Ethos – Ben Franklin
Here is the selection from Benjamin Franklin’s speech about the appointment of salaries:
“It is with reluctance that I rise to express a disapprobation of any one article of the plan, for which we are so much obliged to the honorable gentlemen who laid it before us. From its first reading, I have borne a good will to it, and, in general, wished it success. In this particular of salaries to the executive branch, I happen to differ; and as my opinion may appear new and chimerical, it is only from a persuasion that it is right, and from a sense of duty, that I hazard it. The Committee will judge my reasons when they have heard them, and their judgement may possibly change mine. I think I see inconvenience in the appointment of salaries; I see none in refusing them, but on the contrary great advantages.”
–Benjamin Franklin, “Speech in the Constitutional Convention on the Subject of Salaries,” June 2, 1787.
How does he construct the ethos of a man we should listen to?
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@Mr. E:
When people of the olden days stood up to give these speeches, did they preconceive the speeches or were they just a spur of the moment thing?
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Mr. Eldridge Reply:
March 24th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
@Stejones, Both. In school they practiced the art of disputation–constantly going back and forth–good verbal arguments. So you developed these skills and a huge repertoire of topics and sources from which to pull evidence. Remember that this is before the scientific revolution really took off, so enormous data sets did not exist and statistics was a mathematical infant. So most of the knowledge one learned was humanistic–which is always easier to learn and retain.
Often they would reconstruct the speeches afterwards, adding flourishes here and there to make it really compelling.
But there were also set pieces like inaugurals and farewells. As well as other occasional pieces. But more often than not they were composed on the spot.
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