by experience that folly is mightily
injurious to men, they may possibly perhaps become wiser
for the future; and this I think would be no small
advantage to them. I say, therefore, you should endeavour
to rescue these people, and not harbour resentment,
considering that you too have often been deceived by
miscreants, but for no such deceit would you allow that you
merited punishment yourselves.

Observe also, men of Athens, that you have waged many wars
both against democracies and against oligarchies--this,
indeed, you know without my telling--but for what cause you
have been at war with either perhaps not one of you
considers. What are the causes? Against democratical states
your wars have been either for private grievances, when you
could not make public satisfaction, or for territory, or
boundaries, or a point of honour, or the leadership;
against oligarchies for none of these matters, but for your
constitution and freedom. Therefore I would not hesitate to
say I think it better that all the Greeks should be your
enemies with a popular government than your friends under
oligarchal. For with freemen I consider you would have no
difficulty in making peace when you chose, but with people
under an oligarchy even friendship I hold to be insecure.
It is impossible that the few can be attached to the many,
the seekers of power to the lovers of constitutional
equality.