E 675 
 .C87 
 Copy 1 
 
 UdJL 
 
 G1L\NT OR GREELEY P 
 
 v^' 
 
 SPEECH OF S. S. COX, 
 
 OF NEW-YORK CITY, 
 
 ON THE ISSUES OF THE 
 
 Presidential C'ampaign 
 
 OF 1872. 
 
 '• There are winds that are sometimes loud and unquiet, and yet, with all the trouble 
 tliey give us, we owe great part of our health to tlieni. There may be fresh gales of assert- 
 ing liberty without turning into such storms of hurricane as that the State sliouUl i-uu any 
 liazard of being cast away by them." — Lord Halifax. 
 
 '• If thou must needs have thy revenge on thine enemy, with a soft tongue break his 
 bones, heap coals of fire on his head, and enjoy it. To forgive your enemies is a charming 
 way of revenge, laying your enemies at your feet under sorrow, shame, and i-epentance, 
 leaving your foes your friends and solicitously inclined to grateful retaliations Common 
 forcible ways make not an end of evil, but leave hatred and malice behind them. An ene- 
 my thus reconciled is little to be trusted, as wanting the foundation of love and ( harit}\ and 
 but for a time restrained by disadvantage or inability."" — Sir Thomas Rrowxe. 
 
 NEW- YORK: X^ 
 
 S. W. GREEN, PRINTER, 16 AND 18 JACOB STREET. 
 
 1872. 5^ 
 

 1 
 
 / 
 

 SPEECH OF S. S. COX. 
 
 At a meeting of the Hickory Club of the Fifteenth Ward of 
 New-York City, on August SOth, 1872, Judge Spencer, jore- 
 siding, introduced Mr. Cox to his Constituents, v;hen he spoke 
 (IS follov)s : 
 
 Gentlemen and Ladies : 
 
 "Unhappy is tliat nation whicli can not redeem itself." Tliis 
 was the language of the eminent ex-Attorney-General Hoar, of 
 Massachusetts, in bidding the Japanese, at Boston, take instruc- 
 tion from our land. It is just and philosophical. Happy shall 
 Ave be if we are enabled this fixU to follow not only his advice, 
 but the sacred injunction: "Redeeming the time, because the 
 days are evil." 
 
 Need I prove that we have fallen upon evil days, that our time 
 needs redemption ? 
 
 I am not an indiscriminate praiser of the time past, even in our 
 own histor)^ ; but I admire the government, in its beautiful pro- 
 portions and divisions, which our honored ancestry built. They 
 built wiser than they knew. What other polity could have with- 
 stood the shock of civil conflict and the demoralization of ad- 
 ministration since its termination ? If one of the revered archi- 
 tects of our system could appear from his tomb, would he not 
 point with more severity than did "buried Denmark" at the 
 present rottenness in the State ? Where is the old simplicity and 
 purity? Are not the teachings of frugality of the great men of 
 even a quarter of a century ago, habitually disregarded ? The war 
 is responsible for much reckless and unconscionable conduct. It 
 is the canker Avhich follows war. The insane greed for wealth, 
 the enormous growth of capital, the ill-gotten and even well-got- 
 ten wealth, public debts and private speculations, shoddy display 
 and superficial fashion, monopolizing corporations and family 
 greed — the desire to shine in the calcium glare of the present 
 
feverish round of social and political junketing — tliese are the 
 evidences of a rooted malady, for which the White House and the 
 Cottage by the Sea are no more responsible than is effect respon- 
 sible for cause. 
 
 I will not say that this would have been otherwise had the 
 Democratic Party, under similar circumstances, given the rule to 
 manners and men. Yet it is not without pride that we point to 
 the days when an austere simplicity crowned the characters of 
 Democrats of the Jefferson and Jackson type. We are not a 
 peculiar people. Rome had her Cato ; but she had her Domitian 
 also. The austerity of the one is in great contrast with the fri- 
 volity of the other. 
 
 MORAL AND POLITICAL KEVOLUTIOX. 
 
 I come not here to make either an elegy or a eulogy over 
 Democracy or the past. If the Democracy is dead, or if its 
 works live honorably, it is no time now, with our eyes to the 
 future, and in the light of coming reform, to sing either the one, 
 or speak the other. The time and men have changed ; parties and 
 opinions have changed. It is because there is a necessity for the 
 common weal that compels such changes. No one can deny that 
 we are undergoing a great moral and political reaction. The 
 magnitude of the movement may be denied ; but as in other ages, 
 so in this, there is a class insensible to the revolution. It is none 
 the less a revolution because it does not breathe of sulphur and 
 carnage, or swagger with a sword knot and epaulet. In tins 
 revolution bloody laurels are not to be won ; civil chaplets only 
 are to be gathered. Before this progressive revolution, platforms 
 and conventions are as straws on the rail track. Before its edict, 
 the "protest" of all the Treasury and its Secretary against clos- 
 ing the chasm of hate and strife, is like the shriek of an octave 
 flute in a "jubilee" of thunder ! 
 
 Seven years ago the war ended. During this period tlie Demo- 
 cratic Party has been reproached for its pertinacious hold of its 
 old tenets. It was not the party of advance. It saw no object 
 till it was passed. These reproaches, whether well or ill-founded 
 were made by Republicans, anxious to cooperate with the three 
 million of Democrats in a great and honest purpose. Republi- 
 cans who saw irresponsible administration, no accountability, no 
 earnest sense of duty or devotion to principle, in their own party, 
 thought we were running in ancient ruts — groping in the crypts 
 
•of the past. Tliey said to us, " Our party has had its day. It 
 has done its work. It abolislied shivery. Its object is attained. 
 Its day of final reckoning on other matters lias come ! Will you 
 help us ?" You know the response. You know the results. Cin- 
 cinnati joined witli Baltimore, and the revolution began. The 
 Democracy may not believe that its party work is altogether 
 done, or that its party bears on its face the image of immor- 
 tality ; but they feel that as a great advancing and a great re- 
 ■serve force — compacted as one, and not counting the inevitable 
 stragglers — they have made amends for many backward and lag- 
 gard steps, even with the most prejudiced of their enemies, by 
 the acceptance of the Cincinnati movement and the nomination 
 of Mr. Greeley ! 
 
 THE NEW ALLIANCE. 
 
 It is not necessary for me to discuss the question whether the 
 Democracy have undergone a political metempsychosis. Suppose 
 they have been swallowed by Cincinnati — suppose they have sent 
 their old ideas away on a pilgrimage to atone for their past bad- 
 ness — or suppose, on the other hand, that the party exists still and 
 accepts new forms of belief^ — the question remains, Are these 
 ■new forms the best for the present and future ? No other 
 question is relevant. No sound reasoner will debate aught else. 
 But it is said the sincerity of these new convictions are ques- 
 tioned. If the alleged change in our party is simply that of Pro- 
 teus, it is a change of shape and not of heart. If that be so, 
 then I admit the party must be tried on its old merits or demerits. 
 Then no regard must be paid to any new alliance, even for a good 
 object, Mr. Dawes is concerned because Liberal Republicans act 
 with the Democracy. He said, " If they labor with it, they labor 
 for it ; and the question is, Avhich is to control ?" He thought 
 the Democrats would. But this is aside from the issue, and he 
 meant it should be. The question is not — how to reconcile the 
 alliance of free-trade and protection ; nor how the unrepentant 
 rebel can, without a lie, sujjport Mr. Greeley. The question of 
 the tariff, like others to be named, is in abeyance, by the nature 
 and terms of the alliance ; and the assumption that the rebel is 
 unrepentant is a gratuitous and unfounded assumption. So that 
 when Mr. Dawes cleverly says that the union between Republicans 
 and Democrats for certain pronounced objects is a monster with 
 two bodies and one head, ho fails to see tlie elegant and just pro- 
 portion of its one head and body. If the Cincinnati platform 
 
with its demands for reform is right and is adopted at Baltimore^ 
 I fail to see two heads or two bodies. It is a phalanx, if you 
 please, of two divisions, under one commander, and marching 
 direct to the overthrow of personal administration and to the 
 rescue of civic virtue and public liberty ! It may require more 
 heroism for tlie Republican to act with his former enemy ; but 
 Avhen he acts for the right, and supports the Democratic nominee 
 at Baltimore, he is a better Democrat tlian him who only obeys 
 the authority of his party convention ; and tlie Democrat who 
 supports his old opponent is a better Republican than him who 
 sujDports the man whose policy undermines the republic ! 
 
 Suppose this does imply change in Republican and Democrat. 
 If that change works for good administration, civil practices, and 
 would restore affection between the late warring elements, who 
 shall be reluctant to accej^t such change ? 
 
 DEMOCFwVTIC RECORD. 
 
 Suppose in the past we did our best, and failed, shall the ghost of 
 the dead forever haunt the house we have unsubstantially reared in 
 the air ? I have acted with the Democracy since a boy. I love its 
 memories and revere its past. It is hard to believe that our best 
 exertions are ruins, our energies wasted. To me there was nothing 
 so grand as the contest of Jefferson against Federalism, of Madi- 
 son against English arrogance, of Jackson against capital, or that 
 which was made under Douglas, backed by his 1,375,157 voters in 
 1860, to keep this country one and indivisible. These patriotic 
 struggles against faction and zealotry are now like the dreams of 
 life's morning, compared with the terrible passions of the life and 
 death-struggle which followed after 1860. But these dreams are 
 cherished, even by our opponents, as something to be proud of. 
 How often do our Republican friends boast of selecting an old 
 Democrat ? Have we as Democrats given up our memories in 
 making new associations ? Because the leaves fall, the birds for- 
 get to sing, the sunny skies become darkened, is our history but 
 a breath-stain on a mirror, or moonlight on the water ? Is the in- 
 fluence of our glorious recollections unsubstantial and fleeting? 
 Never from my lip shall reproaches fall upon that past we once 
 cherished as Democrats when bound up by our party ties in one 
 bundle of national life, with our brethren of every section ! Nor 
 is it necessary, in forming new relations, that such incentives 
 should be obliterated. 
 
Some of those most .anxious for the preservation of Democracy 
 have not been with it so long as some of us, who have given an 
 iindeviating life to its fortunes. If we can say now of our party 
 
 that 
 
 " Much must be borne which it is hard to bear, 
 Much given away which it were sweet to keep," 
 
 those of our party who are less faithful might pardon the infir- 
 mity of those who, in endeavoring to save the countiy now, are 
 willing to make some sacrifices of pride and self-love. 
 
 But I am done with sentiment. I have no repining at our 
 present condition. As a party, accepting the clasp of honest 
 men of another party, we become with them a cohort, which dares 
 to progress and change. 
 
 The very sun itself, the source of light and heat, is chang- 
 ing even the hues of its light. Ever consuming, ever relumining, 
 its substances are in perpetual change. The analysis of stars 
 by the spectroscope, the processes of star-gauging and star- 
 motions, show that there may be a diminution or increase to the 
 great fire and lamp of our system through the lapse of time. So 
 it is with parties and opinions. The orb of our political system 
 may undergo mutation and temporary eclipse, but it remains to 
 us still, and under better conditions. It is strengthened and 
 brightened even by the changes it undergoes. 
 
 CHARGES OF INCONSISTENCY. 
 
 Why should Democrats be charged with desertion of their 
 tenets and truths because they recognize accomplished facts ? 
 facts accomplished, it may be, without their sanction or adminis- 
 tration ? Is it not permitted our party to advance ? Are we to 
 be forever charged as Bourbons and boors, who sit in the car and 
 see only what is passed ? The tliree amendments, enlarged suf- 
 frage and new elements of mutual regard between the sections, 
 are these to be ignored by our party, because our regards are 
 fixed on our own proud monuments ? or our opponents taunt us 
 Avith inconsistency in accepting the irrevocable ? 
 
 When a great reform took place in England by the repeal of 
 the Corn Laws, the I3arty of Cobden, Bright, Villiers, and Elliott 
 received the fresh accession of Peel, Graham, and Gladstone. 
 Read the great debate. It is full of heroic defiance of all charges 
 ■of inconsistency. 
 
6 
 
 Lord George Bentinck had read Sir James Graham's former 
 speeches against repeal. In Hansard's Debates, (3d sec, vol. 85., 
 p, 161,) while expressing his charity for those who were consis- 
 tently wrong, he said, 
 
 " When I made up my mind, under a deep sense of public duty, to act in 
 concert with my right honorable friend at the liead of the government, and, 
 upon considerations of public necessity, as it appeared to me, to present this 
 measure to Parliament, as a servant of the crown, I anticipated, and I fore- 
 saw with pain, all that has taken place on tlie present occasion with reference 
 to the conduct of honorable members on this side of the House. I counted the 
 cost of the sacrifice which necessity and sense of duty compelled me to make. 
 I was prepared, and 1 am prepared on public grounds, regardless of all taunts, 
 regardless of all obloquy which may be heaped upon me, acting from a deep 
 sense of what is due to the public, to set aside all personal considerations, 
 and join in tlie advocacy of a measure which, in my conscience, I believe to 
 be necessary for the public good. ... I have often expressed a hope, and I 
 now again with unaflfected sincerity express it, that the day will soon come 
 when these gentlemen will see that we have not betrayed them, and admit 
 that the course which we have taken is that which was best calculated to 
 promote their interests, and those of the country at large." 
 
 To-day, in all the realm of Great Britain, there is no one to 
 doubt the wisdom of that wise reform. 
 
 The great premier. Sir Robert Peel, was not less defiant or 
 prophetic on the 22d January, 1846, (Hansard, 3d sec, vol. 83, 
 p. 69 :) 
 
 " I will not withhold the liomage which is due to the progress of reason 
 and to truth, by denying that my opinions on the subject of protection have 
 undergone a change. Whether holding a private station, or placed in a pub- 
 lic one, I will assert the privilege of yielding to the force of argument and 
 conviction, and acting upon the results of enlarged experience. It may be 
 supposed that there is something humiliating in making such admissions ; 
 sir, I feel no such humiliation. I have not so much confidence in the capa- 
 city of man, to determine what is right or wrong intuitively, as to make me 
 feel abashed at admitting that I have been in error. I should feel humilia- 
 tion if, having modified or changed my opinions, I declined to acknowledge 
 the change for fear of incurring the imputation of inconsistency. The ques- 
 tion is whether the facts are sufficient to account for the change, and the 
 motives for it are pure and disinterested. Nothing could be more base on 
 the part of a public man, than to protect himself from danger by pretending 
 a change of opinion ; or more inconsistent with the duty he owes to his sove- 
 reign and country, than if, seeing reason to alter his course, he forbore to 
 make the alteration by the fear of being taunted with a charge of inconsis- 
 tency. The real question, as I have said, is whether the motives for the 
 modification of opinion are sufficient and sincere. 
 
 "My opinions have been modified by the experience of the last three 
 
years. I have the means and opportunity of comparing the results of periods 
 of abundance and low prices. I have carefully watched the effects of the one 
 system and of the other — first, of the policy we have been steadily pursuing 
 for some years, namely, the removal of protection from domestic industry ; 
 and next, of the policy which the friends of protection recommend. I have 
 also had an opportunity of marking from day to day the effect upon great 
 social interests of freedom of trade and comparative abundance. I have not 
 failed to note the results of preceding years, and to contrast them with the 
 results of the last thi'ee years ; and I am led to the conclusion that the main 
 grounds of public policy on which protection has been defended are not 
 tenable ; at least I can not maintain them." 
 
 Irrespective of the inerils of that vexed controversy, one can 
 not but admire tlie heroic quality which was exhibited in Eng- 
 land by lier great men in 1846. Xor is England alone. What 
 has led the fathers of the Republican Party — the Chases, Adamses, 
 Blairs, TrumbuUs, Schurzes, Bankses, and Greeleys — to join hands 
 with their inveterate opponents exce])t that proud consciousness 
 of just and patriotic motive, which knew no fear when taunted 
 with a charge of inconsistency ! 
 
 Nor does such a union deny to each and all the full liberty 
 to act on matters not in the agreement. Minor objects are 
 ignored with a view to essential and great objects. Those 
 greater objects can only be attained by concession and union. 
 The autonomy of our States, the return to "home rule," the 
 reconciliation of sections, and the preservation of constitutional 
 limits in administration and legislation are greater than fiscal 
 affairs or party consistency. Government itself can not be framed 
 without such a philosophy. Are individual opinions and party 
 views to impede the onroUing car of progress and reform ? 
 When good administration is demanded by an indignant and 
 outraged people, great efforts ^olll be made to overcome the 
 varieties of thought and action on subordinate matters. How 
 else can we rescue the nation from peril ? How else can a nation 
 reform itself when the " days are evil" ? 
 
 DEMOCRATIC STRENGTH AND GENEROSITY, 
 
 In pursuing this philosophy, and in the hour of our increasing 
 strength, the Democracy have shown a magnanimity unknown to 
 its sordid and selfish opponents. With a reasonable hope of 
 success at this election, it elects to be more patriotic than ])artisan. 
 Lest its enemy should again attain control — for fear the en- 
 croachments uj)on personal liberty, federal concord, and local 
 
government should be continued for another term of the present 
 incumbent — the Democracy have resolved to make its host the 
 reserve of a band of liberal and honest Republicans, They do 
 this without any intent or with the efiect to destroy its own 
 honox-ed and compact organization. That organization exists in 
 every town, county, city, and State. It was before us in the 
 grand convocation of all tlie States at Baltimore. It is vital with 
 the forces of tradition, history, reason, patriotism, and freedom; 
 and no acceptance of new and true principles, and no nomination 
 of an old-time opponent can weaken those forces. 
 
 In the hour of our increasing strength, we make this sacrifice 
 of party pride. Since Mr. Lincoln was elected by about thirty 
 per cent of the 4,680,193 votes in 1860, we have sufiered two 
 Presidential disasters. Yet General McClellan received within 
 five per cent of the majority of the popular vote in 1864; and 
 Horatio Seymour, in 1868, forty-seven per cent of the 5,716,788. 
 Since that time, we have doubled our representation in the fede- 
 ral Congress. In this hour of liope and growth, to make it beyond 
 possibility of failure, we raise our banner with no strange device, 
 but place it in the hands of one wlio has hitherto been a stranger 
 to its folds. 
 
 Yet I will not deny there is a certain pride in consistent thought 
 and conduct. The youth who always coquettes seldom weds. It 
 shows infirmity to change suddenly, even for good reasons ; and 
 something worse, for selfish motives. Wiiile ever a Democrat from 
 earliest years ; while ever voting and aiding the union of these 
 States upon the basis of the constitution and the rights of the 
 States ; while beginning with Douglas and, if you please, ending 
 with Greeley, our last Democratic national nominee, I have 
 never lost that love, partly inherited, but ever hopeful and faith- 
 ful, for the Democracy, — I am not insensible to the fact that good 
 men have left my party and bad men have come to it; that good 
 men have returned to it again and bad men have left it, and that 
 in the mutations of popular governments these changes may, do, 
 and must ensue. Many, nay, most of them, are made upon the 
 purest love of country and desire for its welfare. It requires 
 something of heroic efibrt to do as Peel and Graham did in Eng- 
 land in 1846, when they reversed a lifetime of politics to give 
 England the clieap loaf — a free breakfast, diimer, and supper- 
 table ! 
 
 Had there been in England then a Ivrical doctor, like our own 
 
Dr. Holmes, he might have sung aboiit Whig and Tory who 
 joined in the great economic reform, the same Immorous jingle he 
 sang to the Japanese the other day : 
 
 " To be sure tliere is always a bit of row. 
 When we choose our tycoon, and especially now ; 
 For things are so mixed, how's a fellow to know, 
 What party he's of, and what vote he shall throw. 
 White's getting so black, and black's getting so white, 
 Bepublic — rat, Dem — ican, can't get 'em right !" 
 
 _ Perhaps the most conspicuoi;s zany to-day in American poli- 
 tics, if indeed he survives the fool-killer, is the man who would 
 desert the Liberal Republican platform, simply because the Dem- 
 ocrats accepted it. A man who believes the truth because his 
 pastor says it is true, is as much of a heretic, said Milton, as he 
 who believes a falsehood. He who rejects the truth because 
 others accept it — well, there is no name to express the imbecility 
 of his intellect. When Horace Greeley says water runs down 
 hill, it runs just so ; but if Horatio Seymour acquiesces in the 
 idea, it is awful — it runs up ! 
 
 This is almost equal to another reason urged against the new 
 movement. It is this : " Republicans should not accept the move- 
 ment, because former rebels and Democrats not rebels join in it." 
 That is to say, "Douglas men and Breckinridge men, men of 
 revolt and men of allegiance, accept the verdict of Peace as the 
 fiat of Force. Therefore" — the non sequitur is thus propounded to 
 Republicans — " let us all join in fighting over again the battles 
 of force on platform and in Congress." 
 
 Is this sensible ? Wliat need of saltpetre in Congress? Even in 
 the tariff it is a fraud. What need of guns in the cabinet ? Even 
 in the War Department, and its contracts, it is not — good. Where 
 is the necessity of the red hand to draft the enactments of delib- 
 eration? It is a curious illustration of political logic. Think of 
 it ! Peace give us guns and dragoons ! It is about as sensi- 
 ble as that civil service reform which gives us Casey inside and 
 syndicates outside the Treasury; or that administration which 
 allows Leet to levy on merchants to liberalize commerce, and 
 Stocking to make contracts to save cartman competition ; or that 
 allows Scott and Reed to riiin States to illustrate executive 
 purity and local government ; and Grant to pay off tlie national 
 debt at Long Branch, with Boutwell at Grafton, with t)ie taxes 
 of people who are not reveling at ease, but producing the means 
 wherewith to pay. 
 
10 
 
 But it is said, sometimes with good temper and sometimes 
 sneeringly, that we are inconsistent; that we phiy an ignoble 
 part. Inconsistent to take tlie truths of a decent and noble pol- 
 icy in the Cincinnati platform ! Inconsistent in selecting a candi- 
 date dedicated to them lieart and soul I Inconsistent because we 
 love our land, the form and structure of our government, and the 
 genius that should guide us in our great future ! If it be incon- 
 sistent to be devoted and patriotic, let there be more of it, and 
 the abuses of power will stop and the blessings of liberty willi 
 be ours ! 
 
 " TU QUOQUE !" 
 
 The worst that can be said of us is what history has written of 
 every party — it has made a coalition with a portion of its oppo- 
 nents. The virtue or vice of such a coalescence consists in its 
 purpose. It is nothing new upon the rolls of party action, to find 
 the most incongruous elements and names associated to promote 
 one great object. Again, I say, why, Avhen seeking good ends 
 by the union of good men of both parties, are we especially to be 
 taunted with insincere or unworthy charges. Does it lie in the 
 mouth of Mr. Morton, who disfavored negro suffrage during the 
 war, to taunt Tiiomas Jefferson Randolph for accepting it in 
 1872 ? Does it become General Cameron, General Butler, old 
 Democrats, who disfavored in 1856 the interference with slavery 
 in the States, to taunt us with accepting the amendment abolish- 
 ing it? Is it forgotten, that in 1861 — not by me, I am sure, for 
 I was in Congress voting for every compromise to secure union 
 and avert war — that Governor Corwin's Committee reported, as a 
 measure of conciliation, an amendment to the Constitution forever 
 prohibiting the "people" to abolish slavery? I voted for it, as a 
 measure of healing and union, thougli I asserted the right of the 
 people to amend the Constitution or to amend its amendments at 
 their sovereign will. Who voted with me? Colfax, Logan, 
 Sickles, McPherson, Maynard, and a host of other men now de- 
 voted to Grant. Who is General Dix, that the convention which 
 nominated him should make charges of changes, insincere and 
 unpatriotic ? A Democrat, a Republican, a Johnson man, a Grant 
 man, a what is it, boxing every part of the political compass ? 
 And there is the acute lawyer and gentleman, Mr. Tremain, 
 Where was he but a few years ; nay, a few months ago? Fight- 
 ing against coercing secession. He said then that Mr. ]Mur- 
 phy's appointment was not " nice statesmanship," and denounced 
 
11 
 
 the rottenness of tlie administration he is now bound to uphold, 
 as the nominee "at large" for Congress. 
 
 I think it does not become any one belonging to so mosaic a 
 party to be anxious about Democratic consistency. The changes 
 which have taken place in our own politics are enough to startle 
 the timid, thougli to the philosophic mind they are not new reve- 
 lations of human experience. I can remember in my tirst Con- 
 gress, in 1857, that even Joshua R. Giddings, when I pressed 
 him in debate on negro suffrage, refused to declare for it. The 
 formation of the Republican Party was strong in 1 860, because it 
 had a plank in its platform in favor of local government. Here 
 it is: 
 
 4. " That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and espe- 
 cially the rights of each State to order and control its own domestic institu- 
 tions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance 
 of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric de- 
 pends, and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any 
 State or Territory, no matter under what pretest, as among the greatest of 
 crimes. " 
 
 Who now adlieres to this? Governor Blair, of Michigan; 
 Governor Gratz Brown, of Missouri ; Governor Fenton,'^Xew- 
 York, and Governor Chamberlain, of Maine; Montgomery^^ir, 
 Governor Chase, Judge Trumbull, and the rest; or the inconse- 
 quential men wlio arraign them for its betrayal ? During the vi- 
 cissitudes of the war, under new conditions made by the war, 
 Northern non-coercionists became soldiers of the Federal army, 
 and Union men became secessionists. Even Quakers became 
 belligerents, and John Brown's body, though mouldering, fought 
 to the deatli in song for the triumph of law against rebellion. 
 If his body were now marching on earth with Wendell Phillips 
 and General Grant, it would be, I suppose, against Greeley, 
 flanked by Mosby as a warrior and Ackerman and Settle as civi- 
 lians. ]\rany who in 1861 took up the old flag, like Colonel T^^lysses 
 Grant, of the 21st Illinois, were ready to riddle it with bullets if 
 the object of the war was perverted to abolitionism. The same gal- 
 lant oflicer, when he was properly promoted to be a general, con- 
 sidered the attempt to force negro sutlrage on the States as an 
 " unwise attempt." Is it necessary to impute insincerity to Gen- 
 eral Grant for his changes of opinion ? When in Congress, I 
 helped to draft the " Border State " and Crittenden resolutions, 
 defining the object of the war, I never dreamed then that I could 
 
12 
 
 ever vote moi-e money and men — after the war, by the persistency 
 of the South, had been prolonged and changed into an anti- 
 slavery crusade as its chief impulse ; but I did vote money and 
 men. I believed with Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Weed that, with or 
 without slavery, the Union — the Union was the great central idea. 
 Certainly when I ran against Horace Greeley for the honors of the 
 Sixth Congressional District of Xew-York City, I did not dream 
 that his efforts for amnesty, the paramount thought with me, 
 would ever make him forget for a time " protection." He refers 
 the question to the people in their districts voting and in Congress 
 assembled. Who will declare that Horace Greeley, at Niagara, 
 seeking peace with Union, under Mr. Lincoln's advice and counte- 
 nance, was not an honorable friend of our government? He who 
 denies it, must consider General Grant a slave-driver, for his 
 order of August 11th, 1862, at Corinth, Mississippi, against entic- 
 ing slaves from their masters. Do you complain of the theories 
 of politicians ? If so, what becomes of Mr. Beecher's idea, of " no 
 State except in the Union" — of the denunciation of Thaddeus 
 Stevens's State suicide, afterwards accepted by the reconstruction- 
 ists; or, if in the domain of economy, what becomes of Mr. 
 Boutwell's idea that competition and publicity should be given 
 in placing the public loan, and where would Cooke, Clews & Co. 
 be if Mr. Boutwell were consistent? Or perhaps Mr. Boutwell 
 might be allowed to make a new statement of tlie payment of the 
 public debt, so as to confirm his statement in Congress that 
 Johnson had paid off 33 per cent more per annum than himself. 
 Where would be Mr. Dawes, who joined with me in keeping out 
 bogus Congressmen at the beginning of the war, and filling the 
 places at once with representatives without reconstruction ? 
 
 Must Saul forever remain Saul, even after the scales have fallen 
 from his sight ? May not the persecutor Saul become the Chris- 
 tian Apostle Paul, without reproach? 
 
 But, above all, it does not become Senator Conkling, Avho, but 
 n year or so ago, long after Mr. Greeley's record was the subject 
 of general knowledge and vituperative comments, voted for him as 
 a candidate for governor of New-York, to raise the question on Mr. 
 Greeley's patriotic endeavors before that time. As a lawyer would 
 say, he is estopped. Others may not be. But theRepublican Party 
 of New-York State, who made him their banner-bearer for comp- 
 troller since the war, are forever estopped to complain of his- 
 war record. Most especially are my honored Republican constitu- 
 
13 
 
 ents forever estopped to i:)lead Mr, Greeley's incompetence for 
 federal position, by reason of his conduct previous to 1870; for 
 they withdrew two of their unblemished champions to commit 
 him to the sacrificial knife in the Sixth District. 
 
 It is nothing new to find a great name, or the envy of it, a 
 stumbling-block to great results. When I read the one great 
 idea of the Cincinnati platform, local self-government, on which 
 depends the preservation of our government, I forgot the name of 
 Horace Greeley. He was no bugaboo to frighten me from devo- 
 tion to this Democratic canon. It is said that the Pharisees be- 
 came partial to Christ Avhen he defended one of their doctrines 
 against the Sadducees. Without irreverence in the comparison, 
 it is natural that Democracy should indorse the Cincinnati move- 
 ment, when its capital thought is enshrined on the Democratic 
 altar. 
 
 The charge of inconsistency can not come gracefully from a 
 party whose President is elected in 1868 to ring down the cur- 
 tain over the sanguinary drama of civil war. For he does it by 
 the suspension of habeas corpus and bills of force against electors 
 and committees. 
 
 CAUSES FOK THE XEW ALLIANCE. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, it is not an ordinary object that produces 
 such an amalgam as we have considered. We have had coali- 
 tions in our politics as in other days and countries. It was 
 only the other day that the Republican President of France 
 found himself deserted by the " Right," He sought and was 
 at once accepted by the Left. He preserved the republic. It is 
 no ordinary crisis that calls out such alliances. What has been 
 the occasion and cause for them this year in the United States ? 
 General maladministration ? Is it neglect of salutary legisla- 
 tion ? I answer, both. I reserve the latter subject for a 
 startling catalogue of laches on the part of the majority, 
 when I return my commission to my constituents. Is it be- 
 cause the aggressions of the executive, through his military 
 and mercenary surroundings, have awakened the Republican 
 leaders to a sense of their responsibility for foisting incivism 
 upon the land in the person of our military President ? Some- 
 thing of that, too. Is it absence from duty, nepotism, and per- 
 sonal government ? Not altogether. I lay little stress on a 
 presidential drink, or a presidential official relative. Casey may 
 
14 
 
 have his receipt of customs nt Orleans; Cramer may go where 
 Hamlet's father went in Copenhagen ; Leet may lift his loot and 
 leave ; Chorpenning may be sent to penitential exile with Creswell 
 and his law firm ; but these matters are as dust in the balance 
 compared with the monstrosities of executive and legislative con- 
 duct, involving public liberty and civil virtue. 
 
 The better men of the Republican Party care less for these 
 personal affairs, as the Democracy do, than for the aggressions 
 which, beginning for war purposes, continue in peace for parti- 
 san and personal purposes, and which permanently threaten 
 the structure and genius of our government. 
 
 All other reasons against this administration are temporary and 
 trivial evils, to be tolerated and remedied. Whether it be 
 through negligence or culpability, whether by blunder or crime, 
 the fact remains, that there is a profound conviction that there 
 are " fearful and formidable evils which have grown out of the 
 misuse of official patronage," (I quote from my honored friend, 
 Mr. Parke Godwin, in his unadopted platform,) " demoralizing, 
 as it has, our whole political life, and turning the contests of 
 parties, which should be a struggle for the ascendency of princi- 
 ples, into a vulgar, ferocious, and corrupt scramble for the spoils 
 of success." Still there is something more radically wrong, 
 needing heroic treatment. We need reform in the civil service 
 of a wider sweep and loftier purpose. The great danger is that 
 which springs from forgetting the principle of Mr. Godwin. To 
 quote again his own apt language, that we are not " a consoli- 
 dated nation, nor yet a mere confederacy, but a composite demo- 
 cratic republic, in which the supremacy of the Union, the 
 independence of the separate States, and the liberty of the 
 individual are alike requisite and indispensable, each in its place, 
 to the harmonious working of the whole." 
 
 THE DANGERS TO OUR GOVERNMENT. 
 
 On this indictment, I arraign the administration. This does 
 not imply the destruction of the Union only ; but of those arches 
 of personal and State independence on which it reposes. If it be 
 not the willful, then it is the ignorant and careless disregard of 
 the very genius of our polity. When tliis is our settled policy, 
 there is no Union worth having. There is no country but a chaotic^ 
 fortuitous, and temporary adhesion of States, whose liberties, 
 fixed in organic laws, and even reserved and nursed by states- 
 
15 
 
 men, courts, and people, are imperilled by the present misgovern- 
 ment. 
 
 DESPOTISJr AXD GIFTS. 
 
 In view of this overwhelming issue, it is idle to discuss other 
 questions of a personal or family nature. I have neither the 
 inclination nor the skill to deal seriously with such matters. Un- 
 happily, they are too current in our politics. Among them are 
 two matters I do not wish seriously to discuss — first, the question 
 of electing General Grant in the interest of himself and family ; 
 and second, his gift-taking. As to the first, I think we might 
 allow the General to help his family somewhat, always provided 
 the example does not harm and the family are competent. There 
 is something akin to virtue in his helping his own. Blood is 
 thicker than water; and who wants the government watered as 
 bad railroad people water stocks ! Besides, has not Mr. Conk- 
 ling, or some other base maligner of the President, said that 
 Grant had only appointed twenty-three relations out of our forty 
 millions of people! But on this point I boldly answer in his 
 defense, that he did liis best. He appointed all the relations ot 
 the male sex he had ; and is it not unreasonable to demand that 
 he should " go back" on his nepotic, avuncular, and paternal 
 relatives? How contemptible is the conduct of Gratz Brown, 
 who only appointed his cousin, Frank Blair's little boy, to a 
 clerkship in Missouri ! With such a large family as the Blairs 
 and Browns to select from, and with such a competent and smart 
 fixmily too, the governor is worse than an infidel I A rumor 
 obtained some time ago, that Mr. Casey, the brotlier-in-law, was 
 to be dismissed from the coUectorship at Xew-Orleans. A cry of 
 horror arose among the people. What! Dismiss in time of 
 profound peace, with his own hand, the brother-in-law of our 
 ■chief soldier ! Talk about Abraham's insanity of sacrificing his 
 own son, or the Roman vanity wliich condemned to death the 
 best beloved. No such weakness afllicts our President. Mr. 
 Casey remains to collect customs, and to kidnap legisla- 
 tures ! My impression is, that it is not of much consequence in 
 Louisiana whether the Legislature is at sea or in its seats. 
 
 But it is charged that General Grant has been enriched by 
 presents. That is a question between the giver and the gifted. 
 If he appoints to office because of the gift, that is another ques- 
 tion. But even then, does he not show a sense of gratitude ? Is 
 ,not this a beautiful trait? Simple Andrew Joluison refused a 
 
16 
 
 carriage and li;iriiess. He had been reading up in our early 
 republican history. What did Johnson know about the im- 
 provements in administration since Washington ? I dismiss all 
 such matters to cross-roads and cross people. They are trivial 
 and temporary. The press and public opinion may correct the 
 President, if wrong, and doubtless, if reelected, he will dismiss 
 his favorites, staif, and relatives. So of other matters of admin- 
 istration. There is constant complaint of military and other 
 rings. It is suspected that custom-house folk have been gouging 
 here and there ; that swashed and bucklered parasites have been 
 rioting in mercantile gains, to the annoyance of commerce. But 
 these are musquitoes. Let them buzz and nip. We can put up 
 a bar to that. Indeed, Mr. Bout well came near doing it, on the 
 general order business, at my request in ]869. But something 
 interfered, for which see correspondence and Mr. Boutwell. 
 
 There are charges rife of frauds and jobs of all kinds, and there 
 is much proof. I am not fond of such discussions, though you 
 will remember the Black Friday investigation, which fell to me, 
 did not have a salutary result. I can not tell now fully why I 
 could not get my witnesses, though I appealed to the committee 
 to summon somebody else besides Fisk, Gould, Corbin, and Co. 
 They refused, by voting down ni}^ resolution. 
 
 MERCENARY rOLITICS. 
 
 These are mere mercenary matters. I wish there Avere less of 
 them ; for then we might have more hope of correction. You have 
 read General Farnsworth's statement about stone quarries and 
 the connection of public officers with such contracts. You know 
 military aids to the President disburse money by the million in 
 Washington for public grounds. You have read how our jolly 
 sea-dog, Secretary Robeson, pays money out on Secor and other 
 claims, already settled, by some new construction of law. You 
 know how ships and arms are sold, without law, appropriations, 
 or accountability. What the Post-Office Department and Miv 
 Earle, Attorney, have tried to do in the Chorpenning case, is 
 already known. The attempts of an unscrupulous lobby to raise 
 the contract price for railroading the mails, and a plan too suc- 
 cessful I fear ; what attempts have been made to take great lots 
 of land, valuable wharfage and islands, without compensation, by 
 the President, when Secretary of War, and by Congress, for the 
 benefit of corporations and banks ; what the Custom-Houses have 
 
17 
 
 become under this administration, and what the treasury, lorever 
 manipulated by scheming bankers wlio job and dicker on our cre- 
 dit, to the discredit of the government; wliat scIrmucs \ny 
 hid in the St. Domingo job ; all these and more, are they not fully 
 understood by the people ? and if so, there can be no question 
 of the doom of the administration which fosters or j^ermits and 
 of the Congress which fails to fei-ret them out for their ex])Osure 
 and correction. 
 
 It is not my inclination to deal with such politics. I would 
 not do it, if only for the honor of the country for whose union the 
 sword of General Grant was drawn. It may be better for Re- 
 publicans themselves to describe the situation of the President. 
 Govei-nor Blair, of Michigan, has said that it is impossible for 
 General Grant, surrounded as he is, to reform such abuses. Pie 
 says, 
 
 " Surrounded by an army of bold, brazen corruptiouists, lie is powerless as 
 was Samson in the hands of Delilah. Nay, he flies from Washington like a 
 beaten chief, with his horses and hounds, to Long Branch, to solace the lazy 
 hours in the society of Tom JNIurphy and others such as he, while he leaves 
 the Creswells and Robesons to their carnival of plunder. I do not here and 
 now renew the terrific indictment of Sumner against him. That great states- 
 man and pure patriot has spoken in his own way from a soul wrung with 
 grief at the horrible demoralization of the public service, and he has said none 
 too much. His great name and irreproachable character is a sufficient gua- 
 rantee for every word he may utter. Of true Republicanism he was a foundei 
 and life-time supporter. Scorned now by office-hunting demagogues, he is 
 still the best beloved of the people." 
 
 I hope that this is overdrawn, even as pictured by Mr. Blair 
 and Mr. Sumner. If true, then what Junius once said of an 
 Englisli ministry may be applied to our Cabinet and its chief, 
 
 " Away they go ; one retires to his country-house, another is engaged at a 
 horse-race ; and as to their country, they leave her like a cast-oft" mistres.s to 
 perish under the diseases they have given her." 
 
 God help a coimtry thus govern.ed ! Listen to another liepub- 
 lican ! General Farnsworth, of Illinois, in his letter of August 
 6th, says, 
 
 " 1 have been a member of Congress thirteen years, and truth compels me 
 to say that, during that period, the most wasteful and extravagant use of the 
 public money and the least responsibility of those who have disbursed, have 
 been during the present administration." 
 2 
 
18 
 
 CINCINNATI PLATFORM ANALYZED. 
 
 It is not tliese matters which made me give my adhesion to the 
 Cincinnati platform. It is a valuable code of honest politics. It 
 is well worth analysis and consideration. All its nine points lead 
 to one result. The rights acquired tlirough the war should be 
 respected, and those lost restored. Along with this, is the decla- 
 ration against the subversion of the internal polity of the States, 
 This is coupled with civil reform. The other points as to the 
 sacredness of the public lands and the public credit, together with 
 a welcome to all, irrespective of past associations, and a crowning 
 resolution for the soldiers, make up a short creed of patriotic policy. 
 Through it shines, like a sun, the Christian and humanizing doc- 
 trine of brotherly love. Every thought in this campaign will 
 open upon this doctrine as a heavenly door upon golden lunges 
 turning ! In these ideas of reconciliation is not only union, but 
 the sentiment which alone makes it possible, and keeps it perma- 
 nent. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA PLATFORM. 
 
 Compare this with tJje Philadelphia platform. All that is worth 
 having in it is a frigid appreciation and worship of a soldier. 
 He is lauded as to his administration, in such strain as to make 
 the platform a satire where it is not a falsehood. That platform 
 ostentatiously exalts civil service. One need but read the sneer- 
 ing speeches of Butler and tlie inconsistent action of Grant, to 
 know whether this V)e not botli a satire and a falsehood on both 
 Congress and President. Its denunciation of land grants, passed 
 by Republican Congresses and all signed by the Pi-esident, if not 
 simple impudence, is a plea of guilty. It has a cry for the aboli- 
 tion of franking, which it never abolished. It brags of an Indian 
 policy, which never figiits the Indians into peace or civilizes them ; 
 a policy three times as expensive in 1S71 as in 1860. Its demand 
 for more bounty to soldiers is the cheap claptraj^of a party which 
 liad the power, and did not use it, to "extend" the boasted boon. 
 It butters words about the labor and woman question, like those 
 about taxation and the debt. They are simply words to be con- 
 strued by legislative neglect and executive indifference. Its 
 affirmation about restoring shipping, in some future, when it has 
 failed for seven years by reason of its Chinese policy, is only to 
 be paralleled by the ironic hilarity of its devotion to citizens 
 abroad, and matters of a foreign nature like the conspicuous Ala- 
 
bainii t-iihire! Tlie iiulorseiiieiit of two persons, llu' one a sohluT 
 and the otber a Know-Nothing, is but a specimen of bero-worslii]), 
 which stands in gloomy contrast with the enlightened policies 
 and fraternal liberalities of the Cincinnati platform. But the cli- 
 max of its audacity is attained, wlien it congratulates the nation 
 on Republican devotion to amnesty. 
 
 AMNESTY. 
 
 Here I come to the leading point again. All efforts are in vain 
 either to reform taxation or glorify our name abroad, either to 
 honor the achievements of the war or make effective the new or- 
 der under the amendments, unless the country is made strong and 
 great by mutual love. To argue with the South about ordinary 
 reforms, situated as it is, is to argue with a man about the compo- 
 nents of caloric, when his house is a-fire ! This platform wherein 
 it says the Republicans have favored amnesty is "organized 
 lying." The Glohe shows that during seven years but a few of 
 the Republicans voted for the general amnesty bills; and only 
 lately did General Grant recommend or the Congress pass, the 
 partial and imperfect bill they now pretend to claim as creditable 
 to their generous foresight. I can show you forty instances of 
 such hateful neglect or positive opposition. It was not until the 
 threatened outbreak in the Republican ranks, that the President 
 in his message recommended exceptional relief Whenever De- 
 mocrats urged it, it was tabled or hooted. The Republican por- 
 tion of the Ku-Klux Committee did recommend, at the end of its 
 report, both a further enforcement of the rigors of the previous 
 Ku-Klux law, and as its accompaniment — Amnesty ! If the South 
 were bad enough for one, were they good enough for the other? 
 They endeavored to hitch saint and sinner together, heaven and 
 hell. Their claim to this anodyne as their specific, this balm to be 
 poured into wounds wliich they themselves have kept green and 
 bleeding, is only significant of desperation and hypocrisy. They 
 present an olive-branch in one hand, and a sword with the other ; 
 the open palm and clinched fist ; the kiss of peace and the dirk 
 of revenge under the fifth rib. Tliey confess, by offering amnesty, 
 the wisdom of the policy of kindness, and with the other make 
 hateful faces beneath their visor of affection. Sepulchres! with- 
 out the decency of outside whitewash ! 
 
 Ml-. Speaker Blaine feels the force of this. He rushes to reply to 
 Mr. Sumner. He is not the man to be made a pigtiiy ol', even 
 
20 
 
 beside his companion giant, C'haiies Sumner. But Mr. Blaine, 
 with all his strength, does his memory and his tact and party 
 wrong, when he tries to re-write the harsh measures of his party 
 with a quill from the dove. He must remember that no amnesty 
 in its fullness came from him or his ; that amnesty in its odious 
 partiality came only from his antagonist General Butler, and that 
 this and otlier measures were bills of penalty and not of grace. 
 On the 15th of December, ISTO, I characterized one of these 
 bills for "full and general grace, amnesty, and oblivion," as grace 
 whicli was grudging, amnesty which was exceptional, and obli- 
 vion full of memories ; a stormful Lethe ; Hamlet, with the Prince 
 and all out but the grave-digger ! There has been no bill presented 
 by the j^arty in power, or passed, except the one which this de- 
 scription beBts ! 
 
 General bills were proposed. I proposed a bill myself It was 
 received by Mr, Blaine and his party with strenuous opposition ; 
 because, as he once phrased it, it would not do to antagonize the 
 remaining Avar feeling of New-England. 
 
 Again Mr. Blaine, the best spokesman of Republicanism, (I will 
 not say for him, of Grantism,) has apprehended that the new Con- 
 gress elected under tlie candidature of Mr. Greeley, will fail to 
 carry out by legislation the amendments. Oh ! no, my honored 
 Speaker! the constitution, propria vigore, has saved you the 
 anxiety of possible laws, not passed in pursuance with those 
 amendments. With a tacile Supreme Court and an amended 
 Constitution, accepted by all parties, you need not distress your 
 heart, that Congress is so omnii)Otent, even under the tattoo of 
 your loud gavel, as to be able to overrule the amendments ! The 
 acceptance of those amendments in good taith by the Democracy, 
 is what was not expected by you. But there they are accepted ; 
 and if there be good-will and healing in their clauses, this country 
 will enjoy it so far as Democracy is concerned. 
 
 REPRESSION, NOT GRACE. 
 
 The main fault of the Republican policy has been that its mea- 
 sures have been repressive and not reconciliative. Its repeal of 
 habeas corpus, and its military efforts against citizen and voter, 
 are in direct violation of that peace so lavishly promised ; while 
 its local governments, the product of reconstruction and sus- 
 tained by General Grant, are the odium of the time and the pro- 
 vocation to secret and open disaffection. 
 
21 
 
 The laws passed to coerce elections by penalties and federal 
 force are so much out of the path of a pacific polity that elections 
 fail to be a choice or a relief; while the wholesome and ancient 
 English law and custom which remove the garrison from the 
 vicinity of the voting place are disregarded in the interest of 
 party. The old and sensible provisions, that election judges and 
 officers onght to be independent of the executive power, are also 
 disregarded. All our elections, together witli the qualifications 
 of electors, are or ought to be fixed under State laws and con- 
 ducted by local authority. But we know tliat, at the closing hours 
 of the past session, it was attempted to force through Congress 
 an amendment of the enforcement election law, so as to apply it 
 to all places, instead of as now to cities of 20,000 people. The 
 present law is an invasion of the constitution. Its extension as 
 attempted would have been an usurpation on the part of legisla- 
 ture and executive to overawe and alarm the people in certain 
 States. It would have provoked revolt ; and when provoked, 
 the result would have been heralded as an excuse for further 
 military interference. 
 
 DICTATORSHIP. 
 
 It was a part of the plan to extend these repressive laws 
 through this year. Already a dictatorship has been created in 
 a law which happily was limited to the end of the past session. 
 But that was attempted to be extended, so as to cover the presi- 
 dential election. That law laid the liberties of the people at the 
 feet of the President. At his discretion, and in any State or 
 county, he could suspend habeas corpus ; and in spite too of the 
 constitutional provision " that the writ shall not be suspended, 
 except where in case of rebellion or invasion the public safety re- 
 quires it." Ay, in spite, too, of the ever-living spirit of freedom, 
 which made the great writ, as Macaulay said, the strongest 
 curb ever legislation imposed on tyranny. It is this advance 
 toward absolute, personal govenmient which has most alarmed 
 the nation. What ! Give this devotee of military power — 
 this high officer whose messages are orders, and whose mes- 
 sengers are orderlies, whose every move seems to be inspired 
 by barracks habits and camp life — give him, of all men, power 
 to dispose of States and persons, to close courts, imprison at 
 will, appoint military delegates to Congress, and suspend all 
 law but his own ? Have we come to this, that disturbances 
 in nine counties in the one State of South-Carolina, which alone 
 
22 
 
 have been thoiiniit woitliy of the exercise of" sucli dict:itonal 
 powers, should he the occasion or the cause of such enormous 
 powers, upturning all rights of person and propert}' ? That 
 for these disturbances, the country should be shingled over 
 with military V We have indeed lost all the ancient sjjirit 
 and landmarks if such attempts be not repressed by the peo- 
 people. I hold in mv hand a paper of Boston. Its color indi- 
 cates its age. It is dated March r2th, 1770. See these four 
 coffins ! They are tlie symbol of a/ree people, with death to the 
 military officiousness which first provoked and then shot down 
 the citizens of Boston. Did Boston rise ? Read the proceed- 
 ings ! Public meetings and armed indignation everywhere — the 
 forerunner of independence Tlie military were compelled to 
 withdraw from the sight of that people. So it will be in Novem- 
 ber when a descendant of that stock will assure local govern- 
 ment, and social and legal amnesty. 
 
 KL'-KLUX PRETi:XTS FOR FORCE. 
 
 I need not recite to you the pretexts for these audacious at- 
 tempts to chain and throttle the people. Ku-Klux was the cry. 
 It was squawked so loudly that a committee was raised to ascei"- 
 tain its extent. Xo Democrat favored such klans or societies. I 
 was upon that committee, and my name is to tlie minority report. 
 "While such local disturbances could and should be properly and 
 legally disposed of by '' home rule," instead of federal interfer- 
 ence, still it was thought l)est to examine the matter. The 
 result was a vast mass of printed matter. It is too unwieldy to 
 use. Some things appear from it : that there was an unqualified 
 admission that thei-e were no disorders in Virginia, Florida, Ar- 
 kansas, Texas, and Louisiana, more than one lialf the South ; and 
 consequently no concerted outrage. As to the other States, there 
 was not perfect accord of judgment ; but it was agreed generally 
 that the disturbances and secrecy were limited to a few localities 
 in certain portions of other Southern States. Thus limited, and 
 denounced by both parties, these outrages were made the pretext 
 of a general military dictatorship over all the land. 
 
 CAUSES OF OUTRAGE. 
 
 I thought it would be well to inquire into the causes of such 
 limited discontent. Accordingly T oflered a resolution to ascer- 
 tain the character of the administrations in the Southern States. 
 
23 
 
 I especially wanted to know authoritatively tlie debts and taxes 
 whicli had been hea^jed upon tiiese people under their reconstruct- 
 ed governments. At first my resolution was voted down. Fi- 
 nally it was passed. It was no easj- task to ascertain from inte- 
 rested and unwilling sources the facts so necessary to ascertain 
 the causes of discontent. You have, however, in the press and 
 from speakers, the result of my resolution and of our investiga- 
 tion. The debts of the Southern States before the war were 
 176,415,890. At present, they are $291,626,015. The total debt 
 of tiie other and richer twenty-seven States is only 8203,872,552. 
 This is commentary enough. 
 
 As to taxes, go to Arkansas, with two thirds of her acres un- 
 der the hammer for delinquent taxes ; or to South-Carolina, 
 where of the four millions collected this year, being ten times the 
 amount before the war, not a cent remains. It is estimated that 
 in that State alone sixteen millions have gone to fatten its black 
 and white harpies. Nothing in shape of canal or railroad, asy- 
 lum or school-house, remains to show for it; not even the few 
 sand-hills and swamps, bought in by State commissioners, which 
 do not sell cheaply at small interest and long pay. The public 
 institutions are closed, all but the penitentiary. There seemed to 
 be a lasting need for that. 
 
 Is it necessary for me to show how such things became possi- 
 ble and are yet continued ? First, tlie bayonet was at the throat 
 of the white race ; second, their suftrage was fraudulent, forced, 
 and uncultured. The intelligence of the State was discarded. 
 The elements of fraud and force, by vote and sword, have been 
 upheld for party pui-poses by this administration. Are you sur- 
 prised, therefore, when you read of secret and open disorders ? Do 
 you not, while denouncing them, feel like removing their cause ? 
 
 Do you wonder that estates find no purchasers ? That immi- 
 gration shrinks away from the South ? That bitterness and 
 uncertainty prevail? Do you wonder that taxes have increased 
 ten times? That Southern bonds are a drug in the market? 
 That the people lose their spirit between the millstones of adven- 
 turous rapacity and ignorant suffrage ? That enterprise dies, 
 and the number of tilled acres gradually diminish? With all 
 tliese evidences of decay, fraud, and misrule, do you wonder that, 
 to seek relief from this organized bedevilment and blighting 
 curse, to have Ku-Kluxing stopped and military rule displaced, 
 the great bulk of the Southern people demanded that a fair 
 
24 
 
 Republican should, for his appreciation of tlieir condition, be made 
 their elected saviour ? Or that the Democracy, faithful to civil 
 order and mutual symp.athy, accepted Horace Greeley ? Or that 
 a great body of one party, and the whole of another, should visit 
 the indifference of the federal executive to the maladministration 
 of affairs South with their patriotic vengeance, while lifting up 
 above all party tiie white, unseamed banner of peace and love ? 
 It is not so much now that we can reach the fleeing Bullocks, 
 nor evict the Scotts, Davises, Holdens, and Claytons who have 
 reveled in plunder. It is not now that we can reform these pecu- 
 liar and pernicious practices which find their example in higher 
 quarters. It is too late for the Orrs of South-Carolina to endea- 
 vor to save General Grant by his bolt from the scoundrels who 
 have ravaged that State. Nor do I care how many presidential 
 relatives hold office. Nor so much that we may economize the 
 expenses of the administration; or make a better tarift"; or teach 
 Mr. Dawes better figures as to the comparative expenses of 1800 
 and 18V1, so as at least to correct him to the amount of |52,468,- 
 000. Nor is it so much to show how good a government may be 
 made with the honest men of both parties at work. It is not so 
 much to condemn the corruptions of this administration in the 
 Treasury, Post-Office Department, or Navy. It is not that we 
 will investigate these matters in full time. It is not to stay the 
 tide of luxury and extravagance, which has Washington for its 
 source and illustration. It is not so much to tear from the body 
 of the government the bloated leeches called the syndicate, who, 
 in placing our loan, got at the least one and a half millions more 
 tlian the law allowed, for placing on the market the sum of 
 $200,000,000 of the five per cents. It is not one but all of these 
 objects to be attained by that reform which is only possible 
 under other political conditions. But it is more than these. The 
 election of the Liberal Democratic candidate means this : Take 
 the bayonet away; clean out the swarms which infest the offices 
 of the South; no more suspension of liabeas corpus; no dictator; 
 but above all, as the panacea and result, mutual good-will and 
 amnesty, and the restoration of the forni and spirit of our system 
 of government. 
 
 These are the main features of our policy, and these the signs 
 of its success. This end is partially attained by the simple dis- 
 ruption of party ties ; nay, by the very candidature, if not the 
 success, of Greeley and Brown. 
 
25 
 
 VICTORY OF THE REPUBLIC, XOT PARTY. 
 
 If tlie victory be a Democratic or a Republican victory, or botli, 
 let it be a victory for the republic ! I know that, to excite 
 prejudice, the Republican organs, like the Times of New-York, 
 declare that Mr. Greeley's victory will be a Democratic victory. 
 If so, why do they propose to Democrats to desert the conven- 
 tional nominee, Mr. Greeley? And why should a Democrat do 
 so? It is also said that Mr. Greeley's election will inevitably 
 lead to a congressional Democratic majority. If it should, and 
 full amnesty would result, who should complain ? Not Demo- 
 crats. 
 
 Whether Democracy be only the "mended and frayed strand" 
 of its old tissue, or the Republicans be as dry and marrowless 
 as the bones of Ezekiel, is not so mu<^'h a matter, as a change in 
 administration, conducted by honest and efficient men. To this 
 result, the Democracy have sacrificed mucli, and will sacrilice 
 more. They remember that tlieir nominee, Mr. Greeley, ever 
 since Lee's surrender, has been a friend of reconciliation. They 
 remember how he denounced the blockheads of the Union League, 
 Avho endeavored "to base a great enduring party on the hate and 
 wrath engendered by a bloody civil Avar, as no better than plant- 
 ino- a colony on an iceberg which had drifted into a tropical 
 ocean !" They remember tliat, while in the heat and dust of otliei- 
 strifes, he has not spared tliem ; yet, in generous rivalry, he has 
 endeavored with them to pursue the paths of peace. With a 
 life of unusual activity, a pen of masculine vigor, a mannerism 
 not at all lacking in the simplicity needed in high places — coming 
 from the people as a poor and friendless but brave boy, into tlie 
 heart and swirl of the great metropolis — he has left his impress 
 on this country. He will, under God, impress his adminis- 
 tration with sentiments mellowed by new associations, with 
 charities silvered over by advancing years, and with a reverence 
 for the hallowed traditions of our early national career, made 
 glorious by that Democracy which has in tlie vicissitudes of 
 parties become his ally in that progress, and a sliarer in the 
 common blessings and glories which his administration will 
 bestow. 
 
 In conclusion, the climax of those blessings will come to our 
 ■ntry, because they will be inspired by the doctrine of reconci- 
 •1. It is the principle of loving and being loved, of lov- 
 3 
 
26 
 
 iiicr Ilim because He tirst loved us ; of p.irdon wliicli is without 
 reserve, tliat which forgives its enemy and prays for those wlio 
 despitefully use you; tlie doctrine not of the Chi-istian only, but 
 of the Hebraic, and even heathen religions; the doctrine of peace 
 on earth and oood--\vill to men, chnnted by the angelic choir upon 
 the advent of the Prince of Peace. Whoso fights a party thus 
 inspired, fights with a straw against a champion cased in ada- 
 mantine. AVe know whence our strength cometli in this strug- 
 gle. It is not from below. The refusal to clasp hands is not 
 from on high. We draw our light from the mountain which is 
 so " set apart " that its name is known only from the great 
 sermon of our j\[aster upon its summit. Not from Ararat, 
 which lifted its head first above the flood ; not from Sinai, 
 the unwasting monument of the law given to Israel ; not from 
 Horeb, where even the Almighty covered the human face which 
 miglit look on his brightness, with his fearful hand; not Tabor, 
 where the wondrous scene of the transformation was enacted ; 
 not from Pisgah, where Closes made his touching farewell to the 
 people he had led; not from Channel, where the prayer of Elijah 
 was answered in fire; not Lebanon, whose cedars are the beauty 
 of the earth ; nor from Zion, Avhose story is tlie very pathos of 
 the soul of desolation and song ; not the Mount of Olives, 
 wdiich saw the agony of the Saviour; nor Calvary, at whose great 
 tragedy nature shuddered and hid her face in gloom ; but from 
 tliat nameless mount whose sermon gave to man the sweet code 
 of Love, Gentleness, and Forgiveness. He who spake as never 
 man spake said, " Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou 
 shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy : But I say unto 
 you. Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to 
 them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully iise 
 you, and persecute you ; That ye may be the children of your 
 Father which is in heaven : for he maketh his sun to rise on tlie 
 evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the 
 unjust." 
 
 From this we draw our teaching. God and time will help 
 us to carry it into our political ethics. Upon those who 2^rotest 
 against it, and who refuse forgiveness to others, my only curse 
 is, that they may know Avhat it is to be forgiven ; and my prayer 
 is, that God may forgive them, for they know not what they do.^. 
 
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