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The People Coming to Power ! 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 WENDELL PHILLIPS, Esq., 
 
 SALISBUEY BEACH GATHEEING, 
 
 SEPTEMBER 13, 1871. 
 
 * »»^ > 
 
 ^ 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 LEE & SHEPAKD, 
 
 1871. 
 

^ 
 
 ADDRESS OF WENDELL PHILLIPS 
 
 AT THE 
 
 SALISBURY BEACH GATHERING, SEPT. 13, 1871. 
 
 Fellow Citizens .-—General Butler told you this was a 
 gathering, on the seaside, of all parties and all classes of 
 men, and that he hoped his remarks would not offend 
 the prejudices of any class or of any party. Gentlemen, 
 I recognize, as he does, the duty we owe to the harmony 
 of this occasion ; but if I thought, fellow-citizens, that I 
 should leave Salisbury Beach without treading on some- 
 body's toes, I should regret I ever came here. What is 
 the use of a thousand men meeting together to compare 
 notes — to exchange ideas one Avith the other — if we do 
 not leave, after we separate, some hint, some seed, some 
 suggestion, that will bear fruit— that will clear up the 
 doubts, cut away the underbrush, and enable men to see 
 clearer and act more nobly ? I came here on purpose to 
 offend your prejudices ; I did not come for any other 
 reason ; because, fellow-citizens, if you stood here, and I 
 was one of the crowd now before me, I should hope that 
 you would drop some salt, or endeavor to stir the waters 
 of the public mind, for the health and life of us all. 
 
Gentlemen, I came down here to say something about 
 the governor of Massachusetts that is to be. And in the 
 first place, I did not come from any personal interest in 
 the office. You know when Henry IV. of France came 
 to a city in his dominions, the mayor said, "May it 
 please your majesty, we have not fired any salute, for two 
 reasons. In the first place, we have no cannon ; and in 
 the second place, we have no powder." In like manner, 
 there is one reason why I shall never be governor of 
 Massachusetts, and that is because nobody will ever vote 
 for me. Then there is another reason equally potent, 
 which is, that if everybody in the State voted for me, I 
 would not take the office. So I have no personal interest, 
 as an individual, in the question of who is governor of 
 Massachusetts. But, gentlemen, I have an interest in 
 common with you, holding as we do the honor and the 
 prosperity of the State very dear to us, and that is the 
 reason I have come down here to-day. 
 
 There has been a great deal of 'talk lately, and a great 
 deal of writing in the newspapers, touching men who, it 
 is said, have honored Massachusetts, within the last 
 twenty years, by accepting the governor's chaii*. Now, 
 to tell the truth, between me and you, in strict confi- 
 dence, I have been living twenty years, and I have seen 
 no such man. There was but one man before the Revo- 
 lution who ever honored Massachusetts by being her 
 governor, and that man was Sir Henry Vane. When 
 that noble man, far-seeing statesman and generous patriot, 
 who sealed his devotion to liberty on the scaflfold, — when 
 he accepted the governor's chair of Massachusetts, he 
 honored the State. And there has been one man since 
 the Revolution who has honored the State by accepting 
 her highest office, and only one. That man was Samuel 
 
Adams — old Sam Adams of Boston ; almost the only 
 — certainly the ablest — statesman that Massachusetts lent 
 to the Revolution. 
 
 This is an old festival. It has been held for a century 
 of more, and it is not out of place, therefore, to say a 
 word of the far past. I say New England gave only 
 three great men to the Revolution — marvellously great 
 men. One was Benjamin Franklin, the second was 
 Samuel Adams, and the third was Nathaniel Greene, of 
 Rhode Island — the general that should have had prece- 
 dence of Washington, if it had not been necessary then, 
 as ever since, to pet the wayward and childish South in 
 order to keep her on any decent level. These are the 
 three great men that New England lent the Revolution, 
 and there is no name in all our history that deserves to 
 be named in the same week with these three. After 
 them, at a long interval, comes your own Timothy Picker- 
 ing, a pure, able statesman ; and by his side stands Jon- 
 athan Trumbull of Connecticut — the man who gave rise 
 to the phrase "Brother Jonathan " ; for when Washing- 
 ton doubted what to do, it is said the wise old Virginian 
 used to stop and say, " Ask Brother Jonathan^'' 
 
 Gentlemen, within the last twenty years Massachusetts 
 has conferred honor whenever she has conferred office. 
 She has not received any. And I have to say, that 
 among the worthy men whom for fifty years Massachu- 
 setts has chosen to put into her governor's chair, there is 
 not one that will do more credit to the State than he 
 who has just left this platform, and to whose voice you 
 have just listened. (Applause.) I know the long list 
 of the governors ; I know all that can be said for Brooks, 
 Briggs, Andrew, or any one else that may be your 
 favorite ; but when history comes to record the great 
 
names and the great services Massachusetts has rendered 
 to the nation and to the age, she will write the name of 
 Benjamin F. Butler as high, if not higher, than any of 
 those men who have filled the governor's chair for fifty 
 years. I know what I assert; and though I do not 
 choose to name any one of the long catalogue of candi- 
 dates this year, yet I ask every one of you, no matter to 
 what party you belong or what name you worship, Show 
 me a name in that long list which has been oflfered for 
 your votes this fall, show me one who represents an idea. 
 Show me the man among these candidates who, if he 
 died to-morrow, any great progressive idea or movement 
 would lose a champion. You know, every one of you, 
 that death, in its mysterious interposition, might sweep 
 from the stage of human affairs all these worthy gentle- 
 men, and the cause of humanity and progress would not 
 be the poorer. 
 
 They are good merchants ; they are good lawyers ; 
 they are worthy men ; they will stand in the rank and 
 file tall as anybody else ; but if any man here, familiar 
 with the record, will tell me what service either of them 
 has rendered, or even promises to render, to human 
 progi'ess, I will be a most patient listener. The only 
 value any public man has, in my eyes, is the aid he aims 
 or is able to give toward lifting off the unnecessary bur- 
 dens of society, remodelling what is unjust and remedy- 
 ing what is defective, and raising the mass of mankind to 
 greater comfort, wisdom and virtue. 
 
 Gentlemen, I do not mean to attack any individual. I 
 did not come here for any personal criticism. General 
 Butler said, the other day — I think at Fitchburg — that 
 when I had the misfortune to be candidate for the gov- 
 ernor's chair last year, I let the papers run over me, but 
 
that he chose to fight. "Well, we have good authority, 
 both of us, for the course we have pursued. The wise 
 King of Israel left rules that commend both methods. 
 General Butler has adopted one, and I adopted the other. 
 We both have the sanction of scripture for our. course. 
 Solomon says, "Answer not a fool according to his folly, 
 lest thou also be like unto him." Well, I shrunk from 
 that positively, and so did not answer. But in the next 
 verse Solomon says, ^^ Answer a fool according to his 
 folly, lest he appear wise in his own conceit." General 
 Butler has followed this last advice, and taken the con- 
 ceit out of them. (Applause.) I don't know which is 
 the b^st way. I don't believe both ways united will 
 ever annihilate the fools'of the Commonwealth. But let 
 every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. I am 
 perfectly satisfied with my experience, as I did not get 
 into the State House. I hope General Butler will be 
 equally satisfied, and get into the State House as a con- 
 sequence of his method. 
 
 But, gentlemen, this is a question that overrides all 
 persons. If it had been merely a question whether Benj. 
 F. Butler should be governor of Massachusetts, I should 
 not be here to-day. For sincere as is my appreciation of 
 the services he has rendered to the Nation and to the 
 Commonwealth, and firm as is the friendship I bear him 
 for all that he has done since the first shot of the great 
 rebellion, yet even those considerations would not bring 
 me here. If that were all, it would not be worth while 
 for me to come here. Perhaps it would be better, at any 
 rate, that I should stay away, for I am not sure that I 
 shall make him a single friend. But to my idea this 
 question overrides men, and the only interest which 
 brings me here is because it overrides men. I thank 
 
8 
 
 General Butler, and this is the reason why I am here to- 
 day. As a citizen of the State, I thank him for giving 
 ns an opportunity to fight this battle under his flag. And 
 this is the battle which I mean. Gentlemen, the Repub- 
 lican party is dead ; the only mistake is that it fancies it- 
 self alive, and resists burial. As Edmund Burke said sev- 
 enty years ago, there is many a man walking this earth, 
 who supposes himself to be alive. So the Republican 
 pai'ty supposes itself to be alive and denies its grave- 
 clothes. It is a mill without any grist. The party has 
 nothing to do and proposes nothing. It has achieved all 
 it was organized to achieve. It is no fault of the honor- 
 able men whose names have been put before the public 
 as candidates, that they represent nothing. 
 
 The party they lead " lags superfluous on the stage." 
 This great country, its material interests presenting new 
 questions every hour, — rocking with social convulsions, — 
 teeming with men and forces that struggle for a place to 
 mould the age and benefit the world, — such a country is 
 no cabinet chamber where laurelled men scramble for 
 office. It is the field where the tools ever offer them- 
 selves to him who can use them ; and where, through 
 respected and accepted men, or over them, the work of 
 the hour must be done. 
 
 Active and able to-day pushes aside laggard yester^ay^ 
 who finds nothing to do but recounting what he did last 
 week. 
 
 In 1844, 1856 and 1861, who needed to go far to find 
 what the Republican party planned ? Every man who 
 hated slavery loved it, every man who loved slavery 
 hated it. But slavery is dead. We have not only abol- 
 ished slavery, but we have abolished the negro. We 
 have actually washed color out of the Constitution. Lin- 
 
9 
 
 coin abolished sLavery, and the fifteenth amendment abol- 
 ished the negro. In law he is as white as you are. There 
 is nothing for that party to do. It does not propose to 
 do anything. It is contented to hold ofilce, to reap the 
 harvest and to enjoy the honors of its history. If you 
 narrowly watch it, you will find that the leading Repub- 
 lican men are settling down into the mood of the old 
 Whig party in 1856. It was a worthy party. I am not 
 here to criticise the lifetime of the Whig party ; it was a 
 respectable party and did its duty; the difliculty was 
 that it tried to sit in state when it ought to have been 
 buried. That is the trouble with all parties. They linger 
 bn the staore long after we need them. Although " the 
 brains are out, the party won't die." In that stage of 
 alFairs such a man as Butler is flung, forced iip to repre- 
 sent a new idea. We protected the Mack laborer, and 
 now we are going to protect the laborer. North and 
 South ; labor everywhere. Gentlemen, the question for 
 the next ten years is the relation of labor to capital. 
 That is called the workingman's party. All of you prob- 
 ably own farms. Many of you employ laborers or keep 
 shops. You think, when I have stated the question so, 
 that I mean the question between the man that earns 
 two dollars a day and the man who earns sixty millions ; 
 that is not the qi\estion. The meaning of the labor ques- 
 tion in Europe and in this country is this : Whether you 
 on these acres, on yonder waves, or in the mills shall 
 work honestly, industriously, soberly, for seventy long 
 years, and then die worth a thousand or two thousand 
 dollars, a small house, forty acres of land, or nothing, 
 while some financial sponge sucks up millions. Do you 
 know that out of one hundred men, the record is that 
 there are not more than seven that leave any estate to be 
 
10 
 
 administered. Seven out of a hundred. What has be- 
 come of the rest ? Why, some of them lie in drunkards' 
 graves. I don't pity them. Some of them were born 
 fools and did not amount to anything from the begin- 
 ning ; there is no need of concerning ourselves about 
 them. Why, here are a hundred babies born to-day. 
 Seventy years hence ten of them will lie in drunkards' 
 graves, ten more will have turned out half-baked men, 
 not able to make their own bread ; ten more will be 
 worth a decent competency ; ten more will be worth 
 from ten to fifty millions ; and of the sixty left, nearly all 
 of them will beg of their neighbors, each moi-ning, leave 
 to toil. Now, what I say is, I find no fault that Vander? 
 bilt is worth fifty millions of dollars ; I find no fault that 
 Stewart is worth one hundred millions of dollars. What 
 I say is this : that this system of finance by which one 
 man at sixty years old has gathered fifty millions of dol- 
 lars, and of the ten thousand men that work for him, 
 seven thousand get up every morning not knowing where 
 dinner is coming from, — that system of finance belongs 
 to the bottomless pit, and the sooner it goes home the 
 better. 
 
 The system is unjust, cruel and fatal to any true re- 
 public. The safety of our institutions, justice and Chris- 
 tianity dictate that out of the common profits, capital 
 should have less and labor should have more than it now 
 does. I do not blame anybody ; but I am detemiined, as 
 far as I am concerned, that the brains of this generation 
 shall try to tear that system open and let the light into 
 it, and the readiest way I know is by political action. 
 Do you want to get all these college men and statesmen 
 to turn their attention to any matter ? Carry it into poli- 
 tics. Do you want to set all the newspapers to talking 
 
11 
 
 about labor ? Don't go on your knees or into the editor's 
 office and ask him if he will or no. Do not be fooled 
 into writing an article and paying a hundred dollars for 
 printing. It is money thrown away. 
 
 But when the month of October comes, nominate a ;• 
 man that represents this problem ; give him from twenty 
 to seventy thousand votes majority, and every man in 
 the Commonwealth, from Barnstable to Berkshire, will 
 eat, drink, sleep, dream and write nothing but labor from 
 the next January to the next December. Brains rule 
 this Commonwealth ; and HeaA^en pity us if the day ever 
 comes when brains do not rule it. They ought to rule it. 
 A just cause, a well-grounded complaint, and a hundred 
 patient, earnest men, will capture, at last, the brains and 
 hearts of the age. 
 
 What, then, is General Butler's offence ? This is his 
 offence. He revealed the dry-rot of the Republican 
 party. Ithuriel-like, he called the roll of his party on 
 its own camping ground — man — and immediately every 
 sword turned on him, betrayed the secret that its leaders 
 were planning to make it only a brotherhood of office- 
 holders and a tool of capital. 
 
 But " such personality " — " see every journal an-aigning 
 him" — yes, if it were not so I would not have given a 
 sixpence for him. If I go into an orchard, wanting pears, 
 I naturally go to the tree that has been the most pelted 
 with brick-bats. If I get into the Commonwealth and 
 want to know the man that represents the radical ideas 
 of his time, give me the man that has made enemies by 
 thousands every time that he has piit his foot down. I 
 went into one of the burying grounds in the next county 
 to this, and I read an epitaph, " Here lies a man who 
 never had an enemy." ■ Well, I said to myself, then here 
 
12 
 
 lies a man who never had an idea. If you find a man in 
 politics of whom everybody speaks well, I will tell you 
 that his soul is made up of soft-soap; he is a "mush of 
 concession"; you cannot feel him in a dark night if you 
 run against him. 
 
 Now, the only reason Avhy General Butler has stirred 
 these people and the press so much is, that every man 
 who holds office or position here is contented with the 
 present state of affiiirs. In response to his criticism they 
 cry out, " Art thou come to disturb us before our time V " 
 I have tried it for thirty years and I know where the 
 pelting of the newspapers comes from. 
 
 I have given thirty years of my life — and I i-ejoice to 
 have been permitted to give them — to the redemption of 
 a race. If I am spared another ten years, I hope I shall 
 be permitted to give them to the re<lemption of every 
 man who works with his hands. (Applause.) For, gentle- 
 men, the great danger that threatens us in the future ia 
 the money power. General Butler just addressed you 
 on three great topics, and they are all very important 
 points ; but the real question is, whether you will have a 
 republic or whether you won't, I confess that I have 
 studied democratic institutions for forty years, and I 
 don't see, to-day, the means by which the independence 
 of the legislature of Massachusetts is to be saved from 
 the hands of its capital and corporations. There is no 
 legislature in Pennsylvania. The set of men that go up 
 to Ilarrisburg are bought and paid for by the Pennsyl- 
 vania Central Railroad. " At the end of the late session, 
 a member arose and said, " If Tom Scott has no more 
 business for this legislature, I move we adjourn," You 
 laugh, as though it was only true of Pennsylvaniii. Why, 
 gentlemen, you have a legislature in Boston. You have 
 
13 
 
 three railroad coinmissioners. They are to guard your 
 railroads, in order that you may travel safely. There is a 
 railroad that runs down to this point, and the president of 
 the road has been laboring for one object for the last fifteen 
 years — that is, to raise its stock from 45 to 120 ; and by 
 his parsimony he has accomplished it, not spending a 
 single dollar for your safety or comfort. While every 
 other railroad in the United States has exhausted science 
 in order to provide the means of safety, this railroad is 
 running on the principle of the old stage-coaches fronr 
 Portsmouth to Boston. 
 
 Last winter the railroad commissioners suggested cer- 
 tain needed reforms in the railroads of Massachusetts. 
 They said, " The people are not safe ; " and the reply of 
 the raih-oads was, "It will cost too much to make them 
 so. If we make improvements, we cannot make a divi- 
 dend." The reply of the commissioners was that "the 
 first interest of a railroad Avas the safety of its passen- 
 gers ; the second interest its dividends." " Now listen," 
 said the railroad agents to your servants, the railroad 
 commissioners, appointed by Governor Claflin, "if you 
 don't hold off and shut your mouths and forbear pressing 
 the necessity of this measure, we will abolish the Board 
 of Commissioners." Thus you see which rules the State, 
 your legislature or your moneyed corporations, with a 
 capital of one hundred millions of dollars. 
 
 Everybody knows that the laws of the State of New 
 York are not made at Albany ; they are made in Van- 
 derbilt's counting-room. Men count the thirty-seven 
 States; but that is a great mistake. "We have thirty- 
 six States and a railroad, — the Camden and Amboy. I 
 warrant you, if you will go to Trenton when the legis- 
 lature is sitting, you will find there just what I did. The 
 
14 
 
 representatives there do not pretend to be anything but 
 the servants of the Camden and Amboy. They have 
 not even the presumption to pretend. They laugh in 
 your face, and say, " My dear sir, of course you know we 
 are only a railroad." Blessed souls ! they lack one vice, 
 — hypocrisy. I know a State in the North-West, cob- 
 webbed all over with one railroad. The only time I ever 
 used a deadhead ticket in my life was given me in this 
 State. I rode many miles, and it was always good. Came 
 to a branch at last, and handed, shamefacedly, out the 
 pass, saying, " That is not good here, is it?" " Oh, yes, 
 that is good," was the reply, and I never could get any- 
 where where it was not good. (Laughter.) What is 
 the result? There is not a lawyer, merchant nor clergy- 
 man in that whole State that dares to peep or mutter , 
 till that railroad has pitched the time. 
 
 The great' question of the future is money against 
 legislation. My friends, you and I shall be in our graves 
 long before that battle is ended ; and unless our children 
 have more patience and courage than saved this country 
 from slavery, republican institutions will go down before 
 moneyed corporations. Rich men die, but banks are im- 
 mortal, and railroad corporations never have any diseases. 
 In the long run with the legislatures, they are ^ure to 
 win. 
 
 Now, this great battle which General Butler represents, 
 is the battle of labor. And I came here to say that I 
 hope General Butler will be governor, because he repre- 
 sents that element of disturbance in the Republican 
 party ; and the moment he don't represent it, the great 
 labor element that clasps hands from Moscow to San 
 Francisco will trample him under its feet. 
 
 There is one thing that the masses of this country and 
 
15 
 
 Europe are determined upon, and it is, that no future 
 government shall be tested by the protection it gives to 
 money, but to men. This question is a great deal riper 
 in Europe than it is here, because the slave question has 
 lately absorbed all the attention. It shook this country 
 as God shook the four corners of the sheet in the Acts 
 of the Apostles. Now that it is settled, this great ques- 
 tion will now fill the arena. 
 
 I have no enmity to the Republican party. It has 
 done its work. I will weave its laurels as freely as any- 
 body else ; no man shall find me second. No ; give the 
 praise to Lincoln, and Andrew, and Sumner ; to any man 
 whose name is bound up with the success of the great 
 humane enterprise that glorifies this generation. What 
 I ask of the Republican party is, to look ahead. I ask 
 its elements, gradually falling asunder, that they shall 
 coalesce on a new line, and in order to do this I welcome 
 the movement of General Butler. 
 
 Now, let me say a word about him. I wish to use no 
 extravagant terms about him, but talk as I would if sit- 
 ting at your tea-table to-night. It is very rare that you 
 find one of the great leaders willing to risk his future by 
 coming up and shaping his course according to a new 
 idea. What does General Butler want of this disturb- 
 ance in the Republican ranks ? Does any man in this 
 crowd doubt that General Butler, with his abilities, which 
 no man -will dispiite ; with his daring, which cannot be 
 matched in New England ; with his proud record, that 
 if he only waited he would take his seat in the National 
 Senate, whenever the next vacancy occurred ? We all 
 know he would. I know a little of what a lawyer's 
 ideas must be, and there is only one hour of his life that, 
 as far as self-satisfaction is concerned, I envy General 
 
16 
 
 Butler. I am willing the woilcl should weave into his 
 chaj)let the fine historical word " contraband," which he 
 coined during the rebellion. I am willing that he should 
 stand on the list of major-generals as the only great, 
 eflicient statesman Avho, when one half the country- 
 rebelled against the other half, actually hung a traitor. 
 Oh ! history will need its keenest ])en when it comes to 
 record the fact that a dozen millions of people rebelled 
 and took up arms against their own government, and 
 that one great iron right hand alone dared to hang a 
 traitor to a gibbet in the fiice of the sun. I am willing 
 he should have that fame ; willing he should go do.wn 
 to history as the only man of the Northern army who 
 seemed capable of holding New Orleans, Let me tell 
 you, gentlemen, you that own United States bonds, that 
 your securities advanced rapidly and the world believed 
 in the North when this successful soldier went down to 
 New Orleans, the second city in the Confederacy, took 
 it captive and held it in his remorseless right hand. 
 
 But, as I said, there has been one hour that I envy 
 General Butler. It was Avhen Johnson Avas impeached. 
 When, before the Senate of the United States, the trai- 
 tor })resident was arraigned, he summoned to his side 
 four or five of the ablest lawyers of the United States ; 
 they were names that every lawyer knows as leading the 
 bar. But do you remember that on one occasion General 
 Butler made an objection to their course of procedure, 
 so fresh, so cogent, so unanswerable, that these five first- 
 class lawyers sat down dumb and remained seated nigh 
 half an hour in counsel to know by what ingenuity of 
 wit, by what subtlety of law, they might be able to push 
 back his assault. That half hour of lawyers' confusion is 
 the most glorious leaf of his laurels. Had I remained at 
 
17 
 
 the bar I would have swapped New Orleans and Mum- 
 ford for that one proud half-hour in the Senate of the 
 United States. Now, gentlemen, does any one here sup- 
 pose that a man so ready, so efficient, so mature, and of 
 energy so untiring, is to be set back in his career ? Has 
 he no temptation to bide patiently his time ? You all 
 know this. If any of you need proof of his loyalty to 
 the Republican party, you can find it in just this move- 
 ment this fall. The party recognize that its Judge has 
 come. It must either crystallize around a new depart- 
 ure or it must give up its hold on Massachusetts. He 
 aims to save his party by reorganizing it. My interest in 
 this election is not because I think it will give a victory 
 to the Democratic party. I believe that the Republican 
 party ought to hold the United States for the next eight 
 years, but it never can hold it, and under God it never 
 ought to hold it, and, as I am a Christian man, I hope it 
 never will hold it, unless the party embraces these new 
 issues. Gentlemen, I am very frank to say that I don't 
 want that convention at Worcester merely to nominate 
 General Butler ; that will not satisfy me. You need not 
 tell these reporters what I say, but between you and me 
 I very little doubt that they will nominate him. That 
 will not satisfy me. Neither will it satisfy me if General 
 Butler's friends go there and put a small plank labelled 
 "labor" in one part of the platform. I want king's post 
 and girder, — wall-plate and ridge-pole, every plank and 
 joist carved, moulded, stamped and labelled "Justice to 
 Man " — " Man first — Monet, the week after." 
 
 But, remember, there is no antagonism between Man 
 and Money — between Capital and Labor ; they are friends, 
 not foes ; partners, not competitors ; they are the two 
 parts of one scissors — each useless without the other. 
 
18 
 
 Whatever harms or helps one, must, on any just system, 
 harm or help the other. 
 
 I demand that the men who have lifted unpaid labor 
 into the ranks of paid labor shall now spread their pro- 
 tecting influence over all labor, white and black, from the 
 Lakes down to the Gulf. Then we shall have a new era, 
 in which we will cut the hamstrings of capital, under- 
 mine the tyranny of corporations, and restore legisla- 
 tures to their independence. We fight to unchain legis- 
 latures. Gentlemen, this is not my battle. I see many 
 a man here as old as I am. It is not his battle. We 
 have done our duty. We have fought one battle that 
 made the land rock. We have held this nation together 
 when the earthquake almost snapped its bonds. But I 
 can tell you, without any reference to this election, with- 
 out any relation to General Butler or his enemies, you 
 men of forty, you have a keener battle to fight ; you have 
 a harder thirty years to face than we faced. Look at the 
 city of New York. Why, it is to-day the private prop- 
 erty of a dozen millionaires. There are some men in the 
 city of New York that own it as much as the man who 
 liolds the title owns this hotel. There is no more repub- 
 lican or democratic liberty in the State of New York 
 than there is in Constantinople. Boston is treading the 
 same path. Those men in Tammany will tell you that 
 you cannot put a legislature at Albany that they cannot 
 buy. There are no men in the State that we cannot 
 purchase. I tell you, gentlemen, the legislature at Bos- 
 ton is in the same line. I would like to see you choose 
 a legislature that can stand up against the Hoosac Tun- 
 nel, the Boston and Albany, and the Boston, Hartford 
 aud Erie when they combine. I would like to find a 
 man outside the Worcester Insane Asylum who believes, 
 
19 
 
 even when he ia asleep, that the legislature of Massachu- 
 setts has got courage enough to do anything which the 
 national banks of this Commonwealth forbid. In my 
 mind's eye I see all of you, children of republican fath- 
 ers, of men that voted for the Constitution of the United 
 States, you all come up here and think you are free men. 
 My dear friends, there is not one of you that has not a 
 national bank bill pasted over your mouth. (A voice, 
 "I haint.") Well, that only shows that he has got 
 three — one over his eyes, another over his ears, and the 
 third over his mouth. No man who can spare the time 
 to go into our legislature but miist sensibly feel the 
 influence of capital inside its ranks. 
 
 I hope to leave some seed in Essex County. The Phil- 
 lipses lived at Andover and Salem, and so I have a right 
 to a word here. Besides that, I am almost the only man 
 in Massachusetts to-day who rejoices in the old Federalist 
 party, the Essex Junta. I will tell you why I rejoice in 
 it. It is because they were the only party that, as early 
 as 1810, found out that the slave power ruled this nation. 
 (A voice, "I am one of them,") Give me your hand, 
 twin. That party went down. I am glad it did. It 
 went down because it did not believe in the people. 
 Alexander Hamilton was the greatest intellect God ever 
 gave to this nation ; but Thomas Jefferson served his 
 time infinitely better, because he saw farther ahead. He 
 trusted the people. The reason why we want Butler put 
 into the chair is, because it will teach the Republican 
 party what instruction lingers in the hearts of the people. 
 Our main object is to make the law of this nation just 
 and impartial. Instead of that, the party falls into a con- 
 tented, sluggish indifference, — into the quiet, oflicc-hold- 
 
20 
 
 ing fatness of the old Whig party. It needs disturbing ; 
 it needs a stoiin. 
 
 "When Lincoln came to you in '63, lie said to you, 
 "I am going to abolish slavery." Andrew came for your 
 suffrages, and said, "I am going to save the nation." 
 When the Republican party came to you, in '68, they 
 said, "We are going to elect Grant;" but let any man 
 in this crowd tell me what does the Republican party 
 now promise to do. Grant has a Ku-klux bill, with which 
 he can strangle the South if he wants to ; we have jus- 
 tice incorporated into our Constitution. Does the party 
 say, "Here are men that seem to be unjustly burdened; 
 we may relieve them"? Not a bit of it. Go to the 
 president of a college, the chairman of a railroad commit- 
 tee, or to an agent of a corporation, and they will tell 
 you that we workingmen are a set of ignoramuses, that 
 do not know when we are well off. Do they profess that 
 they will undex'take to hold up the independence of legis- 
 latures against corporations ? Do they say they will no 
 longer bribe the great railroads of the West with un- 
 counted acres of the people's land ? Do they say, " We 
 will endeavor to fortify the public against the corruption 
 of the age" ? Not a bit of it. Drunkenness is a crime; 
 intemperance is a terrible evil ; but how do ten mil- 
 lionaires hold the city of New York ? I will tell you. 
 They work only through a thousand men, their agents, 
 every one of whom ought to be hung. (Voices, " That 
 is so.") They have committed crimes enough already. 
 When election day comes,^these ten men say to their 
 subalterns, "Do you go down to the polling booth, and 
 vote early and often. Make the place so unsafe that no 
 peaceable man will want to appear to vote." "But," 
 says a man, " if I do so I shall be sent to Sing Sing." 
 
21 
 
 They reply, " Do what I tell you, and you are safe ; re- 
 fuse to commit the crime I command, and I will hang 
 you for what you have already done." And every one of 
 them has committed a capital oflence. Do you suppose 
 they get sober men ? Do you think they would come to 
 you farmers here, if living in New York? No; that 
 man has to take his hungry follower down to the corner 
 grog-shop, kept by an aldei'man, and there stifle that 
 man's conscience before he can be induced to vote. Gen- 
 tlemen, do you know that I tell you the truth when I tell 
 you that there is not a city in the United States that is 
 not governed by a mob ? Do you know that I tell you 
 the truth when I tell you that the system of universal 
 suffrage, so far as it is carried out in great cities, is a great 
 failure, and that the city of Boston, with all its universal 
 suffrage, has not had a mayor and aldermen for twenty 
 years that was not nominated by a committee chosen by 
 its gi'og-shops ? But it is only truth that I tell you, and 
 I tell it with all the seriousness with which I make a 
 prayer, that unless some way is found to curb intemper- 
 ance, the idea of governing a nation on the principle of 
 universal suffrage is a failure. Now, does the Republican 
 party promise anything about intemperance ? 
 
 But people say. General Butler is not a temperance 
 man ; I know that. General Butler drinks his cham- 
 pagne ; I know that. Governor Claflin does not ; I know 
 that. I have been a teetotaler for thirty-four years, and 
 it is a cause nearest my heart. It is a cause most vital 
 to the safety of a republic. Yet I had rather, twice 
 rather, that General Butler should be governor of the 
 State, with his champagne in his right hand, than Gov- 
 ernor Claflin, a teetotaler ; and I will tell you why. I had 
 rather have a wine-drinker that will execute the Maine 
 
22 
 
 law than a sober man that does not execute it. I had 
 rather have a man that looks in my face and says, " I 
 shall drink Madeira, but if you have that statute which 
 forbids the Parker and Tremont Houses from sell- 
 ing, I will inexorably execute it." I had rather have 
 hira than a prohibitionist like Governor Claflin, whose 
 friends claim that he executes the law in a reasonable 
 way. What is that reasonable way? I will tell you. 
 It is to pick up some petty vendor down on North Street, 
 that has two gallons of whiskey hidden in her back 
 room, and then piit on double-refined black spectacles 
 and walk by the Parker House. Now, gentlemen, that 
 sort of 'a sensible way of executing the law I don't like. 
 I am not that sort of sensible man at all. Give me a 
 man, no matter what his private habits, who will shut 
 up every grog-shop in Boston, and I will risk the future. 
 But men say, Don't you temperance men know that if 
 this is done the prohibitory law will be swept from the 
 statute book ? Thank you ; I will risk it. I want every 
 law on the statute book executed, or swept off. Just 
 give me no law on the statute book and I will make the 
 county of Essex quake with temperance speeches ; but 
 while you shut my mouth with a temperance law, and I 
 go to the governor and he says we must be satisfied with 
 a sensible execution of the law, it is a checkmate. I 
 would like a prohibitionist. I would rather have Pit- 
 man than Butler. I would rather have a temperance 
 man. I have said that many times within the last ten 
 years. I have said to my temperance friends, " If you 
 ever expect to make yourselves felt, you must do it at 
 the polls." But the fact is, you cannot stir that dish of 
 skim-milk to any honorable action. We have tried it 
 again and again. I have tried, inside and outside of 
 
23 
 
 the convention, but could do nothing either way. And 
 now, all at once, there rises up a man before you who 
 says, " Give me the helm of state and I will close every 
 liquor shop in Boston, and my motive shall be to kill the 
 prohibitory law." Thank you, sir. I will risk it. Just 
 go ahead and execute. 
 
 But people say, " Suppose he don't execute ; suppose he 
 don't keep his promises ? " Friends, there is one thing 
 that I would like to say here. Look at the journalism 
 of the last six weeks. I think General Butler has been 
 charged with about every sin that can be imagined ; but 
 there is one thing, I watched very carefully, — I put my 
 ear down to the earth like an Indian listening, — he 
 never has been charged, even since 1861, of not doing 
 what he said he would do. You cannot find a news- 
 paper correspondent so utterly reckless that he will 
 charge Butler with- having broken his promise. 
 
 For one, I have nothing against him. He has done a 
 great many things that I should not have done ; he has 
 done a great many things that I would ask him to do 
 difierently ; but I will tell you a secret, friends. If I was 
 Pope to-day, there is not a man among all the candi- 
 dates, Butler included, whom I would make a saint of; 
 not one. If I was Pope to-morrow, there has not been 
 a governor for fifty years that I would make a saint of. 
 The difficulty is, saints do not come very often, and 
 when they do come, it is the hardest thing in the world 
 to get them into politics. I don't believe that if you 
 could import a saint bran new and spotless from heaven, 
 that he could get a majority in the State of Massachu- 
 setts for any office that has a salary. 
 
 And now I say, that this name that we present to you 
 to-day, stands as high, as illustrious, as honored, and aa 
 
24 
 
 historical, represents as raiich ability and as much will 
 to work as any one that has been named for governor ; 
 and I for one, if I liear in November, as I hope to hear, 
 that from Barnstable to Berkshire the peojile of the 
 Commonwealth have strangled the press with one hand 
 and the moneyed corporations with the other, and 
 made Benjamin F. Butler governor of Massachusetts, I 
 shall say, ."Amen, so be it." 
 
 " "No more strikes. A hundred guns for 
 the People, who furl the flags of disorder 
 and discontent in the streets to take their 
 place in the cabinet and at the council board." 
 

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