Title : The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 09 (of 12)
Author : Robert Green Ingersoll
Release date
: February 9, 2012 [eBook #38809]
Most recently updated: November 16, 2012
Language : English
Credits : Produced by David Widger
AN ADDRESS TO THE COLORED PEOPLE.
COOPER UNION SPEECH, NEW YORK.
ADDRESS TO THE 86TH ILLINOIS REGIMENT.
THE CHICAGO AND NEW YORK GOLD SPEECH.
AN ADDRESS TO THE COLORED PEOPLE.
(1867.)
Slavery and its Justification by Law and Religion—Its Destructive
Influence upon Nations—Inauguration of the Modern Slave Trade by the
Portuguese Gonzales—Planted upon American Soil—The Abolitionists,
Clarkson, Wilberforce, and Others—The Struggle in England—Pioneers
in San Domingo, Oge and Chevannes—Early Op-posers of Slavery in
America—William Lloyd Garrison—Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, John
Brown—The Fugitive Slave Law—The Emancipation Proclamation—Dread of
Education in the South—Advice to the Colored People.
(1868.)
Suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus—Precedent Established by the
Revolutionary Fathers—Committees of Safety appointed by the
Continental Congress—Arrest of Disaffected Persons in Pennsylvania
and Delaware—Interference with Elections—Resolution of Continental
Congress with respect to Citizens who Opposed the sending of Deputies
to the Convention of New York—Penalty for refusing to take Continental
Money or Pray for the American Cause—Habeas Corpus Suspended during the
Revolution—Interference with Freedom of the Press—Negroes Freed and
allowed to Fight in the Continental Army—Crispus Attacks—An Abolition
Document issued by Andrew Jackson—Majority rule—Slavery and the
Rebellion—Tribute to General Grant.
SPEECH NOMINATING BLAINE.
(1876.)
Note descriptive of the Occasion—Demand of the Republicans of the
United States—Resumption—The Plumed Knight.
(1876.)
One Hundred Years ago, our Fathers retired the Gods from Politics—The
Declaration of Independence—Meaning of the Declaration—The Old Idea
of the Source of Political Power—Our Fathers Educated by their
Surroundings—The Puritans—Universal Religious Toleration declared by
the Catholics of Maryland—Roger Williams—Not All of our Fathers in
favor of Independence—Fortunate Difference in Religious Views—Secular
Government—Authority derived from the People—The Declaration and
the Beginning of the War—What they Fought For—Slavery—Results of
a Hundred Years of Freedom—The Declaration Carried out in Letter and
Spirit.
(1876.)
The Hayes Campaign—Reasons for Voting the Republican Ticket—Abolition
of Slavery—Preservation of the Union—Reasons for Not Trusting the
Democratic Party—Record of the Republican Party—Democrats Assisted
the South—Paper Money—Enfranchisement of the Negroes—Samuel J.
Tilden—His Essay on Finance.
COOPER UNION SPEECH, NEW YORK.
COOPER UNION SPEECH, NEW YORK.
(1876.)
All Citizens Stockholders in the United States of America—The
Democratic Party a Hungry Organization—Political Parties
Contrasted—The Fugitive Slave Law a Disgrace to Hell in its Palmiest
Days—Feelings of the Democracy Hurt on the Subject of Religion—Defence
of Slavery in a Resolution of the Presbyterians, South—State of the
Union at the Time the Republican Party was Born—Jacob Thompson—The
National Debt—Protection of Citizens Abroad—Tammany Hall: Its Relation
to the Penitentiary—The Democratic Party of New York City—"What
Hands!"—Free Schools.
(1876.)
Address to the Veteran Soldiers of the Rebellion—Objections to
the Democratic Party—The Men who have been Democrats—Why I am a
Republican—Free Labor and Free Thought—A Vision of War—Democratic
Slander of the Greenback—Shall the People who Saved the Country Rule
It?—On Finance—Government Cannot Create Money—The Greenback Dollar
a Mortgage upon the Country—Guarantees that the Debt will be Paid-'The
Thoroughbred and the Mule—The Column of July, Paris—The Misleading
Guide Board, the Dismantled Mill, and the Place where there had been a
Hotel,
(1876.)
The Plea of "Let Bygones be Bygones"—Passport of the Democratic
Party—Right of the General Government to send Troops into Southern
States for the Protection of Colored People—Abram S. Hewitt's
Congratulatory Letter to the Negroes—The Demand for Inflation of the
Currency—Record of Rutherford B. Hayes—Contrasted with Samuel J.
Tilden—Merits of the Republican Party—Negro and Southern White—The
Superior Man—"No Nation founded upon Injustice can Permanently Stand."
(1877.)
On the Electoral Commission—Reminiscences of the Hayes-Tilden Camp—
Constitution of the Electoral College—Characteristics of the Members—
Frauds at the Ballot Box Poisoning the Fountain of Power—Reforms
Suggested—Elections too Frequent—The Professional Office-seeker—A
Letter on Civil Service Reform—Young Men Advised against Government
Clerkships—Too Many Legislators and too Much Legislation—Defect in the
Constitution as to the Mode of Electing a President—Protection of
Citizens by State and General Governments—The Dual Government in South
Carolina—Ex-Rebel Key in the President's Cabinet—Implacables and
Bourbons South and North—"I extend to you each and all the Olive Branch
of Peace."
(1878.)
Capital and Labor—What is a Capitalist?—The Idle and the Industrious
Artisans—No Conflict between Capital and Labor—A Period of Inflation
and Speculation—Life and Fire Insurance Agents—Business done on
Credit—The Crash, Failure, and Bankruptcy—Fall in the Price of Real
Estate a Form of Resumption—Coming back to Reality—Definitions of
Money Examined—Not Gold and Silver but Intelligent Labor the Measure
of Value—Government cannot by Law Create Wealth—A Bill of Fare not
a Dinner—Fiat Money—American Honor Pledged to the Maintenance of the
Greenbacks—The Cry against Holders of Bonds—Criminals and Vagabonds to
be supported—Duty of Government to Facilitate Enterprise—More Men must
Cultivate the Soil—Government Aid for the Overcoming of Obstacles too
Great for Individual Enterprise—The Palace Builders the Friends of
Labor—Extravagance the best Form of Charity—Useless to Boost a Man
who is not Climbing—The Reasonable Price for Labor—The Vagrant and his
strange and winding Path—What to tell the Working Men.
(1880.)
The Right to Vote—All Women who desire the Suffrage should have
It—Shall the People of the District of Columbia Manage their Own
Affairs—Their Right to a Representative in Congress and an Electoral
Vote—Anomalous State of Affairs at the Capital of the Republic—Not the
Wealthy and Educated alone should Govern—The Poor as Trustworthy as the
Rich—Strict Registration Laws Needed.
(1880.)
Obligation of New York to Protect the Best Interests of the
Country—Treason and Forgery of the Democratic Party in its Appeal to
Sword and Pen—The One Republican in the Penitentiary of Maine—The
Doctrine of State Sovereignty—Protection for American Brain and
Muscle—Hancock on the Tariff—A Forgery (the Morey letter) Committed
and upheld—The Character of James A. Garfield.
(1880.)
Introduced by Henry Ward Beecher (note)—Some Patriotic
Democrats—Freedom of Speech North and South—An Honest Ballot—
ADDRESS TO THE 86TH ILLINOIS REGIMENT.
THE CHICAGO AND NEW YORK GOLD SPEECH.
* An address delivered to the colored people at Galesburg,
Illinois, 1867.
FELLOW-CITIZENS—Slavery has in a thousand forms existed in all ages, and among all people. It is as old as theft and robbery.
Every nation has enslaved its own people, and sold its own flesh and blood. Most of the white race are in slavery to-day. It has often been said that any man who ought to be free, will be. The men who say this should remember that their own ancestors were once cringing, frightened, helpless slaves.
When they became sufficiently educated to cease enslaving their own people, they then enslaved the first race they could conquer. If they differed in religion, they enslaved them. If they differed in color, that was sufficient. If they differed even in language, it was enough. If they were captured, they then pretended that having spared their lives, they had the right to enslave them. This argument was worthless. If they were captured, then there was no necessity for killing them. If there was no necessity for killing them, then they had no right to kill them. If they had no right to kill them, then they had no right to enslave them under the pretence that they had saved their lives.
Every excuse that the ingenuity of avarice could devise was believed to be a complete justification, and the great argument of slaveholders in all countries has been that slavery is a divine institution, and thus stealing human beings has always been fortified with a "Thus saith the Lord."
Slavery has been upheld by law and religion in every country. The word Liberty is not in any creed in the world. Slavery is right according to the law of man, shouted the judge. It is right according to the law of God, shouted the priest. Thus sustained by what they were pleased to call the law of God and man, slaveholders never voluntarily freed the slaves, with the exception of the Quakers. The institution has in all ages been clung to with the tenacity of death; clung to until it sapped and destroyed the foundations of society; clung to until all law became violence; clung to until virtue was a thing only of history; clung to until industry folded its arms—until commerce reefed every sail—until the fields were desolate and the cities silent, except where the poor free asked for bread, and the slave for mercy; clung to until the slave forging the sword of civil war from his fetters drenched the land in the master's blood. Civil war has been the great liberator of the world.
Slavery has destroyed every nation that has gone down to death. It caused the last vestige of Grecian civilization to disappear forever, and it caused Rome to fall with a crash that shook the world. After the disappearance of slavery in its grossest forms in Europe, Gonzales pointed out to his countrymen, the Portuguese, the immense profits that they could make by stealing Africans, and thus commenced the modern slave-trade—that aggregation of all horror—that infinite of all cruelty, prosecuted only by demons, and defended only by fiends. And yet the slave-trade has been defended and sustained by every civilized nation, and by each and all has been baptized "Legitimate commerce," in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost:
It was even justified upon the ground that it tended to Christianize the negro.
It was of the poor hypocrites who had used this argument that Whittier said,
"They bade the slaveship speed from coast to coast,
Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost."
Backed and supported by such Christian and humane arguments slavery was planted upon our soil in 1620, and from that day to this it has been the cause of all our woes, of all the bloodshed—of all the heart-burnings—hatred and horrors of more than two hundred years, and yet we hated to part with the beloved institution. Like Pharaoh we would not let the people go. He was afflicted with vermin, with frogs—with water turned to blood—with several kinds of lice, and yet would not let the people go. We were afflicted with worse than all these combined—the Northern Democracy—before we became grand enough to say, "Slavery shall be eradicated from the soil of the Republic." When we reached this sublime moral height we were successful. The Rebellion was crushed and liberty established.
A majority of the civilized world is for freedom—nearly all the Christian denominations are for liberty. The world has changed—the people are nobler, better and purer than ever.
Every great movement must be led by heroic and self-sacrificing pioneers. In England, in Christian England, the soul of the abolition cause was Thomas Clarkson. To the great cause of human freedom he devoted his life. He won over the eloquent and glorious Wilberforce, the great Pitt, the magnificent orator, Burke, and that far-seeing and humane statesman, Charles James Fox.
In 1788 a resolution was introduced in the House of Commons declaring that the slave trade ought to be abolished. It was defeated. Learned lords opposed it. They said that too much capital was invested by British merchants in the slave-trade. That if it were abolished the ships would rot at the wharves, and that English commerce would be swept from the seas. Sanctified Bishops—lords spiritual—thought the scheme fanatical, and various resolutions to the same effect were defeated.
The struggle lasted twenty years, and yet during all those years in which England refused to abolish the hellish trade, that nation had the impudence to send missionaries all over the world to make converts to a religion that in their opinion, at least, allowed man to steal his brother man—that allowed one Christian to rob another of his wife, his child, and of that greatest of all blessings—his liberty. It was not until the year 1808 that England was grand and just enough to abolish the slave-trade, and not until 1833 that slavery was abolished in all her colonies.
The name of Thomas Clarkson should be remembered and honored through all coming time by every black man, and by every white man who loves liberty and hates cruelty and injustice.
Clarkson, Wilberforce, Pitt, Fox, Burke, were the Titans that swept the accursed slaver from that highway—the sea.
In St. Domingo the pioneers were Oge and Chevannes; they headed a revolt; they were unsuccessful, but they roused the slaves to resistance. They were captured, tried, condemned and executed. They were made to ask forgiveness of God, and of the King, for having attempted to give freedom to their own flesh and blood. They were broken alive on the wheel, and left to die of hunger and pain. The blood of these martyrs became the seed of liberty; and afterward in the midnight assault, in the massacre and pillage, the infuriated slaves shouted their names as their battle-cry, until Toussaint, the greatest of the blacks, gave freedom to them all.
In the United States, among the Revolutionary fathers, such men as John Adams, and his son John Quincy—such men as Franklin and John Jay were opposed to the institution of slavery. Thomas Jefferson said, speaking of the slaves, "When the measure of their tears shall be full—when their groans shall have involved heaven itself in darkness—doubtless a God of justice will awaken to their distress, and by diffusing light and liberality among their oppressors, or at length by his exterminating thunder manifest his attention to the things of this world, and that they are not left to the guidance of a blind fatality."
Thomas Paine said, "No man can be happy surrounded by those whose happiness he has destroyed." And a more self-evident proposition was never uttered.
These and many more Revolutionary heroes were opposed to slavery and did what they could to prevent the establishment and spread of this most wicked and terrible of all institutions.
You owe gratitude to those who were for liberty as a principle and not from mere necessity. You should remember with more than gratitude that firm, consistent and faithful friend of your downtrodden race, Wm. Lloyd Garrison. He has devoted his life to your cause. Many years ago in Boston he commenced the publication of a paper devoted to liberty. Poor and despised—friendless and almost alone, he persevered in that grandest and holiest of all possible undertakings. He never stopped, or stayed, or paused until the chain was broken and the last slave could lift his toil-worn face to heaven with the light of freedom shining down upon him, and say, I am a Free Man.
You should not forget that noble philanthropist, Wendell Phillips, and your most learned and eloquent defender, Charles Sumner.
But the real pioneer in America was old John Brown. Moved not by prejudice, not by love of his blood, or his color, but by an infinite love of Liberty, of Right, of Justice, almost single-handed, he attacked the monster, with thirty million people against him. His head was wrong. He miscalculated his forces; but his heart was right. He struck the sublimest blow of the age for freedom. It was said of him that, he stepped from the gallows to the throne of God. It was said that he had made the scaffold to Liberty what Christ had made the cross to Christianity. The sublime Victor Hugo declared that John Brown was greater than Washington, and that his name would live forever.
I say, that no man can be greater than the man who bravely and heroically sacrifices his life for the good of others. No man can be greater than the one who meets death face to face, and yet will not shrink from what he believes to be his highest duty. If the black people want a patron saint, let them take the brave old John Brown. And as the gentleman who preceded me said, at all your meetings, never separate until you have sung the grand song,
"John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave,
But his soul goes marching on."
You do not, in my opinion, owe a great debt of gratitude to many of the white people.
Only a few years ago both parties agreed to carry out the Fugitive Slave Law. If a woman ninety-nine one-hundredths white had fled from slavery—had traveled through forests, crossed rivers, and through countless sufferings had got within one step of Canada—of free soil—with the light of the North Star shining in her eyes, and her babe pressed to her withered breast, both parties agreed to clutch her and hand her back to the dominion of the hound and lash. Both parties, as parties, were willing to do this when the Rebellion commenced.
The truth is, we had to give you your liberty. There came a time in the history of the war when, defeated at the ballot box and in the field—driven to the shattered gates of eternal chaos—we were forced to make you free; and on the first day of January, 1863, the justice so long delayed was done, and four millions of people were lifted from the condition of beasts of burden to the sublime heights of freedom. Lincoln, the immortal, issued, and the men of the North sustained the great proclamation.
As in the war there came a time when we were forced to make you free, so in the history of reconstruction came a time when we were forced to make you citizens; when we were forced to say that you should vote, and that you should have and exercise all the rights that we claim for ourselves.
And to-day I am in favor of giving you every right that I claim for myself.
In reconstructing the Southern States, we could take our choice, either give the ballot to the negro, or allow the rebels to rule. We preferred loyal blacks to disloyal whites, because we believed liberty safer in the hands of its friends than in those of its foes.
We must be for freedom everywhere. Freedom is progress—slavery is desolation, cruelty and want.
Freedom invents—slavery forgets. The problem of the slave is to do the least work in the longest space of time. The problem of free men is to do the greatest amount of work in the shortest space of time. The free man, working for wife and children, gets his head and his hands in partnership.
Freedom has invented every useful machine, from the lowest to the highest, from the simplest to the most complex. Freedom believes in education—the salvation of slavery is ignorance.
The South always dreaded the alphabet. They looked upon each letter as an abolitionist, and well they might. With a scent keener than their own bloodhounds they detected everything that could, directly or indirectly, interfere with slavery. They knew that when slaves begin to think, masters begin to tremble. They knew that free thought would destroy them; that discussion could not be endured; that a free press would liberate every slave; and so they mobbed free thought, and put an end to free discussion and abolished a free press, and in fact did all the mean and infamous things they could, that slavery might live, and that liberty might perish from among men.
You are now citizens of many of the States, and in time you will be of all. I am astonished when I think how long it took to abolish the slave-trade, how long it took to abolish slavery in this country. I am also astonished to think that a few years ago magnificent steamers went down the Mississippi freighted with your fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters, and maybe some of you, bound like criminals, separated from wives, from husbands, every human feeling laughed at and outraged, sold like beasts, carried away from homes to work for another, receiving for pay only the marks of the lash upon the naked back. I am astonished at these things. I hate to think that all this was done under the Constitution of the United States, under the flag of my country, under the wings of the eagle.
The flag was not then what it is now. It was a mere rag in comparison. The eagle was a buzzard, and the Constitution sanctioned the greatest crime of the world.
I wonder that you—the black people—have forgotten all this. I wonder that you ask a white man to address you on this occasion, when the history of your connection with the white race is written in your blood and tears—is still upon your flesh, put there by the branding-iron and the lash.
I feel like asking your forgiveness for the wrongs that my race has inflicted upon yours. If, in the future, the wheel of fortune should take a turn, and you should in any country have white men in your power, I pray you not to execute the villainy we have taught you.
One word in conclusion. You have your liberty—use it to benefit your race. Educate yourselves, educate your children, send teachers to the South. Let your brethren there be educated. Let them know something of art and science. Improve yourselves, stand by each other, and above all be in favor of liberty the world over.
The time is coming when you will be' allowed to be good and useful citizens of the Great Republic. This is your country as much as it is mine. You have the same rights here that I have—the same interest that I have. The avenues of distinction will be open to you and your children. Great advances have been made. The rebels are now opposed to slavery—the Democratic party is opposed to slavery, as they say . There is going to be no war of races. Both parties want your votes in the South, and there will be just enough negroes without principle to join the rebels to make them think they will get more, and so the rebels will treat the negroes well. And the Republicans will be sure to treat them well in order to prevent any more joining the rebels.
The great problem is solved. Liberty has solved it—and there will be no more slavery. On the old flag, on every fold and on every star will be liberty for all, equality before the law. The grand people are marching forward, and they will not pause until the earth is without a chain, and without a throne.
* Hon. Robert G. Ingersoll, Attorney-General of Illinois,
spoke at the Rink last night to a large and appreciative
audience among whom were many ladies. The distinguished
speaker was escorted to the Rink by the battalion of the
Fighting Boys in Blue. Col. Ingersoll spoke at a great
disadvantage in having so large a hall to fill, but he has a
splendid voice and so overcame the difficulty. The audience
liberally applauded the numerous passages of eloquence and
humor in Col. Ingersoll's speeeh, and listened with the best
attention to his powerful argument, nor could they have done
otherwise, for the speaker has a national reputation and did
himself full justice last night—The Journal, Indianapolis,
Indiana, September 23, 1868.
GRANT CAMPAIGN
THE Democratic party, so-called, have several charges which they make against the Republican party. They give us a variety of reasons why the Republican party should no longer be entrusted with the control of this country. Among other reasons they say that the Republican party during the war was guilty of arresting citizens without due process of law—that we arrested Democrats and put them in jail without indictment, in Lincoln bastiles, without making an affidavit before a Justice of the Peace—that on some occasions we suspended the writ of habeas corpus , that we put some Democrats in jail without their being indicted. I am sorry we did not put more. I admit we arrested some of them without an affidavit filed before a Justice of the Peace. I sincerely regret that we did not arrest more. I admit that for a few hours on one or two occasions we interfered with the freedom of the press; I sincerely regret that the Government allowed a sheet to exist that did not talk on the side of this Government.
I admit that we did all these things.
It is only proper and fair that we should answer these charges. Unless the Republican party can show that they did these things either according to the strict letter of law, according to the highest precedent, or from the necessity of the case, then we must admit that our party did wrong. You know as well as I that every Democratic orator talks about the fathers, about Washington and Jackson, Madison, Jefferson, and many others; they tell us about the good old times when politicians were pure, when you could get justice in the courts, when Congress was honest, when the political parties differed, and differed kindly and honestly; and they are shedding crocodile tears day after day—praying that the good old honest times might return again. They tell you that the members of this radical party are nothing like the men of the Revolution. Let us see.
I lay this down as a proposition, that we had a right to do anything to preserve this Government that our fathers had a right to do to found it. If they had a right to put Tories in jail, to suspend the writ of habeas corpus , and on some occasions corpus , in order to found this Government, we had a right to put rebels and Democrats in jail and to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in order to preserve the Government they thus formed. If they had a right to interfere with the freedom of the press in order that liberty might be planted upon this soil, we had a right to do the same thing to prevent the tree from being destroyed. In a word, we had a right to do anything to preserve this Government which they had a right to do to found it.
Did our fathers arrest Tories without writs, without indictments—did they interfere with the personal rights of Tories in the name of liberty—did they have Washington bastiles, did they have Jefferson jails—did they have dungeons in the time of the Revolution in which they put men that dared talk against this country and the liberties of the colonies? I propose to show that they did—that where we imprisoned one they imprisoned a hundred—that where we interfered with personal liberty once they did it a hundred times—that they carried on a war that was a war—that they knew that when an appeal was made to force that was the end of law—that they did not attempt to gain their liberties through a Justice of the Peace or through a Grand Jury; that they appealed to force and the God of battles, and that any man who sought their protection and at the same time was against them and their cause they took by the nape of the neck and put in jail, where he ought to have been.
The old Continental Congress in 1774 and 1776 had made up their minds that we ought to have something like liberty in these colonies, and the first step they took toward securing that end was to provide for the selection of a committee in every county and township, with a view to examining and finding out how the people stood touching the liberty of the colonies, and if they found a man that was not in favor of it, the people would not have anything to do with him politically, religiously, or socially. That was the first step they took, and a very sensible step it was.
What was the next step? They found that these men were so lost to every principle of honor that they did not hurt them any by disgracing them.
So they passed the following resolution which explains itself:
Resolved . That it be recommended to the several provincial assemblies or conventions or councils, or committees of safety, to arrest and secure every person in their respective colonies whose going at large, may, in their opinion, endanger the safety of the colony or the liberties of America.—Journal of Congress, vol. 1, page 149.
What was the Committee of Safety? Was it a Justice of the Peace? No. Was it a Grand Jury? No. It was simply a committee of five or seven persons, more or less, appointed to watch over the town or county and see that these Tories were attending to their business and not interfering with the rights of the colonies. Whom were they to thus arrest and secure? Every man that had committed murder—that had taken up arms against America, or voted the Democratic or Tory ticket? No. "Every person whose going at large might in their opinion, endanger the safety of the colony or the liberties of America." It was not necessary that they had committed any overt act, but if in the opinion of this council of safety, it was dangerous to let them run at large they were locked up. Suppose that we had done that during the last war? You would have had to build several new jails in this county. What a howl would have gone up all over this State if we had attempted such a thing as that, and yet we had a perfect right to do anything to preserve our liberties, which our fathers had a right to do to obtain them.
What more did they do? In 1777 the same Congress that signed the immortal Declaration of Independence (and I think they knew as much about liberty and the rights of men as any Democrat in Marion county) adopted another resolution:
Resolved . That it be recommended to the Executive powers of the several States, forthwith to apprehend and secure all persons who have in their general conduct and conversation evinced a disposition inimical to the cause of America, and that the persons so seized be confined in such places and treated in such manner as shall be consistent with their several characters and security of their persons.—-Journal of Congress, vol. 2, p. 246.
If they had talked as the Democrats talked during the late war—if they had called the soldiers, "Washington hirelings," and if when they allowed a few negroes to help them fight, had branded the struggle for liberty as an abolition war, they would be "apprehended and confined in such places and treated in such manner as was consistent with their characters and security of their persons," and yet all they did was to show a disposition inimical to the independence of America. If we had pursued a policy like that during the late war, nine out of ten of the members of the Democratic party would have been in jail—there would not have been jails and prisons enough on the face of the whole earth to hold them. .
Now, when a Democrat talks to you about Lincoln bastiles, just quote this to him:
Whereas , The States of Pennsylvania and Delaware are threatened with an immediate invasion from a powerful army, who have already landed at the head of Chesapeake Bay; and whereas, The principles of sound policy and self-preservation require that persons who may be reasonably suspected of aiding or abetting the cause of the enemy may be prevented from pursuing measures injurious to the general weal,
Resolved , That the executive authorities of the States of Pennsylvania and Delaware be requested to cause all persons within their respective States, notoriously disaffected, to be apprehended, disarmed and secured until such time as the respective States think they may be released without injury to the common cause.—-Journal of Congress, vol. 2, p. 240.
That is what they did with them. When there was an invasion threatened the good State of Indiana, if we had said we will imprison all men who by their conduct and conversation show that they are inimical to our cause, we would have been obliged to import jails and corral Democrats as we did mules in the army. Our fathers knew that the flag was never intended to protect any man who wanted to assail it.
What more did they do? There was a man by the name of David Franks, who wrote a letter and wanted to send it to England. In that letter he gave it as his opinion that the colonies were becoming disheartened and sick of the war. The heroic and chivalric fathers of the Revolution violated the mails, took the aforesaid letter and then they took the aforesaid David Franks by the collar and put him in jail. Then they passed a resolution in Congress that inasmuch as the said letter showed a disposition inimical to the liberties of the United States, Major General Arnold be requested to cause the said David Franks to be forthwith arrested, put in jail and confined till the further order of Congress. (Jour. Cong., vol. 3, p. 96 and 97.)
How many Democrats wrote letters during the war declaring that the North never could conquer the South? How many wrote letters to the soldiers in the army telling them to shed no more fraternal blood in that suicidal and unchristian war? It would have taken all the provost marshals in the United States to arrest the Democrats in Indiana who were guilty of that offence. And yet they are talking about our fathers being such good men, while they are cursing us fordoing precisely what they did, only to a less extent than they did.
We are still on the track of the old Continental Congress. I want you to understand the spirit that animated those men. They passed a resolution which is particularly applicable to the Democrats during the war:
With respect to all such unworthy Americans as, regardless of their duty to their Creator, their country, and their posterity, have taken part with our oppressors, and, influenced by the hope or possession of ignominious rewards, strive to recommend themselves to the bounty of the administration by misrepresenting and traducing the conduct and principles of the friends of American liberty, and opposing every measure formed for its preservation and security,
Resolved , That it be recommended to the different assemblies, conventions and committees or councils of safety in the United Colonies, by the most speedy and effectual measures, to frustrate the mischievous machinations and restrain the wicked practices of these men. And it is the opinion of this Congress that they ought to be disarmed and the more dangerous among them either kept in safe custody or bound with sufficient sureties for their good behavior.
And in order that the said assemblies, conventions, committees or councils of safety may be enabled with greater ease and facility to carry this resolution into execution,
Resolved , That they be authorized to call to their aid whatever Continental troops stationed in or near their respective colonies that may be conveniently spared from their more immediate duties, and commanding officers of such troops are hereby directed to afford the said assemblies, conventions, committees or councils of safety, all such assistance in executing this resolution as they may require, and which, consistent with the good of the service, may be supplied—Journal of Congress, vol. i, p. 22,
Do you hear that, Democrat? The old Continental Congress said to these committees and councils of safety: "Whenever you want to arrest any of these scoundrels, call on the Continental troops." And General Washington, the commander-in-chief of the army, and the officers under him, were directed to aid in the enforcement of all the measures adopted with reference to disaffected and dangerous persons. And what had these persons done? Simply shown by their conversation, and letters directed to their friends, that they were opposed to the cause of American liberty. They did not even spare the Governors of States. They were not appalled by any official position that a Tory might hold. They simply said, "If you are not in favor of American liberty, we will put you 'where the dogs won't bite you.'" One of these men was Governor Eden of Maryland. Congress passed a resolution requesting the Council of Safety of Maryland to seize and secure his person and papers, and send such of them as related to the American dispute to Congress without delay. At the same time the person and papers of another man, one Alexander Ross, were seized in the same manner. Ross was put in jail, and his papers transmitted to Congress.
There was a fellow by the name of Parke and another by the name of Morton, who presumed to undertake a journey from Philadelphia to New York without getting a pass. Congress ordered them to be arrested and imprisoned until further orders. They did not wait to have an affidavit filed before a Justice of the Peace. They took them by force and put them in jail, and that was the end of it. So much for the policy of the fathers, in regard to arbitrary arrests.
During the war there was a great deal said about our occasionally interfering with the elections. Let us see how the fathers stood upon that question.
They held a convention in the State of New York in Revolutionary times, and there were some gentlemen in Queens County that were playing the role of Kentucky—they were going to be neutral—they refused to vote to send deputies to the convention—they stood upon their dignity just as Kentucky stood upon hers—a small place to stand on, the Lord knows. What did our fathers do with them? They denounced them as unworthy to be American citizens and hardly fit to live. Here is a resolution adopted by the Continental Congress on the 3d of January, 1776:
Resolved , That all such persons in Queens County aforesaid as voted against sending deputies to the present Convention of New York, and named in a list of delinquents in Queens County, published by the Convention of New York, be put out of the protection of the United Colonies, and that all trade and intercourse with them cease; that none of the inhabitants of that county be permitted to travel or abide in any part of these United Colonies out of their said colony without a certificate from the Convention or Committee of Safety of the Colony of New York, setting forth that such inhabitant is a friend of the American cause, and not of the number of those who voted against sending deputies to the said Convention, and that such of the inhabitants as shall be found out of the said county without such certificate, be apprehended and imprisoned three months.
Resolved , That no attorney or lawyer ought to commence, prosecute or defend any action at law of any kind, for any of the said inhabitants of Queens County, who voted against sending deputies to the Convention as aforesaid, and such attorney or lawyer as shall countenance this revolution, are enemies to the American cause, and shall be treated accordingly.
What had they done? Simply voted against sending delegates to the convention, and yet the fathers not only put them out of the protection of law, but prohibited any lawyer from appearing in their behalf in a court. Democrats, don't you wish we had treated you that way during the war?
What more did they do? They ordered a company of troops from Connecticut, and two or three companies from New Jersey, to go into the State of New York, and take away from every person who had voted against sending deputies to the convention, all his arms, and if anybody refused to give up his arms, they put him in jail. Don't you wish you had lived then, my friend Democrat? Don't you wish you had prosecuted the war as our fathers prosecuted the Revolution?
I now want to show you how far they went in this direction. A man by the name of Sutton, who lived on Long Island, had been going around giving his constitutional opinions upon the war. They had him arrested, and went on to resolve that he should be taken from Philadelphia, pay the cost of transportation himself, be put in jail there, and while in jail should board himself. Wouldn't a Democrat have had a hard scramble for victuals if we had carried out that idea? Just see what outrageous and terrible things the fathers did. And why did they do it? Because they saw that in order to establish the liberties of America it was necessary they should take the Tory by the throat just as it was necessary for us to take rebels by the throat during the late war.
They had paper money in those days—shin-plasters—and some of the Democrats of those times had legal doubts about this paper currency. One of these Democrats, Thomas Harriott, was called before a Committee of Safety of New York, and there convicted of having refused to receive in payment the Continental bills. The committee of New York conceiving that he was a dangerous person, informed the Provincial Congress of the facts in the case, and inquired whether Congress thought he ought to go at large. Upon receipt of this information by Congress an order for the imprisonment of the offender was passed, as follows:
Resolved , That the General Committee of the city of New York be requested and authorized, and are hereby requested and authorized to direct that Thomas Harriott be committed to close jail in this city, there to remain until further orders of this Congress.—Amer. Archives, 4th series, vol. 6, P. i, 344.
And yet all that he had done was to refuse to take Continental money. He had simply given his opinion on the legal tender law, just as the Democrats of Indiana did in regard to greenbacks, and as a few circuit judges decided when they declared the Legal Tender Act unconstitutional. It would have been perfectly proper and right that they, every man of them, should be, like Thomas Harriott, "committed to close jail, there to remain until further orders."
Did our forefathers ever interfere with religion? Yes, they did with a preacher by the name of Daniels, because he would not pray for the American cause. He thought he could coax the Lord to beat us. They said to him, "You pray on our side, sir." He would not do it, and so they put him in jail and gave him work enough to pray himself out, and it took him some time to do it. They interfered with a lack of religion. They believed that a Tory or traitor in the pulpit was no better than anybody else. That is the way I have sometimes felt during the war. I have thought that I would like to see some of those white cravatted gentlemen "snaked" right out of the pulpits where they had dared to utter their treason, and set to playing checkers through a grated window.
It is not possible that our fathers ever interfered with the writ of habeas corpus , is it? Yes sir. Our fathers advocated the doctrine that the good of the people is the supreme law of the land. They also advocated the doctrine that in the midst of armies law falls to the ground; the doctrine that when a country is in war it is to be governed by the laws of war. They thought that laws were made for the protection of good citizens, for the punishment of citizens that were bad, when they were not too bad or too numerous; then they threw the law-book down while they took the cannon and whipped the badness out of them; that is the next step, when the stones you throw, and kind words, and grass have failed. They said, why did we not appeal to law? We did; but it did no good. A large portion of the people were up in arms in defiance of law, and there was only one way to put them down, and that was by force of arms; and whenever an appeal is made to force, that force is governed by the law of war.
The fathers suspended the writ in the case of a man who had committed an offence in the State of New York. They sent him to the State of Connecticut to be confined, just as men were sent from Indiana to Fort Lafayette. The attorneys came before the convention of New York to hear the matter inquired into, but the committee of the convention to whom the matter was referred refused to inquire into the original cause of commitment—a direct denial of the authority of the writ. The writ of habeas corpus merely brings the body before the judge that he may inquire why he is imprisoned. They refused to make any such inquiry. Their action was endorsed by the convention and the gentleman was sent to Connecticut and put in jail. They not only did these things in one instance, but in a thousand. They took men from Maryland and put them in prison in Pennsylvania, and they took men from Pennsylvania and confined them in Maryland, Whenever they thought the Tories were so thick at one point that the rascals might possibly be released, they took them somewhere else.
They did not interfere with the freedom of the press, did they? Yes, sir. They found a gentleman who was speaking and writing against the liberties of the colonies, and they just took his paper away from him, and gave it to a man who ran it in the interest of the colonies, using the Tory's type and press. [A voice—That was right.] Right! of course it was right. What right has a newspaper in Indiana to talk against the cause for which your son is laying down his life on the field of battle? What right has any man to make it take thousands of men more to crush a rebellion? What right has any man protected by the American flag to do all in his power to put it in the hands of the enemies of his country? The same right that any man has to be a rascal, a thief and traitor—no other right under heaven. Our fathers had sense enough to see that, and they said, "One gentleman in the rear printing against our noble cause, will cost us hundreds of noble lives at the front." Why have you a right to take a rebel's horse? Because it helps you and weakens the enemy. That is by the law of war. That is the principle upon which they seized the Tory printing press. They had the right to do it. And if I had had the power in this country, no man should have said a word, or written a line, or printed anything against the cause for which the heroic men of the North sacrificed their lives. I would have enriched the soil of this country with him before he should have done it. A man by the name of James Rivington undertook to publish a paper against the country. They would not speak to him; they denounced him, seized his press, and made him ask forgiveness and promise to print no more such stuff before they would let him have his sheet again. No person but a rebel ever thought that was wrong. There is no common sense in going to the field to fight and leaving a man at home to undo all that you accomplish.
Our fathers did not like these Tories, and when the war was over they confiscated their estates—took their land and gave it over to good Union men.
How did they do it? Did they issue summons, and have a trial? No, sir. They did it by wholesale—they did it by resolution, and the estates of hundreds of men were taken from them without their having a day in court or any notice or trial whatever. They said to the Tories: "You cast your fortunes with the other side, let them pay you. The flag you fought against protects the land you owned and it will prevent you from having it." Nor is that all. They ran thousands of them out of the country away up into Nova Scotia, and the old blue-nosed Tories are there yet.
In his letter to Governor Cooke of Rhode Island, Washington enumerates an act of that colony, declaring that "none should speak, write, or act against the proceedings of Congress or their Acts of Assembly, under penalty of being disarmed and disqualified from holding any office, and being further punished by imprisonment," as one that met his approbation, and which should exist in other colonies. There is the doctrine for you Democrats. So I could go on by the hour or by the day. I could show you how they made domiciliary visits, interfered with travel, imprisoned without any sort of writ or affidavit—in other words, did whatever they thought was necessary to whip the enemy and establish their independence.
What next do they charge against us? That we freed negroes. So we did. That we allowed those negroes to fight in the army. Yes, we did, That we allowed them to vote. We did that too. That we have made them citizens. Yes, we have, and what are you Democrats going to do about it?
Now, what did our fathers do? Did they free any of the negroes? Yes, sir. Did they allow any of them to fight in the army? Yes, sir. Did they permit any of them to vote? Yes, sir. Did they make them citizens? Yes, sir. Let us see whether they did or not.
Before we had the present Constitution we had what were called Articles of Confederation. The fourth of those articles provided that every free inhabitant of the colony should be a citizen. It did not make any difference whether he was white or black; and negroes voted by the side of Washington and Jefferson. Just here the question arises, if negroes were good enough in 1787 and 1790 to vote by the side of such men, whether rebels and their sympathizers are good enough now to vote alongside of the negro.
Did they let any of these negroes fight? In 1750, when Massachusetts had slaves, there appeared in the Boston Gazette the following notice:
"Ran away from his master, Wm. Brown, of Framingham, on the 30th September last, a mulatto fellow, about 27 years of age, named Crispus, about 6 feet high, short curly hair, had on a light colored bear-skin coat, brown jacket, new buckskin breeches, blue yarn stockings and check woolen shirt," etc.
This "mulatto fellow" did not come back, and so they advertised the next week and the week following, but still the toes of the blue yarn socks pointed the other way. That was in 1750. 1760 came and 1770, and the people of this continent began to talk about having their liberties. And while wise and thoughtful men were talking about it, making petitions for popular rights and laying them at the foot of the throne, the King's troops were in Boston. One day they marched down King street, on their way to arrest some citizen. The soldiery were attacked by a mob, and at its head was a "mulatto fellow" who shouted "here they are," and it was observed that this "mulatto fellow" was about six feet high—that his knees were nearer together than common, and that he was about 47 years of age. The soldiers fired upon the mob and he fell, shot through with five balls—the first man that led a charge against British aggression—the first martyr whose blood was shed for American liberty upon this soil. They took up that poor corpse, and as it lay in Faneuil Hall it did more honor to the place than did Daniel Webster defending the Fugitive Slave Law.
They allowed him to fight. Would our fathers have been brutal enough, if he had not been killed, to put him back into slavery? No! They would have said that a man who fights for liberty should enjoy it. If a man fights for that flag it shall protect him. Perish forever from the heavens the flag that will not defend its defenders, be they white or black.
Thus our fathers felt. They raised negro troops by the company and the regiment, and gave his liberty to every man that fought for liberty. Not only that, but they allowed them to vote. They voted in the Carolinas, in Tennessee, in New York, in all the New England States. Our fathers had too much decency to act upon the Democratic doctrine.
In the war of 1812, negroes fought at Lake Erie and at New Orleans, and then the fathers, as in the Revolution, were too magnanimous to turn them back into slavery. You need not get mad, my Democratic friends, because you hate Ben. Butler. Let me read you an abolition document.
You will all say it is right; you cannot say anything else when you hear it. Butler, you know, was down in New Orleans, and he made some of those rebels dance a tune that they did not know, and he made them keep pretty good time too:
To the Free Colored Inhabitants of Louisiana:
Through a mistaken policy you have heretofore been deprived of a participation in the glorious struggle for national rights in which our country is engaged. This shall no longer exist. As sons of freedom you are now called upon to defend our most inestimable blessing. As Americans, your country looks with confidence to her adopted children for a valorous support as a faithful return for the advantages enjoyed under her mild and equitable government. As fathers, husbands and brothers you are summoned to rally around the standard of the eagle—to defend all which is dear in existence. Your country, although calling for your exertions, does not wish you to engage in her cause without amply remunerating you for the services rendered. Your intelligent minds can not be led away by false representations. Your love of honor would cause you to despise a man who should attempt to deceive you. In the sincerity of a soldier and the language of truth I address you. To every noble-hearted, generous free man of color volunteering to serve during the present contest and no longer, there will be paid the same bounty in money and lands now received by the white soldiers of the United States, viz: $124 in money and one hundred and sixty acres of land. The noncommissioned officers and privates will also be entitled to the same monthly pay and daily rations and clothing furnished any American soldier.
On enrolling yourselves in companies, the Major General commanding will select officers for your government from your white fellow-citizens. Your non-commissioned officers will be appointed from among yourselves. Due regard will be paid to their feelings as freemen and soldiers. You will not by being associated with white men in the same corps, be exposed to improper companions or unjust sarcasm. As a distinct battalion or regiment pursuing the path of glory, you will undivided receive the applause and gratitude of your countrymen.
To assure you of the sincerity of my intentions and my anxiety to engage your valuable services to our country, I have communicated my wishes to the Governor of Louisiana, who is fully informed as to the manner of enrollment, and give you every necessary information on the subject of this address.
This is a terrible document to a Democrat. Let us look back over it a little. "Through a mistaken policy." We had not sense enough to let the negroes fight during the first part of the war. "As sons of freedom" we had got sense by this time. "Americans." Oh! shocking! Think of calling negroes Americans. "Your country!" Is that not enough to make a Democrat sick? "As fathers, husbands, brothers." Negro brothers. That is too bad. "Your intelligent minds." Now, just think of a negro having an intelligent mind. "Are not to be led away by false representations." Then precious few of them will vote the Democratic ticket. "Your sense of honor will lead you to despise the man who should attempt to deceive you." Then how they will hate the Democratic party. Then he goes on to say that the same bounty, money and land that the white soldiers receive will be paid to these negroes. Not only that, but they are to have the same pay, clothing and rations. Only think of a negro having as much land, as much to eat and as many clothes to wear as a white man. Is not this a vile abolition document? And yet there is not a Democrat in Indiana that dare open his mouth against it, full of negro equality as it is. Now, let us see when and by whom this proclamation was issued. You will find that it is dated, "Headquarters 7th Military District, Mobile, September 21st, 1814," and signed "Andrew Jackson, Major General Commanding."
Oh, you Jackson Democrats. You gentlemen that are descended from Washington and Jackson—great heavens, what a descent! Do you think. Jackson was a Democrat? He generally passed for a good Democrat; yet he issued that abominable abolition proclamation and put negroes on an equality with white men. That is not the worst of it, either; for after he got these negroes into the army he made a speech to them, and what did he say in that speech? Here it is in full:
To the Men of Color:
Soldiers—From the shores of Mobile I called you to arms. I invited you to share in the perils and to divide the glory with your white countrymen. I expected much from you, for I was not uninformed of those qualities which must render you so formidable to an invading foe. I knew that you could endure hunger, thirst, and all the hardships of war. I knew that you loved the land of your nativity, and that like ourselves you had to defend all that is most dear to man. But you surpass my hopes. I have found in you united to these qualities that noble enthusiasm which impels to great deeds. Soldiers, the President of the United States shall be informed of your conduct on the present occasion and the voice of the representatives of the American nation shall applaud your valor as your General now praises your ardor. The enemy is near. His sails cover the lakes. But the brave are united, and if he finds' us contending among ourselves, it will be only for the prize of valor, its noblest reward.
There is negro equality for you. There is the first man since the heroes of the Revolution died that issued a proclamation and put negroes on an equality with white men, and he was as good a Democrat as ever lived in Indiana. I could go on and show where they voted, and who allowed them to vote, but I have said enough on that question, and also upon the question of their fighting in the army, and of their being citizens, and have established, I think conclusively, this:
First . That our fathers, in order to found this Government, arrested men without warrant, indictment or affidavit by the hundred and by the thousand; that we, in order to preserve the Government that they thus founded, arrested a few people without warrant.
Second . That our fathers, for the purpose of founding the Government, suspended the writ of habeas corpus ; that we, for the purpose of preserving the same Government, did the same thing.
Third . That they, for the purpose of inaugurating this Government, interfered with the liberty of the press; that we, on one or two occasions, for the purpose of preserving the Government, interfered with the liberty of the press.
Fourth . That our fathers allowed negroes to fight in order that they might secure the liberties of America; that we, in order to preserve those liberties, allow negroes to fight.
Fifth . That our fathers, out of gratitude to the negroes in the Revolutionary war, allowed them to vote; that we have done the same. That they made them citizens, and we have followed their example.
As far as I have gone, I have shown that the fathers of the Revolution and the War of 1812 set us the example for everything we have done. Now, Mr. Democrat, if you want to curse us, curse them too. Either quit yawping about the fathers, or quit yawping about us.
Now, then, was there any necessity, during this war, to follow the example of our fathers? The question was put to us in 1861: "Shall the majority rule?" and also the balance of that question: "Shall the minority submit?" The minority said they would not. Upon the right of the majority to rule rests the entire structure of our Government. Had we, in 1861, given up that principle, the foundations of our Government would have been totally destroyed. In fact there would have been no Government, even in the North. It is no use to say the majority shall rule if the minority consents. Therefore, if, when a man has been duly elected President, anybody undertakes to prevent him from being President, it is your duty to protect him and enforce submission to the will of the majority. In 1861 we had presented to us the alternative, either to let the great principle that lies at the foundation of our Government go by the board, or to appeal to arms, and to the God of battles, and fight it through.
The Southern people said they were going out of the Union; we implored them to stay, by the common memories of the Revolution, by an apparent common destiny; by the love of man, but they refused to listen to us—rushed past us, and appealed to the arbitrament of the sword; and now I, for one, say by the decision of the sword let them abide.
Now, I want to show how mean the American people were in 1861. The vile and abominable institution of slavery had so corrupted us that we did not know right from wrong. It crept into the pulpit until the sermon became the echo of the bloodhound's bark. It crept upon the bench, and the judge could not tell whether the corn belonged to the man that raised it, or to the fellow that did not, but he rather thought it belonged to the latter. We had lost our sense of justice. Even the people of Indiana were so far gone as to agree to carry out the Fugitive Slave Law. Was it not low-lived and contemptible? We agreed that if we found a woman ninety-nine one hundredths white, who, inspired by the love of liberty, had run away from her masters, and had got within one step of free soil, we would clutch her and bring her back to the dominion of the Democrat, the bloodhound and the lash. We were just mean enough to do it. We used to read that some hundreds of years ago a lot of soldiers would march into a man's house, take him out, tie him to a stake driven into the earth, pile fagots around him, and let the thirsty flames consume him, and all because they differed from him about religion. We said it was horrible; it made our blood run cold to think of it; yet at the same time many a magnificent steamboat floated down the Mississippi with wives and husbands, fragments of families torn asunder, doomed to a life of toil, requited only by lashes upon the naked back, and branding irons upon the quivering flesh, and we thought little of it. When we set out to put down the Rebellion the Democratic party started up all at once and said, "You are not going to interfere with slavery, are you?" Now, it is remarkable that whenever we were going to do a good thing, we had to let on that we were going to do a mean one. If we had said at the outset, "We will break the shackles from four millions of slaves" we never would have succeeded. We had to come at it by degrees. The Democrats scented it out. They had a scent keener than a bloodhound when anything was going to be done to affect slavery. "Put down rebellion," they said, "but don't hurt slavery." We said, "We will not; we will restore the Union as it was and the Constitution as it is." We were in good faith about it. We had no better sense then than to think that it was worth fighting for, to preserve the cause of quarrel—the bone of contention—so as to have war all the time. Every blow we struck for slavery was a blow against us. The Rebellion was simply slavery with a mask on. We never whipped anybody but once so long as we stood upon that doctrine; that was at Donelson; and the victory there was not owing to the policy, but to the splendid genius of the next President of the United States. After a while it got into our heads that slavery was the cause of the trouble, and we began to edge up slowly toward slavery. When Mr. Lincoln said he would destroy slavery if absolutely necessary for the suppression of the Rebellion, people thought that was the most radical thing that ever was uttered. But the time came when it was necessary to free the slaves, and to put muskets into their hands. The Democratic party opposed us with all their might until the draft came, and they wanted negroes for substitutes; and I never heard a Democrat object to arming the negroes after that.
[The speaker from this point presented the history of the
Republican policy of reconstruction, and touched lightly on
the subject of the national debt. He glanced at the
finances, reviewing in the most scathing manner the history
and character of Seymour, paid a most eloquent tribute to
the character and public services of General Grant, and
closed with the following words: ]
The hero of the Rebellion, who accomplished at Shiloh what Napoleon endeavored at Waterloo; who captured Vicksburg by a series of victories unsurpassed, taking the keystone from the rebel arch; who achieved at Missionary Ridge a success as grand as it was unexpected to the country; who, having been summoned from the death-bed of rebellion in the West, marched like an athlete from the Potomac to the James, the grandest march in the history of the world. This was all done without the least flourish upon his part. No talk about destiny—without faith in a star—with the simple remark that he would "fight it out on that line," without a boast, modest to bashfulness, yet brave to audacity, simple as duty, firm as war, direct as truth—this hero, with so much common sense that he is the most uncommon man of his time, will be, in spite of Executive snares and Cabinet entanglements, of competent false witnesses of the Democratic party, the next President of the United States. He will be trusted with the Government his genius saved.
SPEECH AT CINCINNATI.*
* The nomination of Blaine was the passionately dramatic
scene of the day. Robert G. Ingersoll had been fixed upon to
present Blaine's name to the Convention, and, as the result
proved, a more effective champion could not have been
selected in the whole party conclave.
As the clerk, running down the list, reached Maine, an
extraordinary event happened. The applause and cheers which
had heretofore broken out in desultory patches of the
galleries and platform, broke in a simultaneous, thunderous
outburst from every part of the house.
Ingersoll moved out from the obscure corner and advanced to
the central stage. As he walked forward the thundering
cheers, sustained and swelling, never ceased. As he reached
the platform they took on an increased volume of sound, and
for ten minutes the surging fury of acclamation, the wild
waving of fans, hats, and handkerchiefs transformed the
scene from one of deliberation to that of a bedlam of
rapturous delirium. Ingersoll waited with unimpaired
serenity, until he should get a chance to be heard. * * *
And then began an appeal, impassioned, artful, brilliant,
and persuasive. * * *
Possessed of a fine figure, a face of winning, cordial
frankness, Ingersoll had half won his audience before he
spoke a word. It is the attestation of every man that heard
him, that so brilliant a master stroke was never uttered
before a political Convention. Its effect was indescribable.
The coolest-headed in the hall were stirred to the wildest
expression. The adversaries of Blaine, as well as his
friends, listened with unswerving, absorbed attention.
Curtis sat spell-bound, his eyes and mouth wide open, his
figure moving in unison to the tremendous periods that fell
in a measured, exquisitely graduated flow from the
Illinoisan's smiling lips. The matchless method and manner
of the man can never be imagined from the report in type. To
realize the prodigious force, the inexpressible power, the
irrestrainable fervor of the audience requires actual sight.
Words can do but meagre justice to the wizard power of this
extraordinary man. He swayed and moved and impelled and
restrained and worked in all ways with the mass before him
as if he possessed some key to the innermost mechanism that
moves the human heart, and when he finished, his fine, frank
face as calm as when he began, the overwrought thousands
sank back in an exhaustion of unspeakable wonder and
delight.—Chicago Times, June 16, 1876.
SPEECH NOMINATING BLAINE.
June 75, 1876.
MASSACHUSETTS may be satisfied with the loyalty of Benjamin H. Bristow; so am I; but if any man nominated by this convention can not carry the State of Massachusetts, I am not satisfied with the loyalty of that State. If the nominee of this convention cannot carry the grand old Commonwealth of Massachusetts by seventy-five thousand majority, I would advise them to sell out Faneuil Hall as a Democratic headquarters. I would advise them to take from Bunker Hill that old monument of glory.
The Republicans of the United States demand as their leader in the great contest of 1876 a man of intelligence, a man of integrity, a man of well-known and approved political opinions. They demand a statesman; they demand a reformer after as well as before the election. They demand a politician in the highest, broadest and best sense—a man of superb moral courage. They demand a man acquainted with public affairs—with the wants of the people; with not only the requirements of the hour, but with the demands of the future. They demand a man broad enough to comprehend the relations of this Government to the other nations of the earth. They demand a man well versed in the powers, duties and prerogatives of each and every department of this Government. They demand a man who will sacredly preserve the financial honor of the United States; one who knows enough to know that the national debt must be paid through the prosperity of this people; one who knows enough to know that all the financial theories in the world cannot redeem a single dollar; one who knows enough to know that all the money must be made, not by law, but by labor; one who knows enough to know that the people of the United States have the industry to make the money, and the honor to pay it over just as fast as they make it.
The Republicans of the United States demand a man who knows that prosperity and resumption, when they come, must come together; that when they come, they will come hand in hand through the golden harvest fields; hand in hand by the whirling spindles and the turning wheels; hand in hand past the open furnace doors; hand in hand by the flaming forges; hand in hand by the chimneys filled with eager fire, greeted and grasped by the countless sons of toil.
This money has to be dug out of the earth. You cannot make it by passing resolutions in a political convention.
The Republicans of the United States want a man who knows that this Government should protect every citizen, at home and abroad; who knows that any government that will not defend its defenders, and protect its protectors, is a disgrace to the map of the world. They demand a man who believes in the eternal separation and divorcement of church and school. They demand a man whose political reputation is spotless as a star; but they do not demand that their candidate shall have a certificate of moral character signed by a Confederate congress. The man who has, in full, heaped and rounded measure, all these splendid qualifications, is the present grand and gallant leader of the Republican party—James G. Blaine.
Our country, crowned with the vast and marvelous achievements of its first century, asks for a man worthy of the past, and prophetic of her future; asks for a man who has the audacity of genius; asks for a man who is the grandest combination of heart, conscience and brain beneath her flag—such a man is James G. Blaine.
For the Republican host, led by this intrepid man, there can be no defeat.
This is a grand year—a year filled with recollections of the Revolution; filled with proud and tender memories of the past; with the sacred legends of liberty—a year in which the sons of freedom will drink from the fountains of enthusiasm; a year in which the people call for the man who has preserved in Congress what our soldiers won upon the field; a year in which they call for the man who has torn from the throat of treason the tongue of slander—for the man who has snatched the mask of Democracy from the hideous face of rebellion; for the man who, like an intellectual athlete, has stood in the arena of debate and challenged all comers, and who is still a total stranger to defeat.
Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blaine marched down the halls of the American Congress and threw his shining lance full and fair against the brazen foreheads of the defamers of his country and the maligners of his honor. For the Republican party to desert this gallant leader now, is as though an army should desert their general upon the field of battle.
James G. Blaine is now and has been for years the bearer of the sacred standard of the Republican party. I call it sacred, because no human being can stand beneath its folds without becoming and without remaining free.
Gentlemen of the convention, in the name of the great Republic, the only republic that ever existed upon this earth; in the name of all her defenders and of all her supporters; in the name of all her soldiers living; in the name of all her soldiers dead upon the field of battle, and in the name of those who perished in the skeleton clutch of famine at Andersonville and Libby, whose sufferings he so vividly remembers, Illinois—Illinois nominates for the next President of this country, that prince of parliamentarians—that leader of leaders—James G. Blaine.
* Delivered on the one hundredth Anniversary of the
Declaration of Independence, at Peoria, Ill., July 4, 1876.
July 4, 1876.
THE Declaration of Independence is the grandest, the bravest, and the profoundest political document that was ever signed by the representatives of a people. It is the embodiment of physical and moral courage and of political wisdom.
I say of physical courage, because it was a declaration of war against the most powerful nation then on the globe; a declaration of war by thirteen weak, unorganized colonies; a declaration of war by a few people, without military stores, without wealth, without strength, against the most powerful kingdom on the earth; a declaration of war made when the British navy, at that day the mistress of every sea, was hovering along the coast of America, looking after defenceless towns and villages to ravage and destroy. It was made when thousands of English soldiers were upon our soil, and when the principal cities of America were in the substantial possession of the enemy. And so, I say, all things considered, it was the bravest political document ever signed by man. And if it was physically brave, the moral courage of the document is almost infinitely beyond the physical. They had the courage not only, but they had the almost infinite wisdom, to declare that all men are created equal.
Such things had occasionally been said by some political enthusiast in the olden time, but, for the first time in the history of the world, the representatives of a nation, the representatives of a real, living, breathing, hoping people, declared that all men are created equal. With one blow, with one stroke of the pen, they struck down all the cruel, heartless barriers that aristocracy, that priestcraft, that kingcraft had raised between man and man. They struck down with one immortal blow that infamous spirit of caste that makes a god almost a beast, and a beast almost a god. With one word, with one blow, they wiped away and utterly destroyed, all that had been done by centuries of war—centuries of hypocrisy—centuries of injustice.
One hundred years ago our fathers retired the gods from politics.
What more did they do? They then declared that each man has a right to live. And what does that mean? It means that he has the right to make his living. It means that he has the right to breathe the air, to work the land, that he stands the equal of every other human being beneath the shining stars; entitled to the product of his labor—the labor of his hand and of his brain.
What more? That every man has the right to pursue his own happiness in his own way. Grander words than these have never been spoken by man.
And what more did these men say? They laid down the doctrine that governments were instituted among men for the purpose of preserving the rights of the people. The old idea was that people existed solely for the benefit of the state—that is to say, for kings and nobles.
The old idea was that the people were the wards of king and priest—that their bodies belonged to one and their souls to the other.
And what more? That the people are the source of political power. That was not only a revelation, but it was a revolution. It changed the ideas of people with regard to the source of political power. For the first time it made human beings men. What was the old idea? The old idea was that no political power came from, or in any manner belonged to, the people. The old idea was that the political power came from the clouds; that the political power came in some miraculous way from heaven; that it came down to kings, and queens, and robbers. That was the old idea. The nobles lived upon the labor of the people; the people had no rights; the nobles stole what they had and divided with the kings, and the kings pretended to divide what they stole with God Almighty. The source, then, of political power was from above. The people were responsible to the nobles, the nobles to the king, and the people had no political rights whatever, no more than the wild beasts of the forest. The kings were responsible to God; not to the people. The kings were responsible to the clouds; not to the toiling millions they robbed and plundered.
And our forefathers, in this Declaration of Independence, reversed this thing, and said: No; the people, they are the source of political power, and their rulers, these presidents, these kings are but the agents and servants of the great sublime people. For the first time, really, in the history of the world, the king was made to get off the throne and the people were royally seated thereon. The people became the sovereigns, and the old sovereigns became the servants and the agents of the people. It is hard for you and me now to even imagine the immense results of that change. It is hard for you and for me, at this day, to understand how thoroughly it had been ingrained in the brain of almost every man, that the king had some wonderful right over him; that in some strange way the king owned him; that in some miraculous manner he belonged, body and soul, to somebody who rode on a horse—to somebody with epaulettes on his shoulders and a tinsel crown upon his brainless head.
Our forefathers had been educated in that idea, and when they first landed on American shores they believed it. They thought they belonged to somebody, and that they must be loyal to some thief who could trace his pedigree back to antiquity's most successful robber.
It took a long time for them to get that idea out of their heads and hearts. They were three thousand miles away from the despotisms of the old world, and every wave of the sea was an assistant to them. The distance helped to disenchant their minds of that infamous belief, and every mile between them and the pomp and glory of monarchy helped to put republican ideas and thoughts into their minds. Besides that, when they came to this country, when the savage was in the forest and three thousand miles of waves on the other side, menaced by barbarians on the one hand and famine on the other, they learned that a man who had courage, a man who had thought, was as good as any other man in the world, and they built up, as it were, in spite of themselves, little republics. And the man that had the most nerve and heart was the best man, whether he had any noble blood in his veins or not.
It has been a favorite idea with me that our forefathers were educated by Nature, that they grew grand as the continent upon which they landed; that the great rivers—the wide plains—the splendid lakes—the lonely forests—the sublime mountains—that all these things stole into and became a part of their being, and they grew great as the country in which they lived. They began to hate the narrow, contracted views of Europe. They were educated by their surroundings, and every little colony had to be to a certain extent a republic. The kings of the old world endeavored to parcel out this land to their favorites. But there were too many Indians. There was too much courage required for them to take and keep it, and so men had to come here who were dissatisfied with the old country—who were dissatisfied with England, dissatisfied with France, with Germany, with Ireland and Holland. The kings' favorites stayed at home. Men came here for liberty, and on account of certain principles they entertained and held dearer than life. And they were willing to work, willing to fell the forests, to fight the savages, willing to go through all the hardships, perils and dangers of a new country, of a new land; and the consequence was that our country was settled by brave and adventurous spirits, by men who had opinions of their own and were willing to live in the wild forests for the sake of expressing those opinions, even if they expressed them only to trees, rocks, and savage men. The best blood of the old world came to the new.
When they first came over they did not have a great deal of political philosophy, nor the best ideas of liberty. We might as well tell the truth. When the Puritans first came, they were narrow. They did not understand what liberty meant—what religious liberty, what political liberty, was; but they found out in a few years. There was one feeling among them that rises to their eternal honor like a white shaft to the clouds—they were in favor of universal education. Wherever they went they built schoolhouses, introduced books and ideas of literature. They believed that every man should know how to read and how to write, and should find out all that his capacity allowed him to comprehend. That is the glory of the Puritan fathers.
They forgot in a little while what they had suffered, and they forgot to apply the principle of universal liberty—of toleration. Some of the colonies did not forget it, and I want to give credit where credit should be given. The Catholics of Maryland were the first people on the new continent to declare universal religious toleration. Let this be remembered to their eternal honor. Let it be remembered to the disgrace of the Protestant government of England, that it caused this grand law to be repealed. And to the honor and credit of the Catholics of Maryland let it be remembered that the moment they got back into power they re-enacted the old law. The Baptists of Rhode Island also, led by Roger Williams, were in favor of universal religious liberty.
No American should fail to honor Roger Williams. He was the first grand advocate of the liberty of the soul. He was in favor of the eternal divorce of church and state. So far as I know, he was the only man at that time in this country who was in favor of real religious liberty. While the Catholics of Maryland declared in favor of religious toleration , they had no idea of religious liberty. They would not allow anyone to call in question the doctrine of the Trinity, or the inspiration of the Scriptures. They stood ready with branding-iron and gallows to burn and choke out of man the idea that he had a right to think and to express his thoughts.
So many religions met in our country—so many theories and dogmas came in contact—so many follies, mistakes, and stupidities became acquainted with each other, that religion began to fall somewhat into disrepute. Besides this, the question of a new nation began to take precedence of all others.
The people were too much interested in this world to quarrel about the next. The preacher was lost in the patriot. The Bible was read to find passages against kings.
Everybody was discussing the rights of man. Farmers and mechanics suddenly became statesmen, and in every shop and cabin nearly every question was asked and answered.
During these years of political excitement the interest in religion abated to that degree that a common purpose animated men of all sects and creeds.
At last our fathers became tired of being colonists—tired of writing and reading and signing petitions, and presenting them on their bended knees to an idiot king. They began to have an aspiration to form a new nation, to be citizens of a new republic instead of subjects of an old monarchy. They had the idea—the Puritans, the Catholics, the Episcopalians, the Baptists, the Quakers, and a few Freethinkers, all had the idea—that they would like to form a new nation.
Now, do not understand that all of our fathers were in favor of independence. Do not understand that they were all like Jefferson; that they were all like Adams or Lee; that they were all like Thomas Paine or John Hancock. There were thousands and thousands of them who were opposed to American independence. There were thousands and thousands who said: "When you say men are created equal, it is a lie; when you say the political power resides in the great body of the people, it is false." Thousands and thousands of them said: "We prefer Great Britain." But the men who were in favor of independence, the men who knew that a new nation must be born, went on full of hope and courage, and nothing could daunt or stop or stay the heroic, fearless few.
They met in Philadelphia; and the resolution was moved by Lee of Virginia, that the colonies ought to be independent states, and ought to dissolve their political connection with Great Britain.
They made up their minds that a new nation must be formed. All nations had been, so to speak, the wards of some church. The religious idea as to the source of power had been at the foundation of all governments, and had been the bane and curse of man.
Happily for us, there was no church strong enough to dictate to the rest. Fortunately for us, the colonists not only, but the colonies differed widely in their religious views. There were the Puritans who hated the Episcopalians, and Episcopalians who hated the Catholics, and the Catholics who hated both, while the Quakers held them all in contempt. There they were, of every sort, and color and kind, and how was it that they came together? They had a common aspiration. They wanted to form a new nation. More than that, most of them cordially hated Great Britain; and they pledged each other to forget these religious prejudices, for a time at least, and agreed that there should be only one religion until they got through, and that was the religion of patriotism. They solemnly agreed that the new nation should not belong to any particular church, but that it should secure the rights of all.
Our fathers founded the first secular government that was ever founded in this world. Recollect that. The first secular government; the first government that said every church has exactly the same rights and no more; every religion has the same rights, and no more. In other words, our fathers were the first men who had the sense, had the genius, to know that no church should be allowed to have a sword; that it should be allowed only to exert its moral influence.
You might as well have a government united by force with Art, or with Poetry, or with Oratory, as with Religion. Religion should have the influence upon mankind that its goodness, that its morality, its justice, its charity, its reason, and its argument give it, and no more. Religion should have the effect upon mankind that it necessarily has, and no more. The religion that has to be supported by law is without value, not only, but a fraud and curse. The religious argument that has to be supported by a musket, is hardly worth making. A prayer that must have a cannon behind it, better never be uttered. Forgiveness ought not to go in partnership with shot and shell. Love need not carry knives and revolvers.
So our fathers said: "We will form a secular government, and under the flag with which we are going to enrich the air, we will allow every man to worship God as he thinks best." They said: "Religion is an individual thing between each man and his creator, and he can worship as he pleases and as he desires." And why did they do this? The history of the world warned them that the liberty of man was not safe in the clutch and grasp of any church. They had read of and seen the thumbscrews, the racks, and the dungeons of the Inquisition. They knew all about the hypocrisy of the olden time. They knew that the church had stood side by side with the throne; that the high priests were hypocrites, and that the kings were robbers. They also knew that if they gave power to any church, it would corrupt the best church in the world. And so they said that power must not reside in a church, or in a sect, but power must be wherever humanity is—in the great body of the people. And the officers and servants of the people must be responsible to them. And so I say again, as I said in the commencement, this is the wisest, the pro-foundest, the bravest political document that ever was written and signed by man.
They turned, as I tell you, everything squarely about. They derived all their authority from the people. They did away forever with the theological idea of government.
And what more did they say? They said that whenever the rulers abused this authority, this power, incapable of destruction, returned to the people. How did they come to say this? I will tell you. They were pushed into it. How? They felt that they were oppressed; and whenever a man feels that he is the subject of injustice, his perception of right and wrong is wonderfully quickened.
Nobody was ever in prison wrongfully who did not believe in the writ of habeas corpus . Nobody ever suffered wrongfully without instantly having ideas of justice.
And they began to inquire what rights the king of Great Britain had. They began to search for the charter of his authority. They began to investigate and dig down to the bed-rock upon which society must be founded, and when they got down there, forced there, too, by their oppressors, forced against their own prejudices and education, they found at' the bottom of things, not lords, not nobles, not pulpits, not thrones, but humanity and the rights of men.
And so they said, We are men; we are men. They found out they were men. And the next thing they said, was, "We will be free men; we are weary of being colonists; we are tired of being subjects; we are men; and these colonies ought to be states; and these states ought to be a nation; and that nation ought to drive the last British soldier into the sea." And so they signed that brave Declaration of Independence.
I thank every one of them from the bottom of my heart for signing that sublime declaration. I thank them for their courage—for their patriotism—for their wisdom—for the splendid confidence in themselves and in the human race. I thank them for what they were, and for what we are—for what they did, and for what we have received—for what they suffered, and for what we enjoy.
What would we have been if we had remained colonists and subjects? What would we have been to-day? Nobodies—ready to get down on our knees and crawl in the very dust at the sight of somebody that was supposed to have in him some drop of blood that flowed in the veins of that mailed marauder—that royal robber, William the Conqueror.
They signed that Declaration of Independence, although they knew that it would produce a long, terrible, and bloody war. They looked forward and saw poverty, deprivation, gloom, and death. But they also saw, on the wrecked clouds of war, the beautiful bow of freedom.
These grand men were enthusiasts; and the world has been raised only by enthusiasts. In every country there have been a few who have given a national aspiration to the people. The enthusiasts of 1776 were the builders and framers of this great and splendid Government; and they were the men who saw, although others did not, the golden fringe of the mantle of glory that will finally cover this world. They knew, they felt, they believed that they would give a new constellation to the political heavens—that they would make the Americans a grand people—grand as the continent upon which they lived.
The war commenced. There was little money, and less credit. The new nation had but few friends. To a great extent each soldier of freedom had to clothe and feed himself. He was poor and pure, brave and good, and so he went to the fields of death to fight for the rights of man.
What did the soldier leave when he went?
He left his wife and children.
Did he leave them in a beautiful home, surrounded by civilization, in the repose of law, in the security of a great and powerful republic?
No. He left his wife and children on the edge, on the fringe of the boundless forest, in which crouched and crept the red savage, who was at that time the ally of the still more savage Briton. He left his wife to defend herself, and he left the prattling babes to be defended by their mother and by nature. The mother made the living; she planted the corn and the potatoes, and hoed them in the sun, raised the children, and, in the darkness of night, told them about their brave father and the "sacred cause." She told them that in a little while the war would be over and father would come back covered with honor and glory.
Think of the women, of the sweet children who listened for the footsteps of the dead—who waited through the sad and desolate years for the dear ones who never came.
The soldiers of 1776 did not march away with music and banners. They went in silence, looked at and gazed after by eyes filled with tears. They went to meet, not an equal, but a superior—to fight five times their number—to make a desperate stand to stop the advance of the enemy, and then, when their ammunition gave out, seek the protection of rocks, of rivers, and of hills.
Let me say here: The greatest test of courage on the earth is to bear defeat without losing heart. That army is the bravest that can be whipped the greatest number of times and fight again.
Over the entire territory, so to speak, then settled by our forefathers, they were driven again and again. Now and then they would meet the English with something like equal numbers, and then the eagle of victory would proudly perch upon the stripes and stars. And so they went on as best they could, hoping and fighting until they came to the dark and somber gloom of Valley Forge.
There were very few hearts then beneath that flag that did not begin to think that the struggle was useless; that all the blood and treasure had been shed and spent in vain. But there were some men gifted with that wonderful prophecy that fulfills itself, and with that wonderful magnetic power that makes heroes of everybody they come in contact with.
And so our fathers went through the gloom of that terrible time, and still fought on. Brave men wrote grand words, cheering the despondent; brave men did brave deeds, the rich man gave his wealth, the poor man gave his life, until at last, by the victory of Yorktown, the old banner won its place in the air, and became glorious forever.
Seven long years of war—fighting for what? For the principle that all men are created equal—a truth that nobody ever disputed except a scoundrel; nobody, nobody in the entire history of this world. No man ever denied that truth who was not a rascal, and at heart a thief; never, never, and never will. What else were they fighting for? Simply that in America every man should have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Nobody ever denied that except a villain; never, never. It has been denied by kings—they were thieves. It has been denied by statesmen—they were liars. It has been denied by priests, by clergymen, by cardinals, by bishops, and by popes—they were hypocrites.
What else were they fighting for? For the idea that all political power is vested in the great body of the people. The great body of the people make all the money; do all the work. They plow the land, cut down the forests; they produce everything that is produced. Then who shall say what shall be done with what is produced except the producer?
Is it the non-producing thief, sitting on a throne, surrounded by vermin?
Those were the things they were fighting for; and that is all they were fighting for. They fought to build up a new, a great nation; to establish an asylum for the oppressed of the world everywhere. They knew the history of this world. They knew the history of human slavery.
The history of civilization is the history of the slow and painful enfranchisement of the human race. In the olden times the family was a monarchy, the father being the monarch. The mother and children were the veriest slaves. The will of the father was the supreme law. He had the power of life and death. It took thousands of years to civilize this father, thousands of years to make the condition of wife and mother and child even tolerable. A few families constituted a tribe; the tribe had a chief; the chief was a tyrant; a few tribes formed a nation; the nation was governed by a king, who was also a tyrant. A strong nation robbed, plundered, and took captive the weaker ones. This was the commencement of human slavery.
It is not possible for the human imagination to conceive of the horrors of slavery. It has left no possible crime uncommitted, no possible cruelty unperpetrated. It has been practiced and defended by all nations in some form. It has been upheld by all religions. It has been defended by nearly every pulpit. From the profits derived from the slave trade churches have been built, cathedrals reared and priests paid. Slavery has been blessed by bishop, by cardinal, and by pope. It has received the sanction of statesmen, of kings, and of queens. It has been defended by the throne, the pulpit and the bench. Monarchs have shared in the profits. Clergymen have taken their part of the spoils, reciting passages of Scripture in its defence at the same time, and judges have taken their portion in the name of equity and law.
Only a few years ago our ancestors were slaves. Only a few years ago they passed with and belonged to the soil, like the coal under it and rocks on it.
Only a few years ago they were treated like beasts of burden, worse far than we treat our animals at the present day. Only a few years ago it was a crime in England for a man to have a Bible in his house, a crime for which men were hanged, and their bodies afterward burned. Only a few years ago fathers could and did sell their children. Only a few years ago our ancestors were not allowed to speak or write their thoughts—that being a crime. Only a few years ago to be honest, at least in the expression of your ideas, was a felony. To do right was a capital offence; and in those days chains and whips were the incentives to labor, and the preventives of thought. Honesty was a vagrant, justice a fugitive, and liberty in chains. Only a few years ago men were denounced because they doubted the inspiration of the Bible—because they denied miracles, and laughed at the wonders recounted by the ancient Jews.
Only a few years ago a man had to believe in the total depravity of the human heart in order to be respectable. Only a few years ago, people who thought God too good to punish in eternal flames an unbaptized child were considered infamous.
As soon as our ancestors began to get free they began to enslave others. With an inconsistency that defies explanation, they practiced upon others the same outrages that had been perpetrated upon them. As soon as white slavery began to be abolished, black slavery commenced. In this infamous traffic nearly every nation of Europe embarked. Fortunes were quickly realized; the avarice and cupidity of Europe were excited; all ideas of justice were discarded; pity fled from the human breast; a few good, brave men recited the horrors of the trade; avarice was deaf; religion refused to hear; the trade went on; the governments of Europe upheld it in the name of commerce—in the name of civilization and religion.
Our fathers knew the history of caste. They knew that in the despotisms of the Old World it was a disgrace to be useful. They knew that a mechanic was esteemed as hardly the equal of a hound, and far below a blooded horse. They knew that a nobleman held a son of labor in contempt—that he had no rights the royal loafers were bound to respect.
The world has changed.
The other day there came shoemakers, potters, workers in wood and iron, from Europe, and they were received in the city of New York as though they had been princes. They had been sent by the great republic of France to examine into the arts and manufactures of the great republic of America. They looked a thousand times better to me than the Edward Alberts and Albert Edwards—the royal vermin, that live on the body politic. And I would think much more of our Government if it would fete and feast them, instead of wining and dining the imbeciles of a royal line.
Our fathers devoted their lives and fortunes to the grand work of founding a government for the protection of the rights of man. The theological idea as to the source of political power had poisoned the web and woof of every government in the world, and our fathers banished it from this continent forever.
What we want to-day is what our fathers wrote down. They did not attain to their ideal; we approach it nearer, but have not reached it yet. We want, not only the independence of a State, not only the independence of a nation, but something far more glorious—the absolute independence of the individual. That is what we want. I want it so that I, one of the children of Nature, can stand on an equality with the rest; that I can say this is my air, my sunshine, my earth, and I have a right to live, and hope, and aspire, and labor, and enjoy the fruit of that labor, as much as any individual or any nation on the face of the globe.
We want every American to make to-day, on this hundredth anniversary, a declaration of individual independence. Let each man enjoy his liberty to the utmost—enjoy all he can; but be sure it is not at the expense of another. The French Convention gave the best definition of liberty I have ever read: "The liberty of one citizen ceases only where the liberty of another citizen commences." I know of no better definition. I ask you to-day to make a declaration of individual independence. And if you are independent be just. Allow everybody else to make his declaration of individual independence. Allow your wife, allow your husband, allow your children to make theirs. Let everybody be absolutely free and independent, knowing only the sacred obligations of honesty and affection. Let us be independent of party, independent of everybody and everything except our own consciences and our own brains. Do not belong to any clique. Have the clear title-deeds in fee simple to yourselves, without any mortgage on the premises to anybody in the world.
It is a grand thing to be the owner of yourself. It is a grand thing to protect the rights of others. It is a sublime thing to be free and just.
Only a few days ago I stood in Independence Hall—in that little room where was signed the immortal paper. A little room, like any other; and it did not seem possible that from that room went forth ideas, like cherubim and seraphim, spreading their wings over a continent, and touching, as with holy fire, the hearts of men.
In a few moments I was in the park, where are gathered the accomplishments of a century. Our fathers never dreamed of the things I saw. There were hundreds of locomotives, with their nerves of steel and breath of flame—every kind of machine, with whirling wheels and curious cogs and cranks, and the myriad thoughts of men that have been wrought in iron, brass and steel. And going out from one little building were wires in the air, stretching to every civilized nation, and they could send a shining messenger in a moment to any part of the world, and it would go sweeping under the waves of the sea with thoughts and words within its glowing heart. I saw all that had been achieved by this nation, and I wished that the signers of the Declaration—the soldiers of the Revolution—could see what a century of freedom has produced. I wished they could see the fields we cultivate—the rivers we navigate—the railroads running over the Alleghanies, far into what was then the unknown forest—on over the broad prairies—on over the vast plains—away over the mountains of the West, to the Golden Gate of the Pacific. All this is the result of a hundred years of freedom.
Are you not more than glad that in 1776 was announced the sublime principle that political power resides with the people? That our fathers then made up their minds nevermore to be colonists and subjects, but that they would be free and independent citizens of America?
I will not name any of the grand men who fought for liberty. All should be named, or none. I feel that the unknown soldier who was shot down without even his name being remembered—who was included only in a report of "a hundred killed," or "a hundred missing," nobody knowing even the number that attached to his august corpse—is entitled to as deep and heartfelt thanks as the titled leader who fell at the head of the host.
Standing here amid the sacred memories of the first, on the golden threshold of the second, I ask, Will the second century be as grand as the first? I believe it will, because we are growing more and more humane. I believe there is more human kindness, more real, sweet human sympathy, a greater desire to help one another, in the United States, than in all the world besides.
We must progress. We are just at the commencement of invention. The steam engine—the telegraph—these are but the toys with which science has been amused. Wait; there will be grander things, there will be wider and higher culture—a grander standard of character, of literature and art.
We have now half as many millions of people as we have years, and many of us will live until a hundred millions stand beneath the flag. We are getting more real solid sense. The schoolhouse is the finest building in the village. We are writing and reading more books; we are painting and buying more pictures; we are struggling more and more to get at the philosophy of life, of things—trying more and more to answer the questions of the eternal Sphinx. We are looking in every direction—investigating; in short, we are thinking and working. Besides all this, I believe the people are nearer honest than ever before. A few years ago we were willing to live upon the labor of four million slaves. Was that honest? At last, we have a national conscience. At last, we have carried out the Declaration of Independence. Our fathers wrote it—we have accomplished it. The black man was a slave—we made him a citizen. We found four million human beings in manacles, and now the hands of a race are held up in the free air without a chain.
I have had the supreme pleasure of seeing a man—once a slave—sitting in the seat of his former master in the Congress of the United States. I have had that pleasure, and when I saw it my eyes were filled with tears. I felt that we had carried, out the Declaration of Independence—that we had given reality to it, and breathed the breath of life into its every word. I felt that our flag would float over and protect the colored man and his little children, standing straight in the sun, just the same as though he were white and worth a million. I would protect him more, because the rich white man could protect himself.
All who stand beneath our banner are free. Ours is the only flag that has in reality written upon it: Liberty, Fraternity, Equality—the three grandest words in all the languages of men.
Liberty: Give to every man the fruit of his own labor—the labor of his hands and of his brain.
Fraternity: Every man in the right is my brother.
Equality: The rights of all are equal: Justice, poised and balanced in eternal calm, will shake from the golden scales in which are weighed the acts of men, the very dust of prejudice and caste: No race, no color, no previous condition, can change the rights of men.
The Declaration of Independence has at last been carried out in letter and in spirit.
The second century will be grander than the first.
Fifty millions of people are celebrating this day. To-day, the black man looks upon his child and says: The avenues to distinction are open to you—upon your brow may fall the civic wreath—this day belongs to you.
We are celebrating the courage and wisdom of our fathers, and the glad shout of a free people the anthem of a grand nation, commencing at the Atlantic, is following the sun to the Pacific, across a continent of happy homes.
We are a great people. Three millions have increased to fifty—thirteen States to thirty-eight. We have better homes, better clothes, better food and more of it, and more of the conveniences of life, than any other people upon the globe.
The farmers of our country live better than did the kings and princes two hundred years ago—and they have twice as much sense and heart. Liberty and labor have given us all. I want every person here to believe in the dignity of labor—to know that the respectable man is the useful man—the man who produces or helps others to produce something of value, whether thought of the brain or work of the hand.
I want you to go away with an eternal hatred in your breast of injustice, of aristocracy, of caste, of the idea that one man has more rights than another because he has better clothes, more land, more money, because he owns a railroad, or is famous and in high position. Remember that all men have equal rights. Remember that the man who acts best his part—who loves his friends the best—is most willing to help others—truest to the discharge of obligation—who has the best heart—the most feeling—the deepest sympathies—and who freely gives to others the rights that he claims for himself is the best man. I am willing to swear to this.
What has made this country? I say again, liberty and labor. What would we be without labor? I want every farmer when plowing the rustling corn of June—while mowing in the perfumed fields—to feel that he is adding to the wealth and glory of the United States. I want every mechanic—every man of toil, to know and feel that he is keeping the cars running, the telegraph wires in the air; that he is making the statues and painting the pictures; that he is writing and printing the books; that he is helping to fill the world with honor, with happiness, with love and law.
Our country is founded upon the dignity of labor—upon the equality of man. Ours is the first real Republic in the history of the world. Beneath our flag the people are free. We have retired the gods from politics. We have found that man is the only source of political power, and that the governed should govern. We have disfranchised the aristocrats of the air and have given one country to mankind.
* Yesterday was a glorious day for the Republicans of
Bangor. The weather was delightful and all the imposing
exercises of the day were conducted with a gratifying and
even inspiring success.
The noon train from Waterville brought Gov. Connor, Col.
Ingersoll and Senator Blaine.
At 3 p. m. the speakers arrived at the grounds and were
received with applause as they ascended the platform, where
a number of the most prominent citizens of Bangor and
vicinity were assembled. At this time the platform was
surrounded by a dense mass of people, numbering thousands.
The meeting was called to order by C. A. Boutelle, in behalf
of the Republican State Committee. As Col. Ingersoll was
introduced by Gov. Connor he was welcomed by tumultuous
cheers, which he gracefully acknowledged.
As we said before, no report could do justice to such a
masterly effort as that of the great Western Orator, and we
have not attempted to convey any adequate impression of an
address which is conceded on all hands to be the most
remarkable for originality, power and eloquence ever heard
in this section.
Such a speech by such a man—if there is another—must be
heard; the magnetism of the speaker must be felt; the
indescribable influence must be experienced, in order to
appreciate his wonderful power. The vast audience was
alternately swayed from enthusiasm for the grand principles
advocated, to indignation at the crimes of Democracy, as the
record of that party was scorched with his invective; from
laughter at the ludicrous presentment of Democratic
inconsistencies, to tears brought forth by the pathos and
eloquence of his appeals for justice and humanity. During
portions of his address there was moisture in the eyes of
every person in the audience, and from opening to close he
held the assemblage by a spell more potent than that of any
man we have ever heard speak. It was one of the grandest,
most cogent and thrilling appeals in behalf of the great
principles of liberty, loyalty and justice to all men, ever
delivered, and we wish it might have been heard by every
citizen of our beloved Republic. The Colonel was repeatedly
urged by the audience to go on, and he spoke for about two
hours with undiminished fervor. His hearers would gladly
have given him audience for two hours longer, but with a
splendid tribute to Mr. Blaine as the strongest tie between
New England and the West, he took his seat amid the ringing
cheers and plaudits of the assemblage.—The Whig and
Courier, Bangor, Maine, August 25,1876.
HAYES CAMPAIGN 1876.
I HAVE the honor to belong to the Republican party; the grandest, the sublimest party in the history of the world. This grand party is not only in favor of the liberty of the body, but also the liberty of the soul. This sublime party gives to all the labor of their hands and of their brains. This party allows every person to think for himself and to express his thoughts. The Republican party forges no chains for the mind, no fetters for the souls of men. It declares that the intellectual domain shall be forever free. In the free air there is room for every wing. The Republican party endeavors to remove all obstructions on the highway of progress. In this sublime undertaking it asks the assistance of all. Its platform is Continental. Upon it there is room for the Methodist, the Baptist, the Catholic, the Universalist, the Presbyterian, and the Freethinker. There is room for all who are in favor of the preservation of the sacred rights of men.
I am going to give you a few reasons for voting the Republican ticket. The Republican party depends upon reason, upon argument, upon education, upon intelligence and upon patriotism. The Republican party makes no appeal to ignorance and prejudice. It wishes to destroy both.
It is the party of humanity, the party that hates caste, that honors labor, that rewards toil, that believes in justice. It appeals to all that is elevated and noble in man, to the higher instincts, to the nobler aspirations. It has accomplished grand things.
The horizon of the past is filled with the glory of Republican achievement. The monuments of its wisdom, its power and patriotism crowd all the fields of conflict. Upon the Constitution this party wrote equal rights for all; upon every statute book, humanity; upon the flag, liberty. The Republican party of the United States is the conscience of the nineteenth century. It is the justice of this age, the embodiment of social progress and honor. It has no knee for the past. Its face is toward the future. It is the party of advancement, of the dawn, of the sunrise.
The Republican party commenced its grand career by saying that the institution of human slavery had cursed enough American soil; that the territories should not be damned with that most infamous thing; that this country was sacred to freedom; that slavery had gone far enough. Upon that issue the great campaign of 1860 was fought and won. The Republican party was born of wisdom and conscience.
The people of the South claimed that slavery should be protected; that the doors of the territories should be thrown open to them and to their institutions. They not only claimed this, but they also insisted that the Constitution of the United States protected slave property, the same as other property everywhere. The South was defeated, and then appealed to arms. In a moment all their energies were directed toward the destruction of this Government. They commenced the war—they fired upon the flag that had protected them for nearly a century.
The North was compelled to decide instantly between the destruction of the nation and civil war.
The division between the friends and enemies of the Union at once took place. The Government began to defend itself. To carry on the war money was necessary. The Government borrowed, and finally issued its notes and bonds. The Democratic party in the North sympathized with the Rebellion. Everything was done to hinder, embarrass, obstruct and delay. They endeavored to make a rebel breastwork of the Constitution; to create a fire in the rear. They denounced the Government; resisted the draft; shot United States officers; declared the war a failure and an outrage; rejoiced over our defeats, and wept and cursed at our victories.
To crush the Rebellion in the South and keep in subjection the Democratic party at the North, thousands of millions of money were expended—the nation burdened with a fearful debt, and the best blood of the country poured out upon the fields of battle.
In order to destroy the Rebellion it became necessary to destroy slavery. As a matter of fact, slavery was the Rebellion. As soon as this truth forced itself upon the Government—thrust as it were into the brain of the North upon the point of a rebel bayonet—the Republican party resolved to destroy forever the last vestige of that savage and cruel institution; an institution that made white men devils and black men beasts.
The Republican party put down the Rebellion; saved the nation; destroyed slavery; made the slave a citizen; put the ballot in the hands of the black man; forgave the assassins of the Government; restored nearly every rebel to citizenship, and proclaimed peace to, and for each and all.
For sixteen years the country has been in the hands of that great party. For sixteen years that grand party, in spite of rebels in arms—in spite of the Democratic party of the North, has preserved the territorial integrity, and the financial honor of the country. It has endeavored to enforce the laws; it has tried to protect loyal men at the South; it has labored to bring murderers and assassins to justice, and it is working now to preserve the priceless fruits of its great victory.
The present question is, whom shall we trust? To whom shall we give the reins of power? What party will best preserve the rights of the people?
What party is most deserving of our confidence? There is but one way to determine the character of a party, and that is, by ascertaining its history.
Could we have safely trusted the Democratic party in 1860? No. And why not? Because it was a believer in the right of secession—a believer in the sacredness of human slavery. The Democratic party then solemnly declared—speaking through its most honored and trusted leaders—that each State had the right to secede. This made the Constitution a nudum pactum , a contract without a consideration, a Democratic promise, a wall of mist, and left every State free to destroy at will the fabric of American Government—the fabric reared by our fathers through years of toil and blood.
Could we have safely trusted that party in 1864, when, in convention assembled, it declared the war a failure, and wished to give up the contest at a moment when universal victory was within the grasp of the Republic? Had the people put that party in power then, there would have been a Southern Confederacy to-day, and upon the limbs of four million people the chains of slavery would still have clanked. Is there one man present who, to-day, regrets that the Vallandigham Democracy of 1864 was spurned and beaten by the American people? Is there one man present who, to-day, regrets the utter defeat of that mixture of slavery, malice and meanness, called the Democratic party, in 1864?
Could we have safely trusted that party in 1868?
At that time the Democracy of the South was trying to humble and frighten the colored people or exterminate them. These inoffensive colored people were shot down without provocation, without mercy. The white Democrats were as relentless as fiends. They killed simply to kill. They murdered these helpless people, thinking that they were in some blind way getting their revenge upon the people of the North. No tongue can exaggerate the cruelties practiced upon the helpless freedmen of the South. These white Democrats had been reared amid and by slavery. Slavery knows no such thing as justice, no such thing as mercy. Slavery does not dream of governing by reason, by argument or persuasion. Slavery depends upon force, upon the bowie-knife, the revolver, the whip, the chain and the bloodhound. The white Democrats of the South had been reared amid slavery; they cared nothing for reason; they knew of but one thing to be used when there was a difference of opinion or a conflict of interest, and that was brute force. It never occurred to them to educate, to inform, and to reason. It was easier to shoot than to reason; it was quicker to stab than to argue; cheaper to kill than to educate. A grave costs less than a schoolhouse; bullets were cheaper than books; and one knife could stab more than forty schools could convert.
They could not bear to see the negro free—to see the former slave trampling on his old chains, holding a ballot in his hand. They could not endure the sight of a negro in office. It was gall and wormwood to think of a slave occupying a seat in Congress; to think of a negro giving his ideas about the political questions of the day. And so these white Democrats made up their minds that by a reign of terrorism they would drive the negro from the polls, drive him from all official positions, and put him back in reality in the old condition. To accomplish this they commenced a system of murder, of assassination, of robbery, theft, and plunder, never before equaled in extent and atrocity. All this was in its height when in 1868 the Democracy asked the control of this Government.
Is there a man here who in his heart regrets that the Democrats failed in 1868? Do you wish that the masked murderers who rode in the darkness of night to the hut of the freedman and shot him down like a wild beast, regardless of the prayers and tears of wife and children, were now holding positions of honor and trust in this Government? Are you sorry that these assassins were defeated in 1868?
In 1872 the Democratic party, bent upon victory, greedy for office, with itching palms and empty pockets, threw away all principle—if Democratic doctrines can be called principles—and nominated a life-long enemy of their party for President. No one doubted or doubts the loyalty and integrity of Horace Greeley. But all knew that if elected he would belong to the party electing him; that he would have to use Democrats as his agents, and all knew, or at least feared, that the agents would own and use the principal. All believed that in the malicious clutch of the Democratic party Horace Greeley would be not a President, but a prisoner—not a ruler, but a victim. Against that grand man I have nothing to say. I simply congratulate him upon his escape from being used as a false key by the Democratic party.
During all these years the Democratic party prophesied the destruction of the Government, the destruction of the Constitution, and the banishment of liberty from American soil.
In 1864 that party declared that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, there should be a cessation of hostilities. They then declared "that the Constitution had been violated in every part, and that public liberty and private rights had been trodden down."
And yet the Constitution remained and still remains; public liberty still exists, and private rights are still respected.
In 1868, growing more desperate, and being still filled with the spirit of prophecy, this same party in its platform said: "Under the repeated assaults of the Republican party, the pillars of the Government are rocking on their base, and should it succeed in November next, and inaugurate its President, we will meet as a subjected and conquered people, amid the ruins of liberty and the scattered fragments of the Constitution."
The Republican party did succeed in November, 1868, and did inaugurate its President, and we did not meet as a subjected and conquered people amid the ruins of liberty and the scattered fragments of the Constitution. We met as a victorious people, amid the proudest achievements of liberty, protected by a Constitution spotless and stainless—pure as the Alpine snow thrice sifted by the northern blast.
You must not forget the condition of the Government when it came into the hands of the Republican party. Its treasury was empty, its means squandered, its navy dispersed, its army unreliable, the offices filled with rebels and rebel spies; the Democratic party of the North rubbing its hands in a kind of hellish glee and shouting, "I told you so."
When the Republican party came into power in 1861, it found the Southern States in arms; it came into power when human beings were chained hand to hand and driven like cattle to market; when white men were engaged in the ennobling business of raising dogs to pursue and catch men and women; when the bay of the bloodhound was considered as the music of the Union. It came into power when, from thousands of pulpits, slavery was declared to be a divine institution. It took the reins of Government when education was an offence, when mercy, humanity and justice were political crimes.
The Republican party came into power when the Constitution of the United States upheld the crime of crimes, a Constitution that gave the lie direct to the Declaration of Independence, and, as I said before, when the Southern States were in arms.
To the fulfillment of its great destiny it gave all its energies. To the almost superhuman task, it gave its every thought and power. For four long and terrible years, with vast armies in the field against it; beset by false friends; in constant peril; betrayed again and again; stabbed by the Democratic party, in the name of the Constitution; reviled and slandered beyond conception; attacked in every conceivable manner—the Republican party never faltered for an instant. Its courage increased with the difficulties to be overcome. Hopeful in defeat, confident in disaster, merciful in victory; sustained by high aims and noble aspirations, it marched forward, through storms of shot and shell—on to the last fortification of treason and rebellion—forward to the shining goal of victory, lasting and universal.
During these savage and glorious years, the Democratic party of the North, as a party, assisted the South. Democrats formed secret societies to burn cities—to release rebel prisoners. They shot down officers who were enforcing the draft; they declared the war unconstitutional; they left nothing undone to injure the credit of the Government; they persuaded soldiers to desert; they went into partnership with rebels for the purpose of spreading contagious diseases through the North. They were the friends and allies of persons who regarded yellow fever and smallpox as weapons of civilized warfare. In spite of all this, the Republicans succeeded.
The Democrats declared slavery to be a divine institution; The Republican party abolished it. The Constitution of the United States was changed from a sword that stabbed the rights of four million people to a shield for every human being beneath our flag.
The Democrats of New York burned orphan asylums and inaugurated a reign of terror in order to co-operate with the raid of John Morgan. Remember, my friends, that all this was done when the fate of our country trembled in the balance of war; that all this was done when the great heart of the North was filled with agony and courage; when the question was, "Shall Liberty or Slavery triumph?"
No words have ever passed the human lips strong enough to curse the Northern allies of the South.
The United States wanted money. It wanted money to buy muskets and cannon and shot and shell, it wanted money to pay soldiers, to buy horses, wagons, ambulances, clothing and food. Like an individual, it had to borrow this money; and, like an honest individual, it must pay this money. Clothed with sovereignty, it had, or at least exercised, the power to make its notes a legal tender. This quality of being a legal tender was the only respect in which these notes differ from those signed by an individual. As a matter of fact, every note issued was a forced loan from the people, a forced loan from the soldiers in the field—in short, a forced loan from every person that took a single dollar. Upon every one of these notes is printed a promise. The belief that this promise will be made good gives every particle of value to each note that it has. Although each note, by law, is a legal tender, yet if the Government declared that it never would redeem these notes, the people would not take them if revolution could hurl such a Government from power. So that the belief that these notes will finally be paid, added to the fact that in the meantime they are a legal tender, gives them all the value they have. And, although all are substantially satisfied that they will be paid, none know at what time. This uncertainty as to the time, as to when, affects the value of these notes.
They must be paid, unless a promise can be delayed so long as to amount to a fulfillment. They must be paid. The question is, "How?" The answer is, "By the industry and prosperity of the people." They cannot be paid by law. Law made them; labor must pay them; and they must be paid out of the profits of the people. We must pay the debt with eggs, not with goose. In a terrible war we spent thousands of millions; all the bullets thrown; all the powder burned; all the property destroyed, of every sort, kind, and character; all the time of the people engaged—all these things were a dead loss. The debt represents the loss. Paying the debt is simply repairing the loss. When we, as a people, shall have made a net amount, equal to the amount thrown, as it were, away in war, or somewhere near that amount, we will resume specie payment; we will redeem our promises. We promised on paper, we shall pay in gold and silver. We asked the people to hold this paper until we got the money, and they are holding the paper and we are getting the money.
As soon as the slaves were free, the Republican party said, "They must be citizens, not vagrants." The Democratic party opposed this just, this generous measure. The freedmen were made citizens. The Republican party then said, "These citizens must vote; they must have the ballot, to keep what the bullet has won." The Democratic party said "No." The negroes received the ballot. The Republican party then said, "These voters must be educated, so that the ballot shall be the weapon of intelligence, not of ignorance." The Democratic party objected. But schools were founded, and books were put in the hands of the colored people, instead of whips upon their backs. We said to the Southern people, "The colored men are citizens; their rights must be respected; they are voters, they must be allowed to vote; they were and are our friends, and we are their protectors."
All this was accomplished by the Republican party.
It changed the organic law of the land, so that it is now a proper foundation for a free government; it struck the cruel shackles from four million human beings; it put down the most gigantic rebellion in the history of the world; it expunged from the statute books of every State, and of the Nation, all the cruel and savage laws that Slavery had enacted; it took whips from the backs, and chains from the limbs, of men; it dispensed with bloodhounds as the instruments of civilization; it banished to the memory of barbarism the slave-pen, the auction block, and the whipping-post; it purified a Nation; it elevated the human race.
All this was opposed by the Democratic party; opposed with a bitterness, compared to which ordinary malice is sweet. I say the Democratic party, because I consider those who fought against the Government, in the fields of the South, and those who opposed in the North, as Democrats—one and all. The Democratic party has been, during all these years, the enemy of civilization, the hater of liberty, the despiser of justice.
When I say the Democratic party sympathized with the Rebellion, I mean a majority of that party. I know there are in the Democratic party, soldiers who fought for the Union. I do not know why they are there, but I have nothing to say against them. I will never utter a word against any man who bared his breast to a storm of shot and shell, for the preservation of the Republic. When I use the term Democratic party, I do not mean those soldiers.
There are others in the Democratic party who are there just because their fathers were Democrats. They do not mean any particular harm. Others are there because they could not amount to anything in the Republican party. A man only fit for a corporal in the Republican ranks, will make a leader in the Democratic party. By the Democratic party, I mean that party that sided with the South—that believed in secession—that loved slavery—that hated liberty—that denounced Lincoln as a tyrant—that burned orphan asylums—that gloried in our disasters—that denounced every effort to save the nation—they are the gentlemen I mean, and they constitute a large majority of the Democratic party.
The Democrats hate the negro to-day, with a hatred begotten of a well-grounded fear that the colored people are rapidly becoming their superiors in industry, intellect and character.
The colored people have suffered enough. They were and are our friends. They are the friends of this country, and cost what it may they must be protected. The white loyal man must be protected. They have been ostracized, slandered, mobbed, and murdered. Their very blood cries from the ground.
These two things—payment of the debt and protection of loyal citizens, are the things to be done. Which party can be trusted?
Which will be the more apt to pay the debt?
Which will be the more apt to protect the colored and white loyalist at the South?
Who is Samuel J. Tilden?
Samuel J. Tilden is an attorney. He never gave birth to an elevated, noble sentiment in his life. He is a kind of legal spider, watching in a web of technicalities for victims. He is a compound of cunning and heartlessness—of beak and claw and fang. He is one of the few men who can grab a railroad and hide the deep cuts, tunnels and culverts in a single night. He is a corporation wrecker. He is a demurrer filed by the Confederate congress. He waits on the shores of bankruptcy to clutch the drowning by the throat. He was never married. The Democratic party has satisfied the longings of his heart. He has looked upon love as weakness. He has courted men because women cannot vote. He has contented himself by adopting a rag-baby, that really belongs to Mr. Hendricks, and his principal business at present is explaining how he came to adopt this child.
Samuel J. Tilden has been for years without number a New York Democrat.
New York has been, and still is, the worst governed city in the world. Political influence is bought and sold like stocks and bonds. Nearly every contract is larceny in disguise—nearly every appointment is a reward for crime, and every election is a fraud. Among such men Samuel J. Tilden has lived; with such men he has acted; by such men he has been educated; such men have been his scholars, and such men are his friends. These men resisted the draft, but Samuel J. Tilden remained their friend. They burned orphan asylums, but Tilden's friendship never cooled. They inaugurated riot and murder, but Tilden wavered not. They stole a hundred millions, and when no more was left to steal—when the people could not even pay the interest on the amount stolen—then these Democrats, clapping their hands over their bursting pockets, began shouting for reform. Mr. Tilden has been a reformer for years, especially of railroads. The vital issue with him has been the issue of bogus stock. Although a life-long Democrat, he has been an amalgamationist—of corporations. While amassing millions, he has occasionally turned his attention to national affairs. He left his private affairs (and his reputation depends upon these affairs being kept private) long enough to assist the Democracy to declare the war for the restoration of the Union a failure; long enough to denounce Lincoln as a tyrant and usurper. He was generally too busy to denounce the political murders and assassinations in the South—too busy to say a word in favor of justice and liberty; but he found time to declare the war for the preservation of the country an outrage. He managed to spare time enough to revile the Proclamation of Emancipation—time enough to shed a few tears over the corpse of slavery; time enough to oppose the enfranchisement of the colored man; time enough to raise his voice against the injustice of putting a loyal negro on a political level with a pardoned rebel; time enough to oppose every forward movement of the nation.
No man should ever be elected President of this country who raised his hand to dismember and destroy it. No man should be elected President who sympathized with those who were endeavoring to destroy it. No man should be elected President of this great nation who, when it was in deadly peril, did not endeavor to save it by act and word. No man should be elected President who does not believe that every negro should be free—that the colored people should be allowed to vote. No man should be placed at the head of the nation—in command of the army and navy—who does not believe that the Constitution, with all its amendments, should be sacredly enforced. No man should be elected President of this nation who believes in the Democratic doctrine of "States Rights;" who believes that this Government is only a federation of States. No man should be elected President of our great country who aided and abetted her enemies in war—who advised or countenanced resistance to a draft in time of war, who by slander impaired her credit, sneered at her heroes, and laughed at her martyrs. Samuel J. Tilden is the possessor of nearly every disqualification mentioned.
Mr. Tilden is the author of an essay on finance, commonly called a letter of acceptance, in which his ideas upon the great subject are given in the plainest and most direct manner imaginable. All through this letter or essay there runs a vein of honest bluntness really refreshing. As a specimen of bluntness and clearness, take the following extracts:
How shall the Government make these notes at all times as good as specie? It has to provide in reference to the mass which would be kept in use by the wants of business a central reservoir of coin, adequate to the adjustment of the temporary fluctuations of the international balance, and as a guaranty against transient drains, artificially created by panic or by speculation. It has also to provide for the payment in coin of such fractional currency as may be presented for redemption, and such inconsiderable portion of legal tenders as individuals may from time to time desire to convert for special use, or in order to lay by in coin their little store of money. To make the coin now in the treasury available for the objects of this reserve, to gradually strengthen and enlarge that reserve, and to provide for such other exceptional demands for coin as may arise, does not seem to me a work of difficulty. If wisely planned and discreetly pursued, it ought not to cost any sacrifice to the business of the country. It should tend, on the contrary, to the revival of hope and confidence.
In other words, the way to pay the debt is to get the money, and the way to get the money is to provide a central reservoir of coin to adjust fluctuations. As to the resumption he gives us this:
The proper time for the resumption is the time when wise preparation shall have ripened into perfect ability to accomplish the object with a certainty and ease that will inspire confidence and encourage the reviving of business.
The earliest time in which such a result can be brought about is best. Even when preparations shall have been matured, the exact date would have to be chosen with reference to the then existing state of trade and credit operations in our own country, and the course of foreign commerce and condition of exchanges with other nations. The specific measure and actual date are matters of details, having reference to ever-changing conditions. They belong to the domain of practical, administrative statesmanship. The captain of a steamer, about starting from New York to Liverpool, does not assemble a council over his ocean craft, and fix an angle by which to lash the rudder for the whole voyage. A human intelligence must be at the helm to discern the shifting forces of water and winds. A human mind must be at the helm to feel the elements day by day, and guide to a mastery over them. Such preparations are everything. Without them a legislative command fixing a day—an official promise fixing a day, are shams. They are worse. They are a snare and a delusion to all who trust them. They destroy all confidence among thoughtful men whose judgment will at last sway public opinion. An attempt to act on such a command, or such a promise without preparation, would end in a new suspension. It would be a fresh calamity, prolific of confusion, distrust, and distress.
That is to say, Congress has not sufficient intelligence to fix the date of resumption. They cannot fix the proper time. But a Democratic convention has human intelligence enough to know that the first day of January, 1879, is not the proper date. That convention knew what the state of trade and credit in our country and the course of foreign commerce and the condition of exchanges with other nations would be on the first day of January, 1879. Of course they did, or else they never would have had the impudence to declare that resumption would be impossible at that date.
The next extract is more luminous still:
The Government of the United States, in my opinion, can advance to a resumption of specie payments on its legal tender notes by gradual and safe processes tending to relieve the present business distress. If charged by the people with the administration of the executive office, I should deem it a duty so to exercise the powers with which it has or may be invested by Congress, as the best and soonest to conduct the country to that beneficent result.
Why did not this great statesman tell us of some "gradual and safe process"? He promises, if elected, to so administer the Government that it will soon reach a beneficent result. How is this to be done? What is his plan? Will he rely on "a human intelligence at the helm," or on "the central reservoir," or on some "gradual and safe process"?
I defy any man to read this letter and tell me what Mr. Tilden really proposes to do. There is nothing definite said. He uses such general terms, such vague and misty expressions, such unmeaning platitudes, that the real idea, if he had one, is lost in fog and mist.
Suppose I should, in the most solemn and impressive manner, tell you that the fluctuations caused in the vital stability of shifting financial operations, not to say speculations of the wildest character, cannot be rendered instantly accountable to a true financial theory based upon the great law that the superfluous is not a necessity, except in vague thoughts of persons unacquainted with the exigencies of the hour, and cannot, in the absence of a central reservoir of coin with a human intelligence at the head, hasten by any system of convertible bonds the expectation of public distrust, no matter how wisely planned and discreetly pursued, failure is assured whatever the real result may be.
Must we wage this war for the right forever? Is there no time when the soldiers of progress can rest? Will the bugles of the great army of civilization never sound even a halt? It does seem as though there can be no stop, no rest. It is in the world of mind as in the physical world. Every plant of value has to be cultivated. The land must be plowed, the seeds must be planted and watered. It must be guarded every moment. Its enemies crawl in the earth and fly in the air. The sun scorches it, the rain drowns it, the dew rusts it. He who wins it must fight. But the weeds they grow in spite of all. Nobody plows for them except accident. The winds sow the seeds, chance covers them, and they flourish and multiply. The sun cannot burn them—they laugh at rain and frost—they care not for birds and beasts. In spite of all they grow. It is the same in politics. A true Republican must continue to grow, must work, must think, must advance. The Republican party is the party of progress, of ideas, of work. To make a Republican you must have schools, books, papers. To make a Democrat, take all these away. Republicans are the useful; Democrats the noxious—corn and wheat against the dog fennel and Canada thistles.
Republicans of Maine, do not forget that each of you has two votes in this election—one in Maine and one in Indiana.
Remember that we are relying on you. There is no stronger tie between the prairies of Illinois and the pines of Maine—between the Western States and New England, than James G. Blaine.
We are relying on Maine for from twelve to fifteen thousand on the 12th of September, and Indiana will answer with from fifteen to twenty thousand, and hearing these two votes the Nation in November will declare for Hayes and Wheeler.*
* This being a newspaper report, and never revised by the
author, is of necessity incomplete, but the publisher feels
that it should not be lost
*Col. Robert G. Ingersoll of Illinois last night, at Cooper
Union, spoke on the political issues of the day, at unusual
length, to the largest and most enthusiastic audience which,
during the last ten years, any single speaker has attracted.
His address was in his happiest epigrammatic style, and was
interrupted every few moments either by the most uproarious
laughter or enthusiastic cheering. It is no exaggeration to
say that the meeting was the largest Cooper Institute has
seen since the war. Not merely the main hall was filled, but
the wide corridor in Third Avenue, the entrance hall in
Eighth Street, and every Committee-room to which his voice
could reach, though the speaker was unseen, were crowded—in
fact, literally packed. Half an hour before the hour named
for the organization of the meeting, admission to the body
of the hall was almost impossible; and selected officers,
and the speaker of the evening himself had to beg their way
to the platform. The latter was as painfully crowded with
invited guests as the body of the hall; and ingress was
impossible after the speaker began, and egress was almost as
difficult owing to the pressure in the committee-room
through which the platform is approached.
Not only in numbers alone, but in the prominence of the
persons present, was the meeting impressive. Besides the
usual large quota of active politicians always seen at such
meetings, there were seen numbers of leading merchants,
financiers, and lawyers of New York, prominent officials not
only of the City but the State and National Government.
The speech was nearly two hours In length, but as the
interruptions were frequent, indeed almost continuous, it
seemed very short, and when Mr. Ingersoll concluded his fire
of epigrams, there were loud calls and appeals to him to go
on. There were suggestions by some of the managers, of other
speakers who might follow him, but the presiding officer
wisely decided to submit no other speaker to the too severe
test of speaking on the same occasion with Mr. Ingersoll.
Chauncey M. Depew, on leaving the hall, remarked that it was
the greatest speech he ever heard, and numbers of old
campaigners were equally enthusiastic. At its conclusion,
the reception which Mr. Ingersoll held on the platform
lasted over half-an-hour, and when finally Commissioner
Wheeler piloted him through the crowd to his coach, three or
four hundred of the audience followed and gave him lusty
cheers as he drove off.—New York Tribune, September
11,1876.
HAYES CAMPAIGN. 1876.
I AM just on my way home from the grand old State of Maine, and there has followed me a telegraphic dispatch which I will read to you. If it were not good, you may swear I would not read it: "Every Congressional district, every county in Maine, Republican by a large majority. The victory is overwhelming, and the majority will exceed 15,000." That dispatch is signed by that knight-errant of political chivalry, James G. Blaine.
I suppose we are all stockholders in the great corporation known as the United States of America, and as such stockholders we have a right to vote the way we think will best subserve our own interests. Each one has certain stock in this Government, whether he is rich, or whether he is poor, and the poor man has the same interest in the United States of America that the richest man in it has. It is our duty, conscientiously and honestly, to hear the argument upon both sides of the political question, and then go and vote conscientiously for the side that we believe will best preserve our interest in the United States of America. Two great parties are before you now asking your support—the Democratic party and the Republican party. One wishes to be kept in power, the other wishes to have a chance once more at the Treasury of the United States. The Democratic party is probably the hungriest organization that ever wandered over the desert of political disaster in the history of the world. There never was, in all probability, a political stomach so thoroughly empty, or an appetite so outrageously keen as the one possessed by the Democratic party. The Democratic party has been howling like a pack of wolves looking in with hungry and staring eyes at the windows of the National Capitol, and scratching at the doors of the White House. They have been engaged in these elegant pursuits for sixteen long, weary years. Occasionally they have retired to some convenient eminence and lugubriously howled about the Constitution. The Democratic party comes and asks for your vote, not on account of anything it has done, not on account of anything it has accomplished, but on account of what it promises to do; the Democratic party can make just as good a promise as any other party in the world, and it will come farther from fulfilling it than any other party on this globe. The Republican party having held this Government for sixteen years, proposes to hold it for four years more. The Republican party comes to you with its record open, and asks every man, woman and child in this broad country to read its every word. And I say to you, that there is not a line, a paragraph, or a page of that record that is not only an honor to the Republican party, but to the human race. On every page of that record is written some great and glorious action, done either for the liberty of man, or the preservation of our common country. We ask every body to read its every word. The Democratic party comes before you with its record closed, recording every blot and blur, and stain and treason, and slander and malignity, and asks you not to read a single word, but to be kind enough to take its infamous promises for the future.
Now, my friends, I propose to tell you, to-night, something that has been done by the Democratic party, and then allow you to judge for yourselves. Now, if a man came to you, you owning a steamboat on the Hudson River, and he wished to hire out to you as an engineer, and you inquired about him, and found he had blown up and destroyed and wrecked every steamboat he had ever been engineer on, and you should tell him: "I can't hire you; you blew up such an engine, you wrecked such a ship," he would say to you, "My Lord! Mister, you must let bygones be bygones." If a man came to your bank, or came to a solitary individual here to borrow a hundred dollars, and you went and inquired about him and found he never paid a note in his life, found he was a dead-beat, and you say to him, "I cannot loan you money." "Why?" "Because, I have ascertained you never pay your debts." "Ah, yes," he says, "you are no gentleman going prying into a man's record," I tell you, my good friends, a good character rests upon a record, and not upon a prospectus, a good record rests upon a deed accomplished, and not upon a promise, a good character rests upon something really done, and not upon a good resolution, and you cannot make a good character in a day. If you could, Tilden would have one to-morrow night.
I propose now to tell you, my friends, a little of the history of the Republican party, also a little of the history of the Democratic party.
And first, the Republican party. The United States of America is a free country, it is the only free country upon this earth; it is the only republic that was ever established among men. We have read, we have heard, of the republics of Greece, of Egypt, of Venice; we have heard of the free cities of Europe. There never was a republic of Venice; there never was a republic of Rome; there never was a republic of Athens; there never was a free city in Europe; there never was a government not cursed with caste; there never was a government not cursed with slavery; there never was a country not cursed with almost every infamy, until the Republican party of the United States made this a free country. It is the first party in the world that contended that the respectable man was the useful man; it is the first party in the world that said, without regard to previous conditions, without regard to race, every human being is entitled to life, to liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and it is the only party in the world that has endeavored to carry those sublime principles into actual effect. Every other party has been allied to some piece of rascality; every other party has been patched up with some thieving, larcenous, leprous compromise. The Republican party keeps its forehead in the grand dawn of perpetual advancement; the Republican party is the party of reason; it is the party of argument; it is the party of education; it believes in free schools, it believes in scientific schools; it believes that the schools are for the public and all the public; it believes that science never should be interfered with by any sectarian influence whatever.
The Republican party is in favor of science; the Republican party, as I said before, is the party of reason; it argues; it does not mob; it reasons; it does not murder; it persuades you, not with the shot gun, not with tar and feathers, but with good sound reason, and argument.
In order for you to ascertain what the Republican party has done for us, let us refresh ourselves a little; we all know it, but it is well enough to hear it now and then. Let us then refresh our recollection a little, in order to understand what the grand and great Republican party has accomplished in the land.
We will consider, in the first place, the condition of the country when the Republican party was born. When this Republican party was born there was upon the statute books of the United States of America a law known as the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, by which every man in the State of New York was made by law a bloodhound, and could be set and hissed upon a negro, who was simply attempting to obtain his birthright of freedom, just as you would set a dog upon a wolf. That was the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Around the neck of every man it put a collar as on a dog, but it had not the decency to put the man's name on the collar. I said in the State of Maine, and several other States, and expect to say it again although I hurt the religious sentiment of the Democratic party, and shocked the piety of that organization by saying it, but I did say then, and now say, that the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 would have disgraced hell in its palmiest days.
I tell you, my friends, you do not know how easy it is to shock the religious sentiments of the Democratic party; there is a deep and pure vein of piety running through that organization; it has been for years spiritually inclined; there is probably no organization in the world that really will stand by any thing of a spiritual character, at least until it is gone, as that Democratic party will. Everywhere I have been I have crushed their religious hopes. You have no idea how sorry I am that I hurt their feelings so upon the subject of religion. Why, I did not suppose that they cared anything about Christianity, but I have been deceived. I now find that they do, and I have done what no other man in the United States ever did—I have made the Democratic party come to the defence of Christianity. I have made the Democratic party use what time they could spare between drinks in quoting Scripture. But notwithstanding the fact that I have shocked the religious sentiment of that party, I do not want them to defend Christianity any more; they will bring it into universal contempt if they do. Yes, yes, they will make the words honesty and reform a stench in the nostrils of honest men. They made the words of the Constitution stand almost for treason, during the entire war, and every decent word that passes the ignorant, leprous, malignant lips of the Democratic party, becomes dishonored from that day forth.
At the same time, in 1850, when the Fugitive Slave Law was passed, in nearly all of the Western States, there was a law by which the virtues of pity and hospitality became indictable offences. There was a law by which the virtue of charity became a crime, and the man who performed a kindness could be indicted, imprisoned, and fined. It was the law of Illinois—of my own State—that if one gave a drop of cold water, or a crust of bread, to a fugitive from slavery, he could be indicted, fined and imprisoned, under the infamous slave law of 1850, under the infamous black laws of the Western States.
At the time the Republican party was born, (and I have told this many times) if a woman ninety-nine one-hundredths white had escaped from slavery, carrying her child on her bosom, having gone through morass and brush and thorns and thickets, had crossed creeks and rivers, and had finally got within one step of freedom, with the light of the North star shining in her tear-filled eyes—with her child upon her withered breast—it would have been an indictable offence to have given her a drop of water or a crust of bread; not only that, but under the slave law of 1850, it was the duty of every Northern citizen claiming to be a free man, to clutch that woman and hand her back to the dominion of her master and to the Democratic lash. The Democrats are sorry that those laws have been repealed. The Republican party with the mailed hand of war tore from the statute books of the United States, and from the statute books of each State, every one of those infamous, hellish laws, and trampled them beneath her glorious feet.
Such laws are infamous beyond expression; one would suppose they had been passed by a Legislature, the lower house of which were hyenas, the upper house snakes, and the executive a cannibal king. The institution of slavery had polluted, had corrupted the church, not only in the South, but a large proportion of the church in the North; so that ministers stood up in their pulpits here in New York and defended the very infamy that I have mentioned. Not only that, but the Presbyterians, South, in 1863, met in General Synod, and passed two resolutions.
The first resolution read, "Resolved, that slavery is a divine institution" (and as the boy said, "so is hell").
Second , "Resolved, that God raised up the Presbyterian Church, South, to protect and perpetuate that institution."
Well, all I have to say is that, if God did this, he never chose a more infamous instrument to carry out a more diabolical object. What more had slavery done? At that time it had corrupted the very courts, so that in nearly every State in this Union if a Democrat had gone to the hut of a poor negro, and had shot down his wife and children before his very eyes, had strangled the little dimpled babe in the cradle, there was no court before which this negro could come to give testimony. He was not allowed to go before a magistrate and indict the murderer; he was not allowed to go before a grand jury and swear an indictment against the wretch. Justice was not only blind, but deaf; and that was the idea of justice in the South, when the Republican party was born. When the Republican party was born the bay of the bloodhound was the music of the Union; when this party was born the dome of our Capitol at Washington cast its shadow upon slave-pens in which crouched and shuddered women from whose breasts their babes had been torn by wretches who are now crying for honesty and reform. When the Republican party was born, a bloodhound was considered as one of the instrumentalities of republicanism. When the Republican party was born, the church had made the cross of Christ a whipping-post. When the Republican party was born, courts of the United States had not the slightest idea of justice, provided a black man was on the other side. When this party came into existence, if a negro had a plot of ground and planted corn in it, and the rain had fallen upon it, and the dew had lain lovingly upon it, and the arrows of light shot from the exhaustless quiver of the sun, had quickened the blade, and the leaves waved in the perfumed air of June, and it finally ripened into the full ear in the golden air of autumn, the courts of the United States did not know to whom the corn belonged, and if a Democrat had driven the negro off and shucked the corn, and that case had been left to the Supreme Court of many of the States in this Union, they would have read all the authorities, they would have heard all the arguments, they would have heard all the speeches, then pushed their spectacles back on their bald and brainless heads and decided, all things considered, the Democrat was entitled to that corn. We pretended at that time to be a free country; it was a lie. We pretended at that time to do justice in our courts; it was a lie, and above all our pretence and hypocrisy rose the curse of slavery, like Chimborazo above the clouds.
Now, my friends, what is there about this great Republican party? It is the party of intellectual freedom. It is one thing to bind the hands of men; it is one thing to steal the results of physical labor of men, but it is a greater crime to forge fetters for the souls of men. I am a free man; I will do my own thinking or die; I give a mortgage on my soul to nobody; I give a deed of trust on my soul to nobody; no matter whether I think well or I think ill; whatever thought I have shall be my thought, and shall be a free thought, and I am going to give cheerfully, gladly, the same right to thus think to every other human being.
I despise any man who does not own himself. I despise any man who does not possess his own spirit. I would rather die a beggar, covered with rags, with my soul erect, fearless and free, than to live a king in a palace of gold, clothed with the purple of power, with my soul slimy with hypocrisy, crawling in the dust of fear. I will do my own thinking, and when I get it thought, I will say it. These are the splendid things, my friends, about the Republican party; intellectual and physical liberty for all.
Now, my friends, I have told you a little about the Republican party. Now, I will tell you a little more about the Republican party. When that party came into power it elected Abraham Lincoln President of the United States. I live in the State that holds within its tender embrace the sacred ashes of Abraham Lincoln, the best, the purest man that was ever President of the United States. I except none. When he was elected President of the United States, the Democratic party said: "We will not stand it;" the Democratic party South said: "We will not bear it;" and the Democratic party North said: "You ought not to bear it."
James Buchanan was then President. James Buchanan read the Constitution of the United States, or a part of it, and read several platforms made by the Democratic party, and gave it as his deliberate opinion that a State had a right to go out of the Union. He gave it as his deliberate opinion that this was a Confederacy and not a Nation, and when he said that, there was another little, dried up, old bachelor sitting over in the amen corner of the political meeting and he squeaked out: "That is my opinion too," and the name of that man was Samuel J. Tilden.
The Democratic party then and now says that the Union is simply a Confederacy; but I want this country to be a Nation. I want to live in a great and splendid country. A great nation makes a great people. Your surroundings have something to do with it. Great plains, magnificent rivers, great ranges of mountains, a country washed by two oceans—all these things make us great and grand as the continent on which we live. The war commenced, and the moment the war commenced the whole country was divided into two parties. No matter what they had been before, whether Democrats, Freesoilers, Republicans, old Whigs, or Abolitionists—the whole country divided into two parties—the friends and enemies of the country—patriots and traitors, and they so continued until the Rebellion was put down. I cheerfully admit that thousands of Democrats went into the army, and that thousands of Democrats were patriotic men. I cheerfully admit that thousands of them thought more of their country than they did of the Democratic party, and they came with us to fight for the country, and I honor every one of them from the bottom of my heart, and nineteen out of twenty of them have voted the Republican ticket from that day to this. Some of them came back and went to the Democratic party again and are still in that party; I have not a word to say against them, only this: They are swapping off respectability for disgrace. They give to the Democratic party all the respectability it has, and the Democratic party gives to them all the disgrace they have.
Democratic soldier, come out of the Democratic party. There was a man in my State got mad at the railroad and would not ship his hogs on it, so he drove them to Chicago, and it took him so long to get them there that the price had fallen; when he came back, they laughed at him, and said to him, "You didn't make much, did you, driving your hogs to Chicago?" "No," he said, "I didn't make anything except the company of the hogs on the way." Soldier of the Republic, I say, with the Democratic party all you can make is the company of the hogs on the way down. Come out, come out and leave them alone in their putridity—in their rottenness. Leave them alone. Do not try to put a new patch on an old garment. Leave them alone. I tell you the Democratic party must be left alone; it must be left to enjoy the primal curse, "On thy belly shalt thou crawl and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life," O Democratic party.
Now, my friends, I need not tell you how we put down the Rebellion. You all know. I need not describe to you the battles you fought. I need not tell you of the men who sacrificed their lives. I need not tell you of the old men who are still waiting for footsteps that never will return. I need not tell you of the women who are waiting for the return of their loved ones. I need not tell you of all these things. You know we put down the Rebellion; we fought until the old flag triumphed over every inch of American soil redeemed from the clutch of treason.
Now, my friends, what was the Democratic party doing when the Republican party was doing these splendid things? When, the Republican party said this was a nation; when the Republican party said we shall be free; when the Republican party said slavery shall be extirpated from American soil; when the Republican party said the negro shall be a citizen, and the citizen shall have the ballot, and the citizen shall have the right to cast that ballot for the government of his choice peaceably—what was the Democratic party doing?
I will tell you a few things that the Democratic party has done within the last sixteen years. In the first place, they were not willing that this country should be saved unless slavery could be saved with it. There never was a Democrat, North or South—and by Democrat I mean the fellows who stuck to the party all during the war, the ones that stuck to the party after it was a disgrace; the ones that stuck to the party from simple, pure cussedness—there never was one who did not think more of the institution of slavery than he did of the Government of the United States; not one that I ever saw or read of. And so they said to us for all those years: "If you can save the Union with slavery, and without any help from us, we are willing you should do it; but we do not propose that this shall be an abolition war." So the Democratic party from the first said, "An effort to preserve this Union is unconstitutional," and they made a breastwork of the Constitution for rebels to get behind and shoot down loyal men, so that the first charge I lay at the feet of the Democratic party, the first charge I make in the indictment, is that they thought more of slavery than of liberty and of this Union, and in my judgment they are in the same condition this moment. The next thing they did was to discourage enlistments in the North. They did all in their power to prevent any man's going into the army to assist in putting down the Rebellion. And that grand reformer and statesman, Samuel J. Tilden, gave it as his opinion that the South could sue, and that every soldier who put his foot on sacred Southern soil would be a trespasser, and could be sued before a Justice of the Peace. The Democratic party met in their conventions in every State North, and denounced the war as an abolition war, and Abraham Lincoln as a tyrant. What more did they do? They went into partnership with the rebels. They said to the rebels just as plainly as though they had spoken it: "Hold on, hold out, hold hard, fight hard, until we get the political possession of the North, and then you can go in peace."
What more? A man by the name of Jacob Thompson—a nice man and a good Democrat, who thinks that of all the men to reform the Government Samuel J. Tilden is the best man—Jacob Thompson had the misfortune to be a very vigorous Democrat, and I will show you what I mean by that. A Democrat during the war who had a musket—you understand, a musket—he was a rebel, and during the war a rebel that did not have a musket was a Democrat. I call Mr. Thompson a vigorous Democrat, because he had a musket. Jacob Thompson was the rebel agent in Canada, and when he went there he took between six and seven hundred thousand dollars for the purpose of co-operating with the Northern Democracy. He got himself acquainted with and in connection with the Democratic party in Ohio, in Indiana, and in Illinois. The vigorous Democrats, the real Democrats, in these States had organized themselves under the heads of "Sons of Liberty," "Knights of the Golden Circle," "Order of the Star," and various other beautiful names, and their object was to release rebel prisoners from Camp Chase, Camp Douglass in Chicago, and from one camp in Indianapolis and another camp at Rock Island. Their object was to raise a fire in the rear, as they called it—in other words, to burn down the homes of Union soldiers while they were in the front fighting for the honor of their country. That was their object, and they put themselves in connection with Jacob Thompson. They were to have an uprising on the 16th of August, 1864. It was thought best to hold a few public meetings for the purpose of arousing the public mind. They held the first meeting in the city of Peoria, where I live. That was August 3rd, 1864. Here they came from every part of the State, and were addressed by the principal Democratic politicians in Illinois.
To that meeting Fernando Wood addressed a letter, in which he said that although absent in body he should be present in spirit. George Pendleton of Ohio, George Pugh of the same State, Seymour of Connecticut, and various other Democratic gentlemen, sent acknowledgments and expressions of regret to this Democratic meeting that met at this time for the purpose of organizing an uprising among the Democratic party. I saw that meeting, and heard some of their speeches. They denounced the war as an abolition nigger war. They denounced Abraham Lincoln as a tyrant. They carried transparencies that said, "Is there money enough in the land to pay this nigger debt? Arouse, brothers, and hurl the tyrant Lincoln from the throne." And the men that promulgated that very thing are running for the most important political offices in the country, on the ground of honesty and reform. And Jacob Thompson says that he furnished the money to pay the expenses of that Democratic meeting. They were all paid by rebel gold, by Jacob Thompson. He has on file the voucher from these Democratic gentlemen in favor of Tilden and Hendricks. The next meetings were held in Springfield, Illinois, and Indianapolis, Indiana, the expenses of which were paid in the same way. They shipped to one town these weapons of our destruction in boxes labeled Sunday school books!
That same rebel agent, Jacob Thompson, hired a Democrat by the name of Churchill to burn the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Thompson coolly remarked: "I don't think he has had much luck, as I have only heard of a few fires."
In Indianapolis a man named Dodds was arrested—a sound Democrat—so sound that the Government had to take him by the nape of the neck and put him in Fort Lafayette. The convention of Democrats then met in the city of Chicago, and declared the war a failure. There never was a more infamous lie on this earth than when the Democratic convention declared in 1864 that the war was a failure. It was but a few days afterward that the roar of Grants cannon announced that a lie. Rise from your graves, Union soldiers, one and all, that fell in support of your country—rise from your graves, and lift your skeleton hands on high, and swear that when the Democratic party resolved that the war for the preservation of your country was a failure, that the Democratic party was a vast aggregated liar. Well, we grew magnanimous, and let Dodds out of Fort Lafayette; and where do you suppose Dodds is now? He is in Wisconsin. What do you suppose Dodds is doing? Making speeches. Whom for? Tilden and Hendricks—"Honesty and reform!" This same Jacob Thompson, Democrat, hired men to burn New York, and they did set fire in some twenty places, and they used Greek fire, as he said in his letter, and ingenuously adds: "I shall never hereafter advise the use of Greek fire." They knew that in the smoke and ruins would be found the charred remains of mothers and children, and that the flames leaping like serpents would take the child from the mothers arms, and they were ready to do it to preserve the infamous institution of slavery; and the Democratic party has never objected to it from that day to this. They burned steamboats, and many men with them, and the hounds that did it are skulking in the woods of Missouri. While these things were going on, Democrats in the highest positions said: "Not one cent to prosecute the war."
The next question we have to consider is about paying the debt. This is the first question. The second question is the protection of the citizen, whether he is white or black. We owe a large debt. Two-thirds of that debt was incurred in consequence of the action and the meanness of the Democrats. There are some people who think that you can defer the payment of a promise so long that the postponement of the debt will serve in lieu of its liquidation—that you pay your debts by putting off your creditors.
The people have to support the Government; the Government cannot support the people. The Government has no money but what it received from the people. It had therefore to borrow money to carry on the war. Every greenback that it issued was a forced loan. My notes are not a legal tender, though if I had the power I might possibly make them so. We borrowed money and we have to pay the debt. That debt represents the expenses of war. The horses and the gunpowder and the rifles and the artillery are represented in that debt—it represents all the munitions of war. Until we pay that debt we can never be a solvent nation. Until our net profits amount to as much as we lost during the war we can never be a solvent people. If a man cannot understand that, there is no use in talking to him on the subject. The alchemists in olden times who fancied that they could make gold out of nothing were not more absurd than the American advocates of soft money. They resemble the early explorers of our continent who lost years in searching for the fountain of eternal youth, but the ear of age never caught the gurgle of that spring. We all have heard of men who spent years of labor in endeavoring to produce perpetual motion. They produced machines of the most ingenious character with cogs and wheels, and pulleys without number, but these ingenious machines had one fault, they would not go. You will never find a way to make money out of nothing. It is as great nonsense as the fountain of perpetual youth. You cannot do it.
Gold is the best material which labor has yet found as a measure of value. That measure of value must be as valuable as the object it measures.
The value of gold arises from the amount of labor expended in producing it. A gold dollar will buy as much labor as produced that dollar.
[Here the speaker opened a telegram from Maine, which he
read to the audience amid a perfect tempest of applause. It
contained the following words:] "We have triumphed by an
immense majority, something we have not achieved since
1868." [The speaker resumed.] And this despatch is signed by
the man who clutched the throats of the Democrats and held
them until they grew black in the face, James G. Blaine. ***
Now, gentlemen, to pass from the financial part of this, and I will say one word before I do it. The Republican party intends to pay its debts in coin on the 1st of January, 1879. Paper money means probably the payment of the Confederate debt; a metallic currency, the discharge of honest obligations. We have touched hard-pan prices in this country, and we want to do a hard-pan business with hard money.
We now come to the protection of our citizens. A government that cannot protect its citizens, at home and abroad, ought to be swept from the map of the world. The Democrats tell you that they will protect any citizen if he is only away from home, but if he is in Louisiana or any other State in the Union, the Government is powerless to protect him. I say a government has a right to protect every citizen at home as well as abroad, and the Government has the right to take its soldiers across the State line, to take its soldiers into any State, for the purpose of protecting even one man. That is my doctrine with regard to the power of the Government. But here comes a Democrat to-day and tells me, (and it is the old doctrine of secession in disguise), that the State of Louisiana must protect its own citizens, and that if it does not, the General Government has nothing to do unless the Governor of that State asks assistance, no matter whether anarchy prevails or not. That is infamous. The United States has the right to draft you and me into the army and compel us to serve there, if its powers are being usurped. It is the duty of this Government to see to it that every citizen has all his rights in every State in this Union, and to protect him in the enjoyment of those rights, peaceably if it can, forcibly if it must.
Democrats tell us that they treat the colored man very well. I have frequently read stories relating how two white men were passing along the road when suddenly they were set upon by ten or twelve negroes, who sought their lives; but in the fight which ensued, the ten or twelve negroes were killed, and not a white man hurt. I tell you it is infamous, and the Democratic press of the North laughs at it, and Mr. Samuel J. Tilden does not care. He knows that many of the Southern States are to be carried by assassination and murder, and he knows that if he is elected it will be by assassination and murder. It is infamous beyond the expression of language. Now, I ask you which party will be the most likely to preserve the liberty of the negro—the party who fought for slavery, or the men who gave them freedom? These are the two great questions—the payment of the debt, and the protection of our citizens. My friends, we have to pay the debt, as I told you, but it is of greater importance to make sacred American citizenship.
Now, these two parties have a couple of candidates. The Democratic party has put forward Mr. Samuel J. Tilden. Mr. Tilden is a Democrat who belongs to the Democratic party of the city of New York; the worst party ever organized in any civilized country. I wish you could see it. The pugilists, the prizefighters, the plug-uglies, the fellows that run with the "masheen;" nearly every nose is mashed, about half the ears have been chawed off; and of whatever complexion they are, their eyes are nearly always black. They have fists like tea-kettles and heads like bullets. I wish you could see them. I have been in New York every few weeks for fifteen years; and whenever I am here I see the old banner of Tammany Hall, "Tammany Hall and Reform;" "John Morrissey and Reform;" "John Kelley and Reform;" "William M. Tweed and Reform;" and the other day I saw the same old flag; "Samuel J. Tilden and Reform." The Democratic party of the city of New York never had but two objects—grand and petit larceny. Tammany Hall bears the same relation to the penitentiary that the Sunday school does to the church.
I have heard that the Democratic party got control of the city when it did not owe a dollar, and have stolen and stolen until it owes a hundred and sixty millions, and I understand that every election they have had was a fraud, every one. I understand that they stole everything they could lay their hands on; and what hands! Grasped and grasped and clutched, until they stole all it was possible for the people to pay, and now they are all yelling for "Honesty and Reform."
I understand that Samuel J. Tilden was a pupil in that school, and that now he is the head teacher. I understand that when the war commenced he said he would never aid in the prosecution of that old outrage. I understand that he said in 1860 and in 1861 that the Southern States could snap the tie of confederation as a nation would break a treaty, and that they could repel coercion as a nation would repel invasion. I understand that during the entire war he was opposed to its prosecution, and that he was opposed to the Proclamation of Emancipation, and demanded that the document be taken back. I understand that he regretted to see the chains fall from the limbs of the colored man. I understand that he regretted when the Constitution of the United States was elevated and purified, pure as the driven snow. I understand that he regretted when the stain was wiped from our flag and we stood before the world the only pure Republic that ever existed. This is enough for me to say about him, and since the news from Maine you need not waste your time in talking about him.
[A voice: "How about free schools?"]
I want every schoolhouse to be a temple of science in which shall be taught the laws of nature, in which the children shall be taught actual facts, and I do not want that schoolhouse touched, or that institution of science touched, by any superstition whatever. Leave religion with the church, with the family, and more than all, leave religion with each individual heart and man.
Let every man be his own bishop, let every man be his own pope, let every man do his own thinking, let every man have a brain of his own. Let every man have a heart and conscience of his own.
We are growing better, and truer, and grander. And let me say, Mr. Democrat, we are keeping the country for your children. We are keeping education for your children. We are keeping the old flag floating for your children; and let me say, as a prediction, there is only air enough on this continent to float that one flag.
Note.—This address was not revised by the author for
publication.
* Col. Ingersoll was introduced by Gen'l Noyes, who said: "I
have now the exquisite pleasure of introducing to you that
dashing cavalry officer, that thunderbolt of war, that
silver tongued orator, Col. Robert G. Ingersoll of Illinois."
The Journal, Indianapolis, Indiana. September 2lst, 1876.
HAYES CAMPAIGN. 1876
Delivered to the Veteran Soldiers of the Rebellion.
LADIES and Gentlemen, Fellow Citizens and Citizen Soldiers:—I am opposed to the Democratic party, and I will tell you why. Every State that seceded from the United States was a Democratic State. Every ordinance of secession that was drawn was drawn by a Democrat. Every man that endeavored to tear the old flag from the heaven that it enriches was a Democrat. Every man that tried to destroy this nation was a Democrat. Every enemy this great Republic has had for twenty years has been a Democrat. Every man that shot Union soldiers was a Democrat. Every man that denied to the Union prisoners even the worm-eaten crust of famine, and when some poor, emaciated Union patriot, driven to insanity by famine, saw in an insane dream the face of his mother, and she beckoned him and he followed, hoping to press her lips once again against his fevered face, and when he stepped one step beyond the dead line the wretch that put the bullet through his loving, throbbing heart was and is a Democrat.
Every man that loved slavery better than liberty was a Democrat. The man that assassinated Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat. Every man that sympathized with the assassin—every man glad that the noblest President ever elected was assassinated, was a Democrat. Every man that wanted the privilege of whipping another man to make him work for him for nothing and pay him with lashes on his naked back, was a Democrat. Every man that raised bloodhounds to pursue human beings was a Democrat. Every man that clutched from shrieking, shuddering, crouching mothers, babes from their breasts, and sold them into slavery, was a Democrat. Every man that impaired the credit of the United States, every man that swore we would never pay the bonds, every man that swore we would never redeem the greenbacks, every maligner of his country's credit, every calumniator of his country's honor, was a Democrat. Every man that resisted the draft, every man that hid in the bushes and shot at Union men simply because they were endeavoring to enforce the laws of their country, was a Democrat. Every man that wept over the corpse of slavery was a Democrat. Every man that cursed Abraham Lincoln because he issued the Proclamation of Emancipation—the grandest paper since the Declaration of Independence—every one of them was a Democrat. Every man that denounced the soldiers that bared their breasts to the storms of shot and shell for the honor of America and for the sacred rights of man; was a Democrat. Every man that wanted an uprising in the North, that wanted to release the rebel prisoners that they might burn down the homes of Union soldiers above the heads of their wives and children, while the brave husbands, the heroic fathers, were in the front fighting for the honor of the old flag, every one of them was a Democrat. I am not through yet. Every man that believed this glorious nation of ours is a confederacy, every man that believed the old banner carried by our fathers over the fields of the Revolution; the old flag carried by our fathers over the fields of 1812; the glorious old banner carried by our brothers over the plains of Mexico; the sacred banner carried by our brothers over the cruel fields of the South, simply stood for a contract, simply stood for an agreement, was a Democrat. Every man who believed that any State could go out of the Union at its pleasure, every man that believed the grand fabric of the American Government could be made to crumble instantly into dust at the touch of treason, was a Democrat. Every man that helped to burn orphan asylums in New York, was a Democrat; every man that tried to fire the city of New York, although he knew that thousands would perish, and knew that the great serpent of flame leaping from buildings would clutch children from their mothers' arms—every wretch that did it was a Democrat. Recollect it! Every man that tried to spread smallpox and yellow fever in the North, as the instrumentalities of civilized war, was a Democrat. Soldiers, every scar you have on your heroic bodies was given you by a Democrat. Every scar, every arm that is lacking, every limb that is gone, is a souvenir of a Democrat. I want you to recollect it. Every man that was the enemy of human liberty in this country was a Democrat. Every man that wanted the fruit of all the heroism of all the ages to turn to ashes upon the lips—every one was a Democrat.
I am a Republican. I will tell you why: This is the only free Government in the world. The Republican party made it so. The Republican party took the chains from four millions of people. The Republican party, with the wand of progress, touched the auction-block and it became a schoolhouse. The Republican party put down the Rebellion, saved the nation, kept the old banner afloat in the air, and declared that slavery of every kind should be extirpated from the face of this continent. What more? I am a Republican because it is the only free party that ever existed. It is a party that has a platform as broad as humanity, a platform as broad as the human race, a party that says you shall have all the fruit of the labor of your hands, a party that says you may think for yourself, a party that says, no chains for the hands, no fetters for the soul.*
* At this point the rain began to descend, and it looked as
if a heavy shower was impending. Several umbrellas were put
up. Gov. Noyes—"God bless you! What is rain to soldiers"
Voice—"Go ahead; we don't mind the rain." It was proposed
to adjourn the meeting to Masonic Hall, but the motion was
voted down by an overwhelming majority, and Mr. Ingersoll
proceeded.
I am a Republican because the Republican party says this country is a Nation, and not a confederacy. I am here in Indiana to speak, and I have as good a right to speak here as though I had been born on this stand—not because the State flag of Indiana waves over me—I would not know it if I should see it. You have the same right to speak in Illinois, not because the State flag of Illinois waves over you, but because that banner, rendered sacred by the blood of all the heroes, waves over you and me. I am in favor of this being a Nation. Think of a man gratifying his entire ambition in the State of Rhode Island. We want this to be a Nation, and you cannot have a great, grand, splendid people without a great, grand, splendid country. The great plains, the sublime mountains, the great rushing, roaring rivers, shores lashed by two oceans, and the grand anthem of Niagara, mingle and enter, into the character of every American citizen, and make him or tend to make him a great and grand character. I am for the Republican party because it says the Government has as much right, as much power, to protect its citizens at home as abroad. The Republican party does not say that you have to go away from home to get the protection of the Government. The Democratic party says the Government cannot march its troops into the South to protect the rights of the citizens. It is a lie. The Government claims the right, and it is conceded that the Government has the right, to go to your house, while you are sitting by your fireside with your wife and children about you, and the old lady knitting, and the cat playing with the yarn, and everybody happy and serene—the Government claims the right to go to your fireside and take you by force and put you into the army; take you down to the valley of the shadow of hell, put you by the ruddy, roaring guns, and make you fight for your flag. Now, that being so, when the war is over and your country is victorious, and you go back to your home, and a lot of Democrats want to trample upon your rights, I want to know if the Government that took you from your fireside and made you fight for it, I want to know if it is not bound to fight for you. The flag that will not protect its protectors is a dirty rag that contaminates the air in which it waves. The government that will not defend its defenders is a disgrace to the nations of the world. I am a Republican because the Republican party says, "We will protect the rights of American citizens at home, and if necessary we will march an army into any State to protect the rights of the humblest American citizen in that State." I am a Republican because that party allows me to be free—allows me to do my own thinking in my own way. I am a Republican because it is a party grand enough and splendid enough and sublime enough to invite every human being in favor of liberty and progress to fight shoulder to shoulder for the advancement of mankind. It invites the Methodist, it invites the Catholic, it invites the Presbyterian and every kind of sectarian; it invites the Freethinker; it invites the infidel, provided he is in favor of giving to every other human being every chance and every right that he claims for himself. I am a Republican, I tell you. There is room in the Republican air for every wing; there is room on the Republican sea for every sail. Republicanism says to every man: "Let your soul be like an eagle; fly out in the great dome of thought, and question the stars for yourself." But the Democratic party says; "Be blind owls, sit on the dry limb of a dead tree, and hoot only when that party says hoot."
In the Republican party there are no followers. We are all leaders. There is not a party chain. There is not a party lash. Any man that does not love this country, any man that does not love liberty, any man that is not in favor of human progress, that is not in favor of giving to others all he claims for himself; we do not ask him to vote the Republican ticket. You can vote it if you please, and if there is any Democrat within hearing who expects to die before another election, we are willing that he should vote one Republican ticket, simply as a consolation upon his death-bed. What more? I am a Republican because that party believes in free labor. It believes that free labor will give us wealth. It believes in free thought, because it believes that free thought will give us truth. You do not know what a grand party you belong to. I never want any holier or grander title of nobility than that I belong to the Republican party, and have fought for the liberty of man. The Republican party, I say, believes in free labor. The Republican party also believes in slavery. What kind of slavery? In enslaving the forces of nature.
We believe that free labor, that free thought, have enslaved the forces of nature, and made them work for man. We make old attraction of gravitation work for us; we make the lightning do our errands; we make steam hammer and fashion what we need. The forces of nature are the slaves of the Republican party. They have no backs to be whipped, they have no hearts to be torn—no hearts to be broken; they cannot be separated from their wives; they cannot be dragged from the bosoms of their husbands; they work night and day and they never tire. You cannot whip them, you cannot starve them, and a Democrat even can be trusted with one of them. I tell you I am a Republican. I believe, as I told you, that free labor will give us these slaves. Free labor will produce all these things, and everything you have to-day has been produced by free labor, nothing by slave labor.
Slavery never invented but one machine, and that was a threshing machine in the shape of a whip. Free labor has invented all the machines. We want to come down to the philosophy of these things. The problem of free labor, when a man works for the wife he loves, when he works for the little children he adores—the problem is to do the most work in the shortest space of time. The problem of slavery is to do the least work in the longest space of time. That is the difference. Free labor, love, affection—they have invented everything of use in this world. I am a Republican.
I tell you, my friends, this world is getting better every day, and the Democratic party is getting smaller every day. See the advancement we have made in a few years, see what we have done. We have covered this nation with wealth, with glory and with liberty. This is the first free Government in the world. The Republican party is the first party that was not founded on some compromise with the devil. It is the first party of pure, square, honest principle; the first one. And we have the first free country that ever existed.
And right here I want to thank every soldier that fought to make it free, every one living and dead. I thank you again and again and again. You made the first free Government in the world, and we must not forget the dead heroes. If they were here they would vote the Republican ticket, every one of them. I tell you we must not forget them.
* The past rises before me like a dream. Again we are in the great struggle for national life. We hear the sounds of preparation—the music of boisterous drums—the silver voices of heroic bugles. We see thousands of assemblages, and hear the appeals of orators. We see the pale cheeks of women, and the flushed faces of men; and in those assemblages we see all the dead whose dust we have covered with flowers. We lose sight of them no more. We are with them when they enlist in the great army of freedom. We see them part with those they love. Some are walking for the last time in quiet, woody places, with the maidens they adore. We hear the whisperings and the sweet vows of eternal love as they lingeringly part forever. Others are bending over cradles, kissing babes that are asleep. Some are receiving the blessings of old men. Some are parting with mothers who hold them and press them to their hearts again and again, and say nothing. Kisses and tears, tears and kisses—divine mingling of agony and love! And some are talking with wives, and endeavoring with brave words, spoken in the old tones, to drive from their hearts the awful fear. We see them part. We see the wife standing in the door with the babe in her arms—standing in the sunlight sobbing. At the turn of the road a hand waves—she answers by holding high in her loving arms the child. He is gone, and forever.
We see them all as they march proudly away under the flaunting flags, keeping time to the grand, wild music of war—marching down the streets of the great cities—through the towns and across the prairies—down to the fields of glory, to do and to die for the eternal right.
We go with them, one and all. We are by their side on all the gory fields—in all the hospitals of pain—on all the weary marches. We stand guard with them in the wild storm and under the quiet stars. We are with them in ravines running with blood—in the furrows of old fields. We are with them between contending hosts, unable to move, wild with thirst, the life ebbing slowly away among the withered leaves. We see them pierced by balls and torn with shells, in the trenches, by forts, and in the whirlwind of the charge, where men become iron, with nerves of steel.
We are with them in the prisons of hatred and famine; but human speech can never tell what they endured.
We are at home when the news comes that they are dead. We see the maiden in the shadow of her first sorrow. We see the silvered head of the old man bowed with the last grief.
The past rises before us, and we see four millions of human beings governed by the lash—we see them bound hand and foot—we hear the strokes of cruel whips—we see the hounds tracking women through tangled swamps. We see babes sold from the breasts of mothers. Cruelty unspeakable! Outrage infinite!
Four million bodies in chains—four million souls in fetters. All the sacred relations of wife, mother, father and child trampled beneath the brutal feet of might. And all this was done under our own beautiful banner of the free.
The past rises before us. We hear the roar and shriek of the bursting shell. The broken fetters fall. These heroes died. We look. Instead of slaves we see men and women and children. The wand of progress touches the auction-block, the slave-pen, the whipping-post, and we see homes and firesides and schoolhouses and books, and where all was want and crime and cruelty and fear, we see the faces of the free.
These heroes are dead. They died for liberty—they died for us. They are at rest. They sleep in the land they made free, under the flag they rendered stainless, under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the tearful willows, and the embracing vines. They, sleep beneath the shadows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or of storm, each in the windowless Palace of Rest. Earth may run red with other wars—they are at peace. In the midst of battle, in the roar of conflict, they found the serenity of death. I have one sentiment for soldiers living and dead: cheers for the living; tears for the dead.
* This poetic flight of oratory has since become universally
known as "A. Vision of War."
Now, my friends, I have given you a few reasons why I am a Republican. I have given you a few reasons why I am not a Democrat. Let me say another thing. The Democratic party opposed every forward movement of the army of the Republic, every one. Do not be fooled. Imagine the meanest resolution that you can think of—that is the resolution the Democratic party passed. Imagine the meanest thing you can think of—that is what they did; and I want you to recollect that the Democratic party did these devilish things when the fate of this nation was trembling in the balance of war. I want you to recollect another thing; when they tell you about hard times, that the Democratic party made the hard times; that every dollar we owe to-day was made by the Southern and Northern Democracy.
When we commenced to put down the Rebellion we had to borrow money, and the Democratic party went into the markets of the world and impaired the credit of the United States. They slandered, they lied, they maligned the credit of the United States, and to such an extent did they do this, that at one time during the war paper was only worth about thirty-four cents on the dollar. Gold went up to $2.90. What did that mean? It meant that greenbacks were worth thirty-four cents on the dollar. What became of the other sixty-six cents? They were lied out of the greenback, they were slandered out of the greenback, they were maligned out of the greenback, they were calumniated out of the greenback, by the Democratic party of the North. Two-thirds of the debt, two-thirds of the burden now upon the shoulders of American industry, were placed there by the slanders of the Democratic party of the North, and the other third by the Democratic party of the South. And when you pay your taxes keep an account and charge two-thirds to the Northern Democracy and one-third to the Southern Democracy, and whenever you have to earn the money to pay the taxes, when you have to blister your hands to earn that money, pull off the blisters, and under each one, as the foundation, you will find a Democratic lie.
Recollect that the Democratic party did all the things of which I have told you, when the fate of our nation was submitted to the arbitrament of the sword. Recollect that the Democratic party did these things when your brothers, your fathers, and your chivalric sons were fighting, bleeding, suffering, and dying upon the battle-fields of the South; when shot and shell were crashing through their sacred flesh. Recollect that this Democratic party was false to the Union when your husbands, your fathers, and your brothers, and your chivalric sons were lying in the hospitals of pain, dreaming broken dreams of home, and seeing fever pictures of the ones they loved; recollect that the Democratic party was false to the nation when your husbands, your fathers, and your brothers were lying alone upon the field of battle at night, the life-blood slowly oozing from the mangled and pallid lips of death; recollect that the Democratic party was false to your country when your husbands, your brothers, your fathers, and your sons were lying in the prison pens of the South, with no covering but the clouds, with no bed but the frozen earth, with no food except such as worms had re-p fused to eat, and with no friends except Insanity and Death. Recollect it, and spurn that party forever.
I have sometimes wished that there were words of pure hatred out of which I might construct sentences like snakes; out of which I might construct sentences that had fanged mouths, and that had forked tongues; out of which I might construct sentences that would writhe and hiss; and then I could give my opinion of the Northern allies of the Southern rebels during the great struggle for the preservation of the country.
There are three questions now submitted to the American people. The first is, Shall the people that saved this country rule it? Shall the men who saved the old flag hold it? Shall the men who saved the ship of State sail it, or shall the rebels walk her quarter-deck, give the orders and sink it? That is the question. Shall a solid South, a united South, united by assassination and murder, a South solidified by the shot-gun; shall a united South, with the aid of a divided North, shall they control this great and splendid country? We are right back where we were in 1861. This is simply a prolongation of the war. This is the war of the idea, the other was the war of the musket. The other was the war of cannon, this is the war of thought; and we have to beat them in this war of thought, recollect that. The question is, Shall the men who endeavored to destroy this country rule it? Shall the men that said, This is not a Nation, have charge of the Nation?
The next question is, Shall we pay our debts? We had to borrow some money to pay for shot and shell to shoot Democrats with. We found that we could get along with a few less Democrats, but not with any less country, and so we borrowed the money, and the question now is, will we pay it? And which party is the more apt to pay it, the Republican party that made the debt—the party that swore it was constitutional, or the party that said it was unconstitutional?
Every time a Democrat sees a greenback, it says to him, "I vanquished you." Every time a Republican sees a greenback, it says, "You and I put down the Rebellion and saved the country."
Now, my friends, you have heard a great deal about finance. Nearly everybody that talks about it gets as dry—as dry as if they had been in the final home of the Democratic party for forty years.
I will now give you my ideas about finance. In the first place the Government does not support the people, the people support the Government.
The Government is a perpetual pauper. It passes round the hat, and solicits contributions; but then you must remember that the Government has a musket behind the hat. The Government produces nothing. It does not plow the land, it does not sow corn, it does not grow trees. The Government is a perpetual consumer. We support the Government. Now, the idea that the Government can make money for you and me to live on—why, it is the same as though my hired man should issue certificates of my indebtedness to him for me to live on.
Some people tell me that the Government can impress its sovereignty on a piece of paper, and that is money. Well, if it is, what's the use of wasting it making one dollar bills? It takes no more ink and no more paper—why not make one thousand dollar bills? Why not make a hundred million dollar bills and all be billionaires?
If the Government can make money, what on earth does it collect taxes from you and me for? Why does it not make what money it wants, take the taxes out, and give the balance to us? Mr. Greenbacker, suppose the Government issued a billion dollars to-morrow, how would you get any of it? [A voice, "Steal it."] I was not speaking to the Democrats. You would not get any of it unless you had something to exchange for it. The Government would not go around and give you your aver-: age. You have to have some corn, or wheat, or pork to give for it.
How do you get your money? By work. Where from? You have to dig it out of the ground. That is where it comes from. Men have always had a kind of hope that something could be made out of nothing. The old alchemists sought, with dim eyes, for something that could change the baser metals to gold. With tottering steps, they searched for the spring of Eternal Youth. Holding in trembling hands retort and crucible, they dreamed of the Elixir of Life. The baser metals are not gold. No human ear has ever heard the silver gurgle of the spring of Immortal Youth. The wrinkles upon the brow of Age are still waiting for the Elixir of Life.
Inspired by the same idea, mechanics have endeavored, by curious combinations of levers and inclined planes, of wheels and cranks and shifting weights, to produce perpetual motion; but the wheels and levers wait for force. And, in the financial world, there are thousands now trying to find some way for promises to take the place of performance; for some way to make the word dollar as good as the dollar itself; for some way to make the promise to pay a dollar take the dollar's place. This financial alchemy, this pecuniary perpetual motion, this fountain of eternal wealth, are the same old failures with new names. Something cannot be made out of nothing. Nothing is a poor capital to, carry on business with, and makes a very unsatisfactory balance at your bankers.
Let me tell you another thing. The Democrats seem to think that you can fail to keep a promise so long that it is as good as though you had kept it. They say you can stamp the sovereignty of the Government upon paper.
I saw not long ago a piece of gold bearing the stamp of the Roman Empire. That Empire is dust, and over it has been thrown the mantle of oblivion, but that piece of gold is as good as though Julius Cæsar were still riding at the head of the Roman Legions.
Was it his sovereignty that made it valuable? Suppose he had put it upon a piece of paper—it would have been of no more value than a Democratic promise.
Another thing, my friends: this debt will be paid; you need not worry about that. The Democrats ought to pay it. They lost the suit, and they ought to pay the costs. But we in our patriotism are willing to pay our share.
Every man that has a bond, every man that has a greenback dollar has a mortgage upon the best continent of land on earth. Every one has a mortgage on the honor of the Republican party, and it is on record. Every spear of grass; every bearded head of golden wheat that grows upon this continent is a guarantee that the debt will be paid; every field of bannered corn in the great, glorious West is a guarantee that the debt will be paid; every particle of coal laid away by that old miser the sun, millions-of years ago, is a guarantee that every dollar will be paid; all the iron ore, all the gold and silver under the snow-capped Sierra Nevadas, waiting for the miners pick to give back the flash of the sun, every ounce is a guarantee that this debt will be paid; and all the cattle on the prairies, pastures and plains which adorn our broad land are guarantees that this debt will be paid; every pine standing in the sombre forests of the North, waiting for the woodman's axe, is a guarantee that this debt will be paid; every locomotive with its muscles of iron and breath of flame, and all the boys and girls bending over their books at school, every dimpled babe in the cradle, every honest man, every noble woman, and every man that votes the Republican ticket is a guarantee that the debt will be paid—these, all these, each and all, are the guarantees that every promise of the United States will be sacredly fulfilled.
What is the next question? The next question is, will we protect the Union men in the South? I tell you the white Union men have suffered enough. It is a crime in the Southern States to be a Republican. It is a crime in every Southern State to love this country, to believe in the sacred rights of men.
The colored people have suffered enough. For more than two hundred years they have suffered the fabled torments of the damned; for more than two hundred years they worked and toiled without reward, bending, in the burning sun, their bleeding backs; for more than two hundred years, babes were torn from the breasts of mothers, wives from husbands, and every human tie broken by the cruel hand of greed; for more than two hundred years they were pursued by hounds, beaten with clubs, burned with fire, bound with chains; two hundred years of toil, of agony, of tears; two hundred years of hope deferred; two hundred years of gloom and shadow and darkness and blackness; two hundred years of supplication, of entreaty; two hundred years of infinite outrage, without a moment of revenge.
The colored people have suffered enough. They were and are our friends. They are the friends of this country, and, cost what it may, they must be protected.
There was not during the whole Rebellion a single negro that was not our friend. We are willing to be reconciled to our Southern brethren when they will treat our friends as men. When they will be just to the friends of this country; when they are in favor of allowing every American citizen to have his rights—then we are their friends. We are willing to trust them with the Nation when they are the friends of the Nation. We are willing to trust them with liberty when they believe in liberty. We are willing to trust them with the black man when they cease riding in the darkness of night, (those masked wretches,) to the hut of the freedman, and notwithstanding the prayers and supplications of his family, shoot him down; when they cease to consider the massacre of Hamburg as a Democratic triumph, then, I say, we will be their friends, and not before.
Now, my friends, thousands of the Southern people and thousands of the Northern Democrats are afraid that the negroes are going to pass them in the race of life. And, Mr. Democrat, he will do it unless you attend to your business. The simple fact that you are white cannot save you always. You have to be industrious, honest, to cultivate a sense of justice. If you do not the colored race will pass you, as sure as you live. I am for giving every man a chance. Anybody that can pass me is welcome.
I believe, my friends, that the intellectual domain of the future, as the land used to be in the State of Illinois, is open to pre-emption. The fellow that gets a fact first, that is his; that gets an idea first, that is his. Every round in the ladder of fame, from the one that touches the ground to the last one that leans against the shining summit of human ambition, belongs to the foot that gets upon it first.
Mr. Democrat, (I point down because they are nearly all on the first round of the ladder) if you can not climb, stand one side and let the deserving negro pass.
I must tell you one thing. I have told it so much, and you have all heard it fifty times, but I am going to tell it again because I like it. Suppose there was a great horse race here to-day, free to every horse in the world, and to all the mules, and all the scrubs* and all the donkeys.
At the tap of the drum they come to the line, and the judges say "it is a go." Let me ask you, what does the blooded horse, rushing ahead, with nostrils distended, drinking in the breath of his own swiftness, with his mane flying like a banner of victory, with his veins standing out all over him, as if a network of life had been cast upon him—with his thin neck, his high withers, his tremulous flanks—what does he care how many mules and donkeys run on that track? But the Democratic scrub, with his chuckle-head and lop-ears, with his tail full of cockle-burrs, jumping high and short, and digging in the ground when he feels the breath of the coming mule on his cockle-burr tail, he is the chap that jumps the track and says, "I am down on mule equality."
I stood, a little while ago, in the city of Paris, where stood the Bastile, where now stands the Column of July, surmounted by a figure of liberty. In its right hand is a broken chain, in its left hand a banner; upon its glorious forehead the glittering and shining star of progress—and as I looked upon it I said: "Such is the Republican party of my country."
The other day going along the road I came to a place where the road had been changed, but the guide-board did not know it. It had stood there for twenty years pointing deliberately and solemnly in the direction of a desolate field; nobody ever went that way, but the guide-board thought the next man would. Thousands passed, but nobody heeded the hand on the guide-post, and through sunshine and storm it pointed diligently into the old field and swore to it the road went that way; and I said to myself: "Such is the Democratic party of the United States."
The other day I came to a river where there had been a mill; a part of it was there still. An old sign said: "Cash for wheat." The old water-wheel was broken; it had been warped by the sun, cracked and split by many winds and storms. There had not been a grain of wheat ground there for twenty years.
The door was gone, nobody had built a new dam, the mill was not worth a dam; and I said to myself: "Such is the Democratic party."
I saw a little while ago a place on the road where there had once been an hotel. But the hotel and barn had burned down and there was nothing standing but two desolate chimneys, up the flues of which the fires of hospitality had not roared for thirty years. The fence was gone, and the post-holes even were obliterated, but in the road there was an old sign upon which were these words: "Entertainment for man and beast." The old sign swung and creaked in the winter wind, the snow fell upon it, the sleet clung to it, and in the summer the birds sang and twittered and made love upon it. Nobody ever stopped there, but the sign swore to it, the sign certified to it! "Entertainment for man and beast," and I said to myself: "Such is the Democratic party of the United States," and I further said, "one chimney ought to be called Tilden and the other Hendricks."
Now, my friends, I want you to vote the Republican ticket. I want you to swear you will not vote for a man who opposed putting down the Rebellion. I want you to swear that you will not vote for a man opposed to the Proclamation of Emancipation. I want you to swear that you will not vote for a man opposed to the utter abolition of slavery.
I want you to swear that you will not vote for a man who called the soldiers in the field, Lincoln hirelings. I want you to swear that you will not vote for a man who denounced Lincoln as a tyrant. I want you to swear that you will not vote for any enemy of human progress. Go and talk to every Democrat that you can see; get him by the coatcollar, talk to him, and hold him like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, with your glittering eye; hold him, tell him all the mean things his party ever did; tell him kindly; tell him in a Christian spirit, as I do, but tell him. Recollect, there never was a more important election than the one you are going to hold in Indiana. I tell you we must stand by the country. It is a glorious country. It permits you and me to be free. It is the only country in the world where labor is respected. Let us support it. It is the only country in the world where the useful man is the only aristocrat. The man that works for a dollar a day, goes home at night to his little ones, takes his little boy on his knee, and he thinks that boy can achieve anything that the sons of the wealthy man can achieve. The free schools are open to him; he may be the richest, the greatest, and the grandest, and that thought sweetens every drop of sweat that rolls down the honest face of toil. Vote to save that country.
My friends, this country is getting better every day. Samuel J. Tilden says we are a nation of thieves and rascals. If that is so he ought to be the President. But I denounce him as a calumniator of my country; a maligner of this nation. It is not so. This country is covered with asylums for the aged, the helpless, the insane, the orphans and wounded soldiers. Thieves and rascals do not build such things. In the cities of the Atlantic coast this summer, they built floating hospitals, great ships, and took the little children from the sub-cellars and narrow, dirty streets of New York City, where the Democratic party is the strongest—took these poor waifs and put them in these great hospitals out at sea, and let the breezes of ocean kiss the roses of health back to their pallid cheeks. Rascals and thieves do not so. When Chicago burned, railroads were blocked with the charity of the American people. Thieves and rascals do not so.
I am a Republican. The world is getting better. Husbands are treating their wives better than they used to; wives are treating their husbands better. Children are better treated than they used to be; the old whips and clubs are out of the schools, and they are governing children by love and by sense. The world is getting better; it is getting better in Maine, in Vermont. It is getting better in every State of the North, and I tell you we are going to elect Hayes and Wheeler and the world will then be better still. I have a dream that this world is growing better and better every day and every year; that there is more charity, more justice, more love every day. I have a dream that prisons will not always curse the land; that the shadow of the gallows will not always fall upon the earth; that the withered hand of want will not always be stretched out for charity; that finally wisdom will sit in the legislatures, justice in the courts, charity will occupy all the pulpits, and that finally the world will be governed by justice and charity, and by the splendid light of liberty. That is my dream, and if it does not come true, it shall not be my fault. I am going to do my level best to give others the same chance I ask for myself. Free thought will give us truth; Free labor will give us wealth.
* Col. Robert G. Ingersoll spoke last night at the
Exposition Building to the largest audience ever drawn by
one man In Chicago. From 6.30 o'clock the sidewalks fronting
along the building were jammed. At every entrance there were
hundreds, and half-an-hour later thousands were clamoring
for admittance. So great was the pressure the doors were
finally closed, and the entrances at either end cautiously
opened to admit the select who knew enough to apply In those
directions. Occasionally a rush was made for the main door,
and as the crowd came up against the huge barricade they
were swept back only for another effort. Wabash Avenue,
Monroe, Adams, Jackson, and Van Buren Streets were jammed
with ladies and gentlemen who swept into Michigan Avenue and
swelled the sea that surged around the building.
At 7.30 the doors were flung open and the people rushed in.
Seating accommodations supposed to be adequate to all
demands, had been provided, but in an Instant they were
filled, the aisles were jammed and around the sides of the
building poured a steady stream of humanity, Intent only
upon some coign of vantage, some place, where they could see
and where they could hear. Prom the fountain, beyond which
the building lay in shadow to the northern end, was a
swaying, surging mass of people.
Such another attendance of ladies has never been known at a
political meeting in Chicago. They came by the hundreds, and
the speaker looked down from his perch upon thousands of
fair upturned faces, stamped with the most intense interest
in his remarks.
The galleries were packed. The frame of the huge elevator
creaked, groaned, and swayed with the crowd roosting upon
it. The trusses bore their living weight. The gallery
railings bent and cracked. The roof was crowded, and the sky
lights teemed with heads. Here and there an adventurous
youth crept out on the girders and braces. Towards the
northern end of the building, on the west side, is a smaller
gallery, dark, and not particularly strong-looking. It was
fairly packed—packed like a sardine-box—with men and boys.
Up in the organ-loft around the sides of the organ,
everywhere that a human being could sit, stand or hang, was
pre-empted and filled.
It was a magnificent, outpouring, at east 50,000 In number,
a compliment alike to the principle it represented, and the
orator.—Chicago Tribune., October 21st, 1876.
HAYES CAMPAIGN. 1876.
LADIES and Gentlemen:—Democrats and Republicans have a common interest in the United States. We have a common interest in the preservation of good order. We have a common interest in the preservation of a common country. And I appeal to all, Democrats and Republicans, to endeavor to make a conscientious choice; to endeavor to select as President and Vice-President of the United States the men and the parties, which, in your judgment, will best preserve this nation, and preserve all that is dear to us either as Republicans or Democrats.
The Democratic party comes before you and asks that you will give this Government into its hands; and you have a right to investigate as to the reputation and character of the Democratic organization. The Democratic party says, "Let bygones be bygones." I never knew a man who did a decent action that wanted it forgotten. I never knew a man who did some great and shining act of self-sacrifice and heroic devotion who did not wish that act remembered. Not only so, but he expected his loving children would chisel the remembrance of it upon the marble that marked his last resting place. But whenever a man does an infamous thing; whenever a man commits some crime; whenever a man does that which mantles the cheeks of his children with shame; he is the man that says, "Let bygones be bygones." The Democratic party admits that it has a record, but it says that any man that will look into it, any man that will tell it, is not a gentleman. I do not know whether, according to the Democratic standard, I am a gentleman or not; but I do say that in a certain sense I am one of the historians of the Democratic party.
I do not know that it is true that a man cannot give this record and be a gentleman, but I admit that a gentleman hates to read this record; a gentleman hates to give this record to the world; but I do it, not because I like to do it, but because I believe the best interests of this country demand that there shall be a history given of the Democratic party.
In the first place, I claim that the Democratic party embraces within its filthy arms the worst elements in American society. I claim that every enemy that this Government has had for twenty years has been and is a Democrat; every man in the Dominion of Canada that hates the great Republic, would like to see Tilden and Hendricks successful. Every titled thief in Great Britain would like to see Tilden and Hendricks the next President and Vice-President of the United States.
I say more; every State that seceded from this Union was a Democratic State. Every man who hated to see bloodhounds cease to be the instrumentalities of a free government—every one was a Democrat. In short, every enemy that this Government has had for twenty years, every enemy that liberty and progress has had in the United States for twenty years, every hater of our flag, every despiser of our Nation, every man who has been a disgrace to the great Republic for twenty years, has been a Democrat. I do not say that they are all that way; but nearly all who are that way are Democrats.
The Democratic party is a political tramp with a yellow passport. This political tramp begs food and he carries in his pocket old dirty scraps of paper as a kind of certificate of character. On one of these papers he will show you the ordinance of 1789; on another one of those papers he will have a part of the Fugitive Slave Law; on another one some of the black laws that used to disgrace Illinois; on another Governor Tilden's Letter to Kent; on another a certificate signed by Lyman Trumbull that the Republican party is not fit to associate with—that certificate will be endorsed by Governor John M. Palmer and my friend Judge Doolittle. He will also have in his pocket an old wood-cut, somewhat torn, representing Abraham Lincoln falling upon the neck of S. Corning Judd, and thanking him for saving the Union as Commander-in-Chief of the Sons of Liberty. This political tramp will also have a letter dated Boston, Mass., saying: "I hereby certify that for fifty years I have regarded the bearer as a thief and robber, but I now look upon him as a reformer. Signed, Charles Francis Adams." Following this tramp will be a bloodhound; and when he asks for food, the bloodhound will crouch for employment on his haunches, and the drool of anticipation will run from his loose and hanging lips. Study the expression of that dog.
Translate it into English and it means "Oh! I want to bite a nigger!" And when the dog has that expression he bears a striking likeness to his master. The question is, Shall that tramp and that dog gain possession of the White House?
The Democratic party learns nothing; the Democratic party forgets nothing. The Democratic party does not know that the world has advanced a solitary inch since 1860. Time is a Democratic dumb watch. It has not given a tick for sixteen years. The Democratic party does not know that we, upon the great glittering highway of progress, have passed a single mile-stone for twenty years. The Democratic party is incapable of learning. The Democratic party is incapable of anything but prejudice and hatred. Every man that is a Democrat is a Democrat because he hates something; every man that is a Republican is a Republican because he loves something.
The Democratic party is incapable of advancement; the only stock that it has in trade to-day is the old infamous doctrine of Democratic State Rights. There never was a more infamous doctrine advanced on this earth, than the Democratic idea of State Rights. What is it? It has its foundation in the idea that this is not a Nation; it has its foundation in the idea that this is simply a confederacy, that this great Government is simply a bargain, that this great splendid people have simply made a trade, that the people of any one of the States are sovereign to the extent that they have the right to trample upon the rights of their fellow-citizens, and that the General Government cannot interfere. The great Democratic heart is fired to-day, the Democratic bosom is bloated with indignation because of an order made by General Grant sending troops into the Southern States to defend the rights of American citizens! Who objects to a soldier going? Nobody except a man who wants to carry an election by fraud, by violence, by intimidation, by assassination, and by murder.
The Democratic party is willing to-day that Tilden and Hendricks should be elected by violence; they are willing to-day to go into partnership with assassination and murder; they are willing to-day that every man in the Southern States, who is a friend of this Union, and who fought for our flag—that the rights of every one of these men should be trampled in the dust, provided that Tilden and Hendricks be elected President and Vice-President of this country. They tell us that a State line is sacred; that you never can cross it unless you want to do a mean thing; that if you want to catch a fugitive slave you have the right to cross it; but if you wish to defend the rights of men, then it is a sacred line, and you cannot cross it. Such is the infamous doctrine of the Democratic party. Who, I say, will be injured by sending soldiers into the Southern States? No one in the world except the man who wants to prevent an honest citizen from casting a legal vote for the Government of his choice. For my part, I think more of the colored Union men of the South than I do of the white disunion men of the South. For my part, I think more of a black friend than I do of a white enemy. For my part, I think more of a friend black outside, and white in, than I do of a man who is white outside and black inside. For my part, I think more of black justice, of black charity, and of black patriotism, than I do of white cruelty, than I do of white treachery and treason. As a matter of fact, all that is done in the South to-day, of use, is done by the colored man. The colored man raises everything that is raised in the South, except hell. And I say here to-night that I think one hundred times more of the good, honest, industrious black man of the South than I do of all the white men together that do not love this Government, and I think more of the black man of the South than I do of the white man of the North who sympathizes with the white wretch that wishes to trample upon the rights of that black man.
I believe that this is a Government, first, not only of power, but that it is the right of this Government to march all the soldiers in the United States into any sovereign State of this Union to defend the rights of every American citizen in that State. If it is the duty of the Government to defend you in time of war, when you were compelled to go into the army, how much more is it the duty of the Government to defend in time of peace the man who, in time of war, voluntarily and gladly rushed to the rescue and defence of his country; and yet the Democratic doctrine is that you are to answer the call of the Nation, but the Nation will be deaf to your cry, unless the Governor of your State makes request of your Government. Suppose the Governors and every man trample upon your rights, is the Nation then to let you be trampled upon? Will the Nation hear only the cry of the oppressor, or will it heed the cry of the oppressed? I believe we should have a Government that can hear the faintest wail, the faintest cry for justice from the lips of the humblest citizen beneath the flag. But the Democratic doctrine is that this Government can protect its citizens only when they are away from home. This may account for so many Democrats going to Canada during the war. I believe that the Government must protect you, not only abroad but must protect you at home; and that is the greatest question before the American people to-day.
I had thought that human impudence had reached its limit ages and ages ago. I had believed that some time in the history of the world impudence had reached its height, and so believed until I read the congratulatory address of Abram S. Hewitt, Chairman of the National Executive Democratic Committee, wherein he congratulates the negroes of the South on what he calls a Democratic victory in the State of Indiana. If human impudence can go beyond this, all I have to say is, it never has. What does he say to the Southern people, to the colored people? He says to them in substance: "The reason the white people trample upon you is because the white people are weak. Give the white people more strength, put the white people in authority, and, although they murder you now when they are weak, when they are strong they will let you alone. Yes; the only trouble with our Southern white brethren is that they are in the minority, and they kill you now, and the only way to save your lives is to put your enemy in the majority." That is the doctrine of Abram S. Hewitt, and he congratulates the colored people of the South upon the Democratic victory in Indiana. There is going to be a great crop of hawks next season—let us congratulate the doves. That is it. The burglars have whipped the police—let us congratulate the bank. That is it. The wolves have killed off almost all the shepherds—let us congratulate the sheep.
In my judgment, the black people have suffered enough. They have been slaves for two hundred years, and more than all, they have been compelled to keep the company of the men that owned them. Think of that! Think of being compelled to keep the society of the man who is stealing from you! Think of being compelled to live with the man that sold your wife! Think of being compelled to live with the man that stole your child from the cradle before your very eyes! Think of being compelled to live with the thief of your life, and spend your days with the white robber, and be under his control! The black people have suffered enough. For two hundred years they were owned and bought and sold and branded like cattle. For two hundred years every human tie was rent and torn asunder by the bloody, brutal hands of avarice and might. They have suffered enough. During the war the black people were our friends not only, but whenever they were entrusted with the family, with the wives and children of their masters, they were true to them. They stayed at home and protected the wife and child of the master while he went into the field and fought for the right to sell the wife and the right to whip and steal the child of the very black man that was protecting him. The black people, I say, have suffered enough, and for that reason I am in favor of the Government protecting them in every Southern State, if it takes another war to do it. We can never compromise with the South at the expense of our friends. We never can be friends with the men that starved and shot our brothers. We can never be friends with the men that waged the most cruel war in the world; not for liberty, but for the right to deprive other men of their liberty. We never can be their friends until they are the friends of our friends, until they treat the black man justly; until they treat the white Union man respectfully; until Republicanism ceases to be a crime; until to vote the Republican ticket ceases to make you a political and social outcast. We want no friendship with the enemies of our country. The next question is, who shall have possession of this country—the men that saved it,—or the men that sought to destroy it? The Southern people lit the fires of civil war. They who set the conflagration must be satisfied with the ashes left. The men that saved this country must rule it. The men that saved the flag must carry it. This Government is not far from destruction when it crowns with its highest honor in time of peace, the man that was false to it in time of war. This Nation is not far from the precipice of annihilation and destruction when it gives its highest honor to a man false, false to the country when everything we held dear trembled in the balance of war, when everything was left to the arbitrament of the sword.
The next question prominently before the people—though I think the great question is, whether citizens shall be protected at home—the next question I say, is the financial question. With that there is no trouble. We had to borrow money, and we have to pay it. That is all there is of that, and we are going to pay it just as soon as we make the money to pay it with, and we are going to make the money out of prosperity.
We have to dig it out of the earth. You cannot make a dollar by law. You cannot redeem a cent by statute. You cannot pay one solitary farthing by all the resolutions, by all the speeches ever made beneath the sun.
If the greenback doctrine is right, that evidence of national indebtedness is wealth, if that is their idea, why not go another step and make every individual note a legal tender? Why not pass a law that every man shall take every other man's note? Then I swear we would have money in plenty. No, my friends, a promise to pay a dollar is not a dollar, no matter if that promise is made by the greatest and most powerful nation on the globe. A promise is not a performance. An agreement is not an accomplishment and there never will come a time when a promise to pay a dollar is as good as the dollar, unless everybody knows that you have the dollar and will pay it whenever they ask for it. We want no more inflation. We want simply to pay our debts as fast as the prosperity of the country allows it and no faster. Every speculator that was caught with property on his hands upon which he owed more than the property was worth, wanted the game to go on a little longer. Whoever heard of a man playing poker that wanted to quit when he was a loser? He wants to have a fresh deal. He wants another hand, and he don't want any man that is ahead to jump the game. It is so with the speculators in this country. They bought land, they bought houses, they bought goods, and when the crisis and crash came, they were caught with the property on their hands, and they want another inflation, they want another tide to rise that will again sweep this driftwood into the middle of the great financial stream. That is all. Every lot in this city that was worth five thousand and that is now worth two thousand—do you know what is the matter with that lot? It has been redeeming. It has been resuming. That is what is the matter with that lot. Every man that owned property that has now fallen fifty per cent., that property has been resuming; and if you could have another inflation to-morrow, the day that the bubble burst would find thousands of speculators who paid as much for property as property was worth, and they would ask for another tide of affairs in men. They would ask for another inflation. What for? To let them out and put somebody else in.
We want no more inflation. We want the simple honest payment of the debt, and to pay out of the prosperity of this country. But, says the greenback man, "We never had as good times as when we had plenty of greenbacks."
Suppose a farmer would buy a farm for ten thousand dollars and give his note. He would buy carriages, horses, wagons and agricultural implements, and give his note. He would send Mary, Jane and Lucy to school. He would buy them pianos, and send them to college, and would give his note, and the next year he would again give his note for the interest, and the next year again his note, and finally they would come to him and say, "We must settle up; we have taken your notes as long as we can; we want money." "Why," he would say to the gentleman, "I never had as good a time in my life as while I have been giving those notes. I never had a farm until the man gave it to me for my note. My children have been clothed as well as anybody's. We have had carriages; we have had fine horses; and our house has been filled with music, and laughter, and dancing; and why not keep on taking those notes?" So it is with the greenback man; he says, "When we were running in debt we had a jolly time—let us keep it up." But, my friends, there must come a time when inflation would reach that point when all the Goverment notes in the world would not buy a pin; when all the Government notes in the world would not be worth as much as the last year's Democratic platform. I have no fear that these debts will not be paid. I have no fear that every solitary greenback dollar will not be redeemed; but, my friends, we shall have some trouble doing it. Why? Because the debt is a great deal larger than it should have been. In the first place, there should have been po debt. If it had not been for the Southern Democracy there would have been no war. If it had not been for the Northern Democracy the war would not have lasted one year.
There was a man tried in court for having murdered his father and mother. He was found guilty, and the judge asked him, "What have you to say that sentence of death shall not be pronounced on you?" "Nothing in the world Judge," said he, "only I hope your Honor will take pity on me and remember that I am a poor orphan."
I have no doubt that this debt will be paid. We have the honor to pay it, and we do not pay it on account of the avarice or greed of the bondholder. An honest man does not pay money to a creditor simply because the creditor wants it. The honest man pays at the command of his honor and not at the demand of the creditor.
The United States will pay its debts, not because the creditor demands, but because we owe it.
The United States will liquidate every debt at the command of its honor, and every cent will be paid. War is destruction, war is loss, and all the property destroyed, and the time that is lost, put together, amount to what we call a national debt. When in peace we shall have made as much net profit as there was wealth lost in the war, then we shall be a solvent people. The greenback will be redeemed, we expect to redeem it on the first day of January, 1879. We may fail; we will fail if the prosperity of the country fails; but we intend to try to do it, and if we fail, we will fail as a soldier fails to take a fort, high upon the rampart, with the flag of resumption in our hands. We will not say that we cannot pay the debt because there is a date fixed when the debt is to be paid. I have had to borrow money myself; I have had to give my note, and I recollect distinctly that every man I ever did give my note to insisted that somewhere in that note there should be some vague hint as to the cycle, as to the geological period, as to the time, as to the century and date when I expected to pay those little notes. I never understood that having a time fixed would prevent my being industrious; that it would interfere with my honesty; or with my activity, or with my desire to discharge that debt. And if any man in this great country owed you one thousand dollars, due you the first day of next January, and he should come to you and say: "I want to pay you that debt, but you must take that date out of that note." "Why?" you would say. "Why," he would reply in the language of Tilden, "I have to make wise preparation." "Well," you would say, "why don't you do it?" "Oh," he says, "I cannot do it while you have that date in that note." "Another thing," he says, "I have to get me a central reservoir of coin." And do you know I have always thought I would like to see the Democratic party around a central reservoir of coin.
Suppose this debtor would also tell you, "I want the date out of that note, because I have to come at it by a very slow and gradual process." "Well," you would say, "I do not care how slow or how gradual you are, provided that you get around by the time the note is due."
What would you think of a man that wanted the date out of the note? You would think he was a mixture of rascal and Democrat. That is what you would think.
Now, my friends, the Democratic party (if you may call it a party) brings forward as its candidate Samuel J. Tilden, of New York. I am opposed to him, first, because he is an old bachelor. In a country like ours, depending for its prosperity and glory upon an increase of the population, to elect an old bachelor is a suicidal policy. Any man that will live in this country for sixty years, surrounded by beautiful women with rosy lips and dimpled cheeks, in every dimple lurking a Cupid, with pearly teeth and sparkling eyes—any man that will push them all aside and be satisfied with the embraces of the Democratic party, does not even know the value of time. I am opposed to Samuel J. Tilden, because he is a Democrat; because he belongs to the Democratic party of the city of New York; the worst party ever organized in any civilized country.
No man should be President of this Nation who denies that it is a Nation. Samuel J. Tilden denounced the war as an outrage. No man should be President of this country that denounced a war waged in its defence as an outrage. To elect such a man would be an outrage.
Samuel J. Tilden said that the flag stands for a contract; that it stands for a confederation; that it stands for a bargain. But the great, splendid Republican party says, "No! That flag stands for a great, hoping, aspiring, sublime Nation, not for a confederacy."
I am opposed, I say, to the election of Samuel J. Tilden for another reason. If he is elected he will be controlled by his party, and his party will be controlled by the Southern stockholders in that party. They own nineteen-twentieths of the stock, and they will dictate the policy of the Democratic Corporation.
No Northern Democrat has the manliness to stand up before a Southern Democrat. Every Democrat, nearly, has a face of dough, and the Southern Democrat will swap his ears, change his nose, cut his mouth the other way of the leather, so that his own mother would not know him, in fifteen minutes. If Samuel J. Tilden is elected President of the United States, he will be controlled by the Democratic party, and the Democratic party will be controlled by the Southern Democracy—that is to say, the late rebels; that is to say, the men that tried to destroy the Government; that is to say, the men who are sorry they did not destroy the Government; that is to say, the enemies of every friend of this Union; that is to say, the murderers and the assassins of Union men living in the Southern country.
Let me say another thing. If Mr. Tilden does not act in accordance with the Southern Democratic command, the Southern Democracy will not allow a single life to stand between them and the absolute control of this country. Hendricks will then be their man. I say that it would be an outrage to give this country into the control of men who endeavored to destroy it, to give this country into the control of the Southern rebels and haters of Union men.
And on the other hand, the Republican party has put forward Rutherford B. Hayes. He is an honest man. The Democrats will say, "That is nothing." Well, let them try it. Rutherford B. Hayes has a good character.
Rutherford B. Hayes, when this war commenced, did not say with Tilden, "It is an outrage." He did not say with Tilden, "I never will contribute to the prosecution of this war." But he did say this, "I would go into this war if I knew I would be killed in the course of it, rather than to live through it and take no part in it." During the war Rutherford B. Hayes received many wounds in his flesh, but not one scratch upon his honor. Samuel J. Tilden received many wounds upon his honor, but not one scratch on his flesh. Rutherford B. Hayes is a firm man; not an obstinate man, but a firm man; and I draw this distinction: A firm man will do what he believes to be right, because he wants to do right. He will stand firm because he believes it to be right; but an obstinate man wants his own way, whether it is right or whether it is wrong. Rutherford B. Hayes is firm in the right, and obstinate only when he knows he is in the right. If you want to vote for a man who fought for you, vote for Rutherford B. Hayes. If you want to vote for a man that carried our flag through the storm of shot and shell, vote for Rutherford B. Hayes. If you believe patriotism to be a virtue, vote for Rutherford B. Hayes. If you believe this country wants heroes, vote for Rutherford B. Hayes. If you want a man who turned against his country in time of war, vote for Samuel J. Tilden. If you believe the war waged for the salvation of our Nation was an outrage, vote for Samuel J. Tilden. If you believe it is better to stay at home and curse the brave men in the field, fighting for the sacred rights of man, vote for Samuel J. Tilden. If you want to pay a premium upon treason, if you want to pay a premium upon hypocrisy, if you want to pay a premium upon chicanery, if you want to pay a premium upon sympathizing with the enemies of your country, vote for Samuel J. Tilden.
If you believe that patriotism is right, if you believe the brave defender of liberty is better than the assassin of freedom, vote for Rutherford B. Hayes.
I am proud that I belong to the Republican party. It is the only party that has not begged pardon for doing right. It is the only party that has said: "There shall be no distinction on account of race, on account of color, on account of previous condition." It is the only party that ever had a platform broad enough for all humanity to stand upon.
It is the first decent party that ever lived. The Republican party made the first free government that was ever made. The Republican party made the first decent constitution that any nation ever had. The Republican party gave to the sky the first pure flag that was ever kissed by the waves of air. The Republican party is the first party that ever said: "Every man is entitled to liberty," not because he is white, not because he is black, not because he is rich, not because he is poor, but because he is a man.
The Republican party is the first party that knew enough to know that humanity is more than skin deep. It is the first party that said, "Government should be for all, as the light, as the air, is for all."
And it is the first party that had the sense to say, "What air is to the lungs, what light is to the eyes, what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man." The Republican party is the first party that ever was in favor of absolute free labor, the first party in favor of giving to every man, without distinction of race or color, the fruits of the labor of his hands. The Republican party said, "Free labor will give us wealth, free thought will give us truth." The Republican party is the first party that said to every man, "Think for yourself, and express that thought." I am a free man. I belong to the Republican party. This is a free country. I will think my thought. I will speak my thought or die. I say the Republican party is for free labor.
Free labor has invented all the machines that ever added to the power, added to the wealth, added to the leisure, added to the civilization of mankind. Every convenience, everything of use, everything of beauty in the world, we owe to free labor and to free thought. Free labor, free thought!
Science took the thunderbolt from the gods, and in the electric spark, freedom, with thought, with intelligence and with love, sweeps under all the waves of the sea; science, free thought, took a tear from the cheek of unpaid labor, converted it into steam, and created the giant that turns, with tireless arms, the countless wheels of toil.
The Republican party, I say, believes in free labor. Every solitary thing, every solitary improvement made in the United States has been made by the Republican party. Every reform accomplished was inaugurated, and was accomplished by the great, grand, glorious Republican party.
The Republican party does not say: "Let bygones be bygones." The Republican party is proud of the past and confident of the future. The Republican party brings its record before you and implores you to read every page, every paragraph, every line and every shining word. On the first page you will find it written: "Slavery has cursed American soil long enough;" on the same page you will find it written: "Slavery shall go no farther." On the same page you will find it written: "The bloodhounds shall not drip their gore upon another inch of American soil." On the second page you will find it written: "This is a Nation, not a Confederacy; every State belongs to every citizen, and no State has a right to take territory belonging to any citizens in the United States and set up a separate Government." On the third page you will find the grandest declaration ever made in this country: "Slavery shall be extirpated from the American soil." On the next page: "The Rebellion shall be put down." On the next page: "The Rebellion has been put down." On the next page: "Slavery has been extirpated from the American soil." On the next page: "The freedmen shall not be vagrants; they shall be citizens." On the next page: "They are citizens." On the next page: "The ballot shall be put in their hands;" and now we will write on the next page: "Every citizen that has a ballot in his hand, by the gods! shall have a right to cast that ballot." That in short, that in brief, is the history of the Republican party. The Republican party says, and it means what it says: "This shall be a free country forever; every man in it twenty-one years of age shall have the right to vote for the Government of his choice, and if any man endeavors to interfere with that right, the Government of the United States will see to it that the right of every American citizen is protected at the polls."
Now, my friends, there is one thing that troubles the average Democrat, and that is the idea that somehow, in some way, the negro will get to be the better man. It is the trouble in the South to-day. And I say to my Southern friends (and I admit that there are a great many good men in the South, but the bad men are in an overwhelming majority; the great mass of the population is vicious, violent, virulent and malignant; the great mass of the population is cruel, revengeful, idle, hateful,) and I tell that population: "If you do not go to work, the negro, by his patient industry, will pass you." In the long run, the nation that is honest, the people who are industrious, will pass the people who are dishonest, and the people who are idle, no matter how grand an ancestry they may have had, and so I say, Mr. Northern Democrat, look out!
The superior man is the man that loves his fellow-man; the superior man is the useful man; the superior man is the kind man, the man who lifts up his down-trodden brothers; and the greater the load of human sorrow and human want you can get in your arms, the easier you can climb the great hill of fame. The superior man is the man who loves his fellow-man. And let me say right here, the good men, the superior men, the grand men are brothers the world over, no matter what their complexion may be; centuries may separate them, yet they are hand in hand; and all the good, and all the grand, and all the superior men, shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart, are fighting the great battle for the progress of mankind.
I pity the man, I execrate and hate the man who has only to boast that he is white. Whenever I am reduced to that necessity, I believe shame will make me red instead of white. I believe another thing. If I cannot hoe my row, I will not steal corn from the fellow that hoes his row. If I belong to the superior race, I will be so superior that I can make my living without stealing from the inferior. I am perfectly willing that any Democrat in the world that can, shall pass me. I have never seen one yet, except when I looked over my shoulder. But if they can pass I shall be delighted.
Whenever we stand in the presence of genius, we take off our hats. Whenever we stand in the presence of the great, we do involuntary homage in spite of ourselves. Any one who can go by is welcome, any one in the world; but until somebody does go by, of the Democratic persuasion, I shall not trouble myself about the fact that may be, in some future time, they may get by. The Democrats are afraid of being passed, because they are being passed.
No man ever was, no man ever will be, the superior of the man whom he robs. No man ever was, no man ever will be, the superior of the man he steals from. I had rather be a slave than a slave-master. I had rather be stolen from than be a thief. I had rather be the wronged than the wrong-doer. And allow me to say again to impress it forever upon every man that hears me, you will always be the inferior of the man you wrong. Every race is inferior to the race it tramples upon and robs. There never was a man that could trample upon human rights and be superior to the man upon whom he trampled. And let me say another thing: No government can stand upon the crushed rights of one single human being; and any compromise that we make with the South, if we make it at the expense of our friends, will carry in its own bosom the seeds of its own death and destruction, and cannot stand. A government founded upon anything except liberty and justice cannot and ought not to stand. All the wrecks on either side of the stream of time, all the wrecks of the great cities and nations that have passed away—all are a warning that no nation founded upon injustice can stand. From sand-enshrouded Egypt, from the marble wilderness of Athens, from every fallen, crumbling stone of the once mighty Rome, comes as it were a wail, comes as it were the cry, "No nation founded upon injustice can permanently stand." We must found this Nation anew. We must fight our fight. We must cling to our old party until there is freedom of speech in every part of the United States. We must cling to the old party until I can speak in every State of the South as every Southerner can speak in every State of the North. We must vote the grand old Republican ticket until there is the same liberty in every Southern State that there is in every Northern, Eastern and Western State. We must stand by the party until every Southern man will admit that this country belongs to every citizen of the United States as much as to the man that is born in that country. One more thing. I do not want any man that ever fought for this country to vote the Democratic ticket. You will swap your respectability for disgrace. There are thousands of you—great, grand, splendid men—that have fought grandly for this Union, and now I beseech of you, I beg of you, do not give respectability to the enemies and haters of your country. Do not do it. Do not vote with the Democratic party, of the North. Sometimes I think a rebel sympathizer in the North worse than a rebel, and I will tell you why. The rebel was carried into the rebellion by public opinion at home,—his father, his mother, his sweetheart, his brother, and everybody he knew; and there was a kind of wind, a kind of tornado, a kind of whirlwind that took him into the army. He went on the rebel side with his State. The Northern Democrat went against his own State; went against his own Government; and went against public opinion at home. The Northern Democrat rowed up stream against wind and tide. The Southern rebel went with the current; the Northern rebel rowed against the current from pure, simple cussedness.
And I beg every man that ever fought for the Union, every man that ever bared his breast to a storm of shot and shell, that the old flag might float over every inch of American soil redeemed from the clutch of treason; I beg him, I implore him, do not go with the Democratic party. And to every young man within the sound of my voice I say, do not tie your bright and shining prospects to that old corpse of Democracy. You will get tired of dragging it around. Do not cast your first vote with the enemies of your country. Do not cast your first vote with the Democratic party that was glad when the Union army was defeated. Do not cast your vote with that party whose cheeks flushed with the roses of joy when the old flag was trailed in disaster upon the field of battle. Remember, my friends, that that party did every mean thing it could, every dishonest and treasonable thing it could. Recollect that that party did all it could to divide this Nation, and destroy this country.
For myself I have no fear; Hayes and Wheeler will be the next President and Vice-President of the United States of America. Let me beg of you—let me implore you—let me beseech you, every man, to come out on election day. Every man, do your duty; every man do his duty with regard to the State ticket of the great and glorious State of Illinois.
This year we need Republicans; this year we need men that will vote for the party; and I tell you that a Republican this year, no matter what you have against him, no matter whether you like him or do not like him, is better for the country, no matter how much you hate him, he is better for the country than any Democrat Nature can make, or ever has made.
We must, in this supreme election, we must at this supreme moment, vote only for the men who are in favor of keeping this Government in the power, in the custody, in the control of the great, the sublime Republican party.
Ladies and gentlemen, if I were insensible to the honor you have done me by this magnificent meeting—the most magnificent I ever saw on earth—a meeting such as only the marvelous City of Pluck could produce; if I were insensible of the honor, I would be made of stone. I shall remember it with delight; I shall remember it with thankfulness all the days of my life. And I ask in return of every Republican here to remember all the days of his life, every sacrifice made by this nation for liberty; every sacrifice made by every private soldier, every sacrifice made by every patriotic man and patriotic woman.
I do not ask you to remember in revenge, but I ask you never, never to forget. As the world swings through the constellations year after year, I want the memory, I want the patriotic memory of this country to sit by the grave of every Union soldier, and, while her eyes are filled with tears, to crown him again and again with the crown of everlasting honor. I thank you, I thank you, ladies and gentlemen, a thousand times. Good-night.
Note:—There was no full report made of this speech, the
above are simply extracts.
* The reputation of Col. Robert G. Ingersoll had taken
possession of the Boston mind to such an extent that his
expected address was spoken of as "The Lecture." People
talked about going to it, as If on that night all other
places were to be closed, and the whole population of the
City turned into Tremont Temple. Long before the appointed
hour a rare audience, for even lecture loving Boston, had
assembled. Col. Ingersoll stepped upon the platform preceded
by Governor Rice, and followed by William Lloyd Garrison,
James T. Fields and others. After the presentation of two
large and exquisite bouquets Governor Rice introduced
Colonel Ingersoll, and the audience, the most acute and
determined looking I ever saw In Boston, poured out their
welcome! It seemed as if all the cheers that had been
suppressed between the first of November and the decision of
the Electoral Commission, found vent at that moment and the
vigorous clapping was renewed and prolonged until it became
an unmistakable salute to the recent brilliant campaigning
of the great Western orator. It is hardly possible to speak
in too high terms of the lecture which, under the title of
"8 to 7," contained a witty, philosophical and intensely
patriotic review of the political contest preceding and
following the recent election, with wise and timely
suggestions for preventing similar perils in the future.—
Boston, October 22nd,1877.
1877.
I HAVE sometimes wondered whether our country was to be forever governed by parties full of hatred, full of malice, full of slander. I have sometimes wondered whether or not in the future there would not be discovered such a science as the science of government. I do not know what you think, but what little I do know, and what little experience has been mine, is, I must admit, against it. We have passed through the most remarkable campaign of our history—a campaign remarkable in every respect.
It was bitter, passionate, relentless and desperate, and I admit, for one, that I added to its bitterness and relentlessness. I told, and frankly told, my real, honest opinion of the Democratic party of the North. I told, and cheerfully told, my opinion of the Democratic party of the South. And I have nothing to take back. But, to show you that my heart is not altogether wicked; I am willing to forgive and do forgive with all my heart, every person and every party that I ever said anything against. I believe that the campaign of 1876 was the turning-point, the midnight in the history of the American Republic.
I believe, and firmly believe, that if the Democratic party had swept into power, it would have been the end of progress, and the end of what I consider human liberty, beneath our flag. I felt so, and I went into the campaign simply because the rights of American citizens in at least sixteen States of the Union were trampled under foot. I did what little I could. I am glad I did it. We had, as I say, a wonderful campaign, and each party said and did about all that could be said and done. Everybody attended to politics. Business was suspended. Everything was given over to processions and torches, and flags and transparencies; and resolutions and conventions and speeches and songs. Old arguments were revamped. Old stories were pressed into service. The old story of the Rebellion was told again and again. The memories of the war were revived. The North was arrayed against the South as though upon the field of battle. Party cries were heard on every hand. Each party leaped like a tiger upon the reputation of the other, and tore with tooth and claw, with might and main, to the very end of the campaign.
I felt that it was necessary to arouse the North. I felt that it was necessary to tell again the story of the Rebellion, from Bull Run to Appomattox. I felt that it was necessary to describe what the Southern people were doing with Union men, and with colored men; and I felt it necessary so to describe it that the people of the North could hear the whips, and could hear the drops of blood as they fell upon the withered leaves. I did all I could to arouse the people of the North. I did all I could to prevent the Democratic party from getting into power. The first morning after the election, the Democracy had a banquet of joy, but all through the feast they saw sitting at the head of the table the dim outline of the skeleton of defeat. And, when the tide turned, Republicans rejoiced with a face ready at any moment to express the profoundest grief. Then came despatches and rumors, and estimated majorities, and vague talk about Returning Boards, and intimidating voters, and stuffed ballot boxes, and fraudulent returns, and bribed clerks, and injunctions, and contempts of courts, and telegrams in cipher, and outrages, and octoroon balls in which reverend Senators were whirled in love's voluptuous waltz. Everybody discussed the qualifications of Electors and the value of Governors' certificates, and how to get behind returns, and how to buy an Elector, and who had the right to count; and persons expecting offices of trust, honor and profit began to threaten war and extermination, calls were made for a hundred thousand men, and there were no end of meetings, and resolutions and denunciations, and the downfall of the country was prophesied; and yet, notwithstanding all this, the name of the person who really was elected remained unknown. The last scene of this strange, eventful history, so far as the election by the people was concerned, was Cronin. I see him now as he leaves the land "where rolls the Oregon and hears no sound save his own dashings." Cronin, the last surviving veteran of the grand army of "honesty and reform." Cronin, a quorum of one. Cronin, who elected the two others by a plurality of his own vote.
I see him now, armed with Hoadley's opinion and Grover's certificate, trudging wearily and drearily over the wide and wasted saleratus deserts of the West, with a little card marked "S. J. T. i5 G. P."
Then came the great question of who shall count the electoral vote. The Vice-President being a Republican, it was generally contended, at least by me, that he had a right to count that vote. My doctrine was, if the Vice-President would count the vote right, he had the right to count it.
The Vice-President not being a Democrat, the members of that party claimed that the House could prevent the Vice-President from counting it, and this was simply because the House was not Republican. Nearly all decided according to their politics. The Constitution is a little blind on this point, and where anything is blind I always see it my way. It was about this time that some of the Democrats began to talk about bringing one hundred thousand unarmed men to Washington to superintend the count. Others, however, got up a scheme to create, a court in the United States where politics should have no earthly influence. Nothing could be easier, they thought, after we had gone through such a hot and exciting campaign, than to pick out men who have no prejudices whatever on the subject. Finally a bill was passed creating a tribunal to count the vote, if any, and hear testimony, if any, and declare what man had been elected President, if any. This tribunal consisted of fifteen men, ten being chosen on account of their politics—five from the Senate and five from the House,—and they chose four judges from purely geographical considerations. I was there, and I know exactly how it was. Those four men were picked with a map of the United States in front of the pickers. The Democrats chose Justice Field, not because he was a Democrat, but because he lived on the Pacific slope. They chose Justice Clifford, not because he was a Democrat, but because he lived on the Eastern slope; that was fair. Thereupon the Republicans chose Justice Strong, not because he was a Republican, but because he lived on the Eastern slope. You can see the point. The Republicans chose Justice Miller, not because he was a Republican, but because he represented the great West. They then allowed these four to select a fifth man.
Well, it was impossible to select the fifth man from geographical considerations, you can see that yourselves. There was nothing left to choose between, you know, as far as geography was concerned. They then agreed that they would not take a Justice from any State in which the candidate for President lived. They left out Justice Hunt, from New York, and Justice Swayne, from Ohio. They knew of course that that would not influence them, but they did that simply—well, they did not want them there; that was all, and it would be unhandy to pick one man out of four. So they left Swayne and Hunt out. And then they would pick one man as between Justice Bradley and Justice Davis. Just at that time the people of the State of Illinois happened to be out of a Senator, and Judge Davis was there and expressed a willingness to go to the Senate. And the people of the State of Illinois elected him, and therefore there was nobody to choose from except Justice Bradley, and he was a Republican.
Now, you know this runs in families. His record was good—by marriage. He married a daughter of Chief Justice Hornblower, of New Jersey. Now, Hornblower was what you might call a partisan. Do you know they went to him—it was in the old times, and he was a kind of Whig,—they went to him with a petition, in the State of New Jersey, a petition addressed to the Legislature for the abolition of capital punishment, and Hornblower said, "I'll be damned if I sign it while there is a Democrat in the State of New Jersey."
As a matter of fact, however, I believe that Justice Bradley and all the other Justices, and all other persons on that tribunal decided as they honestly thought was right.
Judge Davis is as broad mentally as he is physically; he has an immensity of common sense, and as much judgment as any one man ever needs to use, and, in my judgment, he would have come to the same conclusion as Judge Bradley, precisely. These men were appointed—it was a Democratic scheme, and I am glad they got it up—and during that entire investigation, so much were the members of that party controlled by old associations and habits, and by partisan feeling that there was not a solitary one of the seven Democrats that ever once voted on the Republican side. And, as a necessity, the Republicans had to stand together. And so, notwithstanding the seven Democrats voted constantly together, the eight Republicans kept having a majority of one, until the last disputed State was given against the great party of "honesty and reform." And, finally, when they found they were defeated, they made up their minds to prevent the counting of the vote. They made up their minds to wear out the session and prevent the election of a President. Just at that point, for a wonder, (nothing ever astonished me more), the members from the South said: "We do not want any more war; we have had war enough and we say that a President shall be peacefully elected, and that he shall be peacefully inaugurated!" As soon as I heard that I felt under a little obligation to the Democracy of the South, and when they stood in the gap and prevented the Democracy of the North from plunging this Government into the hell of civil war, I felt like taking them by the hand and saying, "We have beaten the enemy once, let us keep on. Let us join hands." I felt like saying to the Democracy of the South, "You never will have a day's prosperity in the South until you join the great, free, progressive party of the North—never!" And they never will.
Now, I say, I felt as though I were under a certain obligation to these people. They prevented this thing, and they made it possible for the Vice-President to declare Rutherford B. Hayes President of the United States. Now, right here, I want you to observe that this shows the real defects in our system of government. In the first place, our Government is being governed by fraud. If the very fountain of power is poisoned by fraud, then the whole Government is impure. We must find out some way to prevent fraudulent voting in the United States or our Government is a failure. Great cities were the mothers of election frauds. They inaugurated violence and intimidation. They produced the repeaters and the false boxes. They invented fan-tail tickets and pasters, and gradually these delightful and patriotic arts and practices have spread over almost the entire country.
Unless something is done to preserve the purity of the ballot-box our form of government must cease. The fountain of power is poisoned. The sovereignty of the people is stolen and destroyed. The Government becomes organized fraud, and all respect will soon be lost for the laws and decisions of the courts. The legislators are elected in many instances by fraud. The judges are in many instances chosen by fraud. Every department of the Government becomes tainted and corrupt. It is no longer a Republic, unless something can be devised to ascertain with certainty the really honest will of the sovereign people.
For the accomplishment of this object the good and patriotic men of all parties should most heartily unite. To cast an illegal vote should be considered by all as a crime. We must if possible get rid of the mob—the vagrants, the vagabonds who have no home and who take no interest in the cities where they vote. We must get rid of the rich mob too; and by the rich mob I mean the men who buy up these vagabonds. Various States have passed laws for the registration of voters; but they all leave wide open all the doors of fraud. Men are allowed to vote if they have been for one year in the State, and thirty or sixty days in the ward or precinct; and when they have failed to have their names registered before the day of election, they can avoid the effect of this neglect by making a few affidavits, certified to by reputable householders. Of course all necessary affidavits are made, with hundreds and thousands to spare. My idea is that the period of registration, in the first place, is too short, and, in the second place, no way should be given by which they can vote unless they have been properly registered, affidavit or no affidavit. Every man, when he goes into a ward or precinct, should be registered. It should be his duty to see that he is registered. Officers should be kept for that purpose, and he should never be allowed to cast a vote until he has been registered at least one year. Sixty days, say, or thirty days—sixty would be better—sixty days before the election the registry lists should be corrected, and every citizen should have the right to enter a complaint or objection as against any name found upon that list. Thirty days, or twenty days before the election, that list should be published and should be exposed in several public places in each ward and each precinct, and upon the day of election no man should be allowed to vote whose name was not upon the registry list. Our wards and precincts should be made smaller, so that people can vote without violence, without wasting an entire day, so that the honest business man that wishes to cast his ballot for the Government of his choice can walk to the polls like a gentleman and deposit his vote and go about his affairs. Allow me to say that unless some such plan is adopted in the United States, there never will be another fair election in this country. During the last campaign all the arts and artifices of the city, all the arts and artifices of the lowest wards were spread over this entire country, and unless something is done to preserve the purity of the ballot-box, and guard the sovereign will of the people, we will cease to be a Republican Government.
Another thing—and I cannot say it too often—fraud at the ballot-box undermines all respect in the minds of the people for the Government. When they are satisfied that the election is a fraud they despise the officers elected. When they are satisfied it is a fraud, they despise the law made by the legislators. When they are satisfied it is a fraud, they hold in utter contempt the decisions of our highest and most august tribunals.
Another trouble in this country is that our terms of office are too short. Our elections are too frequent. They interfere with the business of our country. When elections are so frequent, men make a business of politics. If they fail to get one office they immediately run for another, and they keep running until the people elect them for the simple purpose of getting rid of the annoyance. Lengthen the terms, purify the ballot, and the present scramble for office will become contests for principles. A man who cannot get a living—unless he has been disabled in the service of his country or from some other cause—without holding office, is not fit for an office.
A professional office-seeker is one of the meanest, and lowest, and basest of human beings—a little higher than the lower animals and a little lower than man. He has no earthly or heavenly independence; not a particle; not a particle. A successful office-seeker is like the center of the earth; he weighs nothing himself, and draws all things towards the office he wants. He has not even a temper. You cannot insult him. Shut the door in his face, and, so far as he is concerned, it is left wide open, and you are standing on the threshold with a smile, extending the hand of welcome. He crawls and cringes and flatters and lies and swaggers and brags and tells of the influence he has in the ward he lives in. We cannot too often repeat that splendid saying, "The office should seek the man, not man the office." If you will lengthen the term of office it will be so long between meals that he will have to do something else or starve. Adopt the system of registration, as I have suggested; have small and convenient election districts, so that, as I said before, the honest, law-abiding, and peaceable citizen can attend the polls; so that he will not be compelled to risk his life to deposit his ballot that will be stolen or thrown out, or forced to keep the company of ballots caused by fraudulent violence. Lengthen the term of office, drive the professional hunter and seeker of office from the field, and you will go far toward strengthening and vivifying and preserving the fabric of the Constitution. That is the kind of civil service reform I am in favor of, and as I am on that subject, I will say a word about it. There is but one vital question—but one question of real importance—in fact I might say in the whole world, and that is the great question of Civil Service Reform. There may be some others indirectly affecting the human race, and in which some people take a languid kind of interest, but the only question worth discussing and comprehending in all its phases is the one I have mentioned. This great question is in its infancy still. The doctrine as yet has been applied only to politics.*
* Colonel Ingersoll then read the following letter, of which
he was the author.
My Dear Sir:—In the olden times, during the purer days of the Republic, the motto was, "To the victors belong the spoils." The great object of civil service reform is to reverse this motto. Our people are thoroughly disgusted with machine politics, and demand politics without any machine.
In every precinct and ward there are persons going about lauding one party and crying down the other. They make it their business to attend to the affairs of the Nation. They call conventions, pass resolutions; they put notices in papers of the times and places of meetings; they select candidates for office, and then insist upon having them elected; they distribute papers and political documents; they crowd the mails with newspapers, platforms, resolutions, facts and figures, and with everything calculated to help their party and hurt the other. In short, they are the disturbers of the public peace.
They keep the community in a perpetual excitement. In the last campaign, wherever they were was turmoil. They fired cannon, carried flags, torches and transparencies; they subsidized brass bands, and shouted and hurrahed as though the world had gone insane. They were induced to do these things by the hope of success and office. Take away this hope and there will be peace once more. This thing is unendurable. The staid, the quiet and respectable people, the moderate and conservative men who always have an idea of joining the other side just to show their candor, are heartily tired of the entire performance. These gentlemen demand a rest. They are not adventurers; they have incomes; they belong to families; they have monograms and liveries. They have succeeded, and they want quiet. Growth makes a noise; development, as they call it, is nothing but disturbance. We want stability, we want political petrifaction, and we therefore demand that these meetings shall be dismissed, that these processions shall halt, that these flags shall be furled. But these things never will be stopped until we stop paying men with office for making these disturbances. You know that it has been the habit for men elected to bestow political favors upon the men who elected them. This is a crying shame. It is a kind of bribery and corruption. Men should not work with the expectation of reward and success. The frightful consequences of rewarding one's friends cannot be contemplated by a true patriot without a shudder. Exactly the opposite course is demanded by the great principle of civil service reform. There is no patriotism in working for place, for power and success. The true lover of his country is stimulated to action by the hope of defeat, and the prospect of office for his opponent. To such an extent has the pernicious system of rewarding friends for political services gone in this country, that until very lately it was difficult for a member of the defeated party to obtain a respectable office.
The result of all this is, that the country is divided, that these divisions are kept alive by these speakers, writers and convention callers. The great mission of civil service reform is not to do away with parties, but with conflicting opinion, by taking from all politicians the hope of reward. There is no other hope for peace. What do the people know about the wants of the nation? There are in every community a few quiet and respectable men, who know all about the wants of the people—gentlemen who have retired from business, who take no part in discussion and who are therefore free from prejudice. Let these men attend to our politics. They will not call conventions, except in the parlors of hotels. They will not put out our eyes with flaring torches. They will not deafen us with speeches. They will carry on a campaign without producing opposition. They will have elections but no contests. All the offices will be given to the defeated party. This of itself will insure tranquillity at the polls. No one will be deprived of the privilege of casting a ballot. When campaigns are conducted in this manner a gentleman can engage in politics with a feeling that he is protected by the great principle of civil service reform. But just so long as men persist in rewarding their friends, as they call them, just so long will our country be cursed with political parties. Nothing can be better calculated to preserve the peace than the great principle of rewarding those who have confidence enough in our institutions to keep silent while peace will sit with folded wings upon the moss-covered political stump of a ruder age. I am satisfied that to civil service reform the Republican party is indebted for the last great victory. Upon this question the enthusiasm of the people was simply unbounded. In the harvest field, the shop, the counting-room, in the church, in the saloon, in, the palace and in the hut, nothing was heard and nothing discussed except the great principle of civil service reform.
Among the most touching incidents of the campaign was to see a few old soldiers, sacred with scars, sit down, and while battles and hair-breadth escapes, and prisons of want, were utterly forgotten, discuss with tremulous lips and tearful eyes the great question of civil service reform.
During the great political contest I addressed several quite large and intelligent audiences, and no one who did not has or can have the slightest idea of the hold that civil service reform had upon the very souls of our people. Upon all other subjects the indifference was marked. I dwelt upon the glittering achievements of my party, but they were indifferent. I pictured outrages perpetrated upon our citizens, but they did not care. All this went idly by, but when I touched upon civil service reform, old men, gray-haired and strong, broke down utterly—tears fell like rain. The faces of women grew ashen with the intensity of anguish, and even little children sobbed as though their hearts would break. To one who has witnessed these affecting scenes, civil service reform is almost a sacred thing. Even the speeches delivered upon this subject in German affected to tears thousands of persons wholly unacquainted with that language. In some instances those who did not understand a word were affected even more than those who did. Surely there must be something in the subject itself, apart from the words used to explain it, that can under such circumstances lead captive the hearts of men. During the entire campaign the cry of civil service reform was heard from one end of our land to the other. The sailor nailed those words to the mast. The miner repeated them between the strokes of the pick. Mothers explained them to their children. Emigrants painted them upon their wagons. They were mingled with the reaper's song and the shout of the pioneer. Adopt this great principle and we can have quiet and lady-like campaigns, a few articles in monthly magazines, a leader or two in the "Nation," in the pictorial papers wood-cuts of the residences of the respective candidates and now and then a letter from an old Whig would constitute all the aggressive agencies of the contest. I am satisfied that this great principle secured us our victories in Florida and Louisiana, and its effect on the High Joint Commission was greater than is generally supposed. It was this that finally decided the action of the returning boards.
Cronin is the only man upon whom this great principle was an utter failure. Let it be understood that friends are not to be rewarded. Let it be settled that political services are a barrier to political preferment, and my word for it, machine politics will never be heard of again.
Yours truly,——
I do not believe in carrying civil service reform to the extent that you will not allow an officer to resign. I do not believe that that principle should be insisted upon to that degree that there would only be two ways left to get out of office—death or suicide. I believe, other things being equal, any party having any office within its gift will give that office to the man that really believes in the principles of that party, and who has worked to give those principles ultimate victory. That is human nature. The man that plows, the man that sows, and the man that cultivates, ought to be the man that reaps. But we have in this country a multitude of little places, a multitude of clerkships in Washington; and the question is whether on the incoming of a new administration, these men shall all be turned out. In the first place, they are on starvation salaries, just barely enough to keep soul and body together, and respectability on the outside; and if there is a young man in this audience, I beg of him:
Never accept a clerkship from this Government. Do not live on a little salary; do not let your mind be narrowed; do not sell all the splendid possibilities of the future; do not learn to cringe and fawn and crawl.
I would rather have forty acres of land, with a log cabin on it and the woman I love in the cabin—with a little grassy winding path leading down to the spring where the water gurgles from the lips of earth whispering day and night to the white pebbles a perpetual poem—with holly-hocks growing at the corner of the house, and morning-glories blooming over the low latched door—with lattice work over the window so that the sunlight would fall checkered on the dimpled babe in the cradle, and birds—like songs with wings hovering in the summer air—than be the clerk of any government on earth.
Now, I say, let us lengthen the term of office—I do not care much how long—send a man to Congress at least for five years. And it would be a great blessing if there were not half as many of them sent.
We have too many legislators and too much legislation; too little about important matters, and too much about unimportant matters. Lengthen the term of office so that the man can turn his attention to something else when he gets in besides looking after his re-election. There is another defect we must remedy in our Constitution, in my judgment, and that is as to the mode of electing a President. I believe it of the greatest importance that the Executive should be entirely independent of the legislative and judicial departments of the country. I do not believe that Congress should have the right to create a vacancy which it can fill. I do not believe that the Senate of the United States, or the lower house of Congress, by a simple objection, should have the right to deprive any State of its electoral vote. Our Constitution now provides that the electors chosen in each State shall meet in their respective States upon a certain day and there cast their votes for President and Vice-President of the United States. They shall properly certify to the votes which are cast, and shall transmit lists of them, together with the proper certificates, to the Vice-President of the United States. And it is then declared that upon a certain day in the presence of both houses of Congress, the Vice-President shall open the certificates and the votes shall then be counted. It does not exactly say who shall count these votes. It does not in so many words say the Vice-President shall do it, or may do it, or that both houses of Congress shall do it, or may do it, or that either house can prevent a count of the votes. It leaves us in the dark, and, to a certain degree, in blindness. I believe there is a way, and a very easy way, out of the entire trouble, and it is this: I do not care whether the electors first meet in their respective States or not, but I want the Constitution so amended that the electors of all the States shall meet on a certain day in the city of Washington, and count the votes themselves; to allow that body to be the judge of who are electors, to allow it to choose a chairman, and to allow the person so chosen to declare who is the President, and who is the Vice-President of the United States. The Executive is then entirely free and independent of the legislative department of Government. The Executive is then entirely free from the judicial department, and I tell you, it is a public calamity to have the ermine of the Supreme Court of the United States touched or stained by a political suspicion. In my judgment, this country can never stand such a strain again as it has now.
Now, my friends, all these questions are upon us and they have to be settled. We cannot go on as we have been going. We cannot afford to live as we have lived—one section running against the other. We cannot go along that way. It must be settled, either peaceably or there must again be a resort to the boisterous sword of civil war.
The people of the South must stop trampling on the rights of the colored men. It must not be a crime in any State of this Union to be a lover of this country. I have seen it stated in several papers lately that it is the duty of each State to protect its own citizens. Well, I know that. Suppose that the State does not do it; what then I say? Well, then, say these people, the Governor of the State has the right to call on the General Government for assistance. But suppose the Governor will not call for assistance, what then? Then, they tell us, the Legislature can do so by a joint resolution. But suppose the Legislature will not do it, what then? Then, say these people, it is a defect in the Constitution. In my judgment, that is the absurdest kind of secession. If the State of Illinois must protect me, if I have no right to call for the protection of the General Government, all I have to say is that my allegiance must belong to the Government that protects me. If Illinois protects me, and the General Government has not the power, then my first allegiance is due to Illinois; and should Illinois unsheathe the sword of civil war, I must stand by my State, if that doctrine is true. I say, my first allegiance is due to the General Government, and not to the State of Illinois, and if the State of Illinois goes out of the Union, I swear to you that I will not. What does the General Government propose to give me in exchange for my allegiance? The General Government has a right to take my property. The General Government has a right to take my body in its necessary defence. What does that Government propose to give in exchange for that right? Protection, or else our Government is a fraud. Who has a right to call for the protection of the United States? I say, the citizen who needs it. Can our Government obtain information only through the official sources? Must our Government wait until the Government asks the proofs, while the State tramples upon the rights of the citizens? Must it wait until the Legislature calls for assistance to help it stop robbing and plundering citizens of the United States? Is that the doctrine and the idea of the Northern Democratic party? It is not mine. A Government that will not protect its citizens is a disgrace to humanity. A Government that waits until a Governor calls—a Government that cannot hear the cry of the meanest citizen under its flag when his rights are being trampled upon, even by citizens of a Southern State—has no right to exist.
It is the duty of the American citizen to see to it that every State has a Government, not only republican in form, but it is the duty of the United States to see to it that life, liberty and property are protected in each State. If they are not protected, it is the duty of the United States to protect them, if it takes all her military force both upon land and upon the sea. The people whose Government cannot always hear the faintest wail of the meanest man beneath its flag have no right to call themselves a nation. The flag that will not protect its protectors and defend its defenders is a rag that is not worth the air in which it waves.
How are we going to do it? Do it by kindness if you can; by conciliation if you can, but the Government is bound to try every way until it succeeds. Now, Rutherford B. Hayes was elected President. The Democracy will say, of course, that he never was elected, but that does not make any difference. He is President to-day, and all these things are about him to be settled.
What shall we do? What can we do? There are two Governors in South Carolina and two Legislatures and not one cent of taxes has been collected by either. A dual government would seem to be the most economical in the world. Now, the question for us to decide, the question to be decided by this administration is, how are we to ascertain which is the legal Government of the State, and what department of the Government has a right to ascertain that fact? Must it be left to Congress? Has the Senate alone the right to determine it? Can it be left in any way to the Supreme Court, or shall the Executive decide it himself? I do not say that the Executive has the power to decide that question for himself. I do not say he has not, but I do not say he has. The question, so far as Louisiana and South Carolina are concerned—that question is now in the Senate of the United States. Governor Kellogg is asking for admission as a Senator from the State of Louisiana, and the question is to be decided by the Senate first, whether he is entitled to his seat, and that question of course, rests upon the one fact—was the Legislature that elected him the legal Legislature of the State of Louisiana? It seems to me that when that question is pending in the Senate of the United States the President has not the right, or at least it would be improper for him to decide it on his own motion, and say this or that Government is the real and legal Government of the State of Louisiana. But some mode must be adopted, some way must be discovered to settle this question, and to settle it peacefully. We are an enlightened people. Force is the last thing that civilized men should resort to. As long as courts can be created, as long as courts of arbitration can be selected, as long as we can reason and think, and urge all the considerations of humanity upon each other, there should be no appeal to arms in the United States upon any question whatever. What should the President do? He could only spare twenty-five hundred men from the Indian war—that is the same army that has so long been trampling on the rights of the South, the same army that the Democratic Congress wished to reduce, and that army of twenty-five hundred men is all he has to spare to protect American citizens in the Southern States. Is there any sentiment in the North that would uphold the Executive in calling for volunteers? Is there any sentiment here that would respond to a call for twenty, fifty, or a hundred thousand men? Is there any Congress to pass the necessary act to pay them if there was?
And so the President of the United States appreciated the situation, and the people of the South came to him and said, "We have had war enough, we have had trouble enough, our country languishes, we have no trade, our pockets are empty, something must be done for us, we are utterly and perfectly disgusted with the leadership of the Democratic party of the North. Now, will you let us be your friends?" And he had the sense to say, "Yes." The President took the right hand of the North, and put it into the right hand of the South and said "Let us be friends. We parted at the cannon's mouth; we were divided by the edge of the glittering sword; we must become acquainted again. We are equals. We are all fellow-citizens. In a Government of the people, by the people and for the people, there shall not be an outcast class, whether white or black. To this feast, every child of the Republic shall be invited and welcomed." It was a grand thing grandly done. If the President succeeds in his policy, it will be an immense compliment to his brain. If he fails, it will be an equal compliment to his heart. He has opened the door; he has advanced; he has extended his hand, he has broken the silence of hatred with the words of welcome. Actuated by this broad and catholic spirit he has selected his constitutional advisors, and allow me to say right here, the President has the right to select his constitutional advisors to suit himself, and the idea of men endeavoring to force themselves or others into the Cabinet of the President, against, as it were, his will, why I would as soon think of circulating a petition to compel some woman to marry me.
He has gathered around him the men he considers the wisest and the best, and I say, let us give them a fair chance. I say, let us be honest with the President of the United States and his Cabinet, and give his policy a fair and honest chance. In order to show his good faith with the South he chose as a member of his Cabinet an ex-rebel from Tennessee. I confess, when I heard of it I did not like it. It did not seem to be exactly what I had been making all this fuss about. But I thought I would be honest about it, and I went and called on Mr. Key, and really he begins already to look a good deal like a Republican. A real honest looking man. And then I said to myself that he had not done much more harm than as though he had been a Democrat at the North during those four years, and had cursed and swore instead of fought about it. And so I told him "I am glad you are appointed."
And I am. Give him a chance, and so far as the whole Cabinet is concerned—I have not the time to go over them one by one now, it is perfectly satisfactory to me. The President made up his mind that to appoint that man would be to say to the South: "I do not look upon you as pariahs in this Government. I look upon you as fellow-citizens; I want you to wipe forever the color line, or the Union line, from the records of this Government on account of what has been done heretofore." What are you now? is the only question that should be asked. It was a strange thing for the President to appoint that man. It was an experiment. It is an experiment. It has not yet been decided, but I believe it will simply be a proof of the President's wisdom. I can stand that experiment taken in connection with the appointment of Frederick Douglass as Marshal of the District of Columbia. I was glad to see that man's appointment. He is a good, patient, stern man. He has been fighting for the liberty of his race, and at the same time for our liberty. This man has done something for the freedom of my race as well as his own. This is no time for war. War settles nothing except the mere question of strength. That is all war ever did settle. You cannot shoot ideas into a man with a musket, or with cannon into one of those old Bourbon Democrats of the North. You cannot let prejudices out of a man with a sword.
This is the time for reason, for discussion, for compromise. This is the time to repair, to rebuild, to preserve. War destroys. Peace creates. War is decay and death. Peace is growth and life,—sunlight and air. War kills men. Peace maintains them. Artillery does not reason; it asserts. A bayonet has point enough, but no logic. When the sword is drawn, reason remains in the scabbard. It is not enough to win upon the field of battle, you must be victor within the realm of thought. There must be peace between the North and South some time; not a conquered peace, but a peace that conquers. The question is, can you and I forget the past? Can we forget everything except the heroic sacrifices of the men who saved this Government? Can we say to the South, "Let us be brothers"? Can we? I am willing to do it because, in the first place, it is right, and in the second place, it will pay if it can be carried out. We have fought and hated long enough. Our country is prostrate. Labor is in rags. Energy has empty hands. Industry has empty pockets. The wheels of the factory are still. In the safe of prudence money lies idle, locked by the key of fear. Confidence is what we need—confidence in each other; confidence in our institutions; confidence in our form of government; in the great future; confidence in law, confidence in liberty, confidence in progress, and in the grand destiny of the Great Republic. Now, do not imagine that I think this policy will please every body. Of course there are men South and North who can never be conciliated. They are the Implacables in the South—the Bourbons in the North.
Nothing will ever satisfy them. The Implacables want to own negroes and whip them; the Bourbons never will be satisfied until they can help catch one. The Implacables with violent hands drive emigration from their shores. They are poisoning the springs and sources of prosperity. They dine on hatred and sup on regret. They mourn over the lost cause and partake of the communion of revenge. They strike down the liberties of their fellow-citizens and refuse to enjoy their own. They remember nothing but wrongs, and they forget nothing but benefits. Their bosoms are filled with the serpents of hate. No one can compromise with them. Nothing can change them. They must be left to the softening influence of time and death. The Bourbons are the allies of the Implacables. A Bourbon in the majority is an Implacable in the minority. An Implacable in the minority is a Bourbon. We do not appeal to, but from these men. But there are in the South thousands of men who have accepted in good faith the results of the war; men who love and wish to preserve this nation, men tired of strife—men longing for a real Union based upon mutual respect and confidence. These men are willing that the colored man shall be free—willing that he shall vote, and vote for the Government of his choice—willing that his children shall be educated—willing that he shall have all the rights of an American citizen. These men are tired of the Implacables and disgusted with the Bourbons. These men wish to unite with the patriotic men of the North in the great work of reestablishing a government of law. For my part, call me of what party you please, I am willing to join hands with these men, without regard to race, color or previous condition.
With a knowledge of our wants—with a clear perception of our difficulties, Rutherford B. Hayes became President.
Nations have been saved by the grandeur of one man. Above all things a President should be a patriot. Party at best is only a means—the good of the country, the happiness of the people, the only end.
Now, I appeal to you Democrats here—not a great many, I suppose—do not oppose this policy because you think it is going to increase the Republican strength. If it strengthens the Government, no matter whether it is Republican or Democratic, it is for the common good.
And you Republicans, you who have had all these feelings of patriotism and glory, I ask you to wait and let this experiment be tried. Do not prophesy failure for it and then work to fulfill the prophecy. Give the President a chance. I tell you to-night that he is as good a Republican as there is in the United States; and I tell you that if this policy is not responded to by the South, Rutherford B. Hayes will change it, just as soon and as often as is necessary to accomplish the end. The President has offered the Southern people the olive branch of peace, and so far as I am concerned, I implore both the Southern people and the Northern people to accept it. I extend to you each and all the olive branch of peace. Fellow-citizens of the South, I beseech you to take it. By the memory of those who died for naught; by the charred remains of your remembered homes; by the ashes of your statesman dead; for the sake of your sons and your daughters and their fair children yet to be, I implore you to take it with loving and with loyal hands. It will cultivate your wasted fields. It will rebuild your towns and cities. It will fill your coffers with gold. It will educate your children. It will swell the sails of your commerce. It will cause the roses of joy to clamber and climb over the broken cannon of war. It will flood the cabins of the freedman with light, and clothe the weak in more than coat of mail, and wrap the poor and lowly in "measureless content." Take it. The North will forgive if the South will forget. Take it! The negro will wipe from the tablet of memory the strokes and scars of two hundred years, and blur with happy tears the record of his wrongs. Take it! It will unite our nation. It will make us brothers once again. Take it! And justice will sit in your courts under the outspread wings of Peace. Take it! And the brain and lips of the future will be free. Take it! It will bud and blossom in your hands and fill your land with fragrance and with joy.
* Boston, October 20, 1878.
LADIES and Gentlemen:—The lovers of the human race, the philanthropists, the dreamers of grand dreams, all predicted and all believed that when man should have the right to govern himself, when every human being should be equal before the law, pauperism, crime, and want would exist only in the history of the past. They accounted for misery in their time by the rapacity of kings and the cruelty of priests. Here, in the United States, man at last is free. Here, man makes the laws, and all have an equal voice. The rich cannot oppress the poor, because the poor are in a majority. The laboring men, those who in some way work for their living, can elect every Congressman and every judge; they can make and interpret the laws, and if labor is oppressed in the United States by capital, labor has simply itself to blame. The cry is now raised that capital in some mysterious way oppresses industry; that the capitalist is the enemy of the man who labors. What is a capitalist? Every man who has good health; every man with good sense; every one who has had his dinner, and has enough left for supper, is, to that extent, a capitalist. Every man with a good character, who has the credit to borrow a dollar or to buy a meal, is a capitalist; and nine out of ten of the great capitalists in the United States are simply successful workingmen. There is no conflict, and can be no conflict, in the United States between capital and labor; and the men who endeavor to excite the envy of the unfortunate and the malice of the poor are the enemies of law and order.
As a rule, wealth is the result of industry, economy, attention to business; and as a rule, poverty is the result of idleness, extravagance, and inattention to business, though to these rules there are thousands of exceptions. The man who has wasted his time, who has thrown away his opportunities, is apt to envy the man who has not. For instance, there are six shoemakers working in one shop. One of them attends to his business. You can hear the music of his hammer late and early. He is in love with some girl on the next street. He has made up his mind to be a man; to succeed; to make somebody else happy; to have a home; and while he is working, in his imagination he can see his own fireside, with the firelight falling upon the faces of wife and child. The other five gentlemen work as little as they can, spend Sunday in dissipation, have the headache Monday, and, as a result, never advance. The industrious one, the one in love, gains the confidence of his employer, and in a little while he cuts out work for the others. The first thing you know he has a shop of his own, the next a store; because the man of reputation, the man of character, the man of known integrity, can buy all he wishes in the United States upon a credit. The next thing you know he is married, and he has built him a house, and he is happy, and his dream has been realized. After awhile the same five shoemakers, having pursued the old course, stand on the corner some Sunday when he rides by. He has a carriage, his wife sits by his side, her face covered with smiles, and they have two children, their eyes beaming with joy, and the blue ribbons are fluttering in the wind. And thereupon, these five shoemakers adjourn to some neighboring saloon and pass a resolution that there is an irrepressible conflict between capital and labor.
There is, in fact, no such conflict, and the laboring men of the United States have the power to protect themselves. In the ballot-box the vote of Lazarus is on an equality with the vote of Dives; the vote of a wandering pauper counts the same as that of a millionaire. In a land where the poor, where the laboring men have the right and have the power to make the laws, and do, in fact, make the laws, certainly there should be no complaint. In our country the people hold the power, and if any corporation in any State is devouring the substance of the people, every State has retained the power of eminent domain, under which it can confiscate the property and franchise of any corporation by simply paying to that corporation what such property is worth. And yet thousands of people are talking as though the rich combined for the express purpose of destroying the poor, are talking as though there existed a widespread conspiracy against industry, against honest toil; and thousands and thousands of speeches have been made and numberless articles have been written to fill the breasts of the unfortunate with hatred.
We have passed through a period of wonderful and unprecedented inflation. For years we enjoyed the luxury of going into debt, the felicity of living upon credit. We have in the United States about eighty thousand miles of railway, more than enough to make a treble track around the globe. Most of these miles were built in a period of twenty-five years, and at a cost of at least five thousand millions of dollars. Think of the ore that had to be dug, of the iron that was melted; think of the thousands employed in cutting bridge timber and ties, and giving to the wintry air the music of the axe; think of the thousands and thousands employed in making cars, in making locomotives, those horses of progress with nerves of steel and breath of flame; think of the thousands and thousands of workers in brass and steel and iron; think of the numberless industries that thrived in the construction of eighty thousand miles of railway, of the streams bridged, of the mountains tunneled, of the plains crossed; and think of the towns and cities that sprang up, as if by magic, along these highways of iron.
During the same time we had a war in which we expended thousands of millions of dollars, not to create, not to construct, but to destroy. All this money was spent in the work of demolition, and every shot and every shell and every musket and every cannon was used to destroy. All the time of every soldier was lost. An amount of property inconceivable was destroyed, and some of the best and bravest were sacrificed. During these years the productive power of the North was strained to the utmost; every wheel was in motion; there was employment for every kind and description of labor, and for every mechanic. There was a constantly rising market—speculation was rife, and it seemed almost impossible to lose. As a consequence, the men who had been toiling upon the farm became tired. It was too slow a way to get rich. They heard of their neighbor, of their brother, who had gone to the city and had suddenly become a millionaire. They became tired with the slow methods of agriculture. The young men of intelligence, of vim, of nerve became disgusted with the farms. On every hand fortunes were being made. A wave of wealth swept over the United States; huts became houses; houses became palaces with carpeted floors and pictured walls; tatters became garments; rags became robes; and for the first time in the history of the world, the poor tasted of the luxuries of wealth. We wondered how our fathers could have endured their poor and barren lives.
Every business was pressed to the snow line. Old life insurance associations had been successful; new ones sprang up on every hand. The agents filled every town. These agents were given a portion of the premium. You could hardly go out of your house without being told of the uncertainty of life and the certainty of death. You were shown pictures of life insurance agents emptying vast bags of gold at the feet of a disconsolate widow. You saw in imagination your own fatherless children wiping away the tears of grief and smiling with joy.
These agents insured everybody and everything. They would have insured a hospital or consumption in its last hemorrhage.
Fire insurance was managed in precisely the same way. The agents received a part of the premium, and they insured anything and everything, no matter what its danger might be. They would have insured powder in perdition, or icebergs under the torrid zone with the same alacrity. And then there were accident companies, and you could not go to the station to buy your ticket without being shown a picture of disaster. You would see there four horses running away with a stage, and old ladies and children being thrown out; you would see a steamer being blown up on the Mississippi, legs one way and arms the other, heads one side and hats the other; locomotives going through bridges, good Samaritans carrying off the wounded on stretchers.
The merchants, too, were not satisfied to do business in the old way. It was too slow; they could not wait for customers. They filled the country with drummers, and these drummers convinced all the country merchants that they needed about twice as many goods as they could possibly sell, and they took their notes on sixty and ninety days, and renewed them whenever desired, provided the parties renewing the notes would take more goods. And these country merchants pressed the goods upon their customers in the same manner. Everybody was selling, everybody was buying, and nearly all was done upon a credit. No one believed the day of settlement ever would or ever could come. Towns must continue to grow, and in the imagination of speculators there were hundreds of cities numbering their millions of inhabitants. Land, miles and miles from the city, was laid out in blocks and squares and parks; land that will not be occupied for residences probably for hundreds of years to come, and these lots were sold, not by the acre, not by the square mile, but by so much per foot. They were sold on credit, with a partial payment down and the balance secured by a mortgage.
These values, of course, existed simply in the imagination; and a deed of trust upon a cloud or a mortgage upon a last year's fog would have been just as valuable. Everybody advertised, and those who were not selling goods and real estate were in the medicine line, and every rock beneath our flag was covered with advice to the unfortunate; and I have often thought that if some sincere Christian had made a pilgrimage to Sinai and climbed its venerable crags, and in a moment of devotion dropped upon his knees and raised his eyes toward heaven, the first thing that would have met his astonished gaze would in all probability have been:
"St. 1860 X Plantation Bitters."
Suddenly there came a crash. Jay Cooke failed, and I have heard thousands of men account for the subsequent hard times from the fact that Cooke did fail. As well might you account for the smallpox by saying that the first pustule was the cause of the disease. The failure of Jay Cooke & Co. was simply a symptom of a disease universal.
No language can describe the agonies that have been endured since 1873. No language can tell the sufferings of the men that have wandered over the dreary and desolate desert of bankruptcy. Thousands and thousands supposed that they had enough, enough for their declining years, enough for wife and children, and suddenly found themselves paupers and vagrants.
During all these years the bankruptcy law was in force, and whoever failed to keep his promise had simply to take the benefit of this law. As a consequence, there could be no real, solid foundation for business. Property commenced to decline; that is to say, it commenced to resume; that is to say, it began to be rated at its real instead of at its speculative value.
Land is worth what it will produce, and no more. It may have speculative value, and, if the prophecy is fulfilled, the man who buys it may become rich, and if the prophecy is not fulfilled, then the land is simply worth what it will produce. Lots worth from five to ten thousand dollars apiece suddenly vanished into farms worth twenty-five dollars per acre. These lots resumed. The farms that before that time had been considered worth one hundred dollars per acre, and are now worth twenty or thirty, have simply resumed. Magnificent residences supposed to be worth one hundred thousand dollars, that can now be purchased for twenty-five thousand, they have simply resumed. The property in the United States has not fallen in value, but its real value has been ascertained. The land will produce as much as it ever would, and is as valuable to-day as it ever was; and every improvement, every invention that adds to the productiveness of the soil or to the facilities for getting that product to market, adds to the wealth of the nation.
As a matter of fact, the property kept pace with what we were pleased to call our money. As the money depreciated, property appreciated; as the money appreciated, property depreciated. The moment property began to fall speculation ceased. There is but little speculation upon a falling market. The stocks and bonds, based simply upon ideas, became worthless, the collaterals became dust and ashes.
At the close of the war, when the Government ceased to be such a vast purchaser and consumer, many of the factories had to stop. When the crash came the men stopped digging ore; they stopped felling the forest; the fires died out in the furnaces; the men who had stood in the glare of the forge were in the gloom of want. There was no employment for them. The employer could not sell his product; business stood still, and then came what we call the hard times. Our wealth was a delusion and illusion, and we simply came back to reality. Too many men were doing nothing, too many men were traders, brokers, speculators. There were not enough producers of the things needed; there were too many producers of the things no one wished. There needed to be a re-distribution of men.
Many remedies have been proposed, and chief among these is the remedy of fiat money. Probably no subject in the world is less generally understood than that of money. So many false definitions have been given, so many strange, conflicting theories have been advanced, that it is not at all surprising that men have come to imagine that money is something that can be created by law. The definitions given by the hard-money men themselves have been used as arguments by those who believe in the power of Congress to create wealth. We are told that gold is an instrumentality or a device to facilitate exchanges. We are told that gold is a measure of value. Let us examine these definitions.
" Gold is an instrumentality or device to facilitate exchanges. "
That sounds well, but I do not believe it. Gold and silver are commodities. They are the products of labor. They are not instrumentalities; they are not devices to facilitate exchanges; they are the things exchanged for something else; and other things are exchanged for them. The only device about it to facilitate exchanges is the coining of these metals. Whenever the Government or any government certifies that in a certain piece of gold or silver there are a certain number of grains of a certain fineness, then he who gives it knows that he is not giving too much, and he who receives, that he is receiving enough, so that I will change the definition to this:
The coining of the precious metals is a device to facilitate exchanges.
The precious metals themselves are property; they are merchandise; they are commodities, and whenever one commodity is exchanged for another it is barter, and gold is the last refinement of barter.
The second definition is:
" Gold is the measure of value ."
We are told by those who believe in fiat money that gold is a measure of value just the same as a half bushel or a yardstick.
I deny that gold is a measure of value. The yardstick is not a measure of value; it is simply a measure of quantity. It measures cloth worth fifty dollars a yard precisely as it does calico worth four cents. It is, therefore, not a measure of value, but of quantities. The same with the half bushel. The half bushel measures wheat precisely the same, whether that wheat is worth three dollars or one dollar. It simply measures quantity; not quality, or value. The yardstick, the half bushel, and the coining of money are all devices to facilitate exchanges. The yardstick assures the man who sells that he has not sold too much; it assures the man who buys that he has received enough; and in that way it facilitates exchanges. The coining of money facilitates exchange, for the reason that were it not coined, each man who did any business would have to carry a pair of scales and be a chemist.
It matters not whether the yardstick or half bushel are of gold, silver, or wood, for the reason that the yardstick and half bushel are not the things bought. We buy not them, but the things they measure.
If gold and silver are not the measure of value, what is? I answer—intelligent labor. Gold gets its value from labor. Of course, I cannot account for the fact that mankind have a certain fancy for gold or for diamonds, neither can I account for the fact that we like certain things better than others to eat. These are simply facts in nature, and they are facts, whether they can be explained or not. The dollar in gold represents, on the average, the labor that it took to dig and mint it, together with all the time of the men who looked for it without finding it. That dollar in gold, on the average, will buy the product of the same amount of labor in any other direction.
Nothing ever has been money, from the most barbarous to the most civilized times, unless it was a product of nature, and a something to which the people among whom it passed as money attached a certain value, a value not dependent upon law, not dependent upon "fiat" in any degree.
Nothing has ever been considered money that man could produce.
A bank bill is not money, neither is a check nor a draft. These are all devices simply to facilitate business, but in or of themselves they have no value.
We are told, however, that the Government can create money. This I deny. The Government produces nothing; it raises no wheat, no corn; it digs no gold, no silver. It is not a producer, it is a consumer.
The Government cannot by law create wealth. And right here I wish to ask one question, and I would like to have it answered some time. If the Government can make money, if it can create money, if by putting its sovereignty upon a piece of paper it can create absolute money, why should the Government collect taxes? We have in every district assessors and collectors; we have at every port customhouses, and we are collecting taxes day and night for the support of this Government. Now, if the Government can make money itself, why should it collect taxes from the poor? Here is a man cultivating a farm—he is working among the stones and roots, and digging day and night; why should the Government go to that man and make him pay twenty or thirty or forty dollars taxes when the Government, according to the theory of these gentlemen, could make a thousand-dollar fiat bill quicker than that man could wink? Why impose upon industry in that manner? Why should the sun borrow a candle?
And if the Government can create money, how much should it create, and if it should create it who will get it? Money has a great liking for money. A single dollar in the pocket of a poor man is lonesome; it never is satisfied until it has found its companions. Money gravitates towards money, and issue as much as you may, as much as you will, the time will come when that money will be in the hands of the industrious, in the hands of the economical, in the hands of the shrewd, in the hands of the cunning; in other words, in the hands of the successful.
The other day I had a conversation with one of the principal gentlemen upon that side, and I told him, "Whenever you can successfully palm off on a man a bill of fare for a dinner, I shall believe in your doctrine; and when I can satisfy the pangs of hunger by reading a cook-book, I shall join your party." Only that is money which stands for labor. Only that is money which will buy, on the average, in all other directions the result of the same labor expended in its production. As a matter of fact, there is money enough in the country to transact the business. Never before in the history of our Government was money so cheap; that is to say, was interest so low; never. There is plenty of money, and we could borrow all we wished had we the collaterals. We could borrow all we wish if there was some business in which we could embark that promised a sure and reasonable return. If we should come to a man who kept a ferry, and find his boat on a sandbar and the river dry, what would he think of us should we tell him he had not enough boat? He would probably reply that he had plenty of boat, but not enough water. We have plenty of money, but not enough business. The reason we have not enough business is, we have not enough confidence, and the reason we have not confidence is because the market is slowly falling, and the reason it is slowly falling is that things have not yet quite resumed; that we have not quite touched the absolute bedrock of valuation. Another reason is because those that left the cultivation of the soil have not yet all returned, and they are living, some upon their wits, some upon their relatives, some upon charity, and some upon crime.
The next question is: Suppose the Government should issue a thousand millions of fiat money, how would it regulate the value thereof? Every creditor could be forced to take it, but nobody else. If a man was in debt one dollar for a bushel of wheat, he could compel the creditor to take the fiat money; but if he wished to buy the wheat, then the owner could say, "I will take one dollar in gold or fifty dollars in fiat money, or I will not sell it for fiat money at any price." What will Congress do then? In order to make this fiat money good it will have to fix the price of every conceivable commodity; the price of painting a picture, of trying a lawsuit, of chiseling a statue, the price of a day's work; in short, the price of every conceivable thing. This even will not be sufficient. It will be necessary, then, to provide by law that the prices fixed shall be received, and that no man shall be allowed to give more for anything than the price fixed by Congress. Now, I do not believe that any Congress has sufficient wisdom to tell beforehand what will be the relative value of all the products of labor.
When the volume of currency is inflated it is at the expense of the creditor class; when it is contracted it is contracted at the expense of the debtor class. In other words, inflation means going into debt; contraction means the payment of the debt.
A gold dollar is a dollar's worth of gold.
A real paper dollar is a dollar's worth of paper.
Another remedy has been suggested by the same persons who advocate fiat money. With a consistency perfectly charming, they say it would have been much better had we allowed the Treasury notes to fade out. Why allow fiat money to fade out when a simple act of Congress can make it as good as gold? When greenbacks fade out the loss falls upon the chance holder, upon the poor, the industrious, and the unfortunate. The rich, the cunning, the well-informed manage to get rid of what they happen to hold. When, however, the bills are redeemed, they are paid by the wealth and property of the whole country. To allow them to fade out is universal robbery; to pay them is universal justice. The greenback should not be allowed to fade away in the pocket of the soldier or in the hands of his widow and children. It is said that; the Continental money faded away. It was and is a disgrace to our forefathers. When the greenback fades away there will fade with it honor from the American heart, brain from the American head, and our flag from the air of heaven.
A great cry has been raised against the holders of bonds. They have been denounced by every epithet that malignity can coin. During the war our bonds were offered for sale and they brought all that they then appeared to be worth. They had to be sold or the Rebellion would have been a success. To the bond we are indebted as much as to the greenback. The fact is, however, we are indebted to neither; we are indebted to the soldiers. But every man who took a greenback at less than gold committed the same crime, and no other, as he who bought the bonds at less than par in gold. These bonds have changed hands thousands of times. They have been paid for in gold again and again. They have been bought at prices far above par; they have been laid away by loving husbands for wives, by toiling fathers for children; and the man who seeks to repudiate them now, or to pay them in fiat rags, is unspeakably cruel and dishonest. If the Government has made a bad bargain it must live up to it. If it has made a foolish promise the only way is to fulfill it.
A dishonest government can exist only among dishonest people.
When our money is below par we feel below par.
We cannot bring prosperity by cheapening money; we cannot increase our wealth by adding to the volume of a depreciated currency. If the prosperity of a country depends upon the volume of its currency, and if anything is money that people can be made to think is money, then the successful counterfeiter is a public benefactor. The counterfeiter increases the volume of currency; he stimulates business, and the money issued by him will not be hoarded and taken from the channels of trade.
During the war, during the inflation—that is to say, during the years that we were going into debt—fortunes were made so easily that people left the farms, crowded to the towns and cities. Thousands became speculators, traders, and merchants; thousands embarked in every possible and conceivable scheme. They produced nothing; they simply preyed upon labor and dealt with imaginary values. These men must go back; they must become producers, and every producer is a paying consumer. Thousands and thousands of them are unable to go back. To a man who begs of you a breakfast you cannot say, "Why don't you get a farm?" You might as well say, "Why don't you start a line of steamships?" To him both are impossibilities. They must be helped.
We should all remember that society must support all of its members, all of its robbers, thieves, and paupers. Every vagabond and vagrant has to be fed and clothed, and society must support in some way all of its members. It can support them in jails, in asylums, in hospitals, in penitentiaries; but it is a very costly way. We have to employ judges to try them, juries to sit upon their cases, sheriffs, marshals, and constables to arrest them, policemen to watch them, and it may be, at last, a standing army to put them down. It would be far cheaper, probably, to support them all at some first-class hotel. We must either support them or help them support themselves. They let us go upon the one hand simply to take us by the other, and we can take care of them as paupers and criminals, or, by wise statesmanship, help them to be honest and useful men. Of all the criminals transported by England to Australia and Tasmania, the records show that a very large per cent.—something over ninety—became useful and decent people. In Australia they found homes; hope again spread its wings in their breasts. They had different ambitions; they were removed from vile and vicious associations. They had new surroundings; and, as a rule, man does not morally improve without a corresponding improvement in his physical condition. One biscuit, with plenty of butter, is worth all the tracts ever distributed.
Thousands must be taken from the crowded streets and stifling dens, away from the influences of filth and want, to the fields and forests of the West and South. They must be helped to help themselves.
While the Government cannot create gold and silver, while it cannot by its fiat make money, it can furnish facilities for the creation of wealth. It can aid in the distribution of products, and in the distribution of men; it can aid in the opening of new territories; it can aid great and vast enterprises that cannot be accomplished by individual effort. The Government should see to it that every facility is offered to honorable adventure, enterprise and industry. Our ships ought to be upon every sea; our flag ought to be flying in every port. Our rivers and harbors ought to be improved. The usefulness of the Mississippi should be increased, its banks strengthened, and its channel deepened. At no distant day it will bear the commerce of a hundred millions of people. That grand river is the great guaranty of territorial integrity; it is the protest of nature against disunion, and from its source to the sea it will forever flow beneath one flag.
The Northern Pacific Railway should be pushed to completion. In this way labor would be immediately given to many thousands of men. Along the line of that thoroughfare would spring up towns and cities; new communities with new surroundings; and where now is the wilderness there would be thousands and thousands of happy homes.
The Texas Pacific should also be completed. A vast agricultural and mineral region would be opened to the enterprise and adventure of the American people. Probably Arizona holds within the miserly clutches of her rocks greater wealth than any other State or territory of the world. The construction of that road would put life and activity into a hundred industries. It would give employment to many thousands of people, and homes at last to many millions. It would cause the building of thousands of miles of branches to open, not only new territory, but to connect with roads already built. It would double the products of gold and silver, open new fields to trade, create new industries, and make it possible for us to supply eight millions of people in the Republic of Mexico with our products. The construction of this great highway will enable the Government to dispense with from ten to fifteen regiments of infantry and cavalry now stationed along the border. People enough will settle along this line to protect themselves. It will permanently settle the Indian question, saving the people millions each year. It will effectually destroy the present monopoly, and in this way greatly increase production and consumption. It will double our trade with China and Japan, and with the Pacific States as well. It will settle the Southern question by filling the Southern States with immigrants, diversifying the industries of that section, changing and rebuilding the commercial and social fabric; it will do away with the conservatism of regret and the prejudice born of isolation. It will transmute to wealth the unemployed muscle of the country. It will rescue California from the control of a single corporation, from the government of an oligarchy united, watchful, despotic, and vindictive. It will liberate the farmers, the merchants, and even the politicians of the Pacific coast. Besides, it must not be forgotten so to frame the laws and charters that Congress shall forever have the control of fares and freights. In this way the public will be perfectly protected and the Government perfectly secured.
Look at the map, and you will see the immense advantages its construction will give to the entire country, not only to the South, but to the East and West as well. It is one hundred and fifty miles nearer from Chicago to San Diego than to San Francisco. You will see that the whole of Texas, a State containing two hundred and ten thousand square miles; a State four times as large as Illinois, five times as large as New York, capable of supporting a population of twenty millions of people, is put in direct and immediate communication with the whole country. Territory to the extent of nearly a million square miles will be given to agriculture, trade, commerce, and mining, by the construction of this line.
Let this road be built, and we shall feel again the enthusiasm born of enterprise. In the vast stagnation there will be at last a current. Something besides waiting is necessary to secure, or to even hasten, the return of prosperity. Secure the completion of this line and extend the time for building the Northern Pacific, and confidence and employment will return together.
More men must cultivate the soil. In the older States lands are too high. It requires too much capital to commence. There are so many failures in business; so many merchants, traders, and manufacturers have been wrecked and stranded upon the barren shores of bankruptcy, that the people are beginning to prefer the small but certain profits of agriculture to the false and splendid promises of speculation. We must open new territories; we must give the mechanics now out of employment an opportunity to cultivate the soil—not as day-laborers but as owners; not as tenants, but as farmers. Something must be done to develop the resources of this country. With the best lands of the world; with a population intellectual, energetic, and ingenious far beyond the average of mankind; with the richest mines of the globe; with plenty of capital; with a surplus of labor; with thousands of arms folded in enforced idleness; with billions of gold asking to be dug; with millions of acres waiting for the plow, thousands upon thousands are in absolute want.
New avenues must be opened. All our territory must be given to immigration. Greater facilities must be offered. Obstacles that cannot be overcome by individual enterprise must be conquered by the Government for the good of all. Every man out of employment is impoverishing the country. Labor transmutes muscle into wealth. Idleness is a rust that devours even gold. For five years we have been wasting the labor of millions—wasting it for lack of something to do. Prosperity has been changed to want and discontent. On every hand the poor are asking for work. That is a wretched government where the honest and industrious beg, unsuccessfully, for the right to toil; where those who are willing, anxious, and able to work, cannot get bread. If everything is to be left to the blind and heartless working of the laws of supply and demand, why have governments? If the nation leaves the poor to starve, and the weak and unfortunate to perish, it is hard to see for what purpose the nation should be preserved. If our statesmen are not wise enough to foster great enterprises, and to adopt a policy that will give us prosperity, it may be that the laboring classes, driven to frenzy by hunger, the bitterness of which will be increased by seeing others in the midst of plenty, will seek a remedy in destruction.
The transcontinental commerce of this country should not be in the clutch and grasp of one corporation. All sections of the Union should, as far as possible, be benefited. Cheap rates will come, and can be maintained only by competition. We should cultivate commercial relations with China and Japan. Six hundred millions of people are slowly awaking from a lethargy of six thousand years. In a little while they will have the wants of civilized men, and America will furnish a large proportion of the articles demanded by these people. In a few years there will be as many ships upon the Pacific as upon the Atlantic. In a few years our trade with China will be far greater than with Europe. In a few years we will sustain the same relation to the far East that Europe once sustained to us. America for centuries to come will supply six hundred millions of people with the luxuries of life. A country that expects to control the trade of other countries must develop its own resources to the utmost. We have pursued a small, a mean, and a penurious course. Demagogues have ridden into office and power upon the cry of economy, by opposing every measure looking to the improvement of the country, by endeavoring to see how cheaply nothing could be done. A government, like an individual, should live up to its privileges; it should husband its resources, simply that it may use them. A nation that expects to control the commerce of half a world must have its money equal with gold and silver. It must have the money of the world.
Whenever the laboring men are out of employment they begin to hate the rich. They feel that the dwellers in palaces, the riders in carriages, the wearers of broadcloth, silk, and velvet have in some way been robbing them. As a matter of fact, the palace builders are the friends of labor. The best form of charity is extravagance. When you give a man money, when you toss him a dollar, although you get nothing, the man loses his manhood. To help others help themselves is the only real charity. There is no use in boosting a man who is not climbing. Whenever I see a splendid home, a palace, a magnificent block, I think of the thousands who were fed—of the women and children clothed, of the firesides made happy.
A rich man living up to his privileges, having the best house, the best furniture, the best horses, the finest grounds, the most beautiful flowers, the best clothes, the best food, the best pictures, and all the books that he can afford, is a perpetual blessing.
The prodigality of the rich is the providence of the poor.
The extravagance of wealth makes it possible for the poor to save.
The rich man who lives according to his means, who is extravagant in the best and highest sense, is not the enemy of labor. The miser, who lives in a hovel, wears rags, and hoards his gold, is a perpetual curse. He is like one who dams a river at its source.
The moment hard times come the cry of economy is raised. The press, the platform, and the pulpit unite in recommending economy to the rich. In consequence of this cry, the man of wealth discharges servants, sells horses, allows his carriage to become a hen-roost, and after taking employment and food from as many as he can, congratulates himself that he has done his part toward restoring prosperity to the country.
In that country where the poor are extravagant and the rich economical will be found pauperism and crime; but where the poor are economical and the rich are extravagant, that country is filled with prosperity.
The man who wants others to work to such an extent that their lives are burdens, is utterly heartless. The toil of the world should continually decrease. Of what use are your inventions if no burdens are lifted from industry—if no additional comforts find their way to the home of labor; why should labor fill the world with wealth and live in want?
Every labor-saving machine should help the whole world. Every one should tend to shorten the hours of labor.
Reasonable labor is a source of joy. To work for wife and child, to toil for those you love, is happiness; provided you can make them happy. But to work like a slave, to see your wife and children in rags, to sit at a table where food is coarse and scarce, to rise at four in the morning, to work all day and throw your tired bones upon a miserable bed at night, to live without leisure, without rest, without making those you love comfortable and happy—this is not living—it is dying—a slow, lingering crucifixion.
The hours of labor should be shortened. With the vast and wonderful improvements of the nineteenth century there should be not only the necessaries of life for those who toil, but comforts and luxuries as well.
What is a reasonable price for labor? I answer: Such a price as will enable the man to live; to have the comforts of life; to lay by a little something for his declining years, so that he can have his own home, his own fireside; so that he can preserve the feelings of a man.
Every man ought to be willing to pay for what he gets. He ought to desire to give full value received. The man who wants two dollars' worth of work for one is not an honest man.
I sympathize with every honest effort made by the children of labor to improve their condition. That is a poorly governed country in which those who do the most have the least. There is something wrong when men are obliged to beg for leave to toil. We are not yet a civilized people; when we are, pauperism and crime will vanish from our land.
There is one thing, however, of which I am glad and proud, and that is, that society is not, in our country, petrified; that the poor are not always poor.
The children of the poor of this generation may, and probably will, be the rich of the next. The sons of the rich of this generation may be the poor of the next; so that after all, the rich fear and the poor hope.
I sympathize with the wanderers, with the vagrants out of employment; with the sad and weary men who are seeking for work. When I see one of these men, poor and friendless—no matter how bad he is—I think that somebody loved him once; that he was once held in the arms of a mother; that he slept beneath her loving eyes, and wakened in the light of her smile. I see him in the cradle, listening to lullabies sung soft and low, and his little face is dimpled as though touched by the rosy fingers of Joy.
And then I think of the strange and winding paths, the weary roads he has traveled from that mother's arms to vagrancy and want.
There should be labor and food for all. We invent; we take advantage of the forces of nature; we enslave the winds and waves; we put shackles upon the unseen powers and chain the energy that wheels the world. These slaves should release from bondage all the children of men.
By invention, by labor—that is to say, by working and thinking—we shall compel prosperity to dwell with us.
Do not imagine that wealth can be created by law; do not for a moment believe that paper can be changed to gold by the fiat of Congress.
Do not preach the heresy that you can keep a promise by making another in its place that is never to be kept. Do not teach the poor that the rich have conspired to trample them into the dust.
Tell the workingmen that they are in the majority; that they can make and execute the laws.
Tell them that since 1873 the employers have suffered about as much as the employed.
Tell them that the people who have the power to make the laws should never resort to violence. Tell them never to envy the successful. Tell the rich to be extravagant and the poor to be economical.
Tell every man to use his best efforts to get him a home. Without a home, without some one to love, life and country are meaningless words. Upon the face of the patriot must have fallen the firelight of home.
Tell the people that they must have honest money, so that when a man has a little laid by for wife and child, it will comfort him even in death; so that he will feel that he leaves something for bread, something that, in some faint degree, will take his place; that he has left the coined toil of his hands to work for the loved when he is dust.
Tell your representatives in Congress to improve our rivers and harbors; to release our transcontinental commerce from the grasp of monopoly; to open all our territories, and to build up our trade with the whole world.
Tell them not to issue a dollar of fiat paper, but to redeem every promise the nation has made.
If fiat money is ever issued it will be worthless, for the folly that would issue has not the honor to pay when the experiment fails.
Tell them to put their trust in work. Debts can be created by law, but they must be paid by labor.
Tell them that "fiat money" is madness and repudiation is death.
* This address was delivered at a Suffrage Meeting in
Washington, D. C., January 24,1880
1880.
LADIES and Gentlemen: I believe the people to be the only rightful source of political power, and that any community, no matter where, in which any citizen is not allowed to have his voice in the making of the laws he must obey, that community is a tyranny. It is a matter of astonishment to me that a meeting like this is necessary in the Capital of the United States. If the citizens of the District of Columbia are not permitted to vote, if they are not allowed to govern themselves, and if there is no sound reason why they are not allowed to govern themselves, then the American idea of government is a failure. I do not believe that only the rich should vote, or that only the whites should vote, or that only the blacks should vote. I do not believe that right depends upon wealth, upon education, or upon color. It depends absolutely upon humanity. I have the right to vote because I am a man, because I am an American citizen, and that right I should and am willing to share equally with every human being. There has been a great deal said in this country of late in regard to giving the right of suffrage to women. So far as I am concerned I am willing that every woman in the nation who desires that privilege and honor shall vote. If any woman wants to vote I am too much of a gentleman to say she shall not. She gets her right, if she has it, from precisely the same source that I get mine, and there are many questions upon which I would deem it desirable that women should vote, especially upon the question of peace or war. If a woman has a child to be offered upon the altar of that Moloch, a husband liable to be drafted, and who loves a heart that can be entered by the iron arrow of death, she surely has as much right to vote for peace as some thrice-besotted sot who reels to the ballot-box and deposits a vote for war. I believe, and always have, that there is only one objection to a woman voting, and that is, the men are not sufficiently civilized for her to associate with them, and for several years I have been doing what little I can to civilize them. The only question before this meeting, as I understand it, is, Shall the people of this District manage their own affairs—whether they shall vote their own taxes and select their own officers who are to execute the laws they make? and for one, I say there is no human being with ingenuity enough to frame an argument against this question. It is all very well to say that Congress will do this, but Congress has a great deal to do besides. There is enough before that body coming from all the States and Territories of the Union, and the numberless questions arising in the conduct of the General Government. I am opposed to a government where the few govern the many. I am opposed to a government that depends upon suppers, and upon flattery; upon crooking the hinges of the knee; upon favors, upon subterfuges. We want to be manly men in this District. We must direct and control our own affairs, and if we are not capable of doing it, there is no part of the Union where they are capable. It is said there is a vast amount of ignorance here. That is true; but that is also true of every section of the United States. There is too much ignorance and there will continue to be until the people become great enough, generous enough, and splendid enough to see that no child shall grow up in their midst without a good, common-school education. The people of this District are capable of managing their educational affairs if they are allowed to do so. The fact is, a man now living in the District lives under a perpetual flag of truce. He is nobody. He counts for nothing. He is not noticed except as a suppliant. Nothing as a citizen. That day should pass away. It will be a perpetual education for this people to govern themselves, and until they do they cannot be manly men. They say, though, that there is a vast rabble here. Very well. Make your election laws so as to exclude the vast rabble. Let it be understood that no man shall vote who has not lived here at least one year.
Let your registration laws prohibit any man from voting unless he has been registered at least six months. We do not want to be governed by people who have no abode here—who are political Bedouins of the desert. We want to be governed by people who live with us—who live somewhere among us, and whom somebody knows, and if a law is properly framed there will be no trouble about self-government in the District of Columbia. Let the experiment be tried here of a perfect, complete and honest registration; let every man, no matter who he is or where he comes from, vote only by strict compliance with a good registry law. We can have a fair election, and wherever there is a fair election there will be good government. Our Government depends for its stability upon honest elections. The great principle underlying our system of government is that the people have the virtue and the patriotism to govern themselves. That is the foundation stone, the corner and the base of our edifice, and upon it our Government is on trial to-day. And until a man is considered infamous who casts an illegal vote, our Government will not be safe. Whoever casts an illegal vote knowingly is a traitor to the principle upon which our Government is founded. And whoever deprives a citizen of his right to vote is also a traitor to our Government. When these things are understood; when the finger of public scorn shall be pointed at every man who votes illegally, or unlawfully prevents an honest vote, then you will have a splendid Government. It is humiliating for one hundred and seventy-five thousand people to depend simply upon the right of petition. The few will disregard the petition of the many.
I have not one word to say against the officers of the District. Not a word. But let them do as well as they can; that is no justification. It is no justification of a monarchy that the king is a good man; it is no justification of a tyranny that the despot does justice. There may come another who will do injustice; and a free people like ours should not be satisfied to be governed by strangers. They would better have bad men of their own choosing than to have good men forced upon them. You have property here, and you have a right to protect it, and a right to improve it. You have life and liberty and the right to protect it. You have a right to say what money shall be assessed and collected and paid for that protection. You have laws and you have a right to have them executed by officers of your own selection, and by nobody else. In my judgment, all that is necessary to have these things done is to have the subject properly laid before Congress, and let that body thoroughly and perfectly understand the situation. There is no member there, who rightly understanding our wishes, will dare continue this disfranchisement of the people. We have the same right to vote that their constituents have, precisely—no more and no less.
This District ought to have one representative in Congress, a representative with a right to speak—not a tongueless dummy. The idea of electing a delegate who has simply the privilege of standing around! We ought to have a representative who has not only the right to talk, but who will talk. This District has the right to a vote in the committees of Congress, and not simply the privilege of receiving a little advice. And more than that, this District ought to have at least one electoral vote in a selection of a President of the United States. A smaller population than yours is represented not only in Congress, but in the Electoral College. If it is necessary to amend the Constitution to secure these rights let us try and have it amended; and when that question is put to the people of the whole country they will be precisely as willing that the people of the District of Columbia shall have an equal voice as that they themselves should have a voice.
Let us stop at no half-way ground, but claim, and keep claiming all our rights until somebody says we shall have them. And let me tell you another thing: Once have the right of self-government recognized here, have a delegate in Congress, and an electoral vote for President, and thousands will be willing to come here and become citizens of the District. As it is, the moment a man settles here his American citizenship falls from him like dead leaves from a tree. From that moment he is nobody. Every American citizen wants a little political power—wants to cast his vote for the rulers of the nation. He wants to have something to say about the laws he has to obey, and they are not willing to come here and disfranchise themselves. The moment it is known that a man is from the District he has no influence, and no one cares what his political opinions may be. Now, let us have it so that we can vote and be on an equality with the rest of the voters of the United States. This Government was founded upon the idea that the only source of power is the people. Let us show at the Capital that we have confidence in that principle; that every man should have a vote and voice in the South, in the North, everywhere, no matter how low his condition, no matter that he was a slave, no matter what his color is, or whether he can read or write, he is clothed with the right to name those who make the laws he is to obey. While the lowest and most degraded in every State in this Union have that right, the best and most intelligent in the District have not that right. It will not do. There is no sense in it—there is no justice in it—nothing American in it. If this were the case in some of the capitals of Europe we would not be surprised; but here in the United States, where we have so much to say about the right of self-government, that two hundred thousand people should not have the right to say who shall make, and who shall execute the laws is at least an anomaly and a contradiction of our theory of government, and for one, I propose to do what little I can to correct it. It has been said that you had once here the right of self-government. If I understand it, the right you had was to elect somebody to some office, and all the other officers were appointed. You had no control over your Legislature; you had very little control over your other officers, and the people of the District were held responsible for what was actually done by the appointing power. We want no appointing power. If it is necessary to have a police magistrate, I say the people are competent to elect that magistrate; and if he is not a good man they are qualified to select another in his place. You ought to elect your judges. I do not want the office of the Judiciary so far from the people that it may feel entirely independent. I want every officer in this District held-accountable to the people, and, unless he discharges his duties faithfully, the people will put him out, and select another in his stead.
I want it understood that no American citizen can be forced to pay a dollar in a State or in the district where he lives who is not represented, and where he has not the right to vote. It is all tyranny, and all infamous. The people of the United States wonder to-day that you have submitted to this outrage as long as you have.
Neither do I believe that only the rich should have the right to vote; that only they should govern; or that only the educated should govern. I have noticed among educated men many who did not know enough to govern themselves. I have known many wealthy men who did not believe in liberty, in giving the people the same rights they claimed for themselves. I believe in that government where the ballot of Lazarus counts as much as the vote of Dives. Let the rich, let the educated, govern the people by moral suasion and by example and by kindness, and not by brute force. And in a community like this, where the avenues to distinction are open alike to all, there will be many more reasons for acting like men. When you can hold any position, when every citizen can have conferred upon him honor and responsibility, there is some stimulus to be a man. But in a community where but the few are clothed with power by appointment, no incentive exists among the people. If the avenues to distinction and honor are open to all, such a government is beneficial on every hand, and the poorest man in the community may say to himself, "If I pursue the right course the very highest place is open to me." And the poorest man, with his little tow-headed boy on his knee, can say, "John, all the avenues are open to you; although I am poor, you may be rich, and while I am obscure, you may become distinguished."
That idea sweetens every hour of toil and renders holy every drop of sweat that rolls down the face of labor. I hate tyranny in every form. I despise it, and I execrate a tyrant wherever he may be, and in every country where the people are struggling for the right of self-government I sympathize with them in their struggle. Wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn in favor of human rights I am a rebel. I sympathize with all the people in Europe who are endeavoring to push kings from thrones and struggling for the right to govern themselves. America ought to send greeting to every part of the world where such a struggle is pending, and we of the District of Columbia ought to be able to join in the greeting, but we never shall be until we have the right of self-government ourselves. No man who is a good citizen can have any objection to self-government here. No man can be opposed to it who believes that our people have enough wisdom, enough virtue, enough patriotism to govern themselves. The man who doubts the right of the people to govern themselves casts a little doubt upon the question, simply because he is not man enough himself to believe in liberty. I would trust the poor of this country with our liberties as soon as I would the rich. I will trust the huts and hovels, just as soon as I will the mansions and palaces. I will trust those who work by the day in the street as soon as I will the bankers of the United States. I will trust the ignorant—even the ignorant. Why? Because they want education, and no people in this country are so anxious to have their children educated as those who are not educated themselves. I will trust the ignorant with the liberties of this country quicker than I would some of the educated who doubt the principles upon which our Government is founded. But let the intelligent do what they can to instruct the ignorant. Let the wealthy do what they can to give the blessings of liberty to the poor, and then this Government will remain forever. The time is passing away when any man of genius can be respected who will not use that genius in elevating his fellow-man. The time is passing away when men, however wealthy, can be respected unless they use their millions for the elevation of mankind. The time is coming when no man will be called an honest man who is not willing to give to every other man, be he white or black, every right that he asks for himself.
For my part, I am willing to live under a government where all govern, and am not willing to live under any other. I am willing to live where I am on an equality with other men, where they have precisely my rights, and no more; and I despise any government that is not based upon this principle of human equality. Now, let us go just for that one thing, that we have the same right as any other people in the United States—that is, to govern this District ourselves. Let us be represented in the lawmaking power, and let us advocate a change in the fundamental law so that the people of this District shall be entitled to one vote as to who shall be President of the United States. And when that is done and our people are clothed with the panoply of citizenship, you will find this District growing not to two hundred thousand, but in a little while one million of people will live here. Now, for one, I have not the slightest feeling against members of Congress for what has been done. I believe when this matter is laid before them fully and properly you will find few men in that august body who will vote against the proposition. They have had trouble enough. They do not understand our affairs. They never did, never will, never can. No one who does not live here will. The public interests are so many and so conflicting, and touch the sides of so many, that the people must attend to this matter themselves. They know when they want a market, a judge, or a collector of taxes, and nobody else does and nobody else has a right to.
And instead of going up to Congress and standing around some committee-room with a long petition in your hands, begging somebody to wait just one moment, it will be far better that you should go to the polls and elect your representative, who can attend to your interests in Congress. But above all things, I want to warn you, charge you, beseech you, that in any legislation upon this subject you must secure a registration law that will prevent the casting of an illegal vote. Do this before it is known whether the District is Republican or Democratic. I do not care. No matter how much of a Republican I am, absolutely, I would rather be governed by Democrats who live here than by Republicans who do not. And now, while it is not known whether this is a Democratic or Republican community, let us get up a registration that no one can violate; because the moment you have an election, and it is ascertained to be either Democratic or Republican, the victorious party may be opposed to any registration or any legislation that will put in jeopardy their power. I have lived long enough to be satisfied that any State in this Union, no matter whether Democratic or Republican, will be safe as long as the people have the right to vote, and to see that the ballots will be counted. This country is now upon trial. In nearly every State in this Union there is liable to happen just the same thing that only the other day happened in Maine.
In every State there can be two legislatures, one in the State-house and the other on the fence. Let us in this District so guard the right to vote and the counting of the ballots, that we shall know after the election who has been elected and know with certainty the men who have been elected by the legal voters of the District.
It becomes us all, whether Republicans or Democrats, to unite in securing such a law. Let us act together, Democrats and Republicans, black and white, rich and poor, educated and ignorant—let us all unite upon the principle that we have the right to govern ourselves. Then it will make no difference whether the District of Columbia shall be Democratic or Republican, provided it is the will of a legal majority of her people.
Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you.
* A political demonstration was made in Wall Street
yesterday afternoon that stands without a rival among the
many out-door meetings in that place, which for years have
been memorable features of Presidential campaigns.
Bankers and brokers, members of the Produce Exchange, and
dry goods merchants assembled at their respective rendezvous
and marched in Imposing processions to the open space in
front of the Sub-Treasury building, from the steps of which
Col. Ingersoll delivered an address. Written words are
entirely inadequate to describe this demonstration of Wall
Street business men. It never was equaled in point of
numbers, respectability or enthusiasm, even during the
excitement caused by the outbreak of the Rebellion.
Throughout the day the business houses, banking offices and
public buildings down town were gay with flags and bunting.
Business was practically suspended all day, and the
principal topic of conversation on the Exchanges and m
offices and stores was the coming meeting. Long before the
hour set, well-dressed people began to gather near the Sub-
Treasury Building and by two o'clock Wall Street, from Broad
and Nassau half way down to William, was passable only with
difficulty. While the crowd was fast gathering on every
hand, Graiulla's band, stationed upon the corner buttress
near the Sub-Treasury, struck up a patriotic air, and in a
few minutes the throngs had swelled to such proportions that
the police had all they could do to maintain a thoroughfare.
A few minutes more ana the distant strains of another band
attracted all eyes toward Broadway, where the head of the
procession was seen turning into Wall Street. Ten abreast
and every man a gentleman, they marched by. At this time
Wall street from half way to William Street to half way to
Broadway, Nassau Street half way to Pine, and Broad Street
as far as the eye could reach, were densely packed with
people from side to side. Everything else, except the
telegraph-poles and the tops of the lamp-posts, was hidden
from view. Every window, roof, stoop, and projecting point
was covered. The Produce Exchange men finding Broad Street
impassable made a detour to the east and marched up Wall
Street, filling that thoroughfare to William. It was a
tremendous crowd In point of numbers, and its composition
was entirely of gentlemen—men with refined, intelligent
faces—bankers, brokers, merchants of all kinds—real
business men. Thousands of millions of dollars were
represented in It. On the left of the Sub-Treasury steps a
platform had been erected, with a sounding board covering
the rear and top. A national flag floated from its roof, and
its railing was draped with other flags. After the arrival
of the several organizations the banners they bore were hung
at the sides by way of further ornamentation. Mr. Jackson S.
Schultz then introduced Col. Ingersoll, the speaker of the
day. The cheering was terrific for several minutes. Raising
his hand for silence, Col. Ingersoll then delivered his
address.—New York Times, October 29th, 1880.
N.Y. CITY.
(Garfield Campaign.)
1880.
FELLOW-CITIZENS of the Great City of New York: This is the grandest audience I ever saw. This audience certifies that General James A. Garfield is to be the next President of the United States. This audience certifies that a Republican is to be the next mayor of the city of New York. This audience certifies that the business men of New York understand their interests, and that the business men of New York are not going to let this country be controlled by the rebel South and the rebel North. In 1860 the Democratic party appealed to force; now it appeals to fraud. In 1860 the Democratic party appealed to the sword; now it appeals to the pen. It was treason then, it is forgery now. The Democratic party cannot be trusted with the property or with the honor of the people of the United States.
The city of New York owes a great debt to the country. Every man that has cleared a farm has helped to build New York; every man that helped to build a railway helped to build up the palaces of this city. Where I am now speaking are the termini of all the railways in the United States. They all come here. New York has been built up by the labor of the country, and New York owes it to the country to protect the best interests of the country.
The farmers of Illinois depend upon the merchants, the brokers and the bankers, upon the gentlemen of New York, to beat the rabble of New York. You owe to yourselves; you owe to the great Re public; and this city that does the business of a hemisphere—this city that will in ten years be the financial centre of this world—owes it to itself, to be true to the great principles that have allowed it to exist and flourish.
The Republicans of New York ought to say that this shall forever be a free country. The Republicans of New York ought to say that free speech shall forever be held sacred in the United States. The Republicans of New York ought to see that the party that defended the Nation shall still remain in power. The Republicans of New York should see that the flag is safely held by the hands that defended it in war. The Republicans of New York know that the prosperity of the country depends upon good government, and they also know that good government means protection to the people—rich and poor, black and white. The Republicans of New York know that a black friend is better than a white enemy. They know that a negro while fighting for the Government, is better than any white man who will fight against it.
The Republicans of New York know that the colored party in the South which allows every man to vote as he pleases, is better than any white man who is opposed to allowing a negro to cast his honest vote. A black man in favor of liberty is better than a white man in favor of slavery. The Republicans of New York must be true to their friends. This Government means to protect all its citizens, at home and abroad, or it becomes a byword in the mouths of the nations of the world.
Now, what do we want to do? We are going to have an election next Tuesday, and every Republican knows why he is going to vote the Republican ticket; while every Democrat votes his without knowing why. A Republican is a Republican because he loves something; a Democrat is a Democrat because he hates something. A Republican believes in progress; a Democrat in retrogression. A Democrat is a "has been." He is a "used to be." The Republican party lives on hope; the Democratic on memory. The Democrat keeps his back to the sun and imagines himself a great man because he casts a great shadow. Now, there are certain things we want to preserve—that the business men of New York want to preserve—and, in the first place, we want an honest ballot. And where the Democratic party has power there never has been an honest ballot. You take the worst ward in this city, and there is where you will find the greatest Democratic majority. You know it, and so do I.
There is not a university in the North, East or West that has not in it a Republican majority. There is not a penitentiary in the United States that has not in it a Democratic majority—and they know it. Two years ago, about two hundred and eighty-three convicts were in the penitentiary of Maine. Out of that whole number there was one Republican, and only one. [A voice—"Who was the man?"] Well, I do not know, but he broke out. He said that he did not mind being in the penitentiary, but the company was a little more than he could stand.
You cannot rely upon that party for an honest ballot. Every law that has been passed in this country in the last twenty years, to throw a safeguard around the ballot-box, has been passed by the Republican party. Every law that has been defeated has been defeated by the Democratic party. And you know it. Unless we have an honest ballot the days of the Republic are numbered; and the only way to get an honest ballot is to beat the Democratic party forever. And that is what we are going to do. That party can never carry its record; that party is loaded down with the infamies of twenty years; yes, that party is loaded down with the infamies of fifty years. It will never elect a President in this world. I give notice to the Democratic party to-day that it will have to change its name before the people of the United States will change the administration. You will have to change your natures; you will have to change your personnel, and you will have to get enough Republicans to join you and tell you how to run a campaign. If you want an honest ballot—and every honest man does—then you will vote to keep the Republican party in power. What else do you want? You want honest money, and I say to the merchants and to the bankers and to the brokers, the only party that will give you honest money is the party that resumed specie payments. The only party that will give you honest money is the party that said a greenback is a broken promise until it is redeemed with gold. You can only trust the party that has been honest in disaster. From 1863 to 1879—sixteen long years—the Republican party was the party of honor and principle, and the Republican party saved the honor of the United States. And you know it.
During that time the Democratic party did what it could to destroy our credit at home and abroad.
We are not only in favor of free speech, and an honest ballot and honest money, but we are for law and order. What part of this country believes in free speech—the South or the North? The South would never give free speech to the country; there was no free speech in the city of New York until the Republican party came into power. The Democratic party has not intelligence enough to know that free speech is the germ of this Republic. The Democratic party cares little for free speech because it has no argument to make—no reasons to offer. Its entire argument is summed up and ended in three words—"Hurrah for Hancock!" The Republican party believes in free speech because it has something to say; because it believes in argument; because it believes in moral suasion; because it believes in education. Any man that does not believe in free speech is a barbarian. Any State that does not support it is not a civilized State.
I have a right to express my opinion, in common with every other human being, and I am willing to give to every other human being the right that I claim for myself. Republicanism means justice in politics. Republicanism means progress in civilization. Republicanism means that every man shall be an educated patriot and a gentleman. I want to say to you to-day that it is an honor to belong to the Republican party. It is an honor to have belonged to it for twenty years; it is an honor to belong to the party that elected Abraham Lincoln President. And let me say to you that Lincoln was the greatest, the best, the purest, the kindest man that has ever sat in the presidential chair. It is an honor to belong to the Republican party that gave four millions of men the rights of freemen; it is an honor to belong to the party that broke the shackles from four millions of men, women and children. It is an honor to belong to the party that declared that bloodhounds were not the missionaries of civilization. It is an honor to belong to the party that said it was a crime to steal a babe from its mother's breast. It is an honor to belong to the party that swore that this is a Nation forever, one and indivisible. It is an honor to belong to the party that elected U. S. Grant President of the United States. It is an honor to belong to the party that issued thousands and thousands of millions of dollars in promises—that issued promises until they became as thick as the withered leaves of winter; an honor to belong to the party that issued them to put down a rebellion; an honor to belong to the party that put it down; an honor to belong to the party that had the moral courage and honesty to make every one of the promises made in war, as good as shining, glittering gold in peace. And I tell you that if there is another life, and if there is a day of judgment, all you need say upon that solemn occasion is, "I was in life and in my death a good square Republican."
I hate the doctrine of State Sovereignty because it fostered State pride; because it fostered the idea that it is more to be a citizen of a State than a citizen of this glorious country. I love the whole country. I like New York because it is a part of the country, and I like the country because it has New York in it. I am not standing here to-day because the flag of New York floats over my head, but because that flag for which more heroic blood has been shed than for any other flag that is kissed by the air of heaven, waves forever over my head. That is the reason I am here.
The doctrine of State Sovereignty was appealed to in defence of the slave-trade; the next time in defence of the slave trade as between the States; the next time in defence of the Fugitive Slave Law; and if there is a Democrat in favor of the Fugitive Slave Law he should be ashamed—if not of himself—of the ignorance of the time in which he lived.
That Fugitive Slave Law was a compromise so that we might be friends of the South. They said in 1850-52: "If you catch the slave we will be your friend;" and they tell us now: "If you let us trample upon the rights of the black man in the South, we will be your friend." I do not want their friendship upon such terms. I am a friend of my friend, and an enemy of my enemy. That is my doctrine. We might as well be honest about it. Under that doctrine of State Rights, such men as I see before me—bankers, brokers, merchants, gentlemen—were expected to turn themselves into hounds and chase a poor fugitive that had been lured by the love of liberty and guided by the glittering North Star.
The Democratic party wanted you to keep your trade with the South, no matter to what depths of degradation you had to sink, and the Democratic party to-day says if you want to sell your goods to the Southern people, you must throw your honor and manhood into the streets. The patronage of the splendid North is enough to support the city of New York.
There is another thing: Why is this city filled with palaces, covered with wealth? Because American labor has been protected. I am in favor of protection to American labor, everywhere. I am in favor of protecting American brain and muscle; I am in favor of giving scope to American ingenuity and American skill. We want a market at home, and the only way to have it is to have mechanics at home; and the only way to have mechanics is to have protection; and the only way to have protection is to vote the Republican ticket. You, business men of New York, know that General Garfield understands the best interests not only of New York, but of the entire country. And you want to stand by the men who will stand by you. What does a simple soldier know about the wants of the city of New York? What does he know about the wants of this great and splendid country? If he does not know more about it than he knows about the tariff he does not know much. I do not like to hit the dead. My hatred stops with the grave, and I tell you we are going to bury the Democratic party next Tuesday. The pulse is feeble now, and if that party proposes to take advantage of the last hour, it is time it should go into the repenting business. Nothing pleases me better than to see the condition of that party to-day. What do the Democrats know on the subject of the tariff? They are frightened; they are rattled.
They swear their plank and platform meant nothing. They say in effect: "When we put that in we lied; and now having made that confession we hope you will have perfect confidence in us from this out." Hancock says that the object of the party is to get the tariff out of politics. That is the reason, I suppose, why they put that plank in the platform. I presume he regards the tariff as a little local issue, but I tell you to-day that the great question of protecting American labor never will be taken out of politics. As long as men work, as long as the laboring man has a wife and family to support, just so long will he vote for the man that will protect his wages.
And you can no more take it out of politics than you can take the question of Government out of politics. I do not want any question taken out of politics. I want the people to settle these questions for themselves, and the people of this country are capable of doing it. If you do not believe it, read the returns from Ohio and Indiana. There are other persons who would take the question of office out of politics. Well, when we get the tariff and office both out of politics, then, I presume, we will see two parties on the same side. It will not do.
David A. Wells has come to the rescue of the Democratic party on the tariff, and shed a few pathetic tears over scrap iron. But it will not do. You cannot run this country on scraps.
We believe in the tariff because it gives skilled labor good pay. We believe in the tariff because it allows the laboring man to have something to eat. We believe in the tariff because it keeps the hands of the producer close to the mouth of the devourer. We believe in the tariff because it developed American brain; because it builds up our towns and cities; because it makes Americans self-supporting; because it makes us an independent Nation. And we believe in the tariff because the Democratic party does not.
That plank in the Democratic party was intended for a dagger to assassinate the prosperity of the North. The Northern people have become aroused and that is the plank that is broken in the Democratic platform; and that plank was wide enough when it broke to let even Hancock through.
Gentlemen, they are gone. They are gone—honor bright. Look at the desperate means that have been resorted to by the Democratic party, driven to the madness of desperation. Not satisfied with having worn the tongue of slander to the very tonsils, not satisfied with attacking the private reputation of a splendid man, not satisfied with that, they have appealed to a crime; a deliberate and infamous forgery has been committed. That forgery has been upheld by some of the leaders of the Democratic party; that forgery has been defended by men calling themselves respectable. Leaders of the Democratic party have stood by and said that they were acquainted with the handwriting of James A. Garfield; and that the handwriting in the forged letter was his, when they knew that it was absolutely unlike his. They knew it, and no man has certified that that was the writing of James A. Garfield who did not know that in his throat of throats he told a falsehood.
Every honest man in the city of New York ought to leave such a party if he belongs to it. Every honest man ought to refuse to belong to the party that did such an infamous crime.
Senator Barnum, chairman of the Democratic Committee, has lost control. He is gone, and I will tell you what he puts me in mind of. There was an old fellow used to come into town every Saturday and get drunk. He had a little yoke of oxen, and the boys out of pity used to throw him into the wagon and start the oxen for home. Just before he got home they had to go down a long hill, and the oxen, when they got to the brow of it, commenced to run. Now and then the wagon struck a stone and gave the old fellow an awful jolt, and that would wake him up. After he had looked up and had one glance at the cattle he would fall helplessly back to the bottom, and always say, "Gee a little, if anything." And that is the only order Barnum has been able to give for the last two weeks—"Gee a little, if anything." I tell you now that forgery makes doubly sure the election of James A. Garfield. The people of the North believe in honest dealing; the people of the North believe in free speech and an honest ballot. The people of the North believe that this is a Nation; the people of the North hate treason; the people of the North hate forgery; the people of the North hate slander. The people of the North have made up their minds to give to General Garfield a vindication of which any American may be forever proud.
James A. Garfield is to-day a poor man, and you know that there is not money enough in this magnificent street to buy the honor and manhood of James A. Garfield. Money cannot make such a man, and I will swear to you that money cannot buy him. James A. Garfield to-day wears the glorious robe of honest poverty. He is a poor man; I like to say it here in Wall Street; I like to say it surrounded by the millions of America; I like to say it in the midst of banks and bonds and stocks; I love to say it where gold is piled—that although a poor man, he is rich in honor; in integrity he is wealthy, and in brain he is a millionaire. I know him, and I like him. So do you all, gentlemen. Garfield was a poor boy, he is a certificate of the splendid form of our Government. Most of these magnificent buildings have been built by poor boys; most of the success of New York began almost in poverty. You know it. The kings of this street were once poor, and they may be poor again; and if they are fools enough to vote for Hancock they ought to be. Garfield is a certificate of the splendor of our Government, that says to every poor boy, "All the avenues of honor are open to you." I know him, and I like him. He is a scholar; he is a statesman; he is a soldier; he is a patriot; and above all, he is a magnificent man; and if every man in New York knew him as well as I do, Garfield would not lose a hundred votes in this city.
Compare him with Hancock, and then compare General Arthur with William H. English. If there ever was a pure Republican in this world, General Arthur is one.
You know in Wall Street, there are some men always prophesying disaster, there are some men always selling "short." That is what the Democratic party is doing to-day. You know as well as I do that if the Democratic party succeeds, every kind of property in the United States will depreciate. You know it. There is not a man on the street, who if he knew Hancock was to be elected would not sell the stocks and bonds of every railroad in the United States "short." I dare any broker here to deny it. There is not a man in Wall or Broad Street, or in New York, but what knows the election of Hancock will depreciate every share of railroad stock, every railroad bond, every Government bond, in the United States of America. And if you know that, I say it is a crime to vote for Hancock and English.
I belong to the party that is prosperous when the country is prosperous. I belong to the party that believes in good crops; that is glad when a fellow finds a gold mine; that rejoices when there are forty bushels of wheat to the acre; that laughs when every railroad declares dividends, that claps both its hands when every investment pays; when the rain falls for the farmer, when the dew lies lovingly on the grass. I belong to the party that is happy when the people are happy; when the laboring man gets three dollars a day; when he has roast beef on his table; when he has a carpet on the floor; when he has a picture of Garfield on the wall. I belong to the party that is happy when everybody smiles, when we have plenty of money, good horses, good carriages; when our wives are happy and our children feel glad. I belong to the party whose banner floats side by side with the great flag of the country; that does not grow fat on defeat.
The Democratic party is a party of famine; it is a good friend of an early frost, it believes in the Colorado beetle and the weevil. When the crops are bad the Democratic mouth opens from ear to ear with smiles of joy; it is in partnership with bad luck; a friend of empty pockets; rags help it. I am on the other side. The Democratic party is the party of darkness. I believe in the party of sunshine; and in the party that even in darkness believes that the stars are shining and waiting for us.
Now, gentlemen, I have endeavored to give you a few reasons for voting the Republican ticket; and I have given enough to satisfy any reasonable man. And you know it. Do not go with the Democratic party, young man. You have a character to make.
You cannot make it, as the Democratic party does, by passing a resolution.
If your father voted the Democratic ticket, that is disgrace enough for one family. Tell the old man you can stand it no longer. Tell the old gentleman that you have made up your mind to stand with the party of human progress; and if he asks you why you cannot vote the Democratic ticket you tell him: "Every man that tried to destroy the Government, every man that shot at the holy flag in heaven, every man that starved our soldiers, every keeper of Libby, Andersonville and Salisbury, every man that wanted to burn the negro, every one that wanted to scatter yellow fever in the North, every man that opposed human liberty, that regarded the auction-block as an altar and the howling of the bloodhound as the music of the Union, every man who wept over the corpse of slavery, that thought lashes on the naked back were a legal tender for labor performed, every one willing to rob a mother of her child—every solitary one was a Democrat."
Tell him you cannot stand that party. Tell him you have to go with the Republican party, and if he asks you why, tell him it destroyed slavery, it preserved the Union, it paid the national debt; it made our credit as good as that of any nation on the earth.
Tell him it makes every dollar in a four per cent, bond worth a dollar and ten cents; that it satisfies the demands of the highest civilization. Tell the old man that the Republican party preserved the honor of the Nation; that it believes in education; that it looks upon the schoolhouse as a cathedral. Tell him that the Republican party believes in absolute intellectual liberty; in absolute religious freedom; in human rights, and that human rights rise above States. Tell him that the Republican party believes in humanity, justice, human equality, and that the Republican party believes this is a Nation and will be forever and ever; that an honest ballot is the breath of the Republic's life; that honest money is the blood of the Republic; and that nationality is the great throbbing beat of the heart of the Republic. Tell him that. And tell him that you are going to stand by the flag that the patriots of the North carried upon the battle-field of death. Tell him you are going to be true to the martyred dead; that you are going to vote exactly as Lincoln would have voted were he living. Tell him that if every traitor dead were living now, there would issue from his lips of dust, "Hurrah for Hancock!" that could every patriot rise, he would cry for Garfield and liberty; for union and for human progress everywhere. Tell him that the South seeks to secure by the ballot what it lost by the bayonet; to whip by the ballot those who fought it in the field. But we saved the country; and we have the heart and brains to take care of it. I will tell you what we are going to do. We are going to treat them in the South just as well as we treat the people in the North. Victors cannot afford to have malice. The North is too magnanimous to have hatred. We will treat the South precisely as we treat the North. There are thousands of good people there. Let us give them money to improve their rivers and harbors; I want to see the sails of their commerce filled with the breezes of prosperity; their fences rebuilt; their houses painted. I want to see their towns prosperous; I want to see schoolhouses in every town; I want to see books in the hands of every child, and papers and magazines in every house; I want to see all the rays of light, of civilization of the nineteenth century, enter every home of the South; and in a little while you will see that country full of good Republicans. We can afford to be kind; we cannot afford to be unkind.
I will shake hands cordially with every believer in human liberty; I will shake hands with every believer in Nationality; I will shake hands with every man who is the friend of the human race. That is my doctrine. I believe in the great Republic; in this magnificent country of ours. I believe in the great people of the United States. I believe in the muscle and brain of America, in the prairies and forests. I believe in New York. I believe in the brains of your city. I believe that you know enough to vote the Republican ticket. I believe that you are grand enough to stand by the country that has stood by you. But whatever you do, I never shall cease to thank you for the great honor you have conferred upon me this day.
Note.—This being a newspaper report it is necessarily
incomplete.
* The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher and Colonel Robert G.
Ingersoll spoke from the same platform last night, and the
great preacher introduced the great orator and free-thinker
to the grandest political audience that was ever assembled
in Brooklyn. The reverend gentleman presided over the
Republican mass meeting held in the Academy of Music. When
he introduced Ingersoll he did it with a warmth and
earnestness of compliment that brought the six thousand
lookers-on to their feet to applaud. When the expounder of
the Gospel of Christ took the famous atheist by the hand,
and shook it fervently, saying that while he respected and
honored him for the honesty of his convictions and his
splendid labors for patriotism and the country, the
enthusiasm knew no bounds, and the great building trembled
and vibrated with the storm of applause. With such a scene
to harmonize the multitude at the outstart it is not strange
that the meeting continued to the end such a one as has no
parallel even in these days of feverish political excitement
and turmoil. The orator spoke in his best vein and his
audience was responsive to the wonderful magical spell of
his eloquence. And when his last glowing utterance had lost
its echo in the wild storm of applause that rewarded him at
the close, Mr. Beecher again stepped forward and, as if to
emphasize the earnestness of his previous compliments,
proposed a vote of thanks to the distinguished speaker. The
vote was a roar of affirmation, whose voice was not stronger
when Mr. Ingersoll in turn called upon the audience to give
three cheers for the great preacher. They were given, and
repeated three times over. Men waved their ats and
umbrellas, ladies, of whom there were many hundreds present,
waved their handkerchiefs, and men, strangers to each other,
shook hands with the fervency of brotherhood. It was indeed
a strange scene, and the principal actors in it seemed not
less than the most wildly excited man there to appreciate
its peculiar import and significance. Standing at the front
of the stage, underneath a canopy of nags, at either side
great baskets of flowers, they clasped each other's hands,
and stood thus for several minutes, while the excited
thousands cheered themselves hoarse and applauded wildly.
As Mr. Beecher began to speak, however, the applause that
broke out was deafening.
In substance Mr. Beecher spoke as follows:—"I am not
accustomed to preside at meetings like this; only the
exigency of the times could induce me to do It. I am not
here either to make a speech, but more especially to
introduce the eminent orator of the evening. * * * I stand
not as a minister, but as a man among men, pleading the
cause of fellowship and equal rights. We are not here as
mechanics, as artists, merchants, or professional men, but
as fellow-citizens. The gentleman who will speak to-night is
in no Conventicle or Church. He is to speak to a great body
of citizens, and I take the liberty of saying that I respect
him as the man that for a full score and more of years has
worked for the right in the great, broad field of humanity,
and for the cause of human rights. I consider it an honor to
extend to him, as I do now, the warm, earnest, right hand of
fellowship." (As Mr. Beecher said this he turned to Mr.
Ingersoll and extended his hand. The palms of the two men
met with a clasp that was heard all over the house, and was
the signal for tumultuous cheering and applause, which
continued for several minutes.)
"I now introduce to you," continued Mr. Beecher, leading Mr.
Ingersoll forward, "a man who—and I say it not
flatteringly—is the most brilliant speaker of the English
tongue of all men on this globe. But as under the brilliancy
of the blaze or light we find the living coals of fire,
under the lambent flow of his wit and magnificent antithesis
we find the glorious flame of genius and honest thought.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Ingersoll."—New York Herald,
October 81st, 1880.
(Garfield Campaign.)
1880.
LADIES and Gentlemen: Years ago I made up my mind that there was no particular argument in slander. I made up my mind that for parties, as well as for individuals, honesty in the long-run is the best policy. I made up my mind that the people were entitled to know a man's honest thoughts, and I propose to-night to tell you exactly what I think. And it may be well enough, in the first place, for me to say that no party has a mortgage on me. I am the sole proprietor of myself. No party, no organization, has any deed of trust on what little brains I have, and as long as I can get my part of the common air I am going to tell my honest thoughts. One man in the right will finally get to be a majority. I am not going to say a word to-night that every Democrat here will not know is true, and, whatever he may say, I will compel him in his heart to give three cheers.
In the first place, I wish to admit that during the war there were hundreds of thousands of patriotic Democrats. I wish to admit that if it had not been for the War Democrats of the North, we never would have put down the Rebellion. Let us be honest. I further admit that had it not been for other than War Democrats there never would have been a rebellion to put down. War Democrats!
Why did we call them War Democrats? Did you ever hear anybody talk about a War Republican? We spoke of War Democrats to distinguish them from those Democrats who were in favor of peace upon any terms.
I also wish to admit that the Republican party is not absolutely perfect. While I believe that it is the best party that ever existed, while I believe it has, within its organization, more heart, more brain, more patriotism than any other organization that ever existed beneath the sun, I still admit that it is not entirely perfect. I admit, in its great things, in its splendid efforts to preserve this nation, in its grand effort to keep our flag in heaven, in its magnificent effort to free four millions of slaves, in its great and sublime effort to save the financial honor of this Nation, I admit that it has made some mistakes. In its great effort to do right it has sometimes by mistake done wrong. And I also wish to admit that the great Democratic party, in its effort to get office has sometimes by mistake done right. You see that I am inclined to be perfectly fair.
I am going with the Republican party because it is going my way; but if it ever turns to the right or left, I intend to go straight ahead.
In every government there is something that ought to be preserved, in every government there are many things that ought to be destroyed. Every good man, every patriot, every lover of the human race, wishes to preserve the good and destroy the bad; and every one in this audience who wishes to preserve the good will go with that section of our common country—with that party in our country that he honestly believes will preserve the good and destroy the bad. It takes a great deal of trouble to raise a good Republican. It is a vast deal of labor. The Republican party is the fruit of all ages—of self-sacrifice and devotion. The Republican party is born of every good thing that was ever done in this world. The Republican party is the result of all martyrdom, of all heroic blood shed for the right. It is the blossom and fruit of the great world's best endeavor. In order to make a Republican you have to have schoolhouses. You have to have newspapers and magazines. A good Republican is the best fruit of civilization, of all there is of intelligence, of art, of music and of song. If you want to make Democrats, let them alone. The Democratic party is the settlings of this country. Nobody hoes weeds. Nobody takes especial pains to raise dog-fennel, and yet it grows under the very hoof of travel, The seeds are sown by accident and gathered by chance. But if you want to raise wheat and corn you must plough the ground. You must defend and you must harvest the crop with infinite patience and toil. It is precisely that way—if you want to raise a good Republican you must work. If you wish to raise a Democrat give him wholesome neglect. The Democratic party flatters the vices of mankind. That party says to the ignorant man, "You know enough." It says to the vicious man, "You are good enough."
The Republican party says, "You must be better next year than you are this." A Republican takes a man by the collar and says, "You must do your best, you must climb the infinite hill of human progress as long as you live." Now and then one gets tired. He says, "I have climbed enough and so much better than I expected to do that I do not wish to travel any farther." Now and then one gets tired and lets go all hold, and he rolls down to the very bottom, and as he strikes the mud he springs upon his feet transfigured, and says: "Hurrah for Hancock!"
There are things in this Government that I wish to preserve, and there are things that I wish to destroy; and in order to convince you that you ought to go the way that I am going: it is only fair that I give to you my reasons. This is a Republic founded upon intelligence and the patriotism of the people, and in every Republic it is absolutely necessary that there should be free speech. Free speech is the gem of the human soul. Words are the bodies of thought, and liberty gives to those words wings, and the whole intellectual heavens are filled with light. In a Republic every individual tongue has a right to the general ear. In a Republic every man has the right to give his reasons for the course he pursues to all his fellow-citizens, and when you say that a man shall not speak, you also say that others shall not hear. When you say a man shall not express his honest thought you say his fellow-citizens shall be deprived of honest thoughts; for of what use is it to allow the attorney for the defendant to address the jury if the jury has been bought? Of what use is it to allow the jury to bring in a verdict of "not guilty," if the defendant is to be hung by a mob? I ask you to-night, is not every solitary man here in favor of free speech? Is there a solitary Democrat here who dares say he is not in favor of free speech? In which part of this country are the lips of thought free—in the South or in the North? Which section of our country can you trust the inestimable gem of free speech with? Can you trust it to the gentlemen of Mississippi or to the gentlemen of Massachusetts? Can you trust it to Alabama or to New York? Can you trust it to the South or can you trust it to the great and splendid North? Honor bright—honor bright, is there any freedom of speech in the South? There never was and there is none to-night—and let me tell you why.
They had the institution of human slavery in the South, which could not be defended at the bar of public reason. It was an institution that could not be defended in the high forum of human conscience. No man could stand there and defend the right to rob the cradle—none to defend the right to sell the babe from the breast of the agonized mother—none to defend the claim that lashes on a bare back are a legal tender for labor performed. Every man that lived upon the unpaid labor of another knew in his heart that he was a thief. And for that reason he did not wish to discuss that question. Thereupon the institution of slavery said, "You shall not speak; you shall not reason," and the lips of free thought were manacled. You know it. Every one of you. Every Democrat knows it as well as every Republican. There never was free speech in the South.
And what has been the result? And allow me to admit right here, because I want to be fair, there are thousands and thousands of most excellent people in the South—thousands of them. There are hundreds and hundreds of thousands there who would like to vote the Republican ticket. And whenever there is free speech there and whenever there is a free ballot there, they will vote the Republican ticket. I say again, there are hundreds of thousands of good people in the South; but the institution of human slavery prevented free speech, and it is a splendid fact in nature that you cannot put chains upon the limbs of others without putting corresponding manacles upon your own brain. When the South enslaved the negro, it also enslaved itself, and the result was an intellectual desert. No book has been produced, with one exception, that has added to the knowledge of mankind; no paper, no magazine, no poet, no philosopher, no philanthropist, was ever raised in that desert. Now and then some one protested against that infamous institution, and he came as near being a philosopher as the society in which he lived permitted. Why is it that New England, a rock-clad land, blossoms like a rose? Why is it that New York is the Empire State of the great Union? I will tell you. Because you have been permitted to trade in ideas. Because the lips of speech have been absolutely free for twenty years.
We never had free speech in any State in this Union until the Republican party was born. That party was rocked in the cradle of intellectual liberty, and that is the reason I say it is the best party that ever existed in the wide, wide world. I want to preserve free speech, and, as an honest man, I look about me and I say, "How can I best preserve it?" By giving it to the South or North; to the Democracy or to the Republican party? And I am bound, as an honest man, to say free speech is safest with its earliest defenders. Where is there such a thing as a Republican mob to prevent the expression of an honest thought? Where? The people of the South are allowed to come to the North; they are allowed to express their sentiments upon every stump in the great East, the great West, and in the great Middle States; they go to Maine, to Vermont, and to all our States, and they are allowed to speak, and we give them a respectful hearing, and the meanest thing we do is to answer their arguments.
I say to-night that we ought to have the same liberty to discuss these questions in the South that Southerners have in the North. And I say more than that, the Democrats of the North ought to compel the Democrats of the South to treat the Republicans of the South as well as the Republicans of the North treat them. We treat the Democrats well in the North; we treat them like gentlemen in the North; and yet they go into partnership with the Democracy of the South, knowing that the Democracy of the South will not treat Republicans in that section with fairness. A Democrat ought to be ashamed of that.
If my friends will not treat other people as well as the friends of the other people treat me, I'll swap friends.
First, then, I am in favor of free speech, and I am going with that section of my country that believes in free speech; I am going with that party that has always upheld that sacred right. When you stop free speech, when you say that a thought shall die in the womb of the brain,—why, it would have the same effect upon the intellectual world that to stop springs at their sources would have upon the physical world. Stop the springs at their sources and they cease to gurgle, the streams cease to murmur, and the great rivers cease rushing to the embrace of the sea. So you stop thought. Stop thought in the brain in which it is born, and theory dies; and the great ocean of knowledge to which all should be permitted to contribute, and from which all should be allowed to draw, becomes a vast desert of ignorance.
I have always said, and I say again, that the more liberty there is given away, the more you have. I endeavor to be consistent in my life and action. I am a believer in intellectual liberty, and wherever the torch of knowledge burns the whole horizon is filled with a glorious halo. I am a free man. I would be less than a man if I did not wish to hand this flame to my child with the flame increased rather than diminished.
Whom will we trust to take care of free speech? Let us consider and be honest with one another. The gem of the brain is the innocence of the soul.
I am not only in favor of free speech, but I am also in favor of an absolutely honest ballot. There is only one emperor in this country; there is one czar; only one supreme crown and king, and that is the will, the legally expressed will of the majority. Every American citizen is a sovereign. The poorest and humblest may wear that crown, the beggar holds in his hand that sceptre equally with the proudest and richest, and so far as his sovereignty is concerned, the poorest American, he who earns but one dollar a day, has the same voice in controlling the destiny of the United States as the millionaire. The man who casts an illegal vote, the man who refuses to count a legal vote, poisons the fountain of power, poisons the springs of justice, and is a traitor to the only king in this land. The Government is upon the edge of Mexicanization through fraudulent voting. The ballot-box is the throne of America; the ballot-box is the ark of the covenant. Unless we see to it that every man who has a right to vote, votes, and unless we see to it that every honest vote is counted, the days of this Republic are numbered.
When you suspect that a Congressman is not elected; when you suspect that a judge upon the bench holds his place by fraud, then the people will hold the law in contempt and will laugh at the decisions of courts, and then come revolution and chaos.
It is the duty of every good man to see to it that the ballot-box is kept absolutely pure. It is the duty of every patriot, whether he is a Democrat or Republican—and I want further to admit that I believe a large majority of Democrats are honest in their opinions, and I know that all Republicans must be honest in their opinions. It is the duty, then, of all honest men of both parties to see to it that only honest votes are cast and counted. Now, honor bright, which section of this Union can you trust the ballot-box with?
Do you wish to trust Louisiana, or do you wish to trust Alabama that gave, in 1872, thirty-four thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight Republican majority and now gives ninety-two thousand Democratic majority? And of that ninety-two thousand majority, every one is a lie! A contemptible, infamous lie! Because if every voter had been allowed to vote, there would have been forty thousand Republican majority. Honor bright, can you trust it with the masked murderers who rode in the darkness of night to the hut of the freedman and shot him down, notwithstanding the supplication of his wife and the tears of his babe? Can you trust it to the men who since the close of our war have killed more men, simply because those men wished to vote, simply because they wished to exercise a right with which they had been clothed by the sublime heroism of the North—who have killed more men than were killed on both sides in the Revolutionary war; than were killed on both sides during the War of 1812; than were killed on both sides in both wars? Can you trust them? Can you trust the gentlemen who invented the tissue ballot? Do you wish to put the ballot-box in the keeping of the shot-gun, of the White-Liners, of the Ku Klux? Do you wish to put the ballot-box in the keeping of men who openly swear that they will not be ruled by a majority of American citizens if a portion of that majority is made of black men? And I want to tell you right here, I like a black man who loves this country better than I do a white man who hates it. I think more of a black man who fought for our flag than for any white man who endeavored to tear it out of heaven!
I say, can you trust the ballot-box to the Democratic party? Read the history of the State of New York. Read the history of this great and magnificent city—the Queen of the Atlantic—read her history and tell us whether you can implicitly trust Democratic returns? Honor bright!
I am not only, then, for free speech, but I am for an honest ballot; and in order that you may have no doubt left upon your minds as to which party is in favor of an honest vote, I will call your attention to this striking fact. Every law that has been passed in every State of this Union for twenty long years, the object of which was to guard the American ballot-box, has been passed by the Republican party, and in every State where the Republican party has introduced such a bill for the purpose of making it a law; in every State where such a bill has been defeated, it has been defeated by the Democratic party. That ought to satisfy any reasonable man to satiety.
I am not only in favor of free speech and an honest ballot, but I am in favor of collecting and disbursing the revenues of the United States. I want plenty of money to collect and pay the interest on our debt. I want plenty of money to pay our debt and to preserve the financial honor of the United States. I want money enough to be collected to pay pensions to widows and orphans and to wounded soldiers. And the question is, which section in this country can you trust to collect and disburse that revenue? Let us be honest about it. Which section can you trust? In the last four years we have collected four hundred and sixty-eight million dollars of the internal revenue taxes. We have collected principally from taxes upon high wines and tobacco, four hundred and sixty-eight million dollars, and in those four years we have seized, libeled and destroyed in the Southern States three thousand eight hundred and seventy-four illicit distilleries. And during the same time the Southern people have shot to death twenty-five revenue officers and wounded fifty-five others, and the only offence that the wounded and dead committed was an honest effort to collect the revenues of this country. Recollect it—don't you forget it. And in several Southern States to-day every revenue collector or officer connected with the revenue is furnished by the Internal Revenue Department with a breech-loading rifle and a pair of revolvers, simply for the purpose of collecting the revenue.
I don't feel like trusting such people to collect the revenue of my Government.
During the same four years we have arrested and have indicted seven thousand and eighty-four Southern Democrats for endeavoring to defraud the revenue of the United States. Recollect—three thousand eight hundred and seventy-four distilleries seized. Twenty-five revenue officers killed, fifty-five wounded, and seven thousand and eighty-four Democrats arrested. Can we trust them?
The State of Alabama in its last Democratic convention passed a resolution that no man should be tried in a Federal Court for a violation of the revenue laws—that he should be tried in a State Court. Think of it—he should be tried in a State Court! Let me tell you how it will come out if we trust the Southern States to collect this revenue. A couple of Methodist ministers had been holding a revival for a week, and at the end of the week one said to the other that he thought it time to take up a collection. When the hat was returned he found in it pieces of slate-pencils and nails and buttons, but not a single solitary cent—not one—and his brother minister got up and looked at the contribution, and said, "Let us thank God!" And the owner of the hat said, "What for?" And the brother replied, "Because you got your hat back." If we trust the South we shan't get our hats back.
I am next in favor of honest money. I am in favor of gold and silver, and paper with gold and silver behind it. I believe in silver, because it is one of the greatest of American products, and I am in favor of anything that will add to the value of an American product. But I want a silver dollar worth a gold dollar, even if you make it or have to make it four feet in diameter. No government can afford to be a clipper of coin. A great Republic cannot afford to stamp a lie upon silver or gold. Honest money, an honest people, an honest Nation. When our money is only worth eighty cents on the dollar, we feel twenty per cent, below par. When our money is good we feel good. When our money is at par, that is where we are. I am a profound believer in the doctrine that for nations as well as men, honesty is the best policy, always, everywhere, and forever.
What section of this country, what party, will give us honest money—honor bright—honor bright? I have been told that during the war, we had plenty of money. I never saw it. I lived years without seeing a dollar. I saw promises for dollars, but not dollars. And the greenback, unless you have the gold behind it, is no more a dollar than a bill of fare is a dinner. You cannot make a paper dollar without taking a dollar's worth of paper. We must have paper that represents money. I want it issued by the Government, and I want behind every one of these dollars either a gold or silver dollar, so that every greenback under the flag can lift up its hand and swear, "I know that my redeemer liveth."
When we were running into debt, thousands of people mistook that for prosperity, and when we began paying they regarded it as adversity. Of course we had plenty when we bought on credit. No man has ever starved when his credit was good, if there were no famine in that country. As long as we buy on credit we shall have enough. The trouble commences when the pay-day arrives. And I do not wonder that after the war thousands of people said, "Let us have another inflation." Which party said, "No, we must pay the promise made in war"? Honor bright! The Democratic party had once been a hard money party, but it drifted from its metallic moorings and floated off in the ocean of inflation, and you know it. They said, "Give us more money;" and every man that had bought on credit and owed a little something on what he had purchased, when the property went down commenced crying, or many of them did, for inflation. I understand it.
A man, say, bought a piece of land for six thousand dollars; paid five thousand dollars on it; gave a mortgage for one thousand dollars, and suddenly, in 1873, found that the land would not pay the other thousand. The land had resumed, and then he said, looking lugubriously at his note and mortgage, "I want another inflation." And I never heard a man call for it that did not also say, "If it ever comes, and I don't unload, you may shoot me."
It was very much as it is sometimes in playing poker, and I make this comparison knowing that hardly a person here will understand it. I have been told that along toward morning the man that is ahead suddenly says, "I have got to go home. The fact is, my wife is not well." And the fellow who is behind says, "Let us have another deal; I have my opinion of the fellow that will jump a game." And so it was in the hard times of 1873. They said: "Give us another deal; let us get our driftwood back into the centre of the stream." And they cried out for more money. But the Republican party said: "We do want more money, but not more promises. We have got to pay this first, and if we start out again upon that wide sea of promise we may never touch the shore." A thousand theories were born of want; a thousand theories were born of the fertile brain of trouble; and these people said, "After all, what is money? Why, it is nothing but a measure of value, just the same as a half bushel or yardstick." True; and consequently it makes no difference whether your half bushel is of wood or gold or silver or paper; and it makes no difference whether your yardstick is gold or paper. But the trouble about that statement is this: A half bushel is not a measure of value; it is a measure of quantity, and it measures rubies, diamonds and pearls precisely the same as corn and wheat. The yardstick is not a measure of value; it is a measure of length, and it measures lace worth one hundred dollars a yard precisely as it does cent tape. And another reason why it makes no difference to the purchaser whether the half bushel is gold or silver, or whether the yardstick is gold or paper, you do not buy the yardstick; you do not get the half bushel in the trade. And if it were so with money—if the people that had the money at the start of the trade, kept it after the consummation of the bargain—then it would not make any difference what you made your money of. But the trouble is the money changes hands. And let me say to-night, money is a thing—it is a product of nature—and you can no more make a "fiat" dollar than you can make a fiat star. I am in favor of honest money. Free speech is the brain of the Republic; an honest ballot is the breath of its life, and honest money is the blood that courses through its veins.
If I am fortunate enough to leave a dollar when I die, I want it to be a good one. I do not wish to have it turn to ashes in the hands of widowhood, or become a Democratic broken promise in the pocket of the orphan; I want it money. I want money that will outlive the Democratic party. They told us—and they were honest about it—they said, "When we have plenty of money, we are prosperous." And I said, "When we are prosperous, we have plenty of money." When we are prosperous, then we have credit, and credit inflates the currency. Whenever a man buys a pound of sugar and says, "Charge it," he inflates the currency; whenever he gives his note, he inflates the currency; whenever his word takes the place of money, he inflates the currency. The consequence is that when we are prosperous, credit takes the place of money, and we have what we call "plenty."
But you cannot increase prosperity simply by using promises to pay. Suppose you should come to a river that was about dry, so dry that the turtle had to help the catfish over the shoals, and there you would see the ferryboat, and the gentleman who kept the ferry, up on the sand, high and dry, and the cracks all opening in the sun, filled with loose oakum, looking like an average Democratic mouth listening to a constitutional argument, and you should say to him, "How is business?" And he would say, "Dull." And then you would say to him, "Now, what you want is more boat." He would probably answer, "If I had a little more water I could get along with this one."
Suppose I next came to a man running a railroad, complaining of hard times. "Why," said he, "I did a million dollars' worth of business the first year and used five hundred thousand dollars' worth of grease. The second year I did five hundred thousand dollars' worth of business and used four hundred thousand dollars' worth of grease." "Well," said I, "the reason your road fell off was because you did not use enough grease."
But I want to be fair, and I wish to-night to return my thanks to the Democratic party. You did a great and splendid work. You went all over the United States and you said upon every stump that a greenback was better than gold. You said, "We have at last found the money of the poor man. Gold loves the rich; gold haunts banks and safes and vaults; but we have money that will go around inquiring for a man that is dead broke. We have finally found money that will stay in a pocket with holes in it." But, after all, do you know that money is the most social thing in this world? If a fellow has one dollar in his pocket, and he meets another with two, do you know that dollar is absolutely homesick until it gets where the other two are? And yet the Greenbackers told us that they had finally invented money that would be the poor mans friend. They said, "It is better than gold, better than silver," and they got so many men to believe it that when we resumed and said, "Here is your gold for your greenback," the fellows who had the greenback said, "We don't want it. The greenbacks are good enough for us." Do you know, if they had wanted it we could not have given it to them? And so I return my thanks to the Greenback party. But allow me to say in this connection, the days of their usefulness have passed forever.
Now, I am not foolish enough to claim that the Republican party resumed. I am not silly enough to say that John Sherman resumed. But I will tell you what I do say. I say that every man who raised a bushel of corn or a bushel of wheat or a pound of beef or pork for sale helped to resume. I say that the gentle rain and the loving dew helped to resume. The soil of the United States impregnated by the loving sun helped to resume. The men that dug the coal and the iron and the silver and the copper and the gold helped to resume. And the men upon whose foreheads fell the light of furnaces helped to resume. And the sailors who fought with the waves of the seas helped to resume.
I admit to-night that the Democrats earned their share of the money to resume with. All I claim is that the Republican party furnished the honesty to pay it over. That is what I claim; and the Republican party set the day, and the Republican party worked to the promise. That is what I say. And had it not been for the Republican party this Nation would have been financially dishonored. I am for honest money, and I am for the payment of every dollar of our debt, and so is every Democrat now, I take it. But what did you say a little while ago? Did you say we could resume? No; you swore we could not, and you swore our bonds would be worthless as the withered leaves of winter. And now when a Democrat goes to England and sees an American four per cent, quoted at one hundred and ten he kind of swells up, and says: "That's the kind of man I am." In that country he pretends he was a Republican in this. And I do not blame him. I do not begrudge him enjoying respectability when away from home. The Republican party is entitled to the credit for keeping this Nation grandly and splendidly honest. I say, the Republican party is entitled to the credit of preserving the honor of this Nation.
In 1873 came the crash, and all the languages of the world cannot describe the agonies suffered by the American people from 1873 to 1879. A man who thought he was a millionaire came to poverty; he found his stocks and bonds ashes in the paralytic hand of old age. Men who expected to live all their lives in the sunshine of joy found themselves beggars and paupers. The great factories were closed, the workmen were demoralized, and the roads of the United States were filled with tramps. In the hovel of the poor and the palace of the rich came the serpent of temptation and whispered in the American ear the terrible word "Repudiation." But the Republican party said, "No; we will pay every dollar. No; we have started toward the shining goal of resumption and we never will turn back." And the Republican party struggled until it had the happiness of seeing upon the broad shining forehead of American labor the words "Financial Honor."
The Republican party struggled until every paper promise was as good as gold. And the moment we got back to gold then we commenced to rise again. We could not jump until our feet touched something that they could be pressed against. And from that moment to this we have been going, going, going higher and higher, more prosperous every hour. And now they say, "Let us have a change." When I am sick I want a change; when I am poor I want a change; and if I were a Democrat I would have a personal change. We are prosperous to-day, and must keep so. We are back to gold and silver. Let us stay there; and let us stay with the party that brought us there.
Now, I am not only in favor of free speech and an honest ballot-box and an honest collection of the revenue of the United States, and an honest money, but I am in favor of the idea, of the great and splendid truth, that this is a Nation one and indivisible. I deny that we are a confederacy bound together with ropes of cloud and chains of mist. This is a Nation, and every man in it owes his first allegiance to the grand old flag for which more brave blood was shed than for any other flag that waves in the sight of heaven. There is another thing; we all want to live in a land where the law is supreme. We desire to live beneath a flag that will protect every citizen beneath its folds. We desire to be citizens of a Government so great and so grand that it will command the respect of the civilized world. Most of us are convinced that our Government is the best upon this earth. It is the only Government where manhood, and manhood alone, is not made simply a condition of citizenship, but where manhood, and manhood alone, permits its possessor to have his equal share in control of the Government. It is the only Government in the world where poverty is upon an exact equality with wealth, so far as controlling the destiny of the Republic is concerned. It is the only Nation where the man clothed in rags stands upon an equality with the one wearing purple. It is the only country in the world where, politically, the hut is upon an equality with the palace.
For that reason every poor man should stand by this Government, and every poor man who does not is a traitor to the best interests of his children; every poor man who does not is willing his children should bear the badge of political inferiority; and the only way to make this Government a complete and perfect success is for the poorest man to think as much of his manhood as the millionaire does of his wealth. A man does not vote in this country simply because he is rich; he does not vote in this country simply because he has an education; he does not vote simply because he has talent or genius; we say that he votes because he is a man, and that he has his manhood to support; and we admit in this country that nothing can be more valuable to any human being than his manhood, and for that reason we put poverty on an equality with wealth. We say in this country manhood is worth more than gold. We say in this country that without Liberty the Nation is not worth preserving. Now, I appeal to-day to every poor man; I appeal to-day to every laboring man, and I ask him, is there another country on this globe where you can have equal rights with others? There is another thing; do you want a Government of law or of brute force? In which part of this country do you find law supreme? In which part of this country can a man find justice in the courts; in the North or in the South? Where is crime punished? Where is innocence protected, in the North or in the South? Which section of this country will you trust?
You can tell what a man is by the way he treats persons in his power, and the man that will sneak and crawl in the presence of greatness, will trample the weak when he gets them in his power. What class of people does the State have in its power? Criminals and creditors; and you can judge of a State by the way it treats its criminals and creditors. Georgia is the best State in the South. They have a penitentiary system by which they hire out their convict labor. Only two years ago the whole thing was examined by a friend of mine, Col. Allston. He had been in the rebel army and was my good friend. He used to come to my house day after day to see me. He got converted and had the grit to say so. Being a member of the Legislature, he had a committee of investigation appointed. Now, in order that you may understand the difference, you must know that in the Northern penitentiaries the average annual death rate is one per cent.; that is, of one thousand convicts, ten will die in a year, on the average. That low death rate is because we are civilized, because we do not kill; but in the Georgia penitentiary it was as high as fifteen, twenty-seven and forty-seven per cent., at a time when there was no typhoid or yellow fever, or epidemic of any kind. They died for four months at a rate of ten per cent, per month. They crowded the convicts in together, regardless of sex. They treated them precisely as wild beasts, and many of them were shot down. Persons high in authority, Senators of the United States, held interests in those contracts, and Robert Allston denounced them. When on a visit he said, "I believe when I get home I shall be killed." I told him not to go back to Georgia, but to stay in the civilized North; but no, he would go back, and on the very day of his arrival he was murdered in cold blood. Do you want to trust such men? * * *
The Southern people say this is a Confederacy and they are honest in it. They fought for it, they believed it. They believe in the doctrine of State Sovereignty, and many Democrats of the North believe in the same doctrine. No less a man than Horatio Seymour—standing it may be at the head of Democratic statesmen—said, if he has been correctly reported, only the other day, that he despised the word "Nation." I bless that word. I owe my first allegiance to this Nation, and it owes its first protection to me. I am talking here to-night, not because I am protected by the flag of New York. I would not know that flag if I should see it. I am talking here, and have the right to talk here, because the flag of my country is above us. I have the same right as though I had been born upon this very platform. I am proud of New York because it is a part of my country. I am proud of my country because it has such a State as New York in it, and I will be prouder of New York on a week from next Tuesday than ever before in my life. I despise the doctrine of State Sovereignty. I believe in the rights of the States, but not in the sovereignty of the States. States are political conveniences. Rising above States, as the Alps above valleys, are the rights of man. Rising above the rights of the Government, even in this Nation, are the sublime rights of the people. Governments are good only so long as they protect human rights. But the rights of a man never should be sacrificed upon the altar of the State, or upon the altar of the Nation.
Let me tell you a few objections that I have to State Sovereignty. That doctrine has never been appealed to for any good. The first time it was appealed to was when our Constitution was made. And the object then was to keep the slave-trade open until the year 1808. The object then was to make the sea the highway of piracy—the object then was to allow American citizens to go into the business of selling men and women and children, and feed their cargo to the sharks of the sea, and the sharks of the sea were as merciful as they. That was the first time that the appeal to the doctrine of State Sovereignty was made, and the next time was for the purpose of keeping alive the interstate slave-trade, so that a gentleman in Virginia could sell the slave who had nursed him, and rob the cradles of their babes. Think of it! It was made so they could rob the cradle in the name of law. Think of it! Think of it! And the next time they appealed to the doctrine of State Sovereignty was in favor of the Fugitive Slave Law—a law that made a bloodhound of every Northern man; that made charity a crime; a law that made love a state-prison offence; that branded the forehead of charity as if it were a felon. Think of it!
It is a part of my honor to hate such principles. I have no respect for any man who is so mean, cruel and wicked, as to allow himself to be transformed into a bloodhound to bay upon the tracks of innocent human prey. I will follow my logic, no matter where it goes, after it has consulted with my heart. If you ever come to a conclusion without calling the heart in, you will come to a bad conclusion.
A good man is pretty apt to be right; a perfectly honest man is like the surface of the stainless mirror, that gives back by simply looking at him, the image of the one who looks.
The next time they appealed to the doctrine of State Sovereignty was to increase the area of human slavery, so that the bloodhound, with clots of blood dropping from his loose and hanging jaws, might traverse the billowy plains of Kansas. Think of it!
The Democratic party then said the Federal Government had a right to cross the State line. And the next time they appealed to that infamous doctrine was in defence of secession and treason; a doctrine that cost us six thousand millions of dollars; a doctrine that cost four hundred thousand lives; a doctrine that filled our country with widows, our homes with orphans. And I tell you, the doctrine of State Sovereignty is the viper in the bosom of this Republic, and if we do not kill that viper it will kill us.
The Democrats tell us that in the olden time the Federal Government had a right to cross a State line to put shackles upon the limbs of men. It had the right to cross a State line to trample upon the rights of human beings, but now it has no right to cross those lines upon an errand of mercy or justice. We are told that now, when the Federal Government wishes to protect a citizen, a State line rises like a Chinese wall, and the sword of Federal power turns to air the moment it touches one of those lines. I deny it and I despise, abhor and execrate the doctrine of State Sovereignty. The Democrats tell us if we wish to be protected by the Federal Government we must leave home. I wish they would try it for about ten days. They say the Federal Government can defend a citizen in England, France, Spain or Germany, but cannot defend a child of the Republic sitting around the family hearth. I deny it. A Government that cannot protect its citizens at home is unfit to be called a Government. I want a Government with an ear so good that it can hear the faintest cry of the oppressed wherever its flag floats. I want a Government with an arm long enough and a sword sharp enough to cut down treason wherever it may raise its serpent head. I want a Government that will protect a freedman, standing by his little log hut, with the same alacrity and with the same efficiency that it would protect Vanderbilt, living in a palace of marble and gold. Humanity is a sacred thing, and manhood is a thing to be preserved. Let us look at it. For instance, here is a war, and the Federal Government says to a man, "We want you," and he says, "No, I don't want to go," and then they put a lot of pieces of paper in a wheel and on one of those pieces is his name, and another man turns the crank, and then they pull it out and there is his name, and they say, "Come," and so he goes. And they stand him in front of the brazen-throated guns; they make him fight for his native land, and when the war is over he goes home and he finds the war has been unpopular in his neighborhood, and they trample on his rights, and he says to the Federal Government, "Protect me." And he says to the Government, "I owe my allegiance to you. You must protect me." What will you say of that Government if it says to him, "You must look to your State for protection"? "Ah, but," he says, "my State is the very power trampling upon me," and, of course, the robber is not going to send for the police, It is the duty of the Government to defend even its drafted men; and if that is the duty of the Government, what shall I say of the volunteer, who for one moment holds his wife in a tremulous and agonized embrace, kisses his children, shoulders his musket, goes to the field and says, "Here I am, ready to die for my native land"? A Nation that will not defend its volunteer defenders is a disgrace to the map of this world. This is a Nation. Free speech is the brain of the Republic; an honest ballot is the breath of its life; honest money is the blood of its veins; and the idea of nationality is its great, beating, throbbing heart. I am for a Nation. And yet the Democrats tell me that it is dangerous to have centralized power. How would you have it? I believe in the localization of power; I believe in having enough of it localized in one place to be effectively used; I believe in a localization of brain. I suppose Democrats would like to have it spread all over your body, and they act as though theirs was.
There is another thing in which I believe: I believe in the protection of American labor. The hand that holds Aladdin's lamp must be the hand of toil. This Nation rests upon the shoulders of its workers, and I want the American laboring man to have enough to wear; I want him to have enough to eat:
I want him to have something for the ordinary misfortunes of life; I want him to have the pleasure of seeing his wife well-dressed; I want him to see a few blue ribbons fluttering about his children; I want him to see the flags of health flying in their beautiful cheeks; I want him to feel that this is his country, and the shield of protection is above his labor.
And I will tell you why I am for protection, too. If we were all farmers we would be stupid. If we were all shoemakers we would be stupid. If we all followed one business, no matter what it was, we would become stupid. Protection to American labor diversifies American industry, and to have it diversified touches and develops every part of the human brain. Protection protects ingenuity; it protects intelligence; and protection raises sense; and by protection we have greater men, better looking women and healthier children. Free trade means that our laborer is upon an equality with the poorest paid labor of this world. And allow me to tell you that for an empty stomach, "Hurrah for Hancock!" is a poor consolation. I do not think much of a Government where the people do not have enough to eat. I am a materialist to that extent; I want something to eat. I have been in countries where the laboring man had meat once a year; sometimes twice—Christmas and Easter. And I have seen women carrying upon their heads a burden that no man in this audience could carry, and at the same time knitting busily with both hands, and those women lived without meat; and when I thought of the American laborer, I said to myself, "After all, my country is the best in the world." And when I came back to the sea and saw the old flag flying, it seemed to me as though the air from pure joy had burst into blossom.
Labor has more to eat and more to wear in the United States than in any other land of this earth. I want America to produce everything that Americans need. I want it so that if the whole world should declare war against us, if we were surrounded by walls of cannon and bayonets and swords, we could supply all our material wants in and of ourselves. I want to live to see the American woman dressed in American silk; the American man in everything, from hat to boots, produced in America by the cunning hand of American toil. I want to see the workingman have a good house, painted white, grass in the front yard, carpets on the floor, pictures on the wall. I want to see him a man, feeling that he is a king by the divine right of living in the Republic. And every man here is just a little bit a king, you know. Every man here is a part of the sovereign power. Every man wears a little of purple; every man has a little of crown and a little of sceptre; and every man that will sell his vote for money or be ruled by prejudice is unfit to be an American citizen.
I believe in American labor, and I will tell you why. The other day a man told me that we had produced in the United States of America one million tons of steel rails. How much are they worth? Sixty dollars a ton. In other words, the million tons are worth sixty million dollars. How much is a ton of iron worth in the ground? Twenty-five cents. American labor takes twenty-five cents worth of iron in the ground and adds to it fifty-nine dollars and seventy-five cents. One million tons of rails, and the raw material not worth twenty-four thousand dollars! We build a ship in the United States worth five hundred thousand dollars, and the value of the ore in the earth, of the trees in the great forest, of all that enters into the composition of that ship bringing five hundred thousand dollars in gold is only twenty thousand dollars; four hundred and eighty thousand dollars by American labor, American muscle, coined into gold; American brains made a legal tender the world round.
I propose to stand by the Nation. I want the furnaces kept hot. I want the sky to be filled with the smoke of American industry, and upon that cloud of smoke will rest forever the bow of perpetual promise. That is what I am for. Where did this doctrine of a tariff for revenue only come from? From the South. The South would like to stab the prosperity of the North. They would rather trade with Old England than with New England. They would rather trade with the people who were willing to help them in war than with those who conquered the Rebellion. They knew what gave us our strength in war. They knew that all the brooks and creeks and rivers of New England were putting down the Rebellion. They knew that every wheel that turned, every spindle that revolved, was a soldier in the army of human progress. It won't do! They were so lured by the greed of office that they were willing to trade upon the misfortunes of a Nation. It won't do! I do not wish to belong to a party that succeeds only when my country fails. I do not wish to belong to a party whose banner went up with the banner of rebellion. I do not wish to belong to a party that was in partnership with defeat and disaster. I do not. And there is not a Democrat here who does not know that a failure of the crops this year would have helped his party. You know that an early frost would have been a godsend to them. You know that the potato-bug could have done them more good than all their speakers.
I wish to belong to that party which is prosperous when the country is prosperous. I belong to that party which is not poor when the golden billows are running over the seas of wheat. I belong to that party which is prosperous when there are oceans of corn, and when the cattle are upon the thousand hills. I belong to that party which is prosperous when the furnaces are aflame, and when you dig coal and iron and silver; when everybody has enough to eat; when everybody is happy; when the children are all going to school, and when joy covers my Nation as with a garment. That party which is prosperous then, is my party.
Now, then, I have been telling you what I am for. I am for free speech, and so ought you to be. I am for an honest ballot, and if you are not you ought to be. I am for the collection of the revenue. I am for honest money. I am for the idea that this is a Nation forever. I believe in protecting American labor. I want the shield of my country above every anvil, above every furnace, above every cunning head and above every deft hand of American labor.
Now, then, which section of this country will be the more apt to carry these ideas into execution? Which party will be the more apt to achieve these grand and splendid things? Honor bright? Now we have not only to choose between sections of the country; we have to choose between parties. Here is the Democratic party, and I admit there are thousands of good Democrats who went to the war, and some of those that stayed at home were good men; and I want to ask you, and I want you to tell me in reply what that party did during the war when the War Democrats were away from home. What did they do? That is the question. I say to you, that every man who tried to tear our flag out of heaven was a Democrat. The men who wrote the ordinances of secession, who fired upon Fort Sumter; the men who starved our soldiers, who fed them with the crumbs that the worms had devoured before, they were Democrats. The keepers of Libby, the keepers of Andersonville, were Democrats—Libby and Andersonville, the two mighty wings that will bear the memory of the Confederacy to eternal infamy! The men who wished to scatter yellow fever in the North and who tried to fire the great cities of the North—they were all Democrats. He who said that the greenback would never be paid and he who slandered sixty cents out of every dollar of the Nation's promises were Democrats. Who were joyful when your brothers and your sons and your fathers lay dead on a field of battle that the country had lost? They were Democrats. The men who wept when the old banner floated in triumph above the ramparts of rebellion—they were Democrats. You know it. The men who wept when slavery was destroyed, who believed slavery to be a divine institution, who regarded bloodhounds as apostles and missionaries, and who wept at the funeral of that infernal institution—they were Democrats. Bad company—bad company!
And let me implore all the young men here not to join that party. Do not give new blood to that institution. The Democratic party has a yellow passport. On one side it says "dangerous." They imagine they have not changed, and that is because they have not intellectual growth. That party was once the enemy of my country, was once the enemy of our flag, and more than that, it was once the enemy of human liberty, and that party to-night is not willing that the citizens of the Republic should exercise all their rights irrespective of their color. And allow me to say right here that I am opposed to that party.
We have not only to choose between parties, but to choose between candidates. The Democracy have put forward as the bearers of their standard General Hancock and William H. English. The Democrats have at last nominated a Union soldier. They nominated George B. McClellan once, because he failed to whip the South; they nominated Mr. Greeley, when they despised him, and now they have nominated General Hancock. Do they think the South loves him? At Gettysburg they say he fought against them, and that is one great reason why he should be President—that he shot rebels. Do the men that fought at Gettysburg still believe in State Sovereignty? Wade Hampton says, "We must vote as Lee and Jackson fought." They fought for State Sovereignty. Has the South changed? Hancock went to kill them then; they want to vote for him now. Who has changed? [A voice: "Hancock."] I think so. They are using him as a figure-head. They have dressed him in the noble blue, with the patriotic coat and Union buttons, and they do not like him any better than they did at Gettysburg. It would be just as consistent for the Republicans to have nominated Wade Hampton. Did General Hancock believe in State Sovereignty when he was at Gettysburg? If he did, he was a murderer, and not a Union soldier—he was killing men he believed to be in the right, and a man cannot fight unless his conscience approves of what his sword does, and if he was honest at that time, he did not believe in State Sovereignty, and it seems to me he would hate to have the men who tried to destroy this Government cheering him. All the glory he ever got was in the service of the Republican party, and if he does not look out he will lose it all in the service of the Democratic party. He had a conversation with General Grant. It was a time when he had been appointed at the head of the Department of the Gulf. In that conversation he stated to General Grant that he was opposed to "nigger domination." Grant said to him, "We must obey the laws of Congress. We are soldiers." And that meant, the military is not above the civil authority. And I tell you to-night, that the army and the navy are the right and left hands of the civil power. Grant said to him: "Three or four million ex-slaves, without property and without education, cannot dominate over thirty or forty millions of white people, with education and property." General Hancock replied to that: "I am opposed to 'nigger domination.'" Allow me to say that I do not believe any man fit for the presidency of the great Republic, who is capable of insulting a down-trodden race. I never meet a negro that I do not feel like asking his forgiveness for the wrongs that my race has inflicted on his. I remember that from the white man he received for two hundred years agony and tears; I remember that my race sold a child from the agonized breast of a mother; I remember that my race trampled with the feet of greed upon all the holy relations of life; and I do not feel like insulting the colored man; I feel rather like asking the forgiveness of his race for the crimes that my race have put upon him. "Nigger domination!" What a fine scabbard that makes for the sword of Gettysburg! It won't do!
What is General Hancock for, besides the presidency? How does he stand upon the great questions affecting American prosperity? He told us the other day that the tariff is a local question. The tariff affects every man and woman, live they in hut, hovel or palace; it affects every man that has a back to be covered or a stomach to be filled, and yet he says it is a local question. So is death. He also told us that he heard that question discussed once, in Pennsylvania. He must have been eavesdropping. And he tells us that his doctrine of the tariff will continue as long as Nature lasts. Then Senator Randolph wrote him a letter. I do not know whether Senator Randolph answered it or not; but that answer was worse than the first interview; and I understand now that another letter is going through a period of incubation at Governor's Island, upon the great subject of the tariff. It won't do!
They say one thing they are sure of, he is opposed to paying Southern pensions and Southern claims. He says that a man that fought against this Government has no right to a pension. Good! I say a man that fought against this Government has no right to office. If a man cannot earn a pension by tearing our flag out of the sky, he cannot earn power. [A Voice—"How about Longstreet?"] Longstreet has repented of what he did. Longstreet admits that he was wrong. And there was no braver officer in the Southern Confederacy. Every man of the South who will say, "I made a mistake"—I do not want him to say that he knew he was wrong—all I ask him to say is that he now thinks he was wrong; and every man of the South to-day who says he was wrong, and who says from this day forward, henceforth and forever, he is for this being a Nation.
I will take him by the hand. But while he is attempting to do at the ballot-box what he failed to accomplish upon the field of battle, I am against him; while he uses a Northern general to bait a Southern trap, I won't bite. I will forgive men when they deserve to be forgiven; but while they insist that they were right, while they insist that State Sovereignty is the proper doctrine, I am opposed to their climbing into power.
Hancock says that he will not pay these claims; he agrees to veto a bill that his party may pass; he agrees in advance that he will defeat a party that he expects will elect him; he, in effect, says to the people, "You can not trust that party, but you can trust me." He says, "Look at them; I admit they are a hungry lot; I admit that they haven't had a bite in twenty years; I admit that an ordinary famine is satiety compared to the hunger they feel. But between that vast appetite known as the Democratic party, and the public treasury, I will throw the shield of my veto." No man has a right to say in advance what he will veto, any more than a judge has a right to say in advance how he will decide a case. The veto power is a distinction with which the Constitution has clothed the Executive, and no President has a right to say that he will veto until he has heard both sides of the question. But he agrees in advance.
I would rather trust a party than a man. Death may veto Hancock, and Death has not been a successful politician in the United States. Tyler, Fillmore, Andy Johnson—I do not wish Death to elect any more Presidents; and if he does, and if Hancock is elected, William H. English becomes President of the United States. No, no, no! All I need to say about him is simply to pronounce his name; that is all. You do not want him. Whether the many stories that have been told about him are true or not I do not know, and I will not give currency to a solitary word against the reputation of an American citizen unless I know it to be true. What I have against him is what he has done in public life. When Charles Sumner, that great and splendid publicist—Charles Sumner, the philanthropist, one who spoke to the conscience of his time and to the history of the future—when he stood up in the United States Senate and made a great and glorious plea for human liberty, there crept into the Senate a villain and struck him down as though he had been a wild beast. That man was a member of Congress, and when a resolution was introduced in the House, to expel that man, William H. English voted "No." All the stories in the world could not add to the infamy of that public act. That is enough for me, and whatever his private life may be, let it be that of an angel, never, never, never would I vote for a man that would defend the assassin of free speech. General Hancock, they tell me, is a statesman; that what little time he has had to spare from war he has given to the tariff, and what little time he could spare from the tariff he has given to the Constitution of his country; showing under what circumstances a Major-General can put at defiance the Congress of the United States. It won't do!
But while I am upon that subject it may be well for me to state that he never will be President of the United States. Now, I say that a man who in time of peace prefers peace, and prefers the avocations of peace; a man who in the time of peace would rather look at the corn in the air of June, rather listen to the hum of bees, rather sit by his door with his wife and children; the man who in time of peace loves peace, and yet when the blast of war blows in his ears, shoulders a musket and goes to the field of war to defend his country, and when the war is over goes home and again pursues the avocations of peace—that man is just as good, to say the least of it, as a man who in a time of profound peace makes up his mind that he would like to make his living killing other folks. To say the least of it, he is as good.
The Republicans have named as their standard bearers James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur. James A. Garfield was a volunteer soldier, and he took away from the field of Chickamauga as much glory as any one man could carry. He is not only a soldier—7-he is a statesman. He has studied and discussed all the great questions that affect the prosperity and well-being of the American people. His opinions are well known, and I say to you tonight that there is not in this Nation, there is not in this Republic a man with greater brain and greater heart than James A. Garfield. I know him and I like him. I know him as well as any other public man, and I like him. The Democratic party say that he is not honest. I have been reading some Democratic papers to-day, and you would say that every one of their editors had a private sewer of his own into which has been emptied for a hundred years the slops of hell. They tell me that James A. Garfield is not honest. Are you a Democrat? Your party tried to steal nearly half of this country. Your party stole the armament of a nation. Your party was willing to live upon the unpaid labor of four millions of people. You have no right to the floor for the purpose of making a motion of honesty. James A. Garfield has been at the head of the most important committees of Congress; he is a member of the most important one of the whole House. He has no peer in the Congress of the United States. And you know it. He is the leader of the House. With one wave of his hand he can take millions from the pocket of one industry and put it into the pocket of another; with a motion of his hand he could have made himself a man of wealth, but he is to-night a poor man. I know him and I like him. He is as genial as May and he is as generous as Autumn. And the men for whom he has done unnumbered favors, the men whom he had pity enough not to destroy with an argument, the men who, with his great generosity, he has allowed, intellectually, to live, are now throwing filth at the reputation of that great and splendid man.
Several ladies and gentlemen were passing a muddy place around which were gathered ragged and wretched urchins. And these little wretches began to throw mud at them; and one gentleman said, "If you don't stop I will throw it back at you." And a little fellow said, "You can't do it without dirtying your hands, and it doesn't hurt us anyway."
I never was more profoundly happy than on the night of that 12th day of October when I found that between an honest and a kingly man and his maligners, two great States had thrown their shining shields. When Ohio said, "Garfield is my greatest son, and there never has been raised in the cabins of Ohio a grander man"—and when Indiana held up her hands and said, "Allow me to indorse that verdict," I was profoundly happy, because that said to me, "Garfield will carry every Northern State;" that said to me, "The Solid South will be confronted by a great and splendid North."
I know Garfield—I like him. Some people have said, "How is it that you support Garfield, when he was a minister?" "How is it that you support Garfield when he is a Christian?" I will tell you. There are two reasons. The first is I am not a bigot; and secondly, James A. Garfield is not a bigot. He believes in giving to every other human being every right he claims for himself. He believes in freedom of speech and freedom of thought; untrammeled conscience and upright manhood. He believes in an absolute divorce between church and state. He believes that every religion should rest upon its morality, upon its reason, upon its persuasion, upon its goodness, upon its charity, and that love should never appeal to the sword of civil power. He disagrees with me in many things; but in the one thing, that the air is free for all, we do agree. I want to do equal and exact justice everywhere.
I want the world of thought to be without a chain, without a wall, and I wish to say to you, [turning toward Mr. Beecher and directly addressing him] that I thank you for what you have said to-night, and to congratulate the people of this city and country that you have intellectual horizon enough, intellectual sky enough to take the hand of a man, howsoever much he may disagree in some things with you, on the grand platform and broad principle of citizenship. James A. Garfield, believing with me as he does, disagreeing with me as he does, is perfectly satisfactory to me. I know him, and I like him.
Men are to-day blackening his reputation, who are not fit to blacken his shoes. He is a man of brain. Since his nomination he must have made forty or fifty speeches, and every one has been full of manhood and genius. He has not said a word that has not strengthened him with the American people. He is the first candidate who has been free to express himself and who has never made a mistake. I will tell you why he does not make a mistake; because he spoke from the inside out. Because he was guided by the glittering Northern Star of principle. Lie after lie has been told about him. Slander after slander has been hatched and put in the air, with its little short wings, to fly its day, and the last lie is a forgery.
I saw to-day the fac-simile of a letter that they pretend he wrote upon the Chinese question. I know his writing; I know his signature; I am well acquainted with his writing. I know handwriting, and I tell you to-night, that letter and that signature are forgeries. A forgery for the benefit of the Pacific States; a forgery for the purpose of convincing the American workingman that Garfield is without heart. I tell you, my fellow-citizens, that cannot take from him a vote. But Ohio pierced their centre and Indiana rolled up both flanks and the rebel line cannot re-form with a forgery for a standard. They are gone!
Now, some people say to me, "How long are you going to preach the doctrine of hate?" I never did preach it. In many States of this Union it is a crime to be a Republican. I am going to preach my doctrine until every American citizen is permitted to express his opinion and vote as he may desire in every State of this Union. I am going to preach my doctrine until this is a civilized country. That is all.
I will treat the gentlemen of the South precisely as we do the gentlemen of the North. I want to treat every section of the country precisely as we do ours-. I want to improve their rivers and their harbors; I want to fill their land with commerce; I want them to prosper; I want them to build schoolhouses; I want them to open the lands to immigration to all people who desire to settle upon their soil. I want to be friends with them; I want to let the past be buried forever; I want to let bygones be bygones, but only upon the basis that we are now in favor of absolute liberty and eternal justice. I am not willing to bury nationality or free speech in the grave for the purpose of being friends. Let us stand by our colors; let the old Republican party that has made this a Nation—the old Republican party that has saved the financial honor of this country—let that party stand by its colors.
Let that party say, "Free speech forever!" Let that party say, "An honest ballot forever!" Let that party say, "Honest money forever! the Nation and the flag forever!" And let that party stand by the great men carrying her banner, James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur. I would rather trust a party than a man. If General Garfield dies, the Republican party lives; if General Garfield dies, General Arthur will take his place—a brave, honest, and intelligent gentleman, upon whom every Republican can rely. And if he dies, the Republican party lives, and as long as the Republican party does not die, the great Republic will live. As long as the Republican party lives, this will be the asylum of the world. Let me tell you, Mr. Irishman, this is the only country on the earth where Irishmen have had enough to eat. Let me tell you, Mr. German, that you have more liberty here than you had in the Fatherland. Let me tell you, all men, that this is the land of humanity.
Oh! I love the old Republic, bounded by the seas, walled by the wide air, domed by heaven's blue, and lit with the eternal stars. I love the Republic; I love it because I love liberty. Liberty is my religion, and at its altar I worship, and will worship.
* This is only a fragment of a speech made by Col. Ingersoll
at Peoria, 111., in 1866, to the 86th Illinois Regiment, at
their anniversary meeting.
PEORIA, ILLS. 1865.
THE history of the past four years seems to me like a terrible dream. It seems almost impossible that the events that have now passed into history ever happened. That hundreds of thousands of men, born and reared under one flag, with the same history, the same future, and, in truth, the same interests, should have met upon the terrible field of death, and for four long years should have fought with a bitterness and determination never excelled; that they should have filled our land with orphans and widows, and made our country hollow with graves, is indeed wonderful; but that the people of the South should have thus fought—thus attempted to destroy and overthrow the Government founded by the heroes of the Revolution—merely for the sake of perpetuating the infamous institution of slavery, is wonderful almost beyond belief.
Strange that people should be found in this, the nineteenth century, to fight against freedom and to die for slavery! It is most wonderful that the terrible war ceased as suddenly as it did, and that the soldiers of the Republic, the moment that the angel of peace spread her white wings over our country, dropped from their hands the instruments of war and eagerly went back to the plough, the shop and the office, and are to-day, with the same determination that characterized them in battle, engaged in effacing every vestige of the desolation and destruction of war. But the progress we have made as a people is if possible still more astonishing. We pretended to be the lovers of freedom, yet we defended slavery. We quoted the Declaration of Independence and voted for the compromise of 1850.
From servility and slavishness we have marched to heroism. We were tyrants. We are liberators. We were slave-catchers. We are now the chivalrous breakers of chains.
From slavery, over a bloody and terrible path, we have marched to freedom. Hirelings of oppression, we have become the champions of justice—the defenders of the right—the pillar upon which rests the hope of the world. To whom are we indebted for this wonderful change? Most of all to you, the soldiers of the great Republic. We thank you that the hands of time were not turned back a thousand years—that the Dark Ages did not again come upon the world—that Prometheus was not again chained—that the river of progress was not stopped or stayed—that the dear blood shed during all the past was not rendered vain—that the sublime faith of all the grand and good did not become a bitter dream, but a reality more glorious than ever entered into the imagination of the rapt heroes of the past. Soldiers of the Eighty-sixth Illinois, we thank you, and through you all the defenders of the Republic, living and dead. We thank you that the deluge of blood has subsided, that the ark of our national safety is at rest, that the dove has returned with the olive branch of peace, and that the dark clouds of war are in the far distance, covered with the beautiful bow.
In the name of humanity, in the name of progress, in the name of freedom, in the name of America, in the name of the oppressed of the whole world, we thank you again and again. We thank you, that in the darkest hour you never despaired of the Republic, that you were not dismayed, that through disaster and defeat, through cruelty and famine, through the serried ranks of the enemy, in spite of false friends, you marched resolutely, unflinchingly and bravely forward. Forward through shot and shell! Forward through fire and sword! Forward past the corpses of your brave comrades, buried in shallow graves by the hurried hands of heroes! Forward past the scattered bones of starved captives! Forward through the glittering bayonet lines, and past the brazen throats of the guns! Forward through the din and roar and smoke and hell of war! Onward through blood and fire to the shining, glittering mount of perfect and complete victory, and from the top your august hands unfurled to the winds the old banner of the stars, and it waves in triumph now, and shall forever, from the St. Lawrence to the Rio Grande, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific!
We thank you that our waving fields of golden wheat and rustling corn are not trodden down beneath the bloody feet of invasion—that our homes are not ashes—that our hearthstones are not desolate—that our towns and cities still stand, that our temples and institutions of learning are secure, that prosperity covers us as with a mantle, and, more than all, we thank you that the Republic still lives; that law and order reign supreme; that the Constitution is still sacred; that a republican government has ceased to be only an experiment, and has become a certainty for all time; that we have by your heroism established the sublime and shining truth that a government by the people, for the people, can and will stand until governments cease among men; that you have given the lie to the impudent and infamous prophecy of tyranny, and that you have firmly established the Republic upon the great ideas of National Unity and Human Liberty.
We thank you for our commerce on the high seas, upon our lakes and beautiful rivers, for the credit of our nation, for the value of our money, and for the grand position that we now occupy among the nations of the earth. We thank you for every State redeemed, for every star brought back to glitter again upon the old flag, and we thank you for the grand future that you have opened for us and for our children through all the ages yet to come; and, not only for us and our children, but for mankind.
Thanks to your efforts our country is still an asylum for the oppressed of the Old World; the arms of our charity are still open, we still beckon them across the sea, and they come in multitudes,'leaving home, the graves of their sires, and the dear memories of the heart, and with their wives and little ones come to this, the only free land upon which the sun shines—and with their countless hands of labor add to the wealth, the permanence and the glory of our country. And let them come from the land of Luther, of Hampden and Emmett. Whoever is for freedom and the sacred rights of man is a true American, and as such, we welcome them all. We thank you to-day in the name of four millions of people, whose shackles you have so nobly and generously broken, and who, from the condition of beasts of burden, have by your efforts become men. We thank you in the name of this poor and hitherto despised and insulted race, and say that their emancipation was, and is, the crowning glory of this most terrible war. Peace without liberty could have been only a bloody delusion and a snare. Freedom is peace; Slavery is war.
We must act justly and honorably with these emancipated men, knowing that the eyes of the civilized world are upon us. We must do what is best for both races. We must not be controlled merely by party.
If the Government is founded upon principle, it will stand against the shock of revolution and foreign war as long as liberty is sacred, the rights of man respected, and honor dwells in the hearts of men.
We thank you for the lesson that has been taught the Old World by your patriotism and valor; believing that when the people shall have learned that sublime and divine lesson, thrones will become kingless, kings crownless, royalty an epitaph, the purple of power the shroud of death, the chains of tyranny will fall from the bodies of men, the shackles of superstition from the souls of the people, the spirit of persecution will fly from the earth, and the banner of Universal Freedom, with the words "Civil and Religious Liberty for the World" written upon every fold, blazing from every star, will float over every land and sea under the whole heavens.
We thank you for the glorious past, for the still more glorious future, and will continue to thank you while our hearts are warm with life. We will gather around you in the hour of your death and soothe your last moments with our gratitude. We will follow you tearfully to the narrow house of the dead, and over your sacred remains erect the whitest and purest marble. The hands of love will adorn your last abode, and the chisel will record that beneath rests the sacred dust of the Heroic Saviors of the Great Republic. Such ground will be holy, and future generations will draw inspiration from your tombs, courage from your heroic examples, patience and fortitude from your sufferings, and strength eternal from your success.
I cannot stop without speaking of the heroic dead. It seems to me as though their spirits ought to hover over you to-day—that they might join with us in giving thanks for the great victory,—that their faces might grow radiant to think that their blood was not shed in vain,—that the living are worthy to reap the benefits of their sacrifices, their sufferings and death, and it almost seems as if their sightless eyes are suffused with tears. Then we think of the dear mothers waiting for their sons, of the devoted wives waiting for their husbands, of the orphans asking for fathers whose returning footsteps they can never hear; that while they can say "my country," they cannot say "my son," "my husband," or "my father."
My heart goes out to all the slain, to those heroic corpses sleeping far away from home and kindred in unknown and lonely graves, to those poor pieces of dear, bleeding earth that won for me the blessings I enjoy to-day.
Shall I recount their sufferings? They were starved day by day with a systematic and calculating cruelty never equaled by the most savage tribes. They were confined in dens as though they had been beasts, and then they slowly faded and wasted from life. Some were released from their sufferings by blessed insanity, until their parched and fevered lips, their hollow and glittering eyes, were forever closed by the angel of death. And thus they died, with the voices of loved ones in their ears; the faces of the dear absent hovering over them; around them their dying comrades, and the fiendish slaves of slavery.
And what shall I say more of the regiment before me? It is enough that you were a part of the great army that accomplished so much for America and mankind.
It is but just, however, to say that you were at the bloody field of Perryville, that you stood with Thomas at Chickamauga and kept at bay the rebel host, that you marched to the relief of Knoxville through bitter cold, hunger and privations, and had the honor of relieving that heroic garrison.
It is but just to say that you were with Sherman in his wonderful march through the heart of the Confederacy; that you were in the terrible charge at Kenesaw Mountain, and held your ground for days within a few steps of the rebel fortifications; that you were at Atlanta and took part in the terrible conflict before that city and marched victoriously through her streets; that you were at Savannah; that you had the honor of being present when Johnson surrendered, and his ragged rebel horde laid down their arms; that from there you marched to Washington and beneath the shadow of the glorious dome of our Capitol, that lifts from the earth as though jealous of the stars, received the grandest national ovation recorded in the annals of the world.
* At the Memorial Celebration of the Grand Army of the
Republic last evening the Academy of Music was filled to
overflowing, within a few minutes after the opening of the
doors.
Gen. Hancock was the first arrival of importance. The
Governor's Island band accepted this as a signal for the
overture. The Academy was tastefully decorated. The three
balconies were covered, the first with blue cloth, the
second with white and national bunting, studded with the
insignia of the original thirteen States, and the family
circle with red. Over the centre of the stage the national
flag and device hung suspended, and was held In its place by
flying streamers extending to the boxes. The latter were
draped with flags, relieved by antique armor and weapons—
shields, casques and battle axes and crossed swords and
pikes.
At 8.05 the curtain slowly rose, and discovered to the view
of the audience, a second audience reaching back to the
farthest depths of the scenes. These were the fortunate
holders of stage tickets, and comprised a great number of
distinguished men.
Among them were noticed Gen. Horace Porter, Gen. Lloyd
Aspinwall, Gen. Daniel Butterfield, Gen. D. D. Wylie, Gen.
Charles Roome, Gen. W. Palmer, Gen. John Cochrane, Gen. H.
G. Tremaine, the Hon. Edward Pierrepont, Dep't. Commander
James M. Fraser, the Hon. Carl Schurz, August Belmont, Henry
Clews, Dr. Lewis A. Sayre, Charles Scribner, Jesse Seligman,
William Dowa, Henry Bergh and George William Curtis. Gen.
Bamum came upon the stage followed by President Arthur,
Gen's. Grant and Hancock, Secretaries Folger and Brewster,
ex-Senator Roscoe Conkling, Mayor Grace and the Rev. J. P.
Newman. Gen. Hancock's brilliant uniform made him a very
conspicuous figure, and he served as a foil to the plain
evening dress of Gen. Grant, who was separated from him by
the portly form of the President.
Gen. James McQuade, the President of the day, rose and
uncovering a flag which draped a sort of patriotic altar in
front of him, announced that It was the genuine flag upon
which was written the famous order, "If any man pull down
the American flag, shoot him on the spot.' * This was the
signal for round after round of applause, while Gen. McQuade
waved this precious relic of the past. The time had now come
for the introduction of the orator of the evening, Col.
Robert G. Ingersoll. Col. Ingersoll stepped across the stage
to the reading desk, and was received with an ovation of
cheering and waving of handkerchiefs.
After the enthusiasm had somewhat abated, a gentleman in one
of the boxes shouted: "Three-cheers for Ingersoll."
These were given with a will, the excitement quieted down
and the orator spoke as follows '.—The New York Times. May
31st, 1883.
New York City.
1882.
THIS day is sacred to our heroes dead. Upon their tombs we have lovingly laid the wealth of Spring.
This is a day for memory and tears. A mighty Nation bends above its honored graves, and pays to noble dust the tribute of its love.
Gratitude is the fairest flower that sheds its perfume in the heart.
To-day we tell the history of our country's life—recount the lofty deeds of vanished years—the toil and suffering, the defeats and victories of heroic men,—of men who made our Nation great and free.
We see the first ships whose prows were gilded by the western sun. We feel the thrill of discovery when the New World was found. We see the oppressed, the serf, the peasant and the slave, men whose flesh had known the chill of chains—the adventurous, the proud, the brave, sailing an unknown sea, seeking homes in unknown lands. We see the settlements, the little clearings, the blockhouse and the fort, the rude and lonely huts. Brave men, true women, builders of homes, fellers of forests, founders of States.
Separated from the Old World,—away from the heartless distinctions of caste,—away from sceptres and titles and crowns, they governed themselves. They defended their homes; they earned their bread. Each citizen had a voice, and the little villages became republics. Slowly the savage was driven back. The days and nights were filled with fear, and the slow years with massacre and war, and cabins' earthen floors were wet with blood of mothers and their babes.
But the savages of the New World were kinder than the kings and nobles of the Old; and so the human tide kept coming, and the places of the dead were filled. Amid common dangers and common hopes, the prejudiced and feuds of Europe faded slowly from their hearts. From every land, of every speech, driven by want and lured by hope, exiles and emigrants sought the mysterious Continent of the West.
Year after year the colonists fought and toiled and suffered and increased. They began to talk about liberty—to reason of the rights of man. They * t asked no help from distant kings, and they began to doubt the use of paying tribute to the useless. They lost respect for dukes and lords, and held in high esteem all honest men. There was the dawn of a new day. They began to dream of independence. They found that they could make and execute the laws. They had tried the experiment of self-government. They had succeeded. The Old World wished to dominate the New. In the care and keeping of the colonists was the destiny of this Continent—of half the world.
On this day the story of the great struggle between colonists and kings should be told. We should tell our children of the contest—first for justice, then for freedom. We should tell them the history of the Declaration of Independence—the chart and compass of all human rights:—All men are equal, and have the right to life, to liberty and joy.
This Declaration uncrowned kings, and wrested from the hands of titled tyranny the sceptre of usurped and arbitrary power. It superseded royal grants, and repealed the cruel statutes of a thousand years. It gave the peasant a career; it knighted all the sons of toil; it opened all the paths to fame, and put the star of hope above the cradle of the poor man's babe.
England was then the mightiest of nations—mistress of every sea—and yet our fathers, poor and few, defied her power.
To-day we remember the defeats, the victories, the disasters, the weary marches, the poverty, the hunger, the sufferings, the agonies, and above all, the glories of the Revolution. We remember all—from Lexington to Valley Forge, and from that midnight of despair to Yorktown's cloudless day. We remember the soldiers and thinkers—the heroes of the sword and pen. They had the brain and heart, the wisdom and courage to utter and defend these words: "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." In defence of this sublime and self-evident truth the war was waged and won.
To-day we remember all the heroes, all the generous and chivalric men who came from other lands to make ours free. Of the many thousands who shared the gloom and glory of the seven sacred years, not one remains. The last has mingled with the earth, and nearly all are sleeping now in unmarked graves, and some beneath the leaning, crumbling stones from which their names have been effaced by Time's irreverent and relentless hands. But the Nation they founded remains. The United States are still free and independent. The "government derives its just power from the consent of the governed," and fifty millions of free people remember with gratitude the heroes of the Revolution.
Let us be truthful; let us be kind. When peace came, when the independence of a new Nation was acknowledged, the great truth for which our fathers fought was half denied, and the Constitution was inconsistent with the Declaration. The war was waged for liberty, and yet the victors forged new fetters for their fellow-men. The chains our fathers broke were put by them upon the limbs of others. "Freedom for All" was the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, through seven years of want and war. In peace the cloud was forgotten and the pillar blazed unseen.
Let us be truthful; all our fathers were not true to themselves. In war they had been generous, noble and self-sacrificing; with peace came selfishness and greed. They were not great enough to appreciate the grandeur of the principles for which they fought. They ceased to regard the great truths as having universal application. "Liberty for All" included only themselves. They qualified the Declaration. They interpolated the word "white." They obliterated the word "All."
Let us be kind. We will remember the age in which they lived. We will compare them with the citizens of other nations. They made merchandise of men. They legalized a crime. They sowed the seeds of war. But they founded this Nation.
Let us gratefully remember.
Let us gratefully forget.
To-day we remember the heroes of the second war with England, in which our fathers fought for the freedom of the seas—for the rights of the American sailor. We remember with pride the splendid victories of Erie and Champlain and the wondrous achievements upon the sea—achievements that covered our navy with a glory that neither the victories nor defeats of the future can dim. We remember the heroic services and sufferings of those who fought the merciless savage of the frontier. We see the midnight massacre, and hear the war-cries of the allies of England. We see the flames climb around the happy homes, and in the charred and blackened ruins the mutilated bodies of wives and children. Peace came at last, crowned with the victory of New Orleans—a victory that "did redeem all sorrows" and all defeats.
The Revolution gave our fathers a free land—the War of 1812 a free sea.
To-day we remember the gallant men who bore our flag in triumph from the Rio Grande to the heights of Chapultepec.
Leaving out of question the justice of our cause—the necessity for war—we are yet compelled to applaud the marvelous courage of our troops. A handful of men, brave, impetuous, determined, irresistible, conquered a nation. Our history has no record of more daring deeds.
Again peace came, and the Nation hoped and thought that strife was at an end. We had grown too powerful to be attacked. Our resources were boundless, and the future seemed secure. The hardy pioneers moved to the great West. Beneath their ringing strokes the forests disappeared, and on the prairies waved the billowed seas of wheat and corn. The great plains were crossed, the mountains were conquered, and the foot of victorious adventure pressed the shore of the Pacific. In the great North all the streams went singing to the sea, turning wheels and spindles, and casting shuttles back and forth. Inventions were springing like magic from a thousand brains. From Labor's holy altars rose and leaped the smoke and flame, and from the countless forges ran the chant of rhythmic stroke.
But in the South, the negro toiled unpaid, and mothers wept while babes were sold, and at the auction-block husbands and wives speechlessly looked the last good-bye. Fugitives, lighted by the Northern Star, sought liberty on English soil, and were, by Northern men, thrust back to whip and chain. The great statesmen, the successful politicians, announced that law had compromised with crime, that justice had been bribed, and that time had barred appeal. A race was left without a right, without a hope. The future had no dawn, no star—nothing but ignorance and fear, nothing but work and want. This, was the conclusion of the statesmen, the philosophy of the politicians—of constitutional expounders:—this was decided by courts and ratified by the Nation.
We had been successful in three wars. We had wrested thirteen colonies from Great Britain. We had conquered our place upon the high seas. We had added more than two millions of square miles to the national domain. We had increased in population from three to thirty-one millions. We were in the midst of plenty. We were rich and free. Ours appeared to be the most prosperous of Nations. But it was only appearance. The statesmen and the politicians were deceived. Real victories can be won only for the Right. The triumph of Justice is the only Peace. Such is the nature of things. He who enslaves another cannot be free. He who attacks the right, assaults himself. The mistake our fathers made had not been corrected. The foundations of the Republic were insecure. The great dome of the temple was clad in the light of prosperity, but the corner-stones were crumbling. Four millions of human beings were enslaved. Party cries had been mistaken for principles—partisanship for patriotism—success for justice.
But Pity pointed to the scarred and bleeding backs of slaves; Mercy heard the sobs of mothers reft of babes, and Justice held aloft the scales, in which one drop of blood shed by a master's lash, outweighed a Nation's gold. There were a few men, a few women, who had the courage to attack this monstrous crime. They found it entrenched in constitutions, statutes, and decisions—barricaded and bastioned by every department and by every party. Politicians were its servants, statesmen its attorneys, judges its menials, presidents its puppets, and upon its cruel altar had been sacrificed our country's honor. It was the crime of the Nation—of the whole country—North and South responsible alike.
To-day we reverently thank the abolitionists. Earth has no grander men—no nobler women. They were the real philanthropists, the true patriots. When the will defies fear, when the heart applauds the brain, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate, when honor scorns to compromise with death,—this is heroism. The abolitionists were heroes. He loves his country best who strives to make it best. The bravest men are those who have the greatest fear of doing wrong. Mere politicians wish the country to do something for them. True patriots desire to do something for their country. Courage without conscience is a wild beast. Patriotism without principle is the prejudice of birth, the animal attachment to place. These men, these women, had courage and conscience, patriotism and principle, heart and brain.
The South relied upon the bond,—upon a barbarous clause that stained, disfigured and defiled the Federal pact, and made the monstrous claim that slavery was the Nation's ward. The spot of shame grew red in Northern cheeks, and Northern men declared that slavery had poisoned, cursed and blighted soul and soil enough, and that the Territories must be free. The radicals of the South cried: "No Union without Slavery!" The radicals of the North replied: "No Union without Liberty!" The Northern radicals were right. Upon the great issue of free homes for free men, a President was elected by the free States. The South appealed to the sword, and raised the standard of revolt. For the first time in history the oppressors rebelled.
But let us to-day be great enough to forget individuals,—great enough to know that slavery was treason, that slavery was rebellion, that slavery fired upon our flag and sought to wreck and strand the mighty ship that bears the hope and fortune of this world. The first shot liberated the North. Constitution, statutes and decisions, compromises, platforms, and resolutions made, passed, and ratified in the interest of slavery became mere legal lies, base and baseless. Parchment and paper could no longer stop or stay the onward march of man. The North was free. Millions instantly resolved that the Nation should not die—that Freedom should not perish, and that Slavery should not live.
Millions of our brothers, our sons, our fathers, our husbands, answered to the Nation's call.
The great armies have desolated the earth. The greatest soldiers have been ambition's dupes. They waged war for the sake of place and pillage, pomp and power,—for the ignorant applause of vulgar millions,—for the flattery of parasites, and the adulation of sycophants and slaves.
Let us proudly remember that in our time the greatest, the grandest, the noblest army of the world fought, not to enslave, but to free; not to destroy, but to save; not for conquest, but for conscience; not only for us, but for every land and every race.
With courage, with enthusiasm, with a devotion' never excelled, with an exaltation and purity of purpose never equaled, this grand army fought the battles of the Republic. For the preservation of this Nation, for the destruction of slavery, these soldiers, these sailors, on land and sea, disheartened by no defeat, discouraged by no obstacle, appalled by no danger, neither paused nor swerved until a stainless flag, without a rival, floated over all our wide domain, and until every human being beneath its folds was absolutely free.
The great victory for human rights—the greatest of all the years—had been won; won by the Union men of the North, by the Union men of the South, and by those who had been slaves. Liberty was national, Slavery was dead.
The flag for which the heroes fought, for which they died, is the symbol of all we are, of all we hope to be.
It is the emblem of equal rights.
It means free hands, free lips, self-government and the sovereignty of the individual.
It means that this continent has been dedicated to freedom.
It means universal education,—light for every mind, knowledge for every child.
It means that the schoolhouse is the fortress of Liberty.
It means that "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed;" that each man is accountable to and for the Government; that responsibility goes hand in hand with liberty.
It means that it is the duty of every citizen to bear his share of the public burden,—to take part in the affairs of his town, his county, his State and his country.
It means that the ballot-box is the Ark of the Covenant; that the source of authority must not be poisoned.
It means the perpetual right of peaceful revolution. It means that every citizen of the Republic—native or naturalized—must be protected; at home, in every State,—abroad, in every land, on every sea.
It means that all distinctions based on birth or blood, have perished from our laws; that our Government shall stand between labor and capital, between the weak and the strong, between the individual and the corporation, between want and wealth, and give the guarantee of simple justice to each and all.
It means that there shall be a legal remedy for every wrong.
It means national hospitality,—that we must welcome to our shores the exiles of the world, and that we may not drive them back. Some may be deformed by labor, dwarfed by hunger, broken in spirit, victims of tyranny and caste,—in whose sad faces may be read the touching record of a weary life; and yet their children, born of liberty and love, will be symmetrical and fair, intelligent and free.
That flag is the emblem of a supreme will—of a Nation's power. Beneath its folds the weakest must be protected and the strongest must obey. It shields and canopies alike the loftiest mansion and the rudest hut. That flag was given to the air in the Revolution's darkest days. It represents the sufferings of the past, the glories yet to be; and like the bow of heaven, it is the child of storm and sun.
This day is sacred to the great heroic host who kept this flag above our heads,—sacred to the living and the dead—sacred to the scarred and maimed,—sacred to the wives who gave their husbands, to the mothers who gave their sons.
Here in this peaceful land of ours,—here where the sun shines, where flowers grow, where children play, millions of armed men battled for the right and breasted on a thousand fields the iron storms of war.
These brave, these incomparable men, founded the first Republic. They fulfilled the prophecies; they brought to pass the dreams; they realized the hopes, that all the great and good and wise and just have made and had since man was man.
But what of those who fell? There is no language to express the debt we owe, the love we bear, to all the dead who died for us. Words are but barren sounds. We can but stand beside their graves and in the hush and silence feel what speech has never told.
They fought, they died; and for the first time since man has kept a record of events, the heavens bent above and domed a land without a serf, a servant or a slave.
* Empty sleeves worn by veterans with scanty locks and
grizzled mustaches graced the Metropolitan Opera House last
night. On the breasts of their faded uniforms glittered the
badges of the legions in which they had fought and suffered,
and beside them sat the wives and daughters, whose hearts
had ached at home while they served their country at the
front.
Every seat in the great Opera House was filled, and hundreds
stood, glad to And any place where they could see and hear.
And the gathering and the proceedings were worthy of the
occasion.
Mr. Depew upon taking the chair said that he had the chief
treat of the evening to present to the audience, and that
was Robert G. Ingersoll, the greatest living orator, and one
of the great controversialists of the age.
Then came the orator of the occasion Col. Ingersoll, whose
speech is printed herewith.
Enthusiastic cheers greeted all his points, and his audience
simply went wild at the end. It was a grand oration, and it
was listened to by enthusiastic and appreciative hearers,
upon whom not a single word was lost, and in whose hearts
every word awoke a responsive echo.
Nor did the enthusiasm which Col. Ingersoll created end
until the very last, when the whole assemblage arose and
sang "America" in a way which will never be forgotten by any
one present. It was a great ending of a great evening.—The
New York Times, May 31st, 1888.
New York City.
1888.
THIS is a sacred day—a day for gratitude and love.
To-day we commemorate more than independence, more than the birth of a nation, more than the fruits of the Revolution, more than physical progress, more than the accumulation of wealth, more than national prestige and power.
We commemorate the great and blessed victory over ourselves—the triumph of civilization, the reformation of a people, the establishment of a government consecrated to the preservation of liberty and the equal rights of man.
Nations can win success, can be rich and powerful, can cover the earth with their armies, the seas with their fleets, and yet be selfish, small and mean. Physical progress means opportunity for doing good. It means responsibility. Wealth is the end of the despicable, victory the purpose of brutality.
But there is something nobler than all these—something that rises above wealth and power—something above lands and palaces—something above raiment and gold—it is the love of right, the cultivation of the moral nature, the desire to do justice, the inextinguishable love of human liberty.
Nothing can be nobler than a nation governed by conscience, nothing more infamous than power without pity, wealth without honor and without the sense of justice.
Only by the soldiers of the right can the laurel be won or worn.
On this day we honor the heroes who fought to make our Nation just and free—who broke the shackles of the slave, who freed the masters of the South and their allies of the North. We honor chivalric men who made America the hope and beacon of the human race—the foremost Nation of the world.
These heroes established the first republic, and demonstrated that a government in which the legally expressed will of the people is sovereign and supreme is the safest, strongest, securest, noblest and the best.
They demonstrated the human right of the people, and of all the people, to make and execute the laws—that authority does not come from the clouds, or from ancestry, or from the crowned and titled, or from constitutions and compacts, laws and customs—not from the admissions of the great, or the concessions of the powerful and victorious—not from graves, or consecrated dust—not from treaties made between successful robbers—not from the decisions of corrupt and menial courts—not from the dead, but from the living—not from the past but from the present, from the people of to-day—from the brain, from the heart and from the conscience of those who live and love and labor.
The history of this world for the most part is the history of conflict and war, of invasion, of conquest, of victorious wrong, of the many enslaved by the few.
Millions have fought for kings, for the destruction and enslavement of their fellow-men. Millions have battled for empire, and great armies have been inspired by the hope of pillage; but for the first time in the history of this world millions of men battled for the right, fought to free not themselves, but others, not for prejudice, but for principle, not for conquest, but for conscience.
The men whom we honor were the liberators of a Nation, of a whole country, North and South—of two races. They freed the body and the brain, gave liberty to master and to slave. They opened all the highways of thought, and gave to fifty millions of people the inestimable legacy of free speech.
They established the free exchange of thought. They gave to the air a flag without a stain, and they gave to their country a Constitution that honest men can reverently obey. They destroyed the hateful, the egotistic and provincial—they established a Nation, a national spirit, a national pride and a patriotism as broad as the great Republic.
They did away with that ignorant and cruel prejudice that human rights depend on race or color, and that the superior race has the right to oppress the inferior. They established the sublime truth that the superior are the just, the kind, the generous, and merciful—that the really superior are the protectors, the defenders, and the saviors of the oppressed, of the fallen, the unfortunate, the weak and helpless. They established that greatest of all truths that nothing is nobler than to labor and suffer for others.
If we wish to know the extent of our debt to these heroes, these soldiers of the right, we must know what we were and what we are. A few years ago we talked about liberty, about the freedom of the world, and while so talking we enslaved our fellow-men. We were the stealers of babes and the whippers of women. We were in partnership with bloodhounds. We lived on unpaid labor. We held manhood in contempt. Honest toil was disgraceful—sympathy was a crime—pity was unconstitutional—humanity contrary to law, and charity was treason. Men were imprisoned for pointing out in heaven's dome the Northern Star—for giving food to the hungry, water to the parched lips of thirst, shelter to the hunted, succor to the oppressed. In those days criminals and courts, pirates and pulpits were in partnership—liberty was only a word standing for the equal rights of robbers.
For many years we insisted that our fathers had founded a free Government, that they were the lovers of liberty, believers in equal rights. We were mistaken. The colonists did not believe in the freedom of to-day. Their laws were filled with intolerance, with slavery and the infamous spirit of caste. They persecuted and enslaved. Most of them were narrow, ignorant and cruel. For the most part, their laws were more brutal than those of the nations from which they came. They branded the forehead of intelligence, bored with hot irons the tongue of truth. They persecuted the good and enslaved the helpless. They were believers in pillories and whipping-posts for honest, thoughtful men.
When their independence was secured they adopted a Constitution that legalized slavery, and they passed laws making it the duty of free men to prevent others from becoming free. They followed the example of kings and nobles. They knew that monarchs had been interested in the slave trade, and that the first English commander of a slave-ship divided his profits with a queen.
They forgot all the splendid things they had said—the great principles they had so proudly and eloquently announced. The sublime truths faded from their hearts. The spirit of trade, the greed for office, took possession of their souls. The lessons of history were forgotten. The voices coming from all the wrecks of kingdoms, empires and republics on the shores of the great river were unheeded and unheard.
If the foundation is not justice, the dome cannot be high enough, or splendid enough, to save the temple.
But above everything in the minds of our fathers was the desire for union—to create a Nation, to become a Power.
Our fathers compromised.
A compromise is a bargain in which each party defrauds the other, and himself.
The compromise our fathers made was the coffin of honor and the cradle of war.
A brazen falsehood and a timid truth are the parents of compromise.
But some—the greatest and the best—believed in liberty for all. They repeated the splendid sayings of the Roman: "By the law of nature all men are free;"—of the French King: "Men are born free and equal;"—of the sublime Zeno: "All men are by nature equal, and virtue alone establishes a difference between them."
In the year preceding the Declaration of Independence, a society for the abolition of slavery was formed in Pennsylvania and its first President was one of the wisest and greatest of men—Benjamin Franklin. A society of the same character was established in New York in 1785; its first President was John Jay—the second, Alexander Hamilton.
But in a few years these great men were forgotten. Parties rivaled each other in the defence of wrong. Politicians cared only for place and power. In the clamor of the heartless, the voice of the generous was lost. Slavery became supreme. It dominated legislatures, courts and parties; it rewarded the faithless and little; it degraded the honest and great.
And yet, through all these hateful years, thousands and thousands of noble men and women denounced the degradation and the crime. Most of their names are unknown. They have given a glory to obscurity. They have filled oblivion with honor.
In the presence of death it has been the custom to speak of the worthlessness, and the vanity, of life. I prefer to speak of its value, of its importance, of its nobility and glory.
Life is not merely a floating shadow, a momentary spark, a dream that vanishes. Nothing can be grander than a life filled with great and noble thoughts—with brave and honest deeds. Such a life sheds light, and the seeds of truth sown by great and loyal men bear fruit through all the years to be. To have lived and labored and died for the right—nothing can be sublimer.
History is but the merest outline of the exceptional—of a few great crimes, calamities, wars, mistakes and dramatic virtues. A few mountain peaks are touched, while all the valleys of human life, where countless victories are won, where labor wrought with love—are left in the eternal shadow.
But these peaks are not the foundation of nations. The forgotten words, the unrecorded deeds, the unknown sacrifices, the heroism, the industry, the patience, the love and labor of the nameless good and great have for the most part founded, guided and defended States. The world has been civilized by the unregarded poor, by the untitled nobles, by the uncrowned kings who sleep in unknown graves mingled with the common dust.
They have thought and wrought, have borne the burdens of the world. The pain and labor have been theirs—the glory has been given to the few.
The conflict came. The South unsheathed the sword. Then rose the embattled North, and these men who sleep to-night beneath the flowers of half the world, gave all for us.
They gave us a Nation—a republic without a slave—a republic that is sovereign, and to whose will every citizen and every State must bow. They gave us a Constitution for all—one that can be read without shame and defended without dishonor. They freed the brain, the lips and hands of men.
All that could be done by force was done. All that could be accomplished by the adoption of constitutions was done. The rest is left to education—the innumerable influences of civilization—to the development of the intellect, to the cultivation of the heart and the imagination.
The past is now a hideous dream.
The present is filled with pride, with gratitude, and hope.
Liberty is the condition of real progress. The free man works for wife and child—the slave toils from fear. Liberty gives leisure and leisure refines, beautifies and ennobles. Slavery gives idleness and idleness degrades, deforms and brutalizes.
Liberty and slavery—the right and wrong—the joy and grief—the day and night—the glory and the gloom of all the years.
Liberty is the word that all the good have spoken.
It is the hope of every loving heart—the spark and flame in every noble breast—the gem in every splendid soul—the many-colored dream in every honest brain.
This word has filled the dungeon with its holy light,—has put the halo round the martyr's head,—has raised the convict far above the king, and clad even the scaffold with a glory that dimmed and darkened every throne.
To the wise man, to the wise nation, the mistakes of the past are the torches of the present. The war is over. The institution that caused it has perished. The prejudices that fanned the flames are only ashes now. We are one people. We will stand or fall together. At last, with clear eyes we see that the triumph of right was a triumph for all. Together we reap the fruits of the great victory. We are all conquerors. Around the graves of the heroes—North and South, white and colored—together we stand and with uncovered heads reverently thank the saviors of our native land.
We are now far enough away from the conflict—from its hatreds, its passions, its follies and its glories, to fairly and philosophically examine the causes and in some measure at least to appreciate the results.
States and nations, like individuals, do as they must. Back of revolution, of rebellion, of slavery and freedom, are the efficient causes. Knowing this, we occupy that serene height from which it is possible to calmly pronounce a judgment upon the past.
We know now that the seeds of our war were sown hundreds and thousands of years ago—sown by the vicious and the just, by prince and peasant, by king and slave, by all the virtues and by all the vices, by all the victories and all the defeats, by all the labor and the love, the loss and gain, by all the evil and the good, and by all the heroes of the world.
Of the great conflict we remember only its glory and its lessons. We remember only the heroes who made the Republic the first of nations, and who laid the foundation for the freedom of mankind.
This will be known as the century of freedom. Slowly the hosts of darkness have been driven back.
In 1808 England and the United States united for the suppression of the slave-trade. The Netherlands joined in this holy work in 1818. France lent her aid in 1819 and Spain in 1820. In the same year the United States declared the traffic to be piracy, and in 1825 the same law was enacted by Great Britain. In 1826 Brazil agreed to suppress the traffic in human flesh. In 1833 England abolished slavery in the West Indies, and in 1843 in her East Indian possessions, giving liberty to more than twelve millions of slaves. In 1846 Sweden abolished slavery, and in 1848 it was abolished in the colonies of Denmark and France. In 1861 Alexander II., Czar of all the Russias, emancipated the serfs, and on the first day of January, 1863, the shackles fell from millions of the citizens of this Republic. This was accomplished by the heroes we remember to-day—this, in accordance with the Proclamation of Emancipation signed by Lincoln,—greatest of our mighty dead—Lincoln the gentle and the just—and whose name will be known and honored to "the last syllable of recorded time." And this year, 1888, has been made blessed and memorable forever—in the vast empire of Brazil there stands no slave.
Let us hope that when the next century looks from the sacred portals of the East, its light will only fall upon the faces of the free.
* By request, Col. Ingersoll closed this address with his
"Vision of War," to which he added "A Vision of the
Future." This accounts for its repetition in this volume.
The past rises before me like a dream. Again we are in the great struggle for national life. We hear the sounds of preparation—the music of boisterous drums—the silver voices of heroic bugles. We see thousands of assemblages, and hear the appeals of orators. We see the pale cheeks of women, and the flushed faces of men; and in those assemblages we see all the dead whose dust we have covered with flowers. We lose sight of them no more. We are with them when they enlist in the great army of freedom. We see them part with those they love. Some are walking for the last time in quiet, woody places, with the maidens they adore. We hear the whisperings and the sweet vows of eternal love as they lingeringly part forever. Others are bending over cradles, kissing babes that are asleep. Some are receiving the blessings of old men. Some are parting with mothers who hold them and press them to their hearts again and again, and say nothing. Kisses and tears, tears and kisses—divine mingling of agony and love! And some are talking with wives, and endeavoring with brave words, spoken in the old tones, to drive from their hearts the awful fear. We see them part. We see the wife standing in the door with the babe in her arms—standing in the sunlight sobbing. At the turn of the road a hand waves—she answers by holding high in her loving arms the child. He is gone, and forever.
We see them all as they march proudly away under the flaunting flags, keeping time to the grand, wild music of war—marching-down the streets of the great cities—through the towns and across the prairies—down to the fields of glory, to do and to die for the eternal right.
We go with them, one and all. We are by their side on all the gory fields—in all the hospitals of pain—on all the weary marches. We stand guard with them in the wild storm and under the quiet stars. We are with them in ravines running with blood—in the furrows of old fields. We are with them between contending hosts, unable to move, wild with thirst, the life ebbing slowly away among the withered leaves. We see them pierced by balls and torn with shells, in the trenches, by forts, and in the whirlwind of the charge, where men become iron, with nerves of steel.
We are with them in the prisons of hatred and famine; but human speech can never tell what they endured.
We are at home when the news comes that they are dead. We see the maiden in the shadow of her first sorrow. We see the silvered head of the old man bowed with the last grief.
The past rises before us, and we see four millions of human beings governed by the lash—we see them bound hand and foot—we hear the strokes of cruel whips—we see the hounds tracking women through tangled swamps. We see babes sold from the breasts of mothers. Cruelty unspeakable! Outrage infinite!
Four million bodies in chains—four million souls in fetters. All the sacred relations of wife, mother, father and child trampled beneath the brutal feet of might. And all this was done under our own beautiful banner of the free.
The past rises before us. We hear the roar and shriek of the bursting shell. The broken fetters fall. These heroes died. We look. Instead of slaves we see men and women and children. The wand of progress touches the auction block, the slave pen, the whipping post, and we see homes and firesides and school-houses and books, and where all was want and crime and cruelty and fear, we see the faces of the free.
These heroes are dead. They died for liberty—they died for us. They are at rest. They sleep in the land they made free, under the flag they rendered stainless, under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the tearful willows, and the embracing vines.
They sleep beneath the shadows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or of storm, each in the windowless Palace of Rest. Earth may run red with other wars—they are at peace. In the midst of battle, in the roar of conflict, they found the serenity of death. I have one sentiment for soldiers living and dead: Cheers for the living; tears for the dead.
A vision of the future rises:
I see our country filled with happy homes, with firesides of content,—the foremost land of all the earth.
I see a world where thrones have crumbled and where kings are dust. The aristocracy of idleness has perished from the earth.
I see a world without a slave. Man at last is free. Nature's forces have by Science been enslaved. Lightning and light, wind and wave, frost and flame, and all the secret, subtle powers of earth and air are the tireless toilers for the human race.
I see a world at peace, adorned with every form of art, with music's myriad voices thrilled, while lips are rich with words of love and truth; a world in which no exile sighs, no prisoner mourns; a world on which the gibbet's shadow does not fall; a world where labor reaps its full reward, where work and worth go hand in hand, where the poor girl trying to win bread with the needle—the needle that has been called "the asp for the breast of the poor,"—is not driven to the desperate choice of crime or death, of suicide or shame.
I see a world without the beggar's outstretched palm, the miser's heartless, stony stare, the piteous wail of want, the livid lips of lies, the cruel eyes of scorn.
I see a race without disease of flesh or brain,—shapely and fair,—the married harmony of form and function,—and, as I look, life lengthens, joy deepens, love canopies the earth; and over all, in the great dome, shines the eternal star of human hope.
* Delivered at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, June
29,1688.
Harrison and Morton.
1888.
FELLOW-CITIZENS, Ladies and Gentlemen—The speaker who is perfectly candid, who tells his honest thought, not only honors himself, but compliments his audience. It is only to the candid that man can afford to absolutely open his heart. Most people, whenever a man is nominated for the presidency, claim that they were for him from the very start—as a rule, claim that they discovered him. They are so anxious to be with the procession, so afraid of being left, that they insist that they got exactly the man they wanted.
I will be frank enough with you to say that the convention did not nominate my choice. I was for the nomination of General Gresham, believing that, all things considered, he was the best and most available man—a just judge, a soldier, a statesman. But there is something in the American blood that bows to the will of the majority. There is that splendid fealty and loyalty to the great principle upon which our Government rests; so that when the convention reached its conclusion, every Republican was for the nominee. There were good men from which to select this ticket. I made my selection, and did the best I could to induce the convention to make the same. Some people think, or say they think, that I made a mistake in telling the name of the man whom I was for. But I always know whom I am for, I always know what I am for, and I know the reasons why I am for the thing or for the man.
And it never once occurred to me that we could get a man nominated, or elected, and keep his name a secret. When I am for a man I like to stand by him, even while others leave, no matter if at last I stand alone. I believe in doing things above board, in the light, in the wide air. No snake ever yet had a skin brilliant enough, no snake ever crawled through the grass secretly enough, silently or cunningly enough, to excite my admiration. My admiration is for the eagle, the monarch of the empyrean, who, poised on outstretched pinions, challenges the gaze of all the world. Take your position in the sunlight; tell your neighbors and your friends what you are for, and give your reasons for your position; and if that is a mistake, I expect to live making only mistakes. I do not like the secret way, but the plain, open way; and I was for one man, not because I had anything against the others, who were all noble, splendid men, worthy to be Presidents of the United States.
Now, then, leaving that subject, two parties again confront each other. With parties as with persons goes what we call character. They have built up in the nation in which they live reputation, and the reputation of a party should be taken into consideration as well as the reputation of a man. What is this party? What has it done? What has it endeavored to do? What are the ideas in its brain? What are the hopes, the emotions and the loves in its heart? Does it wish to make the world grander and better and freer? Has it a high ideal? Does it believe in sunrise, or does it keep its back to the sacred east of eternal progress? These are the questions that every American should ask. Every man should take pride in this great Nation—America, with a star of glory in her forehead!—and every man should say, "I hope when I lie down in death I shall leave a greater and grander country than when I was born."
This is the country of humanity. This is the Government of the poor. This is where man has an even chance with his fellow-man. In this country the poorest man holds in his hand at the day of election the same unit, the same amount, of political power as the owner of a hundred millions. That is the glory of the United States.
A few days ago our party met in convention. Now, let us see who we are. Let us see what the Republican party is. Let us see what is the spirit that animates this great and splendid organization.
And I want you to think one moment, just one moment: What was this country when the first Republican President was elected? Under the law then, every Northern man was a bloodhound, pledged to catch human beings, who, led by the light of the Northern Star, were escaping to free soil. Remember that. And remember, too, that when our first President was elected we found a treasury empty, the United States without credit, the great Republic unable to borrow money from day to day to pay its current expenses. Remember that. Think of the glory and grandeur of the Republican party that took the country with an empty exchequer, and then think of what the Democratic party says to-day of the pain and anguish it has suffered administering the Government with a surplus!
We must remember what the Republican party has done—what it has accomplished for nationality, for liberty, for education and for the civilization of our race. We must remember its courage in war, its honesty in peace. Civil war tests to a certain degree the strength, the stability and the patriotism of a country. After the war comes a greater strain. It is a great thing to die for a cause, but it is a greater thing to live for it. We must remember that the Republican party not only put down a rebellion, not only created a debt of thousands and thousands of millions, but that it had the industry and the intelligence to pay that debt, and to give to the United States the best financial standing of any nation.
When this great party came together in Chicago what was the first thing the convention did? What was the first idea in its mind? It was to honor the memory of the greatest and grandest men the Republic has produced. The first name that trembled upon the lips of the convention was that of Abraham Lincoln—Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest and grandest men who ever lived, and, in my judgment, the greatest man that ever sat in the presidential chair. And why the greatest? Because the kindest, because he had more mercy and love in his heart than were in the heart of any other President. And so the convention paid its tribute to the great soldier, to the man who led, in company with others, the great army of freedom to victory, until the old flag floated over every inch of American soil and every foot of that territory was dedicated to the eternal freedom of mankind.
And what next did this convention do? The next thing was to send fraternal greetings to the Americans of Brazil. Why? Because Brazil had freed every slave, and because that act left the New World, this hemisphere, without a slave—left two continents dedicated to the freedom of man—so that with that act of Brazil the New World, discovered only a few years ago, takes the lead in the great march of human progress and liberty. That is the second thing the convention did. Only a little while ago the minister to this country from Brazil, acting under instructions from his government, notified the President of the United States that this sublime act had been accomplished—notified him that from the bodies of millions of men the chains of slavery had fallen—an act great enough to make the dull sky of half the world glow as though another morning had risen upon another day.
And what did our President say? Was he filled with enthusiasm? Did his heart beat quicker? Did the blood rush to his cheek? He simply said, as it is reported, "that he hoped time would justify the wisdom of the measure." It is precisely the same as though a man should quit a life of crime, as though some gentleman in the burglar business should finally announce to his friends: "I have made up my mind never to break into another house," and the friend should reply: "I hope that time will justify the propriety of that resolution."
That was the first thing, with regard to the condition of the world, that came into the mind of the Republican convention. And why was that? Because the Republican party has fought for liberty from the day of its birth to the present moment.
And what was the next? The next resolution passed by the convention was, "that we earnestly hope, we shall soon congratulate our fellow-citizens of Irish birth upon the peaceful recovery of home rule in Ireland."
Wherever a human being wears a chain, there you will find the sympathy of the Republican party. Wherever one languishes in a dungeon for having raised the standard of revolt in favor of human freedom, there you will find the sympathy of the Republican party. I believe in liberty for Ireland, not because it is Ireland, but because they are human beings, and I am for liberty, not as a prejudice, but as a principle.
The man rightfully in jail who wants to get out is a believer in liberty as a prejudice; but when a man out of jail sees a man wrongfully in jail and is willing to risk his life to give liberty to the man who ought to have it, that is being in favor of liberty as a principle. So I am in favor of liberty everywhere, all over the world, and wherever one man tries to govern another simply because he has been born a lord or a duke or a king, or wherever one governs another simply by brute force, I say that that is oppression, and it is the business of Americans to do all they can to give liberty to the oppressed everywhere.
Ireland should govern herself. Those who till the soil should own the soil, or have an opportunity at least of becoming the owners. A few landlords should not live in extravagance and luxury while those who toil live on the leavings, on parings, on crumbs and crusts. The treatment of Ireland by England has been one continuous crime. There is no meaner page in history.
What is the next thing in this platform? And if there is anything in it that anybody can object to, we will find it out to-night. The next thing is the supremacy of the Nation.-Why, even the Democrats now believe in that, and in their own platform are willing to commence that word with a capital N. They tell us that they are in favor of an indissoluble Union—just as I presume they always have been. But they now believe in a Union. So does the Republican party. What else? The Republican party believes, not in State Sovereignty, but in the preservation of all the rights reserved to the States by the Constitution.
Let me show you the difference: For instance, you make a contract with your neighbor who lives next door—equal partners—and at the bottom of the contract you put the following addition: "If there is any dispute as to the meaning of this contract, my neighbor shall settle it, and any settlement he shall make shall be final." Is there any use of talking about being equal partners any longer? Any use of your talking about being a sovereign partner? So, the Constitution of the United States says: "If any question arises between any State and the Federal Government it shall be decided by a Federal Court." That is the end of what they call State Sovereignty.
Think of a sovereign State that can make no treaty, that cannot levy war, that cannot coin money. But we believe in maintaining the rights of the States absolutely in their integrity, because we believe in local self-government. We deny, however, that a State has any right to deprive a citizen of his vote. We deny that the State has any right to violate the Federal law, and we go further and we say that it is the duty of the General Government to see to it that every citizen in every State shall have the right to exercise all of his privileges as a citizen of the United States—"the right of every lawful citizen," says our platform, "native or foreign, white or black, to cast a free ballot."
Let me say one word about that.
The ballot is the king, the emperor, the ruler of America; it is the only rightful sovereign of the Republic; and whoever refuses to count an honest vote, or whoever casts a dishonest vote, is a traitor to the great principle upon which our Government is founded. The man poisons, or endeavors to poison, the springs of authority, the fountains of justice, of rightful dominion and power; and until every citizen can cast his vote everywhere in this land and have that vote counted, we are not a republican people, we are not a civilized nation. The Republican party will not have finished its mission until this country is civilized. That is its business. It was born of a protest against barbarism.
The Republican party was the organized conscience of the United States. It had the courage to stand by what it believed to be right. There is something better even than success in this world; or in other words, there is only one kind of success, and that is to be for the right. Then whatever happens, you have succeeded.
Now, comes the next question. The Republican party not only wants to protect every citizen in his liberty, in his right to vote, but it wants to have that vote counted. And what else?
The next thing in this platform is protection for American labor.
I am going to tell you in a very brief way why I am in favor of protection. First, I want this Republic substantially independent of the rest of the world. You must remember that while people are civilized—some of them—so that when they have a quarrel they leave it to the courts to decide, nations still occupy the position of savages toward each other. There is no national court to decide a question, consequently the question is decided by the nations themselves, and you know what selfishness and greed and power and the ideas of false glory will do and have done. So that this Nation is not safe one moment from war. I want the Republic so that it can live although at war with all the world.
We have every kind of climate that is worth having. Our country embraces the marriage of the pine and palm; we have all there is of worth; it is the finest soil in the world and the most ingenious people that ever contrived to make the forces of nature do their work. I want this Nation substantially independent, so that if every port were blockaded we would be covered with prosperity as with a mantle. Then, too, the Nation that cannot take care of itself in war is always at a disadvantage in peace. That is one reason. Let me give you the next.
The next reason is that whoever raises raw material and sells it will be eternally poor. There is no State in this Union where the farmer raises wheat and sells it, that the farmer is not poor. Why? He only makes one profit, and, as a rule, that is a loss. The farmer that raises corn does better, because he can sell, not corn, but pork and beef and horses. In other words, he can make the second or third profit, and those farmers get rich. There is a vast difference between the labor necessary to raise raw material and the labor necessary to make the fabrics used by civilized men. Remember that; and if you are confined simply to raw material your labor will be unskilled; unskilled labor will be cheap, the raw material will be cheap, and the result is that your country will grow poorer and poorer, while the country that buys your raw material, makes it into fabrics and sells it back to you, will grow intelligent and rich. I want you to remember this, because it lies at the foundation of this whole subject. Most people who talk on this point bring forward column after column of figures, and a man to understand it would have to be a walking table of logarithms. I do not care to discuss it that way. I want to get at the foundation principles, so that you can give a reason, as well as myself, why you are in favor of protection.
Let us take another step. We will take a locomotive—a wonderful thing—that horse of progress, with its flesh of iron and steel and breath of flame—a wonderful thing. Let us see how it is made. Did you ever think of the deft and cunning hands, of the wonderfully accurate brains, that can make a thing like that? Did you ever think about it? How much do you suppose the raw material lying in the earth was worth that was changed into that locomotive? A locomotive that is worth, we will say, twelve thousand dollars; how much was the raw material worth lying in the earth, deposited there millions of years ago? Not as much as one dollar. Let us, just for the sake of argument, say five dollars. What, then, has labor added to the twelve thousand dollar locomotive? Eleven thousand nine hundred and ninety-five dollars. Now, why? Because, just to the extent that thought is mingled with labor, wages increase; just to the extent you mix mind with muscle, you give value to labor; just to the extent that the labor is skilled, deft, apt, just to that extent or in that proportion, is the product valuable. Think about it. Raw material! There is a piece of canvas five feet one way, three the other. Raw material would be to get a man to whitewash it; that is raw material. Let a man of genius paint a picture upon it; let him put in that picture the emotions of his heart, the landscapes that have made poetry in his brain, the recollection of the ones he loves, the prattle of children, a mother's tear, the sunshine of her smile, and all the sweet and sacred memories of his life, and it is worth five thousand dollars—ten thousand dollars.
Noise is raw material, but the great opera of "Tristan and Isolde" is the result of skilled labor. There is the same difference between simple brute strength and skilled labor that there is between noise and the symphonies of Beethoven. I want you to get this in your minds.
Now, then, whoever sells raw material gives away the great profit. You raise cotton and sell it; and just as long as the South does it and does nothing more the South will be poor, the South will be ignorant, and it will be solidly Democratic.
Now, do not imagine that I am saying anything against the Democratic party. I believe the Democratic party is doing the best it can under the circumstances. You know my philosophy makes me very charitable. You find out all about a man, all about his ancestors, and you can account for his vote always. Why? Because there are causes and effects in nature. There are sometimes antecedents and subsequents that have no relation to each other, but at the same time, all through the web and woof of events, you find these causes and effects, and if you only look far enough, you will know why a man does as he does.
I have nothing to say against the Democratic party. I want to talk against ideas, not against people. I do not care anything about their candidates, whether they are good, bad or indifferent. What, gentlemen, are your ideas? What do you propose to do? What is your policy? That is what I want to know, and I am willing to meet them upon the field of intellectual combat. They are in possession; they are in the rifle pits of office; we are in the open field, but we will plant our standard, the flag that we love, without a stain, and under that banner, upon which so many dying men have looked in the last hour when they thought of home and country—under that flag we will carry the Democratic fortifications.
Another thing; we want to get at this business so that we will understand what we are doing. I do not believe in protecting American industry for the sake of the capitalist, or for the sake of any class, but for the sake of the whole Nation. And if I did not believe that it was for the best interests of the whole Nation I should be opposed to it.
Let us take this next step. Everybody, of course, cannot be a farmer. Everybody cannot be a mechanic. All the people in the world cannot go at one business. We must have a diversity of industry. I say, the greater that diversity, the greater the development of brain in the country. We then have what you might call a mental exchange; men are then pursuing every possible direction in which the mind can go, and the brain is being developed upon all sides; whereas, if you all simply cultivated the soil, you would finally become stupid. If you all did only one business you would become ignorant; but by pursuing all possible avocations that call for taste, genius, calculation, discovery, ingenuity, invention—by having all these industries open to the American people, we will be able to raise great men and great women; and I am for protection, because it will enable us to raise greater men and greater women. Not only because it will make more money in less time, but because I would rather have greater folks and less money.
One man of genius makes a continent sublime. Take all the men of wealth from Scotland—who would know it? Wipe their names from the pages of history, and who would miss them? Nobody. Blot out one name, Robert Burns, and how dim and dark would be the star of Scotland. The great thing is to raise great folks. That is what we want to do, and we want to diversify all the industries and protect them all. How much? Simply enough to prevent the foreign article from destroying the domestic. But they say, then the manufacturers will form a trust and put the prices up. If we depend upon the foreign manufacturers will they not form trusts? We can depend on competition. What do the Democrats want to do? They want to do away with the tariff, so as to do away with the surplus. They want to put down the tariff to do away with the surplus. If you put down the tariff a small per cent, so that the foreign article comes to America, instead of decreasing, you will increase the surplus. Where you get a dollar now, you will get five then. If you want to stop getting anything from imports, you want to put the tariff higher, my friend.
Let every Democrat understand this, and let him also understand that I feel and know that he has the same interest in this great country that I have, and let me be frank enough and candid enough and honest enough to say that I believe the Democratic party advocates the policy it does because it believes it will be the best for the country. But we differ upon a question of policy, and the only way to argue it is to keep cool. If a man simply shouts for his side, or gets mad, he is a long way from any intellectual improvement.
If I am wrong in this, I want to be set right. If it is not to the interest of America that the shuttle shall keep flying, that wheels shall keep turning, that cloth shall be woven, that the forges shall flame and that the smoke shall rise from the numberless chimneys—if that is not to the interest of America, I want to know it. But I believe that upon the great cloud of smoke rising from the chimneys of the manufactories of this country, every man who will think can see the bow of national promise.
"Oh, but," they say, "you put the prices so high." Let me give you two or three facts: Only a few years ago I know that we paid one hundred and twenty-five dollars a ton for Bessemer steel. At that time the tariff was twenty-eight dollars a ton, I believe. I am not much on figures. I generally let them add it up, and I pay it and go on about my business. With the tariff at twenty-eight dollars a ton, that being a sufficient protection against Great Britain, the ingenuity of America went to work. Capital had the courage to try the experiment, and the result was that, instead of buying thousands and thousands and thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands and millions of tons of steel from Great Britain, we made it here in our own country, and it went down as low as thirty dollars a ton. Under this "rascally protection" it went down to one-fourth of what free trade England was selling it to us for.
And so I might go on all night with a thousand other articles; all I want to show you is that we want these industries here, and we want them protected just as long as they need protection. We want to rock the cradle just as long as there is a child in it. When the child gets to be seven or eight feet high, and wears number twelve boots, we will say: "Now you will have to shift for yourself." What we want is not simply for the capitalist, not simply for the workingmen, but for the whole country.
If there is any object worthy the attention of this or any other government, it is the condition of the workingmen. What do they do? They do all that is done. They are the Atlases upon whose mighty shoulders rests the fabric of American civilization. The men of leisure are simply the vines that run round this great sturdy oak of labor. If there is anything noble enough, and splendid enough to claim the attention of a nation, it is this question, and I hope the time will come when labor will receive far more than it does to-day. I want you all to think of it—how little, after all, the laboring man, even in America, receives.
[A voice: "Under protection."]
Yes, sir, even under protection. Take away that protection, and he is instantly on a level with the European serf. And let me ask that good, honest gentleman one question. If the laborer is better off in other countries, why does not the American laborer emigrate to Europe?
There is no place in the wide world where, in my judgment, labor reaps its true reward. There never has been. But I hope the time will come when the American laborer will not only make a living for himself, for his wife and children, but lay aside something to keep the roof above his head when the winter of age may come. My sympathies are all with them, and I would rather see thousands of... '' palaces of millionaires unroofed than to see desolation in the cabins of the poor. I know that this world has been made beautiful by those who have labored and those who have suffered. I know that we owe to them the conveniences of life, and I have more conveniences, I live a more luxurious life, than any monarch ever lived one hundred years ago. I have more conveniences than any emperor could have purchased with the revenue of his empire one hundred years ago. It is worth something to live in this age of the world.
And what has made us such a great and splendid and progressive and sensible people?
[A voice: "Free thought."]
Free thought, of course. Back of every invention is free thought. Why does a man invent? Slavery never invents; freedom invents. A slave working for his master tries to do the least work in the longest space of time, but a free man, working for wife and children, tries to do the most work in the shortest possible time. He is in love with what he is doing, consequently his head and his hands go in partnership; muscle and brain unite, and the result is that the head invents something to help the hands, and out of the brain leaps an invention that makes a slave of the forces of nature—those forces that have no backs to be whipped, those forces that shed no tears, those forces that are destined to work forever for the happiness of the human race.
Consequently I am for the protection of American labor, American genius, American thought. I do not want to put our workingmen on a level with the citizens of despotisms. Why do not the Democrats and others want the Chinese to come here? Are they in favor of being protected? Why is it that the Democrats and others object to penitentiary labor? I will tell you. They say that a man in the penitentiary can produce cheaper. He has no family to support, he has no children to look after; and they say, it is hardly fair to make the father of a family and an honest man compete with a criminal within the walls of a penitentiary. So they ask to be protected.
What is the difference whether a man is in the penitentiary, or whether he is in the despotism of some European state? "Ah, but," they say, "you let the laborer of Europe come here himself." Yes, and I am in favor of it always. Why? This world belongs to the human race. And when they come here, in a little while they have our wants, and if they do not their children do, and you will find the second generation of Irishmen or Germans or of any other nationality just as patriotic as the tenth generation from the first immigrant. I want them to come. Then they get our habits.
Who wants free trade? Only those who want us for their customers, who would like to sell us everything that we use—England, Germany, all those countries. And why? Because one American will buy more than one thousand, yes, five thousand Asiatics. America consumes more to-day than China and India, more than ten billion would of semi-civilized and barbarous peoples. What do they buy—what does England sell? A little powder, a little whiskey, cheap calico, some blankets—a few things of that kind. What does the American purchase? Everything that civilized man uses or that civilized man can want.
England wants this market. Give her free trade, and she will become the most powerful, the richest nation that ever had her territories marked upon the map of the world. And what do we become? Nobodies. Poor. Invention will be lost, our minds will grow clumsy, the wondrous, deft hand of the mechanic paralyzed—a great raw material producing country—ignorant, poor, barbaric. I want the cotton that is raised in this country to be spun here, to be woven into cloth. I want everything that we use to be made by Americans. We can make the cloth, we can raise the food to feed and to clothe this Nation, and the Nation is now only in its infancy.
Somehow people do not understand this. They really think we are getting filled up. Look at the map of this country. See the valley of the Mississippi. Put your hand on it. Trace the rivers coming from the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies, and sweeping down to the Gulf, and know that in the valley of the Mississippi, with its wondrous tributaries, there can live and there can be civilized and educated five hundred millions of human beings.
Let us have some sense. I want to show you how far this goes beyond the intellectual horizon of some people who hold office. For instance: We have a tariff on lead, and by virtue of that tariff on lead nearly every silver mine is worked in this country. Take the tariff from lead and there would remain in the clutch of the rocks, of the quartz misers, for all time, millions and millions of silver; but when that is put with lead, and lead runs with silver, they can make enough on lead and silver to pay for the mining, and the result is that millions and millions are added every year to the wealth of the United States.
Let me tell you another thing: There is not a State in the Union but has something it wants protected. And Louisiana—a Democratic State, and will be just as long as Democrats count the votes—Louisiana has the impudence to talk about free trade and yet it wants its sugar protected. Kentucky says free trade, except hemp; and if anything needs protection it is hemp. Missouri says hemp and lead. Colorado, lead and wool; and so you can make the tour of the States and every one is for free trade with an exception—that exception being to the advantage of that State, and when you put the exceptions together you have protected the industries of all the States.
Now, if the Democratic party is in favor of anything, it is in favor of free trade. If President Clevelands message means anything it means free trade. And why? Because it says to every man that gets protection: If you will look about you, you will find that you pay for something else that is protected more than you receive in benefits for what is protected of yours; consequently the logic of that is free trade. They believe in it I have no doubt. When the whole world is civilized, when men are everywhere free, when they all have something like the same tastes and ambitions, when they love their families and their children, when they want the same kind of food and roofs above them—if that day shall ever come—the world can afford to have its trade free, but do not put the labor of America on a par with the labor of the Old World.
Now, about taxes—internal revenue. That was resorted to in time of war. The Democratic party made it necessary. We had to tax everything to beat back the Democratic hosts, North and South. Now, understand me. I know that thousands and hundreds of thousands of individual Democrats were for this country, and were as pure patriots as ever marched beneath the flag. I know that—hundreds of thousands of them. I am speaking of the party organization that staid at home and passed resolutions that every time the Union forces won a victory the Constitution had been violated. I understand that. Those taxes were put on in time of war, because it was necessary. Direct taxation is always odious. A government dislikes, to be represented among all the people by a tax gatherer, by an official who visits homes carrying consternation and grief wherever he goes. Everybody, from the most ancient times of which I have ever read, until the present moment, dislikes a tax gatherer. I have never yet seen in any cemetery a monument with this inscription: "Sacred to the memory of the man who loved to pay his taxes." It is far better if we can collect the needed revenue of this Government indirectly. But, they say, you must not take the taxes off tobacco; you must not take the taxes off alcohol or spirits or whiskey. Why? Because it is immoral to take off the taxes. Do you believe that there was, on the average, any more drunkenness in this country before the tax was put on than there is now? I do not. I believe there is as much liquor drank to-day, per capita, as there ever was in the United States. I will not blame the Democratic party. I do not care what they drink. What they think is what I have to do with. I will be plain with them, because I know lots of fellows in the Democratic party, and that is the only bad thing about them—splendid fellows. And I know a good many Republicans, and I am willing to take my oath that that is the only good thing about them. So, let us all be fair.
I want the taxes taken from tobacco and whiskey; and why? Because it is a war measure that should not be carried on in peace; and in the second place, I do not want that system inaugurated in this country, unless there is an absolute necessity for it, and the moment the necessity is gone, stop it.
The moral side of this question? Only a couple of years ago, I think it was, the Prohibitionists said that they wanted this tax taken from alcohol. Why? Because as long as the Government licensed, as long as the Government taxed and received sixty millions of dollars in revenue, just so long the Government would make this business respectable, just so long the Government would be in partnership with this liquor crime. That is what they said then. Now we say take the tax off, and they say it is immoral. Now, I have a little philosophy about this. I may be entirely wrong, but I am going to give it to you. You never can make great men and great women, by keeping them out of the way of temptation. You have to educate them to withstand temptation. It is all nonsense to tie a man's hands behind him and then praise him for not picking pockets. I believe that temperance walks hand in hand with liberty. Just as life becomes valuable, people take care of it. Just as life is great, and splendid and noble, as long as the future is a kind of gallery filled with the ideal, just so long will we take care of ourselves and avoid dissipation of every kind. Do you know, I believe, as much as I believe that I am living, that if the Mississippi itself were pure whiskey and its banks loaf sugar, and all the flats covered with mint, and all the bushes grew teaspoons and tumblers, there would not be any more drunkenness than there is now!
As long as you say to your neighbor "you must not" there is something in that neighbor that says, "Well I will determine that for myself, and you just say that again and I will take a drink if it kills me." There is no moral question involved in it, except this: Let the burden of government rest as lightly as possible upon the shoulders of the people, and let it cause as little irritation as possible. Give liberty to the people. I am willing that the women who wear silks, satins and diamonds; that the gentlemen who smoke Havana cigars and drink champagne and Chateau Yquem; I am perfectly willing that they shall pay my taxes and support this Government, and I am willing that the man who does not do that, but is willing to take the domestic article, should go tax free.
Temperance walks hand in hand with liberty. You recollect that little old story about a couple of men who were having a discussion on this prohibition question, and the man on the other side said to the Prohibitionist: "How would you like to live in a community where every body attended to his own business, where every body went to bed regularly at night, got up regularly in the morning; where every man, woman and child was usefully employed during the day; no backbiting, no drinking of whiskey, no cigars, and where they all attended divine services on Sunday, and where no profane language was used?" "Why," said he, "such a place would be a paradise, or heaven; but there is no such place." "Oh," said the other man, "every well regulated penitentiary is that way." So much for the moral side of the question.
Another point that the Republican party calls the attention of the country to is the use that has been made of the public land. Oh, say the Democratic party, see what States, what empires have been given away by the Republican party—and see what the Republican party did with it. Road after road built to the great Pacific. Our country unified—the two oceans, for all practical purposes, washing one shore. That is what it did, and what else? It has given homes to millions of people in a civilized land, where they can get all the conveniences of civilization. And what else? Fifty million acres have been taken back by the Government. How was this done? It was by virtue of the provisions put in the original grants by the Republican party.
There is another thing to which the Republican party has called the attention of the country, and that is the admission of new States where there are people enough to form a State. Now, with a solid South, with the assistance of a few Democrats from the North, comes a State, North Dakota, with plenty of population, a magnificent State, filled with intelligence and prosperity. It knocks at the door for admission, and what is the question asked by this administration? Not "Have you the land, have you the wealth, have you the men and women?" but "Are you Democratic or Republican?" And being intelligent people, they answer: "We are Republicans." And the solid South, assisted by the Democrats of the North, says to that people: "The door is shut; we will not have you." Why? "Because you would add two to the Republican majority in the Senate." Is that the spirit in which a nation like this should be governed? When a State asks for admission, no matter what the politics of its people may be, I say, admit that State; put a star on the flag that will glitter for her.
The next thing the Republican party says is, gold and silver shall both be money. You cannot make every thing payable in gold—that would be unfair to the poor man. You shall not make every thing payable in silver—that would be unfair to the capitalist; but it shall be payable in gold and silver. And why ought we to be in favor of silver? Because we are the greatest silver producing nation in the world; and the value of a thing, other things being equal, depends on its uses, and being used as money adds to the value of silver. And why should we depreciate one of our own products by saying that we will not take it as money? I believe in bimetalism, gold and silver, and you cannot have too much of either or both. No nation ever died of a surplus, and in all the national cemeteries of the earth you will find no monument erected to a nation that died from having too much silver. Give me all the silver I want and I am happy.
The Republican party has always been sound on finance. It always knew you could not pay a promise with a promise. The Republican party always had sense enough to know that money could not be created by word of mouth, that you could not make it by a statute, or by passing resolutions in a convention. It always knew that you had to dig it out of the ground by good, honest work. The Republican party always knew that money is a commodity, exchangeable for all other commodities, but a commodity just as much as wheat or corn, and you can no more make money by law than you can make wheat or corn by law. You can by law, make a promise that will to a certain extent take the place of money until the promise is paid. It seems to me that any man who can even understand the meaning of the word democratic can understand that theory of money.
Another thing right in this platform. Free schools for the education of all the children in the land. The Republican party believes in looking out for the children. It knows that the a, b, c's are the breastworks of human liberty. They know that every schoolhouse is an arsenal, a fort, where missiles are made to hurl against the ignorance and prejudice of mankind; so they are for the free school.
And what else? They are for reducing the postage one-half. Why? Simply for the diffusion of intelligence. What effect will that have? It will make us more and more one people. The oftener we communicate with each other the more homogeneous we become. The more we study the same books and read the same papers the more we swap ideas, the more we become true Americans, with the same spirit in favor of liberty, progress and the happiness of the human race.
What next? The Republican party says, let us build ships for America—for American sailors. Let our fleets cover the seas, and let our men-of-war protect the commerce of the Republic—not that we can wrong some weak nation, but so that we can keep the world from doing wrong to us. This is all. I have infinite contempt for civilized people who have guns carrying balls weighing several hundred pounds, who go and fight poor, naked savages that can only throw boomerangs and stones.
I hold such a nation in infinite contempt.
What else is in this platform? You have no idea of the number of things in it till you look them over. It wants to cultivate friendly feelings with all the governments in North, Central and South America, so that the great continents can be one—instigated, moved, pervaded, inspired by the same great thoughts. In other words, we want to civilize this continent and the continent of South America. And what else? This great platform is in favor of paying—not giving, but paying—pensions to every man who suffered in the great war. What would we have said at the time? What, if the North could have spoken, would it have said to the heroes of Gettysburg on the third day? "Stand firm! We will empty the treasures of the Nation at your feet." They had the courage and the heroism to keep the hosts of rebellion back without that promise, and is there an American to-day that can find it in his heart to begrudge one solitary dollar that has found its way into the pocket of a maimed soldier, or into the hands of his widow or his orphan?
What would we have offered to the sailors under Farragut on condition that they would pass Forts St. Phillip and Jackson? What would we have offered to the soldiers under Grant in the Wilderness? What to the followers of Sherman and Sheridan? Do you know, I can hardly conceive of a spirit contemptible enough—and I am not now alluding to the President of the United States—I can hardly conceive of a spirit contemptible enough to really desire to keep a maimed soldier from the bounty of this Nation. It would be a disgrace and a dishonor if we allowed them to die in poorhouses, to drop by life's highway and to see their children mourning over their poor bodies, glorious with scars, maimed into immortality. I may do a great many bad things before I die, but I give you my word that so long as I live I will never vote for any President that vetoed a pension bill unless upon its face it was clear that the man was not a wounded soldier.
What next in this platform? For the protection of American homes. I am a believer in the home. I have said, and I say again—the hearthstone is the foundation of the great temple; the fireside is the altar where the true American worships. I believe that the home, the family, is the unit of good government, and I want to see the aegis of the great Republic over millions of happy homes.
That is all there is in this world worth living for. Honor, place, fame, glory, riches—they are ashes, smoke, dust, disappointment, unless there is somebody in the world you love, somebody who loves you; unless there is some place that you can call home, some place where you can feel the arms of children around your neck, some place that is made absolutely sacred by the love of others.
So I am for this platform. I am for the election of Harrison and Morton, and although I did nothing toward having that ticket nominated, because, I tell you, I was for Gresham, yet I will do as much toward electing the candidates, within my power, as any man who did vote on the winning side.
We have a good ticket, a noble, gallant soldier at the head; that is enough for me. He is in favor of liberty and progress. And you have for Vice-President a man that you all know better than I do, but a good, square, intelligent, generous man. That is enough for me. And these men are standing on the best platform that was ever adopted by the Republican party—a platform that stands for education, liberty, the free ballot, American industry; for the American policy that has made us the richest and greatest Nation of the globe.
* The Elmwood Reunion, participated in by six regiments,
came to a glorious close last evening. There were thousands
of people present. The city was gayly decorated with flags
and hunting, while pictures and busts of Col. Ingersoll were
in every show window. From early in the morning until noon,
delegations kept coming in, A special train arrived from
Peoria at 10.50 o'clock, bearing a large delegation of old
soldiers together with Col. Ingersoll and his daughter Maud.
He was met by the reception committee, and marched up the
street escorted by an army of veterans. When he arrived on
the west side of the public square, the lines were opened,
and he marched between, in review of his old friends and
comrades. The parade started as soon as it could be formed,
after the arrival of the special train.
Col. Ingersoll was greeted by a salute of thirteen guns from
Peoria's historic cannon, as he was escorted to the grand
stand by Spencer's band and the Peoria Veterans.
The reviewing stand was on the west side of the park. Here
the parade was seen by Col. Ingersoll and the other
distinguished guests, among whom were Congressmen Graff and
Prince, Mayor Day, Judges N. E. Worthington and I. C.
Pinkney, and the Hon. Clark E. Carr, who also made a speech
saying that the people cannot estimate the majesty of the
eloquence of Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, keeping alive the
flame of patriotism from 1860 to the present time. .
The parade was an imposing one, there were fully two
thousand five hundred old veterans in line who passed In
review before Col. Ingersoll, each one doffing his hat as he
marched by. The most pleasing feature of the exercises of
the day was the representation of the Living Flag by one
hundred and fifty little girls of Elmwood, at ten o' clock
under the direction of Col. Lem. H. Wiley, of Peoria. The
flag was presented on a large Inclined amphitheatre at the
left of the grand stand, and was the finest thing ever
witnessed lu this part of the country.
Following the presentation of the Living Flag, Chairman
Brown called the Reunion to order, and Col. Lem. H. Wiley,
National Bugler gave the assembly call.
Following the assembly call a male chorus rendered a song,
"Ring O Bells." The song was composed for the occasion by
Mr. E. R. Brown and was as follows:
"Welcome now that leader fearless,
Free of thought and grand of brain,
King of hearts and speaker peerless,
Hail our Ingersoll again." ***
Then Chairman, E. R. Brown, took charge of the meeting and
introduced Col. Ingersoll as the greatest of living orators,
referring to the time that the Colonel declared, a quarter
of a century ago, in Rouse's Hall, Peoria, that from that
time forth there would be one free man in Illinois, and
expressing Indebtedness to him for what had been done since
for the freedom and happiness of mankind, by his mighty
brain, his great spirit and his gentle heart.
He then spoke of Col. Ingersoll's residence in Peoria
county, paying an eloquent tribute to him, and concluded by
leading the distinguished gentleman to the front of the
stand. The appearance of Col. Ingersoll was a signal for a
mighty shout, which was heartily joined in by everybody
present, even the little girls composing the living flag,
cheering and waving their banners.
It was fully ten minutes before the cheering had subsided,
and when Col. Ingersoll commenced to speak it was renewed
and he was forced to wait for several minutes more. When
quiet was restored, he opened his address, and for an hour
and a half he held the vast audience spell-bound with his
eloquence and wit.
After Col. Ingersoll's speech the veterans crowded around
the stand to meet and grasp the hand of their comrade, and
the boys of the Eleventh Illinois Cavalry, his old regiment,
were especially profuse in their congratulations and thanks
for the splendid address he had delivered. His speeeh was
off-hand, only occasional reference being made to his short
notes. The Colonel then left the Park amid the yells of
delight of the old soldiers, every man of whom endeavored to
grasp his hand.
In the afternoon the veterans assembled in Liberty Hall by
themselves, the room being filled. Col. Ingersoll appeared
and was greeted with such cheers as he had not received
during the entire day. He then said good-bye to his old
comrades.—Chicago Inter-ocean and Peoria papers, Sept. 6th,
1896.
Elmwood, Ills.
1895.
LADIES and Gentlemen, Fellow-citizens, Old Friends and Comrades:
It gives me the greatest pleasure to meet again those with whom I became acquainted in the morning of my life. It is now afternoon. The sun of life is slowly sinking in the west, and, as the evening comes, nothing can be more delightful than to see again the faces that I knew in youth.
When first I knew you the hair was brown; it is now white. The lines were not quite so deep, and the eyes were not quite so dim. Mingled with this pleasure is sadness,—sadness for those who have passed away—for the dead.
And yet I am not sure that we ought to mourn for the dead. I do not know which is better—life or death. It may be that death is the greatest gift that ever came from nature's open hands. We do not know.
There is one thing of which I am certain, and that is, that if we could live forever here, we would care nothing for each other. The fact that we must die, the fact that the feast must end, brings our souls together, and treads the weeds from out the paths between our hearts.
And so it may be, after all, that love is a little flower that grows on the crumbling edge of the grave. So it may be, that were it not for death there would be no love, and without love all life would be a curse.
I say it gives me great pleasure to meet you once again; great pleasure to congratulate you on your good fortune—the good fortune of being a citizen of the first and grandest republic ever established upon the face of the earth.
That is a royal fortune. To be an heir of all the great and brave men of this land, of all the good, loving and patient women; to be in possession of the blessings that they have given, should make every healthy citizen of the United States feel like a millionaire.
This, to-day, is the most prosperous country on the globe; and it is something to be a citizen of this country.
It is well, too, whenever we meet, to draw attention to what has been done by our ancestors. It is well to think of them and to thank them for all their work, for all their courage, for all their toil.
Three hundred years ago our country was a vast wilderness, inhabited by a few savages. Three hundred years ago—how short a time; hardly a tick of the great clock of eternity—three hundred years; not a second in the life even of this planet—three hundred years ago, a wilderness; three hundred years ago, inhabited by a few savages; three hundred years ago a few men in the Old World, dissatisfied, brave and adventurous, trusted their lives to the sea and came to this land.
In 1776 there were only three millions of people all told. These men settled on the shores of the sea. These men, by experience, learned to govern themselves. These men, by experience, found that a man should be respected in the proportion that he was useful. They found, by experience, that titles were of no importance; that the real thing was the man, and that the real things in the man were heart and brain. They found, by experience, how to govern themselves, because there was nobody else here when they came. The gentlemen who had been in the habit of governing their fellow-men staid at home, and the men who had been in the habit of being governed came here, and, consequently, they had to govern themselves.
And finally, educated by experience, by the rivers and forests, by the grandeur and splendor of nature, they began to think that this continent should not belong to any other; that it was great enough to count one, and that they had the intelligence and manhood to lay the foundations of a nation.
It would be impossible to pay too great and splendid a tribute to the great and magnificent souls of that day. They saw the future. They saw this country as it is now, and they endeavored to lay the foundation deep; they endeavored to reach the bed-rock of human rights, the bed-rock of justice. And thereupon they declared that all men were born equal; that all the children of nature had at birth the same rights, and that all men had the right to pursue the only good,—happiness.
And what did they say? They said that men should govern men; that the power to govern should come from the consent of the governed, not from the clouds, not from some winged phantom of the air, not from the aristocracy of ether. They said that this power should come from men; that the men living in this world should govern it, and that the gentlemen who were dead should keep still.
They took another step, and said that church and state should forever be divorced. That is no harm to real religion. It never was, because real religion means the doing of justice; real religion means the giving to others every right you claim for yourself; real religion consists in duties of man to man, in feeding the hungry, in clothing the naked, in defending the innocent, and in saying what you believe to be true.
Our fathers had enough sense to say that, and a man to do that in 1776 had to be a pretty big fellow. It is not so much to say it now, because they set the example; and, upon these principles of which I have spoken, they fought the war of the Revolution.
At no time, probably, were the majority of our forefathers in favor of independence, but enough of them were on the right side, and they finally won a victory. And after the victory, those that had not been even in favor of independence became, under the majority rule, more powerful than the heroes of the Revolution.
Then it was that our fathers made a mistake. We have got to praise them for what they did that was good, and we will mention what they did that was wrong.
They forgot the principles for which they fought. They forgot the sacredness of human liberty, and, in the name of freedom, they made a mistake and put chains on the limbs of others.
That was their error; that was the poison that entered the American blood; that was the corrupting influence that demoralized presidents and priests; that was the influence that corrupted the United States of America.
That mistake, of course, had to be paid for, as all mistakes in nature have to be paid for. And not only do you pay for your mistake itself, but you pay at least ten per cent, compound interest. Whenever you do wrong, and nobody finds it out, do not imagine you have gotten over it; you have not. Nature knows it.
The consequences of every bad act are the invisible police that no prayers can soften, and no gold can bribe.
Recollect that. Recollect, that for every bad act, there will be laid upon your shoulder the arresting hand of the consequences; and it is precisely the same with a nation as it is with an individual. You have got to pay for all of your mistakes, and you have got to pay to the uttermost farthing. That is the only forgiveness known in nature. Nature never settles unless she can give a receipt in full.
I know a great many men differ with me, and have all sorts of bankruptcy systems, but Nature is not built that way.
Finally, slavery took possession of the Government. Every man who wanted an office had to be willing to step between a fugitive slave and his liberty.
Slavery corrupted the courts, and made judges decide that the child born in the State of Pennsylvania, whose mother had been a slave, could not be free.
That was as infamous a decision as was ever rendered, and yet the people, in the name of the law, did this thing, and the Supreme Court of the United States did not know right from wrong.
These dignified gentlemen thought that labor could be paid by lashes on the back—which was a kind of legal tender—and finally an effort was made to subject the new territory—the Nation—to the institution of slavery.
Then we had a war with Mexico, in which we got a good deal of glory and one million square miles of land, but little honor. I will admit that we got but little honor out of that war. That territory they wanted to give to the slaveholder.
In 1803 we purchased from Napoleon the Great, one million square miles of land, and then, in 1821, we bought Florida from Spain. So that, when the war came, we had about three million square miles of new land. The object was to subject all this territory to slavery.
The idea was to go on and sell the babes from their mothers until time should be no more. The idea was to go on with the branding-iron and the whip. The idea was to make it a crime to teach men, human beings, to read and write; to make every Northern man believe that he was a bulldog, a bloodhound to track down men and women, who, with the light of the North Star in their eyes, were seeking the free soil of Great Britain.
Yes, in these times we had lots of mean folks. Let us remember that.
And all at once, under the forms of law, under the forms of our Government, the greatest man under the flag was elected President. That man was Abraham Lincoln. And then it was that those gentlemen of the South said: "We will not be governed by the majority; we will be a law unto ourselves."
And let me tell you here to-day—I am somewhat older than I used to be; I have a little philosophy now that I had not at the nine o'clock in the morning portion of my life—and I do not blame anybody. I do not blame the South; I do not blame the Confederate soldier.
She—the South—was the fruit of conditions. She was born to circumstances stronger than herself; and do you know, according to my philosophy, (which is not quite orthodox), every man and woman in the whole world are what conditions have made them.
So let us have some sense. The South said, "We will not submit; this is not a nation, but a partnership of States." I am willing to go so far as to admit that the South expressed the original idea of the Government.
But now the question was, to whom did the newly acquired property belong? New States had been carved out of that territory; the soil of these States had been purchased with the money of the Republic, and had the South the right to take these States out of the Republic? That was the question.
The great West had another interest, and that was that no enemy, no other nation, should control the mouth of the Mississippi. I regard the Mississippi River as Nature's protest against secession. The old Mississippi River says, and swears to it, that this country shall be one, now and forever.
What was to be done? The South said, "We will never remain," and the North said, "You shall not go." It was a little slow about saying it, it is true. Some of the best Republicans in the North said, "Let it go." But the second, sober thought of the great North said, "No, this is our country and we are going to keep it on the map of the world."
And some who had been Democrats wheeled into line, and hundreds and thousands said, "This is our country," and finally, when the Government called for volunteers, hundreds and thousands came forward to offer their services. Nothing more sublime was ever seen in the history of this world.
I congratulate you to-day that you live in a country that furnished the greatest army that ever fought for human liberty in any country round the world. I want you to know that. I want you to know that the North, East and West furnished the greatest army that ever fought for human liberty. I want you to know that Gen. Grant commanded more men, men fighting for the right, not for conquest, than any other general who ever marshaled the hosts of war.
Let us remember that, and let us be proud of it. The millions who poured from the North for the defence of the flag—the story of their heroism has been told to you again and again. I have told it myself many times. It is known to every intelligent man and woman in the world. Everybody knows how much we suffered. Everybody knows how we poured out money like water; how we spent it like leaves of the forest. Everybody knows how the brave blood was shed. Everybody knows the story of the great, the heroic struggle, and everybody knows that at last victory came to our side, and how the last sword of the Rebellion was handed to Gen. Grant. There is no need to tell that story again.
But the question now, as we look back, is, was this country worth saving? Was the blood shed in vain? Were the lives given for naught? That is the question.
This country, according to my idea, is the one success of the world. Men here have more to eat, more to wear, better houses, and, on the average, a better education than those of any other nation now living, or any that has passed away.
Was the country worth saving?
See what we have done in this country since 1860. We were not much of a people then, to be honor bright about it. We were carrying, in the great race of national life, the weight of slavery, and it poisoned us; it paralyzed our best energies; it took from our politics the best minds; it kept from the bench the greatest brains.
But what have we done since 1860, since we really became a free people, since we came to our senses, since we have been willing to allow a man to express his honest thoughts on every subject?
Do you know how much good we did? The war brought men together from every part of the country and gave them an opportunity to compare their foolishness. It gave them an opportunity to throw away their prejudices, to find that a man who differed with them on every subject might be the very best of fellows. That is what the war did. We have been broadening ever since.
I sometimes have thought it did men good to make the trip to California in 1849. As they went over the plains they dropped their prejudices on the way. I think they did, and that's what killed the grass.
But to come back to my question, what have we done since 1860?
From 1860 to 1880, in spite of the waste of war, in spite of all the property destroyed by flame, in spite of all the waste, our profits were one billion three hundred and seventy-four million dollars. Think of it! From 1860 to 1880! That is a vast sum.
From 1880 to 1890 our profits were two billion one hundred and thirty-nine million dollars.
Men may talk against wealth as much as they please; they may talk about money being the root of all evil, but there is little real happiness in this world without some of it. It is very handy when staying at home and it is almost indispensable when you travel abroad. Money is a good thing. It makes others happy; it makes those happy whom you love, and if a man can get a little together, when the night of death drops the curtain upon him, he is satisfied that he has left a little to keep the wolf from the door of those who, in life, were dear to him. Yes, money is a good thing, especially since special providence has gone out of business.
I can see to-day something beyond the wildest dream of any patriot who lived fifty years ago. The United States to-day is the richest nation on the face of the earth. The old nations of the world, Egypt, India, Greece, Rome, every one of them, when compared with this great Republic, must be regarded as paupers.
How much do you suppose this Nation is worth to-day? I am talking about land and cattle, products, manufactured articles and railways. Over seventy thousand million dollars. Just think of it.
Take a thousand dollars and then take nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand; so you will have one thousand piles of one thousand each. That makes only a million, and yet the United States today is worth seventy thousand millions. This is thirty-five percent, more than Great Britain is worth.
We are a great Nation. We have got the land. This land was being made for many millions of years. Its soil was being made by the great lakes and rivers, and being brought down from the mountains for countless ages.
This continent was standing like a vast pan of milk, with the cream rising for millions of years, and we were the chaps that got there when the skimming commenced.
We are rich, and we ought to be rich. It is our own fault if we are not. In every department of human endeavor, along every path and highway, the progress of the Republic has been marvelous, beyond the power of language to express.
Let me show you: In 1860 the horse-power of all the engines, the locomotives and the steamboats that traversed the lakes and rivers—the entire power—was three million five hundred thousand. In 1890 the horse-power of engines and locomotives and steamboats was over seventeen million.
Think of that and what it means! Think of the forces at work for the benefit of the United States, the machines doing the work of thousands and millions of men!
And remember that every engine that puffs is puffing for you; every road that runs is running for you. I want you to know that the average man and woman in the United States to-day has more of the conveniences of life than kings and queens had one hundred years ago.
Yes, we are getting along.
In 1860 we used one billion eight hundred million dollars' worth of products, of things manufactured and grown, and we sent to other countries two hundred and fifty million dollars' worth.
In 1893 we used three billion eighty-nine million dollars' worth, and we sent to other countries six hundred and fifty-four million dollars' worth.
You see, these vast sums are almost inconceivable. There is not a man to-day with brains large enough to understand these figures; to understand how many cars this money put upon the tracks, how much coal was devoured by the locomotives, how many men plowed and worked in the fields, how many sails were given to the wind, how many ships crossed the sea.
I tell you, there is no man able to think of the ships that were built, the cars that were made, the mines that were opened, the trees that were felled—no man has imagination enough to grasp the meaning of it all. No man has any conception of the sea till he crosses it. I knew nothing of how broad this country is until I went over it in a slow train.
Since 1860 the productive power of the United States has more than trebled.
I like to talk about these things, because they mean good houses, carpets on the floors, pictures on the walls, some books on the shelves. They mean children going to school with their stomachs full of good food, prosperous men and proud mothers.
All my life I have taken a much deeper interest in what men produce than in what nature does. I would rather see the prairies, with the oats and the wheat and the waving corn, and the schoolhouse, and hear the thrush sing amid the happy homes of prosperous men and women—I would rather see these things than any range of mountains in the world. Take it as you will, a mountain is of no great value.
In 1860 our land was worth four billion five hundred million dollars; in 1890 it was worth fourteen billion dollars.
In 1860 all the railroads in the United States were worth four hundred million dollars, now they are worth a little less than ten thousand million dollars.
I want you to understand what these figures mean.
For thirty years we spent, on an average, one million dollars a day in building railroads.—I want you to think what that means. All that money had to be dug out of the ground. It had to be made by raising something or manufacturing something. We did not get it by writing essays on finance, or discussing the silver question. It had to be made with the ax, the plow, the reaper, the mower; in every form of industry; all to produce these splendid results.
We have railroads enough now to make seven tracks around the great globe, and enough left for side tracks. That is what we have done here, in what the European nations are pleased to call "the new world."
I am telling you these things because you may not know them, and I did not know them myself until a few days ago. I am anxious to give away information, for it is only by giving it away that you can keep it. When you have told it, you remember it. It is with information as it is with liberty, the only way to be dead sure of it is to give it to other people.
In 1860 the houses in the United States, the cabins on the frontier, the buildings in the cities, were worth six thousand million dollars. Now they are worth over twenty-two thousand million dollars. To talk about figures like these is enough to make a man dizzy.
In 1860 our animals of all kinds, including the Illinois deer—commonly called swine—the oxen and horses, and all others, were worth about one thousand million dollars; now they are worth about four thousand million dollars.
Are we not getting rich? Our national debt today is nothing. It is like a man who owes a cent and has a dollar.
Since 1860 we have been industrious. We have created two million five hundred thousand new farms. Since 1860 we have done a good deal of plowing; there have been a good many tired legs. I have been that way myself. Since 1860 we have put in cultivation two hundred million acres of land. Illinois, the best State in the Union, has thirty-five million acres of land, and yet, since 1860, we have put in cultivation enough land to make six States of the size of Illinois. That will give you some idea of the quantity of work we have done. I will admit I have not done much of it myself, but I am proud of it.
In 1860 we had four million five hundred and sixty-five thousand farmers in this country, whose land and implements were worth over sixteen thousand million dollars. The farmers of this country, on an average, are worth five thousand dollars, and the peasants of the Old World, who cultivate the soil, are not worth, on an average, ten dollars beyond the wants of the moment. The farmers of our country produce, on an average, about one million four hundred thousand dollars' worth of stuff a day.
What else? Have we in other directions kept pace with our physical development? Have we developed the mind? Have we endeavored to develop the brain? Have we endeavored to civilize the heart? I think we have.
We spend more for schools per head than any nation in the world. And the common school is the breath of life.
Great Britain spends one dollar and thirty cents per head on the common schools; France spends eighty cents; Austria, thirty cents; Germany, fifty cents; Italy, twenty-five cents, and the United States over two dollars and fifty cents.
I tell you the schoolhouse is the fortress of liberty. Every schoolhouse is an arsenal, filled with weapons and ammunition to destroy the monsters of ignorance and fear.
As I have said ten thousand times, the school-house is my cathedral. The teacher is my preacher.
Eighty-seven per cent, of all the people of the United States, over ten years of age, can read and write. There is no parallel for this in the history of the wide world.
Over forty-two millions of educated citizens, to whom are opened all the treasures of literature!
Forty-two millions of people, able to read and write! I say, there is no parallel for this. The nations of antiquity were very ignorant when compared with this great Republic of ours. There is no other nation in the world that can show a record like ours. We ought to be proud of it. We ought to build more schools, and build them better. Our teachers ought to be paid more, and everything ought to be taught in the public school that is worth knowing.
I believe that the children of the Republic, no matter whether their fathers are rich or poor, ought to be allowed to drink at the fountain of education, and it does not cost more to teach everything in the free schools than it does teaching reading and writing and ciphering.
Have we kept up in other ways? The post office tells a wonderful story. In Switzerland, going through the post office in each year, are letters, etc., in the proportion of seventy-four to each inhabitant. In England the number is sixty; in Germany, fifty-three; in France, thirty-nine; in Austria, twenty-four; in Italy, sixteen, and in the United States, our own home, one hundred and ten. Think of it. In Italy only twenty-five cents paid per head for the support of the public schools and only sixteen letters. And this is the place where God's agent lives. I would rather have one good schoolmaster than two such agents.
There is another thing. A great deal has been said, from time to time, about the workingman. I have as much sympathy with the workingman as anybody on the earth—who does not work. There has always been a desire in this world to let somebody else do the work, nearly everybody having the modesty to stand back whenever there is anything to be done. In savage countries they make the women do the work, so that the weak people have always the bulk of the burdens. In civilized communities the poor are the ones, of course, that work, and probably they are never fully paid. It is pretty hard for a manufacturer to tell how much he can pay until he sells the stuff which he manufactures. Every man who manufactures is not rich. I know plenty of poor corporations; I know tramp railroads that have not a dollar. And you will find some of them as anarchistic as you will find their men. What a man can pay, depends upon how much he can get for what he has produced. What the farmer can pay his help depends upon the price he receives for his stock, his corn and his wheat.
But wages in this country are getting better day by day. We are getting a little nearer to being civilized day by day, and when I want to make up my mind on a subject I try to get a broad view of it, and not decide it on one case.
In 1860 the average wages of the workingman were, per year, two hundred and eighty-nine dollars. In 1890 the average was four hundred and eighty-five. Thus the average has almost doubled in thirty years. The necessaries of life are far cheaper than they were in 1860. Now, to my mind, that is a hopeful sign. And when I am asked how can the dispute between employer and employee be settled, I answer, it will be settled when both parties become civilized.
It takes a long time to educate a man up to the point where he does not want something for nothing. Yet, when a man is civilized, he does not.
He wants for a thing just what it is worth; he wants to give labor its legitimate reward, and when he has something to sell he never wants more than it is worth. I do not claim to be civilized myself; but all these questions between capital and labor will be settled by civilization.
We are to-day accumulating wealth at the rate of more than seven million dollars a day. Is not this perfectly splendid?
And in the midst of prosperity let us never forget the men who helped to save our country, the men whose heroism gave us the prosperity we now enjoy.
We have one-seventh of the good land of this world. You see there is a great deal of poor land in the world. I know the first time I went to California, I went to the Sink of the Humboldt, and what a forsaken look it had. There was nothing there but mines of brimstone. On the train, going over, there was a fellow who got into a dispute with a minister about the first chapter of Genesis. And when they got along to the Sink of the Humboldt the fellow says to the minister:
"Do you tell me that God made the world in six days, and then rested on the seventh?"
He said, "I do."
"Well," said the fellow, "don't you think he could have put in another day here to devilish good advantage?"
But, as I have said, we have got about one-seventh of the good land of the world. I often hear people say that we have too many folks here; that we ought to stop immigration; that we have no more room. The people who say this know nothing of their country. They are ignorant of their native land. I tell you that the valley of the Mississippi and the valleys of its tributaries can support a population of five hundred millions of men, women, and children. Don't talk of our being overpopulated; we have only just started.
Here, in this land of ours, five hundred million men and women and children can be supported and educated without trouble. We can afford to double two or three times more. But what have we got to do? We have got to educate them when they come. That is to say, we have got to educate their children, and in a few generations we will have them splendid American citizens, proud of the Republic.
We have no more patriotic men under the flag than the men who came from other lands, the hundreds and thousands of those who fought to preserve this country. And I think just as much of them as I would if they had been born on American soil. What matters it where a man was born? It is what is inside of him you have to look at—what kind of a heart he has, and what kind of a head. I do not care where he was born; I simply ask, Is he a man? Is he willing to give to others what he claims for himself? That is the supreme test.
Now, I have got a hobby. I do not suppose any of you have heard of it. I think the greatest thing for a country is for all of its citizens to have a home. I think it is around the fireside of home that the virtues grow, including patriotism. We want homes.
Until a few years ago it was the custom to put men in prison for debt. The authorities threw a man into jail when he owed something which he could not pay, and by throwing him into jail they deprived him of an opportunity to earn what would pay it. After a little time they got sense enough to know that they could not collect a debt in this way, and that it was better to give him his freedom and allow him to earn something, if he could. Therefore, imprisonment for debt was done away with.
At another time, when a man owed anything, if he was a carpenter, a blacksmith or a shoemaker, and not able to pay it, they took his tools, on a writ of sale and execution, and thus incapacitated him so that he could do nothing. Finally they got sense enough to abolish that law, to leave the mechanic his tools and the farmer his plows, horses and wagons, and after this, debts were paid better than ever they were before.
Then we thought of protecting the home-builder, and we said: "We will have a homestead exemption. We will put a roof over wife and child, which shall be exempt from execution and sale," and so we preserved hundreds of thousands and millions of homes, while debts were paid just as well as ever they were paid before.
Now, I want to take a step further. I want, the rich people of this country to support it. I want the people who are well off to pay the taxes. I want the law to exempt a homestead of a certain value, say from two thousand dollars to two thousand five hundred, and to exempt it, not only from sale on judgment and execution, but to exempt it from taxes of all sorts and kinds. I want to keep the roof over the heads of children when the man himself is gone. I want that homestead to belong not only to the man, but to wife and children. I would like to live to see a roof over the heads of all the families of the Republic. I tell you, it does a man good to have a home. You are in partnership with nature when you plant a hill of corn. When you set out a tree you have a new interest in this world. When you own a little tract of land you feel as if you and the earth were partners. All these things dignify human nature.
Bad as I am, I have another hobby. There are thousands and thousands of criminals in our country. I told you a little while ago I did not blame the South, because of the conditions which prevailed in the South. The people of the South did as they must. I am the same about the criminal. He does as he must.
If you want to stop crime you must treat it properly. The conditions of society must not be such as to produce criminals.
When a man steals and is sent to the penitentiary he ought to be sent there to be reformed and not to be brutalized; to be made a better man, not to be robbed.
I am in favor, when you put a man in the penitentiary, of making him work, and I am in favor of paying him what his work is worth, so that in five years, when he leaves the prison cell, he will have from two hundred dollars to three hundred dollars as a breastwork between him and temptation, and something for a foundation upon which to build a nobler life.
Now he is turned out and before long he is driven back. Nobody will employ him, nobody will take him, and, the night following the day of his release he is without a roof over his head and goes back to his old ways. I would allow him to change his name, to go to another State with a few hundred dollars in his pocket and begin the world again.
We must recollect that it is the misfortune of a man to become a criminal.
I have hobbies and plenty of them.
I want to see five hundred millions of people living here in peace. If we want them to live in peace, we must develop the brain, civilize the heart, and above all things, must not forget education. Nothing should be taught in the school that somebody does not know.
When I look about me to-day, when I think of the advance of my country, then I think of the work that has been done.
Think of the millions who crossed the mysterious sea, of the thousands and thousands of ships with their brave prows towards the West.
Think of the little settlements on the shores of the ocean, on the banks of rivers, on the edges of forests.
Think of the countless conflicts with savages—of the midnight attacks—of the cabin floors wet with the blood of dead fathers, mothers and babes.
Think of the winters of want, of the days of toil, of the nights of fear, of the hunger and hope.
Think of the courage, the sufferings and hardships.
Think of the homesickness, the disease and death.
Think of the labor; of the millions and millions of trees that were felled, while the aisles of the great forests were filled with the echoes of the ax; of the many millions of miles of furrows turned by the plow; of the millions of miles of fences built; of the countless logs changed to lumber by the saw—of the millions of huts, cabins and houses.
Think of the work. Listen, and you will hear the hum of wheels, the wheels with which our mothers spun the flax and wool. Listen, and you will hear the looms and flying shuttles with which they wove the cloth.
Think of the thousands still pressing toward the West, of the roads they made, of the bridges they built; of the homes, where the sunlight fell, where the bees hummed, the birds sang and the children laughed; of the little towns with mill and shop, with inn and schoolhouse; of the old stages, of the crack of the whips and the drivers' horns; of the canals they dug.
Think of the many thousands still pressing toward the West, passing over the Alleghanies to the shores of the Ohio and the great lakes—still onward to the Mississippi—the Missouri.
See the endless processions of covered wagons drawn by horses, by oxen,—men and boys and girls on foot, mothers and babes inside. See the glimmering camp fires at night; see the thousands up with the sun and away, leaving the perfume of coffee on the morning air, and sometimes leaving the new-made grave of wife or child. Listen, and you will hear the cry of "Gold!" and you will see many thousands crossing the great plains, climbing the mountains and pressing on to the Pacific.
Think of the toil, the courage it has taken to possess this land!
Think of the ore that was dug, the furnaces that lit the nights with flame; of the factories and mills by the rushing streams.
Think of the inventions that went hand in hand with the work; of the flails that were changed to threshers; of the sickles that became cradles, and the cradles that were changed to reapers and headers—of the wooden plows that became iron and steel; of the spinning wheel that became the jennie, and the old looms transformed to machines that almost think—of the steamboats that traversed the rivers, making the towns that were far apart neighbors and friends; of the stages that became cars, of the horses changed to locomotives with breath of flame, and the roads of dust and mud to highways of steel, of the rivers spanned and the mountains tunneled.
Think of the inventions, the improvements that changed the hut to the cabin, the cabin to the house, the house to the palace, the earthen floors and bare walls to carpets and pictures—that changed famine to feast—toil to happy labor and poverty to wealth.
Think of the cost.
Think of the separation of families—of boys and girls leaving the old home—taking with them the blessings and kisses of fathers and mothers. Think of the homesickness, of the tears shed by the mothers left by the daughters gone. Think of the millions of brave men deformed by labor now sleeping in their honored graves.
Think of all that has been wrought, endured and accomplished for our good, and let us remember with gratitude, with love and tears the brave men, the patient loving women who subdued this land for us.
Then think of the heroes who served this country; who gave us this glorious present and hope of a still more glorious future; think of the men who really made us free, who secured the blessings of liberty, not only to us, but to billions yet unborn.
This country will be covered with happy homes and free men and free women.
To-day we remember the heroic dead, those whose blood reddens the paths and highways of honor; those who died upon the field, in the charge, in prison-pens, or in famine's clutch; those who gave their lives that liberty should not perish from the earth. And to-day we remember the great leaders who have passed to the realm of silence, to the land of shadow. Thomas, the rock of Chickamauga, self-poised, firm, brave, faithful; Sherman, the reckless, the daring, the prudent and the victorious; Sheridan, a soldier fit to have stood by Julius Cæsar and to have uttered the words of command; and Grant, the silent, the invincible, the unconquered; and rising above them all, Lincoln, the wise, the patient, the merciful, the grandest figure in the Western world. We remember them all today and hundreds of thousands who are not mentioned, but who are equally worthy, hundreds of thousands of privates, deserving of equal honor with the plumed leaders of the host.
And what shall I say to you, survivors of the death-filled days? To you, my comrades, to you whom I have known in the great days, in the time when the heart beat fast and the blood flowed strong; in the days of high hope—what shall I say? All I can say is that my heart goes out to you, one and all. To you who bared your bosoms to the storms of war; to you who left loved ones to die, if need be, for the sacred cause. May you live long in the land you helped to save; may the winter of your age be as green as spring, as full of blossoms as summer, as generous as autumn, and may you, surrounded by plenty, with your wives at your sides and your grandchildren on your knees, live long. And when at last the fires of life burn low; when you enter the deepening dusk of the last of many, many happy days; when your brave hearts beat weak and slow, may the memory of your splendid deeds; deeds that freed your fellow-men; deeds that kept your country on the map of the world; deeds that kept the flag of the Republic in the air—may the memory of these deeds fill your souls with peace and perfect joy. Let it console you to know that you are not to be forgotten. Centuries hence your story will be told in art and song, and upon your honored graves flowers will be lovingly laid by millions' of men and women now unborn.
Again expressing the joy that I feel in having met you, and again saying farewell to one and all, and wishing you all the blessings of life, I bid you goodbye.*
* At the last reunion of the Eleventh Illinois Cavalry, the
Colonel's old regiment, and the soldiers of Peoria county,
which Mr. Ingersoll attended, a little incident happened
which let us into the inner circle of his life. The meeting
was held at Elmwood. While the soldier were passing in
review the citizens and young people filled all the seats in
the park and crowded around the speaker's stand, so as to
occupy all available space. When the soldiers had finished
their parade and returned to the park, they found it
impossible to get near the speaker. Of course we were all
disappointed, but were forced to stand on the outskirts of
the vast throng.
As soon as he ceased speaking, Mr. Ingersoll said to a
soldier that he would like to meet his comrades in the hall
at a certain hour in the afternoon. The word spread quickly,
and at the appointed hour the hall was crowded with
soldiers. The guard stationed at tue door was ordered to let
none but soldiers pass into the hall. Some of the comrades,
however, brought their wives. The guards, true to their
orders, refused to let the ladies pass. Just as Mr.
Ingersoll was ready to speak, word came to him that some of
the comrades' wives were outside and wanted permission to
pass the guard. The hall was full, but Mr. Ingersoll
requested all comrades whose wives were within reach to go
and get them. When his order had been complied with even
standing room was at a premium. When Mr. Ingersoll arose to
speak to that great assemblage of white-haired veterans and
their aged companions his voice was unusually tender, and the
wave of emotion that passed through the hall cannot be told
in words. Tears and cheers blended as Mr. Ingersoll arose
and began his speech with the statement that all present
were nearing the setting sun of life, and in all probability
that was the last opportunity many of them would have of
taking each other by the hand.
In this half-hour impromptu speech the great-hearted man,
Robert G. Ingersoll, was seen at his best. It was not a
clash of opinions over party or creed, but it was a meeting
of hearts and communion together In the holy of holies of
human life. The address was a series of word-pictures that
still hang on the walls of memory. The speaker, in his most
sympathetic mood, drew a picture of the service of the G. A.
R., of the women of the republic, and then paid a beautiful
tribute to home and invoked the kindest and greatest
influence to guard his comrades and their companions during
the remainder of life's journey.
We got very close to the man that day, where we could see
the heart of Mr. Ingersoll. I have often wished that a
reporter could have been present to preserve the address.
Imagine four beautiful word-paintings entitled, "The Service
of the G. A. R.," "The Influence of Noble Womanhood," "The
Sacredness of Home," and "The Pilgrimage of Life." Imagine
these word-paintings as drawn by Mr. Ingersoll under the
most favorable circumstances, and you have an idea of that
address. Mr. Ingersoll the Agnostic is a very different man
from Mr. Ingersoll the man and patriot. I cannot share the
doubts of this Agnostic. I cannot help admiring the man and
patriot.—The Rev. Frank McAlpine, Peoria Star, August 1,
1895.
* "This world will see but one Ingersoll."
Such was the terse, laconic, yet potent utterance that came
spontaneously from a celebrated statesman whose head is now
pillowed in the dust of death, as he stood in the lobby of
the old Burnet House in Cincinnati after the famous
Republican Convention in that city in 1876, at which Colonel
Robert G. Ingersoll made that powerful speech nominating
Blaine for the Presidency, one which is read and reread to-
day, and will be read in the future, as an example of the
highest art of the platform.
That same sentiment in thought, emotion or vocal expression
emanated from upward of twenty thousand citizens last night
who heard the eloquent and magic Ingersoll in the great
tent stretched near the corner of Sacramento avenue and Lake
street as he expounded the living gospel of true
Republicanism.
The old warhorse, silvered by long years of faithful service
to his country, aroused the same all-pervading enthusiasm as
he did in the campaigns of Grant and Hayes and Garfield.
He has lost not one whit, not one iota of his striking
physical presence, his profound reasoning, his convincing
logic, his rollicking wit, grandiloquence—in fine, all the
graces of the orator of old, reenforced by increased
patriotism and the ardor of the call to battle for his
country, are still his in the fullest measure.
Ingersoll in his powerful speech at Cincinnati, spoke in
behalf of a friend; last night he plead for his country. In
1876 he eulogized a man; last night, twenty years afterward,
he upheld the principles of democratic government. Such was
the difference in his theme; the logic, the eloquence of his
utterances was the more profound In the same ratio.
He came to the ground floor of human existence and talked as
man to man. His patriotism, be it religion, sentiment, or
that lofty spirit inseparable from man's soul, is his life.
Last night he sought to inspire those who heard him with the
same loyalty, and he succeeded.
Those passionate outbursts of eloquence, the wit that fairly
scintillated, the logic as Inexorable as heaven's decrees,
his rich rhetoric and immutable facts driven straight to his
hearers with the strength of bullets, aroused applause that
came as spontaneous as sunlight.
Now eliciting laughter, now silence, now cheers, the great
orator, with the singular charm of presence, manner and
voice, swayed his immense audience at his own volition.
Packed with potency was every sentence, each word a living
thing, and with them he flayed financial heresy, laid bare
the dire results of free trade, and exposed the dangers of
Populism.
It was an immense audience that greeted him. The huge tent
was packed from center-pole to circumference, and thousands
went away because they could not gain entrance. The houses
in the vicinity were beautifully illuminated decorated.
The Chairman, Wm. P. McCabe, in a brief but forcible speech,
presented Colonel Ingersoll to the vast audience. As the old
veteran of rebellion days arose from his seat, one
prolonged, tremendous cheer broke forth from the twenty
thousand throats. And it was fully fifteen minutes before
the great orator could begin to deliver his address.
In his introductory speech Mr. McCabe said:
"Friends and Fellow-Citizens: I have no set speech to make
to-night. My duty Is to introduce to you one whose big heart
and big brain is filled with love and patriotic care for the
things that concern the country he fought for and loved so
well. I now have the honor of introducing to you Hon. Robert
G. Ingersoll."—The Intrr-Ocean, Chicago, 111., October 9th,
1895.
1896.
LADIES and Gentlemen: This is our country.
The legally expressed will of the majority is the supreme law of the land. We are responsible for what our Government does. We cannot excuse ourselves because of the act of some king, or the opinions of nobles. We are the kings. We are the nobles. We are the aristocracy of America, and when our Government does right we are honored, and when our Government does wrong the brand of shame is on the American brow.
Again we are on the field of battle, where thought contends with thought, the field of battle where facts are bullets and arguments are swords.
To-day there is in the United States a vast congress consisting of the people, and in that congress every man has a voice, and it is the duty of every man to inquire into all questions presented, to the end that he may vote as a man and as a patriot should.
No American should be dominated by prejudice. No man standing under our flag should follow after the fife and drum of a party. He should say to himself: "I am a free man, and I will discharge the obligations of an American citizen with all the intelligence I possess."
I love this country because the people are free; and if they are not free it is their own fault.
To-night I am not going to appeal to your prejudices, if you have any. I am going to talk to the sense that you have. I am going to address myself to your brain and to your heart. I want nothing of you except that you will preserve the institutions of the Republic; that you will maintain her honor unstained. That is all I ask.
I admit that all the parties who disagree with me are honest. Large masses of mankind are always honest, the leader not always, but the mass of people do what they believe to be right. Consequently there is no argument in abuse, nothing calculated to convince in calumny. To be kind, to be candid, is far nobler, far better, and far more American. We live in a Democracy, and we admit that every other human being has the same right to think, the same right to express his thought, the same right to vote that we have, and I want every one who hears me to vote in exact accord with his sense, to cast his vote in accordance with his conscience. I want every one to do the best he can for the great Republic, and no matter how he votes, if he is honest, I shall find no fault.
But the great thing is to understand what you are going to do; the great thing is to use the little sense that we have. In most of us the capital is small, and it ought to be turned often. We ought to pay attention, we ought to listen to what is said and then think, think for ourselves.
Several questions have been presented to the American people for their solution, and I propose to speak a little about those questions, and I do not want you to pretend to agree with me. I want no applause unless you honestly believe I am right.
Three great questions are presented: First, as to money; second, as to the tariff, and third, whether this Government has the right of self-defence. Whether this is a Government of law, or whether there shall be an appeal from the Supreme Court to a mob. These are the three questions to be answered next Tuesday by the American people.
First, let us take up this money question. Thousands and thousands of speeches have been made on the subject. Pamphlets thick as the leaves of autumn have been scattered from one end of the Republic to the other, all about money, as if it were an exceedingly metaphysical question, as though there were something magical about it.
What is money? Money is a product of nature. Money is a part of nature. Money is something that man cannot create. All the legislatures and congresses of the world cannot by any possibility create one dollar, any more than they could suspend the attraction of gravitation or hurl a new constellation into the concave sky. Money is not made. It has to be found. It is dug from the crevices of rocks, washed from the sands of streams, from the gravel of ancient valleys; but it is not made. It cannot be created. Money is something that does not have to be redeemed. Money is the redeemer. And yet we have a man running for the presidency on three platforms with two Vice-Presidents, who says that money is the creature of law. It may be that law sometimes is the creature of money, but money was never the creature of law.
A nation can no more create money by law than it can create corn and wheat and barley by law, and the promise to pay money is no nearer money than a warehouse receipt is grain, or a bill of fare is a dinner. If you can make money by law, why should any nation be poor?
The supply of law is practically unlimited. Suppose one hundred people should settle on an island, form a government, elect a legislature. They would have the power to make law, and if law can make money, if money is the creature of law, why should not these one hundred people on the island be as wealthy as Great Britain? What is to hinder? And yet we are told that money is the creature of law. In the financial world that is as absurd as perpetual motion in mechanics; it is as absurd as the fountain of eternal youth, the philosopher's stone, or the transmutation of metals.
What is a dollar? People imagine that a piece of paper with pictures on it, with signatures, is money. The greenback is not money—never was; never will be. It is a promise to pay money; not money. The note of the nation is no nearer money than the note of an individual. A bank note is not money. It is a promise to pay money; that is all.
Well, what is a dollar? In the civilized world it is twenty-three grains and twenty-two one hundredths of pure gold. That is a dollar. Well, cannot we make dollars out of silver? Yes, I admit it, but in order to make a silver dollar you have got to put a dollars worth of silver in the silver dollar, and you have to put as much silver in it as you can buy for twenty-three grains and twenty-two one-hundredths' of a grain of pure gold. It takes a dollar's worth of silver to make a dollar. It takes a dollar's worth of paper to make a paper dollar. It takes a dollar's worth of iron to make an iron dollar; and there is no way of making a dollar without the value.
And let me tell you another thing. You do not add to the value of gold by coining it any more than you add to the value of wheat by measuring it; any more than you add to the value of coal by weighing it. Why do you coin gold? Because every man cannot take a chemist's outfit with him. He cannot carry a crucible and retort, scales and acids, and so the Government coins it, simply to certify how much gold there is in the piece.
Ah, but, says this same gentleman, what gives our money—our silver—its value? It is because it is a legal tender, he says. Nonsense; nonsense. Gold was not given value by being made a legal tender, but being valuable it was made a legal tender. And gold gets no value to-day from being a legal tender. I not only say that, but I will prove it; and I will not only prove it, but I will demonstrate it. Take a twenty dollar gold piece, hammer it out of shape, mar the Goddess of Liberty, pound out the United States of America and batter the eagle, and after you get it pounded how much is it worth?
It is worth exactly twenty dollars. Is it a legal tender? No. Has its value been changed? No. Take a silver dollar. It is a legal tender; now pound it into a cube, and how much is it worth? A little less than fifty cents. What gives it the value of a dollar? The fact that it is a legal tender? No; but the promise of the Government to keep it on an equality with gold. I will not only say this, but I will demonstrate it. I do not ask you to take my word; just use the sense you have.
The Mexican silver dollar has a little more silver in it than one of our dollars, and the Mexican silver dollar is a legal tender in Mexico. If there is any magic about legal tender it ought to work as well in Mexico as in the United States. I take an American silver dollar and I go to Mexico. I buy a dinner for a dollar and I give to the Mexican the American dollar and he gives me a Mexican dollar in change. Yet both of the dollars are legal tender. Why is it that the Mexican dollar is worth only fifty cents? Because the Mexican Government has not agreed to keep it equal with gold; that is all, that is all.
We want the money of the civilized world, and I will tell you now that in the procession of nations every silver nation lags behind—every one. There is not a silver nation on the globe where decent wages are paid for human labor—not one. The American laborer gets ten times as much here in gold as a laborer gets in China in silver, twenty times as much as a laborer does in India, four times as much as a laborer gets in Russia; and yet we are told that the man who will "follow England" with the gold standard lacks patriotism and manhood. What then shall we say of the man that follows China, that follows India in the silver standard?
Does that require patriotism?
It certainly requires self-denial.
And yet these gentlemen say that our money is too good. They might as well say the air is too pure; they might as well say the soil is too rich. How can money be too good? Mr. Bryan says that it is so good, people hoard it; and let me tell him they always will. Mr. Bryan wants money so poor that everybody will be anxious to spend it. He wants money so poor that the rich will not have it. Then he thinks the poor can get it. We are willing to toil for good money. Good money means the comforts and luxuries of life. Real money is always good. Paper promises and silver substitutes may be poor; words and pictures may be cheap and may fade to worthlessness—but gold shines on.
In Chicago, many years ago, there was an old colored man at the Grand Pacific. I met him one morning, and he looked very sad, and I said to him, "Uncle, what is the matter?" "Well," he said, "my wife ran away last night. Pretty good looking woman; a good deal younger than I am; but she has run off." And he says: "Colonel, I want to give you my idea about marriage. If a man wants to marry a woman and have a good time, and be satisfied and secure in his mind, he wants to marry some woman that no other man on God's earth would have."
That is the kind of money these gentlemen want in the United States. Cheap money. Do you know that the words cheap money are a contradiction in terms? Cheap money is always discounted when people find out that it is cheap. We want good money, and I do not care how much we get. But we want good money. Men are willing to toil for good money; willing to work in the mines; willing to work in the heat and glare of the furnace; willing to go to the top of the mast on the wild sea; willing to work in tenements; women are willing to sew with their eyes filled with tears for the sake of good money. And if anything is to be paid in good money, labor is that thing. If any man is entitled to pure gold, it is the man who labors. Let the big fellows take cheap money. Let the men living next the soil be paid in gold. But I want the money of this country as good as that of any other country.
When our money is below par we feel below par. I want our money, no matter how it is payable, to have the gold behind it. That is the money I want in the United States.
I want to teach the people of the world that a Democracy is honest. I want to teach the people of the world that America is not only capable of self-government, but that it has the self-denial, the courage, the honor, to pay its debts to the last farthing.
Mr. Bryan tells the farmers who are in debt that they want cheap money. What for? To pay their debts. And he thinks that is a compliment to the tillers of the soil. The statement is an insult to the farmers, and the farmers of Maine and Vermont have answered him.
And if the farmers of those States with their soil can be honest, I think a farmer in Illinois has no excuse for being a rascal. I regard the farmers as honest men, and when the sun shines and the rains fall and the frosts wait, they will pay their debts. They are good men, and I want to tell you to-night that all the stories that have been told about farmers being Populists are not true.
You will find the Populists in the towns, in the great cities, in the villages. All the failures, no matter for what reason, are on the Populist's side. They want to get rich by law. They are tired of work.
And yet Mr. Bryan says vote for cheap money so that you can pay your debts in fifty cent dollars. Will an honest man do it?
Suppose a man has borrowed a thousand bushels of wheat of his neighbor, of sixty pounds to the bushel, and then Congress should pass a law making thirty pounds of wheat a bushel. Would that farmer pay his debt with five hundred bushels and consider himself an honest man?
Mr. Bryan says, "Vote for cheap money to pay your debts," and thereupon the creditor says, "What is to become of me?" Mr. Bryan says, "We will make it one dollar and twenty-nine cents an ounce, and make it of the ratio of sixteen to one, make it as good as gold." And thereupon the poor debtor says, "How is that going to help me?" And in nearly all the speeches that this man has made he has taken the two positions, first, that we want cheap money to pay debts, and second, that the money would be just as good as gold for creditors.
Now, the question is: Can Congress make fifty cents' worth of silver worth one dollar? That is the question, and if Congress can, then I oppose the scheme on account of its extravagance. What is the use of wasting all that silver? Think about it. If Congress can make fifty cents' worth of silver worth a dollar by law, why can it not make one cent's worth of silver worth a dollar by law. Let us save the silver and use it for forks and spoons. The supply even of silver is limited—the supply of law is inexhaustible. Do not waste silver, use more law. You cannot fix values by law any more than you can make cooler summers by shortening thermometers.
There is another trouble. If Congress, by the free coinage of silver, can double its value, why should we allow an Englishman with a million dollars' worth of silver bullion at the market price, to bring it to America, have it coined free of charge, and make it exactly double the value? Why should we put a million dollars in his pocket? That is too generous. Why not buy the silver from him in the open market and let the Government make the million dollars? Nothing is more absurd; nothing is more idiotic. I admit that Mr. Bryan is honest. I admit it. If he were not honest his intellectual pride would not allow him to make these statements.
Well, another thing says our friend, "Gold has been cornered"; and thousands of people believe it.
You have no idea of the credulity of some folks. I say that it has not been cornered, and I will not only prove it, I will demonstrate it. Whenever the Stock Exchange or some of the members have a corner on stocks, that stock goes up, and if it does not, that corner bursts. Whenever gentlemen in Chicago get up a corner on wheat in the Produce Exchange, wheat goes up or the corner bursts. And yet they tell me there has been a corner in gold for all these years, yet since 1873 to the present time the rate of interest has steadily gone down.
If there had been a corner the rate of interest would have steadily advanced. There is a demonstration. But let me ask, for my own information, if they corner gold what will prevent their cornering silver? Or are you going to have it so poor that it will not be worth cornering?
Then they say another thing, and that is that the demonetization of silver is responsible for all the hardships we have endured, for all the bankruptcy, for all the panics. That is not true, and I will not only prove it, but I will demonstrate it. The poison of demonetization entered the American veins, as they tell us, in 1873, and has been busy in its hellish work from that time to this; and yet, nineteen years after we were vaccinated, 1892, was the most prosperous year ever known by this Republic. All the wheels turning, all the furnaces aflame, work at good wages, everybody prosperous. How, Mr. Bryanite, how do you account for that? Just be honest a minute and think about it.
Then there is another thing. In 1816 Great Britain demonetized silver, and that wretched old government has had nothing but gold from that day to this as a standard. And to show you the frightful results of that demonetization, that government does not own now above one-third of the globe, and all the winds are busy floating her flags. There is a demonstration.
Mr. Bryan tells us that free coinage will bring silver 16 to 1. What is the use of stopping there? Why not make it 1 to 1? Why not make it equal with gold and be done with it? And why should it stop at exactly one dollar and twenty-nine cents? I do not know. I am not well acquainted with all the facts that enter into the question of value, but why should it stop at exactly one dollar and twenty-nine cents? I do not know. And I guess if he were cross-examined along toward the close of the trial he would admit that he did not know.
And yet this statesman calls this silver the money of our fathers. Well, let us see. Our fathers did some good things. In 1792 they made gold and silver the standards, and at a ratio of 15 to 1. But where you have two metals and endeavor to make a double standard it is very hard to keep them even. They vary, and, as old Dogberry says, "An two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind." They made the ratio 15 to 1, and who did it? Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson, the greatest man, with one exception, that ever sat in the presidential chair. With one exception. [A voice: "Who was that?"] Abraham Lincoln. Alexander Hamilton, with more executive ability than any other man that ever stood under the flag. And how did they fix the ratio? They found the commercial value in the market; that is how they did it. And they went on and issued American dollars 15 to 1; and in 1806, when Jefferson was President, the coinage was stopped. Why? There was too much silver in the dollars, and people instead of passing them around put them aside and sold them to the silversmiths.
Then in 1834 the ratios changed; not quite sixteen to one. That was based again on the commercial value, and instead of sixteen to one they went into the thousands in decimals. It was not quite sixteen to one. They wanted to fix it absolutely on the commercial value. Then a few more dollars were coined; and our fathers coined of these sacred dollars up to 1873, eight millions, and seven millions had been melted.
In 1853 the gold standard was in fact adopted, and, as I have told you, from 1792 to 1873 only eight millions of silver had been coined.
What have the "enemies of silver" done since that time? Under the act of 1878 we have coined over four hundred and thirty millions of these blessed dollars. We bought four million ounces of silver in the open market every month, and in spite of the vast purchases silver continued to go down. We are coining about two millions a month now, and silver is still going down. Even the expectation of the election of Bryan cannot add the tenth of one per cent, to the value of silver bullion. It is going down day by day.
But what I want to say to-night is, if you want silver money, measure it by the gold standard.
I wish every one here would read the speech of Senator Sherman, delivered at Columbus a little while ago, in which he gives the history of American coinage, and every man who will read it will find that silver was not demonetized in 1873. You will find that it was demonetized in 1853, and if he will read back he will find that the apostles of silver now were in favor of the gold standard in 1873. Senator Jones of Nevada in 1873 voted for the law of 1873. He said from his seat in the Senate, that God had made gold the standard. He said that gold was the mother of civilization. Whether he has heard from God since or not I do not know. But now he is on the other side. Senator Stewart of Nevada was there at the time; he voted for the act of 1873, and said that gold was the only standard. He has changed his mind. So they have said of me that I used to talk another way, and they have published little portions of speeches, without publishing all that was said. I want to tell you to-night that I have never changed on the money question.
On many subjects I have changed. I am very glad to feel that I have grown a little in the last forty or fifty years. And a man should allow himself to grow, to bud and blossom and bear new fruit, and not be satisfied with the rotten apples under the tree.
But on the money question I have not changed. Sixteen years ago in this city at Cooper Union, in 1880, in discussing this precise question, I said that I wanted gold and silver and paper; that I wanted the paper issued by the General Government, and back of every paper dollar I wanted a gold dollar or a silver dollar worth a dollar in gold. I said then, "I want that silver dollar worth a dollar in gold if you have to make it four feet in diameter." I said then, "I want our paper so perfectly secure that when the savage in Central Africa looks upon a Government bill of the United States his eyes will gleam as though he looked at shining gold." I said then, "I want every paper dollar of the Union to be able to hold up its hand and swear, 'I know that my Redeemer liveth.'" I said then, "The Republic cannot afford to debase money; cannot afford to be a clipper of coin; an honest nation, honest money; for nations as well as individuals, honesty is the best policy everywhere and forever." I have not changed on that subject. As I told a gentleman the other day, "I am more for silver than you are because I want twice as much of it in a dollar as you do."
Ah, but they say, "free coinage would bring prosperity." I do not believe it, and I will tell you why. Elect Bryan, come to the silver standard, and what would happen? We have in the United States about six hundred million dollars in gold. Every dollar would instantly go out of circulation. Why? No man will use the best money when he can use cheaper. Remember that. No carpenter will use mahogany when his contract allows pine. Gold will go out of circulation, and what next would happen? All the greenbacks would fall to fifty cents on the dollar. The only reason they are worth a dollar now is because the Government has agreed to pay them in gold. When you come to a silver basis they fall to fifty cents. What next? All the national bank notes would be cut square in two. Why? Because they are secured by United States bonds, and when we come to a silver basis, United States bonds would be paid in silver, fifty cents on the dollar. And what else would happen? What else? These sacred silver dollars would instantly become fifty cent pieces, because they would no longer be redeemable in gold; because the Government would no longer be under obligation to keep them on a parity with gold. And how much currency and specie would that leave for us in the United States? In value three hundred and fifty million dollars. That is five dollars per capita. We have twenty dollars per capita now, and yet they want to go to five dollars for the purpose of producing prosperous times!
What else would happen? Every human being living on an income would lose just one-half. Every soldiers' pension would be cut in two. Every human being who has a credit in the savings bank would lose just one-half. All the life insurance companies would pay just one-half. All the fire insurance companies would pay just one-half, and leave you the ashes for the balance. That is what they call prosperity.
And what else? The Republic would be dishonored. The believers in monarchy—in the divine right of kings—the aristocracies of the Old World—would say, "Democracy is a failure, freedom is a fraud, and liberty is a liar;" and we would be compelled to admit the truth. No; we want good, honest money. We want money that will be good when we are dead. We want money that will keep the wolf from the door, no matter what Congress does. We want money that no law can create; that is what we want. There was a time when Rome was mistress of the world, and there was a time when the arch of the empire fell, and the empire was buried in the dust of oblivion; and before those days the Roman people coined gold, and one of those coins is as good to-night as when Julius Cæsar rode at the head of his legions. That is the money we want. We want money that is honest.
But Mr. Bryan hates the bondholders. Who are the bondholders? Let us be honest; let us have some sense. When this Government was in the flame of civil war it was compelled to sell bonds, and everybody who bought a bond bought it because he believed the great Republic would triumph at last. Every man who bought a bond was our friend, and every bond that he purchased added to the chances of our success. They were our friends, and I respect them all. Most of them are dead, and the bonds they bought have been sold and resold maybe hundreds of times, and the men who have them now paid a hundred and twenty in gold, and why should they not be paid in gold? Can any human being think of any reason? And yet Mr. Bryan says that the debt is so great that it cannot be paid in gold. How much is the Republic worth? Let me tell you? This Republic to-day—its lands in cultivation, its houses, railways, canals, and money—is worth seventy thousand million dollars. And what do we owe? One billion five hundred million dollars, and what is the condition of the country? It is the condition of a man who has seventy dollars and owes one dollar and a half. This is the richest country on the globe. Have we any excuse for being thieves? Have we any excuse for failing to pay the debt? No, sir; no, sir. Mr. Bryan hates the bondholders of the railways. Why? I do not know. What did those wretches do? They furnished the money to build the one hundred and eighty thousand miles of railway in the United States; that is what they did.
They paid the money that threw up the road-bed, that shoveled the gravel; they paid the men that turned the ore into steel and put it in form for use; they paid the men that cut down the trees and made the ties, that manufactured the locomotives and the cars. That is what they did. No wonder that a presidential failure hates them.
So this man hates bankers. Now, what is a banker? Here is a little town of five thousand people, and some of them have a little money. They do not want to keep it in the house because some Bryan man might find it; I mean if it were silver. So one citizen buys a safe and rents a room and tells all the people, "You deposit the overplus with me to hold it subject to your order upon your orders signed as checks;" and so they do, and in a little while he finds that he has on hand continually about one hundred thousand dollars more than is called for, and thereupon he loans it to the fellow who started the livery stable and to the chap that opened the grocery and to the fellow with the store, and he makes this idle money work for the good and prosperity of that town. And that is all he does. And these bankers now, if Mr. Bryan becomes President, can pay the depositors in fifty cent dollars; and yet they are such rascally wretches that they say, "We prefer to pay back gold." You can see how mean they are.
Mr. Bryan hates the rich. Would he like to be rich? He hates the bondholders. Would he like to have a million? He hates the successful man. Does he want to be a failure? If he does, let him wait until the third day of November. We want honest money because we are honest people; and there never was any real prosperity for a nation or an individual without honesty, without integrity, and it is our duty to preserve the reputation of the great Republic.
Better be an honest bankrupt than a rich thief. Poverty can hold in its hand the jewel, honor—a jewel that outshines all other gems. A thousand times better be poor and noble than rich and fraudulent.
Then there is another question—the question of the tariff. I admit that there are a great many arguments in favor of free trade, but I assert that all the facts are the other way. I want American people as far as possible to manufacture everything that Americans use.
The more industries we have the more we will develop the American brain, and the best crop you can raise in every country is a crop of good men and good women—of intelligent people. And another thing, I want to keep this market for ourselves. A nation that sells raw material will grow ignorant and poor; a nation that manufactures will grow intelligent and rich. It only takes muscle to dig ore. It takes mind to manufacture a locomotive, and only that labor is profitable that is mixed with thought. Muscle must be in partnership with brain. I am in favor of keeping this market for ourselves, and yet some people say: "Give us the market of the world." Well, why don't you take it? There is no export duty on anything. You can get things out of this country cheaper than from any other country in the world. Iron is as cheap here in the ground, so are coal and stone, as any place on earth. The timber is as cheap in the forest. Why don't you make things and sell them in Central Africa, in China and Japan? Why don't you do it? I will tell you why. It is because labor is too high; that is all. Almost the entire value is labor. You make a ton of steel rails worth twenty-five dollars; the ore in the ground is worth only a few cents, the coal in the earth only a few cents, the lime in the cliff only a few cents—altogether not one dollar and fifty cents; but the ton is worth twenty-five dollars; twenty-three dollars and fifty cents labor! That is the trouble. The steamship is worth five hundred thousand dollars, but the raw material is not worth ten thousand dollars. The rest is labor. Why is labor higher here than in Europe? Protection. And why do these gentlemen ask for the trade of the world? Why do they ask for free trade? Because they want cheaper labor. That is all; cheaper labor. The markets of the world! We want our own markets. I would rather have the market of Illinois than all of China with her four hundred millions. I would rather have the market of one good county in New York than all of Mexico. What do they want in Mexico? A little red calico, a few sombreros and some spurs. They make their own liquor and they live on red pepper and beans. What do you want of their markets? We want to keep our own. In other words, we want to pursue the policy that has given us prosperity in the past. We tried a little bit of free trade in 1892 when we were all prosperous. I said then: "If Grover Cleveland is elected it will cost the people five hundred million dollars." I am no prophet, nor the son of a prophet, nor a profitable son, but I placed the figure too low. His election has cost a thousand million dollars. There is an old song, "You Put the Wrong Man off at Buffalo;" we took the wrong man on at Buffalo. We tried just a little of it, not much. We tried the Wilson bill—a bill, according to Mr. Cleveland, born of perfidy and dishonor—a bill that he was not quite foolish enough to sign and not brave enough to veto. We tried it and we are tired of it, and if experience is a teacher the American people know a little more than they did. We want to do our own work, and we want to mingle our thought with our labor. We are the most inventive of all the peoples. We sustain the same relation to invention that the ancient Greeks did to sculpture. We want to develop the brain; we want to cultivate the imagination, and we want to cover our land with happy homes. A thing is worth sometimes the thought that is in it, sometimes the genius. Here is a man buys a little piece of linen for twenty-five cents, he buys a few paints for fifteen cents, and a few brushes, and he paints a picture; just a little one; a picture, maybe, of a cottage with a dear old woman, white hair, serene forehead and satisfied eyes; at the corner a few hollyhocks in bloom—may be a tree in blossom, and as you listen you seem to hear the songs of birds—the hum of bees, and your childhood all comes back to you as you look. You feel the dewy grass beneath your bare feet once again, and you go back in your mind until the dear old woman on the porch is once more young and fair. There is a soul there. Genius has done its work. And the little picture is worth five, ten, may be fifty thousand dollars. All the result of labor and genius.
And another thing we want is to produce great men and great women here in our own country; then again we want business. Talk about charity, talk about the few dollars that fall unconsciously from the hand of wealth, talk about your poorhouses and your sewing societies and your poor little efforts in the missionary line in the worst part of your town! Ah, there is no charity like business. Business gives work to labor's countless hands; business wipes the tears from the eyes of widows and orphans; business dimples with joy the cheek of sorrow; business puts a roof above the heads of the homeless; business covers the land with happy homes.
We do not want any populistic philanthropy. We want no fiat philosophy. We want no silver swindles. We want business. Wind and wave are our servants; let them work. Steam and electricity are our slaves; let them toil. Let all the wheels whirl; let all the shuttles fly. Fill the air with the echoes of hammer and saw. Fill the furnace with flame; the moulds with liquid iron. Let them glow.
Build homes and palaces of trade. Plow the fields, reap the waving grain. Create all things that man can use. Business will feed the hungry, clothe the naked, educate the ignorant, enrich the world with art—fill the air with song. Give us Protection and Prosperity. Do not cheat us with free trade dreams. Do not deceive us with debased coin. Give us good money—the life blood of business—and let it flow through the veins and arteries of commerce.
And let me tell you to-night the smoke arising from the factories' great plants forms the only cloud on which has ever been seen the glittering bow of American promise. We want work, and I tell you to-night that my sympathies are with the men who work, with the women who weep. I know that labor is the Atlas on whose shoulders rests the great superstructure of civilization and the great dome of science adorned with all there is of art. Labor is the great oak, labor is the great column, and labor, with its deft and cunning hands, has created the countless things of art and beauty. I want to see labor paid. I want to see capital civilized until it will be willing to give labor its share, and I want labor intelligent enough to settle all these questions in the high court of reason. And let me tell the workingman to-night: You will never help your self by destroying your employer. You have work to sell. Somebody has to buy it, if it is bought, and somebody has to buy it that has the money. Who is going to manufacture something that will not sell. Nobody is going into the manufacturing business through philanthropy, and unless your employer makes a profit, the mill will be shut down and you will be out of work. The interest of the employer and the employed should be one. Whenever the employers of the continent are successful, then the workingman is better paid, and you know it. I have some hope in the future for the workingman. I know what it is to work. I do not think my natural disposition runs in that direction, but I know what it is to work, and I have worked with all my might at one dollar and a half a week. I did the work of a man for fifty cents a day, and I was not sorry for it. In the horizon of my future burned and gleamed the perpetual star of hope. I said to myself: I live in a free country, and I have a chance; I live in a free country, and I have as much liberty as any other man beneath the flag, and I have enjoyed it.
Something has been done for labor. Only a few years ago a man worked fifteen or sixteen hours a day, but the hours have been reduced to at least ten and are on the way to still further reduction. And while the hours have been decreased the wages have as certainly been increased. In forty years—in less—the wages of American workingmen have doubled. A little while ago you received an average of two hundred and eighty-five dollars a year; now you receive an average of more than four hundred and ninety dollars; there is the difference. So it seems to me that the star of hope is still in the sky for every workingman. Then there is another thing: every workingman in this country can take his little boy on his knee and say, "John, all the avenues to distinction, wealth, and glory are open to you. There is the free school; take your chances with the rest." And it seems to me that that thought ought to sweeten every drop of sweat that trickles down the honest brow of toil.
So let us have protection! How much? Enough, so that our income at least will equal our outgo. That is a good way to keep house. I am tired of depression and deficit. I do not like to see a President pawning bonds to raise money to pay his own salary. I do not like to see the great Republic at the mercy of anybody, so let us stand by protection.
There is another trouble. The gentleman now running for the presidency—a tireless talker—oh, if he had a brain equal to his vocal chords, what a man! And yet when I read his speeches it seems to me as though he stood on his head and thought with his feet. This man is endeavoring to excite class against class, to excite the poor against the rich. Let me tell you something. We have no classes in the United States. There are no permanent classes here. The millionaire may be a mendicant, the mendicant may be a millionaire. The man now working for the millionaire may employ that millionaire's sons to work for him. There is a chance for us all. Sometimes a numskull is born in the mansion, and a genius rises from the gutter. Old Mother Nature has a queer way of taking care of her children. You cannot tell. You cannot tell. Here we have a free open field of competition, and if a man passes me in the race I say: "Good luck. Get ahead of me if you can, you are welcome."
And why should I hate the rich? Why should I make my heart a den of writhing, hissing snakes of envy? Get rich. I do not care. I am glad I live in a country where somebody can get rich. It is a spur in the flank of ambition. Let them get rich. I have known good men that were quite rich, and I have known some mean men who were in straitened circumstances. So I have known as good men as ever breathed the air, who were poor. We must respect the man; what is inside, not what is outside.
That is why I like this country. That is why I do not want it dishonored. I want no class feeling. The citizens of America should be friends. Where capital is just and labor intelligent, happiness dwells. Fortunate that country where the rich are extravagant and the poor economical. Miserable that country where the rich are economical and the poor are extravagant. A rich spendthrift is a blessing. A rich miser is a curse. Extravagance is a splendid form of charity. Let the rich spend, let them build, let them give work to their fellow-men, and I will find no fault with their wealth, provided they obtained it honestly.
There was an old fellow by the name of Socrates. He happened to be civilized, living in a barbarous time, and he was tried for his life. And in his speech in which he defended himself is a paragraph that ought to remain in the memory of the human race forever.
He said to those judges, "During my life I have not sought ambition, wealth. I have not sought to adorn my body, but I have endeavored to adorn my soul with the jewels of patience and justice, and above all, with the love of liberty." Such a man rises above all wealth.
Why should we envy the rich? Why envy a man who has no earthly needs? Why envy a man that carries a hundred canes? Why envy a man who has that which he cannot use? I know a great many rich men and I have read about a great many others, and I do not envy them. They are no happier than I am. You see, after all, few rich men own their property. The property owns them. It gets them up early in the morning. It will not let them sleep; it makes them suspect their friends. Sometimes they think their children would like to attend a first-class funeral. Why should we envy the rich? They have fear; we have hope. They are on the top of the ladder; we are close to the ground. They are afraid of falling, and we hope to rise.
Why should we envy the rich? They never drank any colder water than I have. They never ate any lighter biscuits or any better corn bread. They never drank any better Illinois wine, or felt better after drinking it, than I have; than you have. They never saw any more glorious sunsets with the great palaces of amethyst and gold, and they never saw the heavens thicker with constellations; they never read better poetry. They know no more about the ecstasies of love than we do. They never got any more pleasure out of courting than I did. Why should we envy the rich? I know as much about the ecstasies of love of wife and child and friends as they. They never had any better weather in June than I have, or you have. They can buy splendid pictures. I can look at them. And who owns a great picture or a great statue? The man who bought it? Possibly, and possibly not. The man who really owns it, is the man who understands it, that appreciates it, the man into whose heart its beauty and genius come, the man who is ennobled and refined and glorified by it.
They have never heard any better music than I have.
When the great notes, winged like eagles, soar to the great dome of sound, I have felt just as good as though I had a hundred million dollars.
Do not try to divide this country into classes. The rich man that endeavors to help his fellow-man deserves the honor and respect of the great Republic. I have nothing against the man that got rich in the free and open field of competition. Where they combine to rob their fellow-men, then I want the laws enforced. That is all. Let them play fair and they are welcome to all they get.
And why should we hate the successful? Why? We cannot all be first. The race is a vast procession; a great many hundred millions are back of the center, and in front there is only one human being; that is all. Shall we wait for the other fellows to catch up? Shall the procession stop? I say, help the fallen, assist the weak, help the poor, bind up the wounds, but do not stop the procession.
Why should we envy the successful? Why should we hate them? And why should we array class against class? It is all wrong. For instance, here is a young man, and he is industrious. He is in love with a girl around the corner. She is in his brain all day—in his heart all night, and while he is working he is thinking. He gets a little ahead, they get married. He is an honest man, he gets credit, and the first thing you know he has a good business of his own and he gets rich; educates his children, and his old age is filled with content and love. Good! His companions bask in the sunshine of idleness. They have wasted their time, wasted their wages in dissipation, and when the winter of life comes, when the snow falls on the barren fields of the wasted days, then shivering with cold, pinched with hunger, they curse the man who has succeeded. Thereupon they all vote for Bryan.
Then there is another question, and that is whether the Government has a right to protect itself? And that is whether the employees of railways shall have a right to stop the trains, a right to prevent interstate commerce, a right to burn bridges and shoot engineers? Has the United States the right to protect commerce between the States? I say, yes.
It is the duty of the President to lay the mailed hand of the Republic upon the mob. We want no mobs in this country. This is a Government of the people and by the people, a Government of law, and these laws should be interpreted by the courts in judicial calm. We have a supreme tribunal. Undoubtedly it has made some bad decisions, but it has made a vast number of good ones. The judges do the best they can. Of course they are not like Mr. Bryan, infallible. But they are doing the best they can, and when they make a decision that is wrong it will be attacked by reason, it will be attacked by argument, and in time it will be reversed, but I do not believe in attacking it with a torch or by a mob. I hate the mob spirit. Civilized men obey the law. Civilized men believe in order. Civilized men believe that a man that makes property by industry and economy has the right to keep it. Civilized men believe that that man has the right to use it as he desires, and they will judge of his character by the manner in which he uses it. If he endeavors to assist his fellow-man he will have the respect and admiration of his fellow-men. But we want a Government of law. We do not want labor questions settled by violence and blood.
I want to civilize the capitalist so that he will be willing to give what labor is worth. I want to educate the workingman so that he will be willing to receive what labor is worth. I want to civilize them both to that degree that they can settle all their disputes in the high court of reason.
But when you tell me that they can stop the commerce of the Nation, then you preach the gospel of the bludgeon, the gospel of torch and bomb. I do not believe in that religion. I believe in a religion of kindness, reason and law. The law is the supreme will of the supreme people, and we must obey it or we go back to savagery and black night. I stand by the courts. I stand by the President who endeavors to preserve the peace. I am against mobs; I am against lynchings, and I believe it is the duty of the Federal Government to protect all of its citizens at home and abroad; and I want a Government powerful enough to say to the Governor of any State where they are murdering American citizens without process of law—I want the Federal Government to say to the Governor of that State: "Stop; stop shedding the blood of American citizens. And if you cannot stop it, we can." I believe in a Government that will protect the lowest, the poorest and weakest as promptly as the mightiest and strongest. That is my Government. This old doctrine of State Sovereignty perished in the flame of civil war, and I tell you to-night that that infamous lie was surrendered to Grant with Lee's sword at Appomattox.
I believe in a strong Government, not in a Government that can make money, but in a strong Government.
Oh, I forgot to ask the question, "If the Government can make money why should it collect taxes?"
Let us be honest. Here is a poor man with a little yoke of cattle, cultivating forty acres of stony ground, working like a slave in the heat of summer, in the cold blasts of winter, and the Government makes him pay ten dollars taxes, when, according to these gentlemen, it could issue a one hundred thousand dollar bill in a second. Issue the bill and give the fellow with the cattle a rest. Is it possible for the mind to conceive anything more absurd than that the Government can create money?
Now, the next question is, or the next thing is, you have to choose between men. Shall Mr. Bryan be the next President or shall McKinley occupy that chair? Who is Mr. Bryan? He is not a tried man. If he had the capacity to reason, if he had logic, if he could spread the wings of imagination, if there were in his heart the divine flower called pity, he might be an orator, but lacking all these, he is as he is.
When Major McKinley was fighting under the flag, Bryan was in his mother's arms, and judging from his speeches he ought to be there still. What is he? He is a Populist. He voted for General Weaver.
Only a little while ago he denied being a Democrat. His mind is filled with vagaries. A fiat money man. His brain is an insane asylum without a keeper.
Imagine that man President. Whom would he call about him? Upon whom would he rely? Probably for Secretary of State he would choose Ignatius Donnelly of Minnesota; for Secretary of the Interior, Henry George; for Secretary of War, Tillman with his pitchforks; for Postmaster-General, Peffer of Kansas. Once somebody said: "If you believe in fiat money, why don't you believe in fiat hay, and you can make enough hay out of Peffer's whiskers to feed all the cattle in the country." For Secretary of the Treasury, Coin Harvey. For Secretary of the Navy, Coxey, and then he could keep off the grass. And then would come the millennium. The great cryptogram and the Bacon cipher; the single tax, State saloons, fiat money, free silver, destruction of banks and credit, bondholders and creditors mobbed, courts closed, debts repudiated and the rest of the folks made rich by law.
And suppose Bryan should die, and then think, think of Thomas Watson sitting in the chair of Abraham Lincoln. That is enough to give a patriot political nightmare.
If McKinley dies there is an honest capable man to take his place. A man who believes in business, in prosperity. A man who knows what money is. A man who would never permit the laying of a land warrant on a cloud. A man of good sense, a man of level head. A man that loves his country, a man that will protect its honor.
And is McKinley a tried man? Honest, candid, level-headed, putting on no airs, saying not what he thinks somebody else thinks, but what he thinks, and saying it in his own honest, forcible way. He has made hundreds of speeches during this campaign, not to people whom he ran after, but to people who came to see him. Not from the tail end of cars, but from the doorstep of his home, and every speech has been calculated to make votes. Every speech has increased the respect of the American people for him, every one. He has never slopped over. Four years ago I read a speech made by him at Cleveland, on the tariff. I tell you to-night that he is the best posted man on the tariff under the flag. I tell you that he knows the road to prosperity. I read that speech. It had foundation, proportion, dome, and he handled his facts as skillfully as Caesar marshaled his hosts on the fields of war, and ever since I read it I have had profound respect for the intelligence and statesmanship of William McKinley.
He will call about him the best, the wisest, and the most patriotic men, and his cabinet will respect the highest and loftiest interests and aspirations of the American people.
Then you have to make another choice. You have to choose between parties, between the new Democratic and the old Republican. And I want to tell you the new Democratic is worse than the old, and that is a good deal for me to say. In 1861 hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Democrats thought more of country than of party. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands shouldered their muskets, rushed to the rescue of the Republic, and sustained the administration of Abraham Lincoln. With their help the Rebellion was crushed, and now hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Democrats will hold country above party and will join with the Republicans in saving the honor, the reputation, of the United States; and I want to say to all the National Democrats who feel that they cannot vote for Bryan, I want to say to you, vote for McKinley. This is no war for blank cartridges. Your gun makes as much noise, but it does not do as much execution.
If you vote for Palmer it is not to elect him, it is simply to defeat Bryan, and the sure way to defeat Bryan is to vote for McKinley. You have to choose between parties. The new Democratic party, with its allies, the Populists and Socialists and Free Silverites, represents the follies, the mistakes, and the absurdities of a thousand years. They are in favor of everything that cannot be done. Whatever is, is wrong. They think creditors are swindlers, and debtors who refuse to pay their debts are honest men. Good money is bad and poor money is good. A promise is better than a performance. They desire to abolish facts, punish success, and reward failure. They are worse than the old. And yet I want to be honest. I am like the old Dutchman who made a speech in Arkansas. He said: "Ladies and Gentlemen, I must tell you the truth. There are good and bad in all parties except the Democratic party, and in the Democratic party there are bad and worse." The new Democratic party, a party that believes in repudiation, a party that would put the stain of dishonesty on every American brow and that would make this Government subject to the mob.
You have to make your choice. I have made mine. I go with the party that is traveling my way.
I do not pretend to belong to anything or that anything belongs to me. When a party goes my way I go with that party and I stick to it as long as it is traveling my road. And let me tell you something. The history of the Republican party is the glory of the United States. The Republican party has the enthusiasm of youth and the wisdom of old age. The Republican party has the genius of administration. The Republican party knows the wants of the people. The Republican party kept this country on the map of the world and kept our flag in the air. The Republican party made our country free, and that one fact fills all the heavens with light. The Republican party is the pioneer of progress; the grandest organization that has ever existed among men. The Republican party is the conscience of the nineteenth century. I am proud to belong to it. Vote the Republican ticket and you will be happy here, and if there is another life you will be happy there.
I had an old friend down in Woodford County, Charley Mulidore. He won a coffin on Lincoln's election. He took it home and every birthday he called in his friends. They had a little game of "sixty-six" on the coffin lid. When the game was over they opened the coffin and took out the things to eat and drink and had a festival, and the minister in the little town, hearing of it, was scandalized, and he went to Charley Mulidore and he said: "Mr. Mulidore, how can you make light of such awful things?" "What things?" "Why," he said, "Mr. Mulidore, what did you do with that coffin? In a little while you die, and then you come to the day of judgment." "Well, Mr. Preacher, when I come to that day of judgment they will say, 'What is your name?' I will tell them, 'Charley Mulidore.' And they will say, 'Mr. Mulidore, are you a Christian?' 'No, sir, I was a Republican, and the coffin I got out of this morning I won on Abraham Lincoln's election.' And then they will say, 'Walk in, Mr. Mulidore, walk in, walk in; here is your halo and there is your harp.'"
If you want to live in good company vote the Republican ticket. Vote for Black for Governor of the State of New York—a man in favor of protection and honest money; a man that believes in the preservation of the honor of the Nation. Vote for members of Congress that are true to the great principles of the Republican party. Vote for every Republican candidate from the lowest to the highest. This is a year when we mean business. Vote, as I tell you, the Republican ticket if you want good company.
If you want to do some good to your fellow-men, if you want to say when you die—when the curtain falls—when the music of the orchestra grows dim—when the lights fade; if you want to live so at that time you can say "the world is better because I lived," vote the Republican ticket in 1896. Vote with the party of Lincoln—greatest of our mighty dead; Lincoln the Merciful. Vote with the party of Grant, the greatest soldier of his century; a man worthy to have been matched against Cæsar for the mastery of the world; as great a general as ever planted on the field of war the torn and tattered flag of victory. Vote with the party of Sherman and Sheridan and Thomas. But the time would fail me to repeat even the names of the philosophers, the philanthropists, the thinkers, the orators, the statesmen, and the soldiers who made the Republican party glorious forever.
We love our country; dear to us for its reputation throughout the world. We love our country for her credit in all the marts of the world. We love our country, because under her flag we are free. It is our duty to hand down the American institutions to our children unstained, unimpaired. It is our duty to preserve them for ourselves, for our children, and for their fair children yet to be.
This is the last speech that I shall make in this campaign, and to-night there comes upon me the spirit of prophecy. On November 4th you will find that by the largest majorities in our history, William McKinley has been elected President of the United States.*
* The final rally of the McKinley League for the present
campaign, was held last night in Carnegie Music Hall, ana
the orator chosen to present the doctrines of the
Republican party was Robert G. Ingersoll. The meeting will
remain notable for the high character of the audience. The
great hall was filled to its utmost capacity. It was crowded
from the rear of the stage to the last row of seats in the
deep gallery.
The boxes were occupied by brilliantly attired women, and
hundreds of other women vied with the sterner sex In the
applause that greeted the numerous telling points of the
speaker. The audience was a very fashionable and exclusive
one, for admission was only to be had by ticket, and tickets
were hard to get.
On the stage a great company of men and women were gathered,
and over them waved rich masses of color, the American
colors, of course, predominating in the display Flags hung
from all the gallery rails, and the whole scheme of
decoration was consistent and beautiful. At 8.80 o'clock Mr.
John E. Milholland appeared upon the stage followed by Col.
Ingersoll.
Without any delay Mr. Milholland was presented as the
chairman of the meeting. He spoke briefly of the purpose of
the party and then said; "There is no Intelligent audience
under the flag or in any civilized country to whom it would
be necessary for me to introduce Robert G. Ingersoll." And
the cheers with which the audience greeted the orator proved
the truth of his words.
Col. Ingersoll rose impressively and advanced to the front
of the stage, from which the speaker's desk had been removed
in order to allow him full opportunity to indulge in his
habit of walking to and fro as he talked. He was greeted
with tremendous applause; the men cheered him and the women
waved their handkerchiefs and fans for several minutes.
He was able to secure instant command of his audience, and
while the applause was wildest, he waved his hand, and the
gesture was followed by a silence that was oppressive. Still
the speaker waited. He did not intend to waste any of his
ammunition. Then, convinced that every eye was centred upon
him, he spoke, declaring "This is our country." The assembly
was his from that instant. He followed it up with a summary
of the issues of the campaign. They were "money, the tariff,
and whether this Government has the right of self-defence."
As he said later on in his address, the Colonel has changed
in a good many things, but he has not changed his politics,
and he has not altered one whit in his masterful command of
forceful sayings.—New York Tribune, October 80th, 1896.
Note:—This was Col. Ingersoll's last political address.