In
the late 19th century, Robert Green Ingersoll was one of America's foremost orators
and political speechmakers. After serving in the Civil War as a Colonel, Robert
Ingersoll, a distinguished lawyer, served as the first Attorney General of Illinois.
Although he did not run for any other public office, he was greatly sought-after
to deliver speeches on behalf of Republican candidates and causes. In those days,
public oration was a highly regarded form of entertainment and Robert Ingersoll
was paid well to speak all across the nation on a wide variety of subjects. He
was an early popularizer of Charles Darwin and greatly promoted science and reason
as well as women's and African-American rights. Robert Ingersoll had many enemies
in the religious right of his time because of his outspoken views questioning
religion as a freethinker and humanist. But this didn't quell his popularity --
he was greatly admired as the King of Orators and was friend to literary greats
like Mark Twain, social reformers like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, business titans
like Andrew Carnegie, and leaders of the arts as well as presidents and other
political giants of his time.
