Robert G. Ingersoll
American · 1833, 1899
Ingersoll was the most prominent and effective advocate for freethought in American history. Where other agnostics wrote, Ingersoll spoke, and he spoke with a combination of wit, warmth, and rhetorical power that no American orator has matched. He made agnosticism respectable and accessible at a time when it was widely regarded as dangerous and immoral. He was, as one contemporary put it, 'the greatest champion of individual liberty and free thought in the history of the republic.'
Robert Green Ingersoll was born in Dresden, New York, in 1833, the son of a Congregationalist minister whose restless theology and frequent moves gave the family little stability but an early education in the power of persuasion. Ingersoll was largely self-educated, reading law while working as a schoolteacher.
During the Civil War he raised and commanded the 11th Regiment Illinois Volunteer Cavalry. He was captured at the Battle of Lexington in 1862 and paroled. After the war he practiced law and served as Illinois Attorney General from 1867 to 1869. His 1876 speech nominating James G. Blaine for president at the Republican National Convention, the famous ‘Plumed Knight’ speech, made him a national figure.
But it was the lecture circuit that made him legendary. In an era when oratory was the dominant form of public entertainment, Ingersoll was the unchallenged master. He spoke to audiences of thousands, sometimes for three hours without notes, on subjects ranging from Shakespeare to the Constitution, from Thomas Paine to the nature of the gods. His freethought lectures, ‘The Gods,’ ‘The Ghosts,’ ‘Some Mistakes of Moses’, drew capacity crowds and outraged clergy in equal measure.
Ingersoll championed abolitionism, women’s suffrage, the separation of church and state, and the scientific method. He opposed capital punishment and racial discrimination. He revived the reputation of Thomas Paine at a time when Paine was widely vilified for his religious views. And he did all of this while maintaining friendships across political lines, earning respect even from those who disagreed with him.
He died in Dobbs Ferry, New York, in July 1899. His work was collected posthumously in the twelve-volume Dresden Edition, published in 1909.
Works in the Library
Robert G. Ingersoll appears in the Freethought Timeline.