Robert Green Ingersoll
2002
Lawyer · Agnostic · Orator
Perhaps the most notable American freethinker of the 19th century, this “Great Agnostic” was so successful an orator that he spoke to more people than any prelate, politician, or president of his day.
He first built his reputation as an orator during the Civil War, in which he served as a colonel. After the war, he was appointed the first Attorney General in Illinois, but it was the last public office he would hold. When considered for the Governor of the state, Ingersoll was passed over when he refused to agree to stop speaking on controversial topics including women’s rights and religion.
In the days before microphones and amplification, he gave lectures from memory to packed houses. Hundreds and even thousands would gather in the streets across the nation to hear him speak about politics, the arts, science, and religion.
His most famous speeches include “The Gods,” “Ghosts,” and “What Must We Do to Be Saved?” In “The Great Infidels,” he vehemently challenged the doctrine of Hell, saying:
“All the meanness, all the selfishness, all the cruelty, all the hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man is capable, grew, blossomed, and bore fruit in this one word – Hell.”
Ingersoll also promoted progressive causes such as women’s rights, birth control, and racial equality. As a lawyer, he was known for the famous Star Route Trial, which is considered the Watergate of his time. After months of testimony, he won an acquittal for his clients. Later, he offered his services pro bono to defend the prominent freethinker, Charles B. Reynolds, who was arrested for blasphemy. Though Reynolds was convicted (Ingersoll paid the fine himself), Ingersoll so effectively attacked the absurdity of blasphemy laws in a free society that few states have attempted the prosecution of blasphemy since.
“(W)e must neither stop, nor pause, until the Constitution shall become a perfect shield for every right, of every human being, beneath our flag.”
A tireless champion for science and reason, Ingersoll was an early advocate for Charles Darwin and is credited with reviving Thomas Paine’s ideas in American intellectual history. He was admired by contemporary leaders from various fields including philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, poet Walt Whitman, inventor Thomas Edison, and General Ulysses S. Grant. Writer Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) was so impressed by Ingersoll that he wrote in a letter, “What an organ is human speech when it is employed by a master!”
Everybody knew him, but he nearly disappeared from history because he defied the conservative religious establishment of the time. A collective sigh of relief from clergy greeted his death in 1899, as he was cheeky and bold in spreading his doubts about superstition and religious mythology far and wide.
“By what right does a man, or an organization of men, or a god, claim to hold a brain in bondage? When a fact can be demonstrated, an appeal to force is unnecessary; when it cannot be demonstrated, an appeal to force is infamous. In the presence of the unknown, all have an equal right to think.”