Plymouth Oration

American politician Daniel Webster delivered this speech in 1820 on the 200th anniversary of the landing on Plymouth Rock. In it, he honors the memory of the men and women who laid the groundwork for American civilization. He also challenges the crowd to consider how current political issues, such as slavery, will affect their legacy two-hundred years in the future. “Let [slavery] cease to be of New England,” he urges them in this historic speech, “and let civilized man henceforth have no communion with it.”