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“Light Summer Reading”

No caption

In
this cartoon, Thomas Nast features a self-portrait of himself trying to
keep cool during the sweltering summer heat by using a fan, umbrella,
and iced drink. As the thermometer gauge reaches toward 100°,
steam rises from the drink, paints, and stream, as the cow in the
background cooks to a roast. The artist's ability to cool himself
is impeded by his choice of summer reading material, the recent book by
famed agnostic Robert Ingersoll, Hell ("Is There A
Hell?").Born
in Dresden, New York, in 1833, Robert Ingersoll was the son of a
Congregationalist minister known for his passionate preaching.
During his youth, Ingersoll moved with his widowed father to several
Midwestern states. Although his formal education was limited, he
read widely, especially in the classics. Ingersoll taught school
for two years in Illinois and Tennessee, and then studied law at a law
firm in Marion, Illinois. In 1854, he and his brother, Ebon,
passed the Illinois bar, and within a few years had established a
successful law practice in Peoria, Illinois.
Although
Ingersoll claimed to hate politics, and he never gained public office,
his powerful speaking style made him an effective campaigner for other
politicians. In 1860, he was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate
for Congress before his abolitionist and Unionist views compelled a
switch to the Republican Party during the Civil War. Ingersoll
failed to secure Republican nominations for Congress in 1864 and 1866
and for the Illinois governorship in 1868.
At
the onset of the Civil War, Ingersoll raised and commanded the 11th
Regiment of the Illinois Volunteer Cavalry. He saw action at the
Battle of Shiloh (April 6-7, 1862), but was later captured on December
18. When a prisoner exchange was not forthcoming, he resigned from
the Union Army on June 30, 1863, and was allowed to return to
Illinois. In 1864, Ingersoll campaigned for Republican candidates,
including his brother, Ebon, who was elected to Congress.
After
the war, Ingersoll backed the Reconstruction policies of the Radical
Republicans, and during the 1866 elections, he gained national fame as a
leading stump speaker. While still an aspirant for public office,
he hid his religious skepticism in rhetoric extolling liberty and
progress as the objects of his devotion: "Human Liberty is
the shrine at which I worship. Progress is the religion in which I
believe." But by 1872, in a speech called "The Gods," Ingersoll
was arguing that all forms of divinity were human constructions, and he was
soon taking pride in labeling himself a "heretic" and
"infidel."
During
the 1870s and 1880s, Ingersoll was one of the most prominent lawyers in
the United States, defending federal government officials implicated in
the Whiskey Ring
and Star Route
scandals. At
the 1876 Republican National Convention, he delivered a rousing speech
nominating Senator James Blaine for president. The silver-tongued
orator dubbed Blaine “a plumed knight" for defending both the
Union cause as a Civil War congressman and, more recently, the
senator’s own reputation against scandalmongers. After
Blaine lost, Ingersoll campaigned enthusiastically for the Republican
nominee, Governor Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio. In 1877, religious
groups prevented President Hayes from naming Ingersoll as U.S. minister
to Germany.
Although
Ingersoll expressed the possibility of human immortality in a eulogy for
his brother in 1879, he continued to speak and publish as the nation's
foremost agnostic. In an age when the American political and
public cultures were permeated by religious talk, he attracted attention
as a sort of village atheist writ large, collecting large fees as a
popular public lecturer. Besides "Hell" (1878; in which
he denied its existence), Ingersoll's orations include, "Some
Mistakes of Moses" (1880), "The Great Infidels" (1881),
"Myth and Miracle" (1885), and "Why I Am an
Agnostic" (1896). He died in New York City in 1899, and his
family insisted he did not renounce his religious skepticism.
Robert C. Kennedy
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