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GEN. LEW. WALLACE 
 
 -ON- 
 
 The Democratic Party and the Solid South. 
 
SPEECH 
 
 -OF- 
 
 GEN. LEW. WALLACE 
 
 -ON- 
 
 The Democratic Party and the Solid South 
 
 Delivered on occasion of a Rally called by the Ben Hur Re- 
 publican Club at Whitlock, Montgomery County, Indiana, Octo- 
 ber 23, |l 
 
 CRAWFORDSVILLE JOURNAL PRINT, 
 
#* 
 
 
The Democratic Party and the Solid South. 
 
 Fellow-Citizens — There is no office or nomination for office 
 in your gift which I want. If then you ask what I am, and why 
 liere, this is my answer — I am an American of the class which 
 believes our country the greatest that is or has been — the class 
 which does not allow a day to pass without thanks for birth and 
 life in the United States. There is no country like our country; 
 and in anticipation of the election, the morning of which may 
 be almost seen in the sky, I am here to speak for it regardlessly. 
 
 I wish to be brief, and for that purpose, after not a little 
 thought, have determined to confine myself to one topic — the 
 Democratic Party and the Solid South. 
 
 I was once a Democrat of the straitest sect. For thirteen years 
 as a Democrat I made battle with every ism that showed a hostile 
 ppnnon in tht opposite horizon. Recollection of those years, and 
 of the many who were my friends in that time, some of them now 
 dead, will keen me in respectful speech. While indifferent to politi- 
 cal honors, I beg you all to understand that I am a candidate for 
 the good will and respect of everybody. I remember also that at 
 giving consent to speak on this occasion, it was on condition that 
 my old Democratic friends should be especially invited to come 
 and hear me. 
 
 The origin of the Democratic party is not altogether clear in 
 history. Thomas Jefferson is its reputed father. Let it be so 
 held. There were Federalists and Anti- Federalists. Each nick- 
 named the other. The anti-Federalists called their opponents 
 Aristrocrats, and were in turn branded Jacobins. The Federalists 
 disappeared with Aaron Burr; after which we hear certainly and 
 distinctively of the Democratic party. And it satisfies me now 
 to divide its existence into two eras, 1861 being the close of the 
 first and the beginning of the second. 
 
4 
 
 If it be true that political parties, like men, are good or bad 
 according to their deeds, then, speaking judicially, I am bound 
 to say that, while amenable to objections, the Democratic party 
 was great and fairly representative of the American people dur- 
 ing the first era of its life. Indeed, I am bound to go further, 
 and say that, in my opinion, it was necessary to our country. 
 
 My Republican friends may be astonished at my liberality, 
 and want explanation. 
 
 There were three events, each of infinite moment in shaping 
 our affairs nationally, and each to be set down to the credit of the 
 Democratic party. The first one was the purchase in 1802 of 
 Louisiana from Napoleun. The movement was bitterly opposed 
 by the Federalists. Nevertheless, Jefferson, supported by the 
 Democracy in and out of Congress, succeeded. The amount paid 
 was $15,000,000. The advantages have since proven immeasur- 
 able. We obtained by it first the Mississippi river entire; next a 
 stretch of country indefinitely vast came to us peaceably, and out 
 of it we have since created the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Mis- 
 souri. Minnesota, Colorado, Nevada and Oregon, with five Terri- 
 tories remaining. In that day Napoleon was planning a French 
 colonial dominion in the West, and he actually set about its 
 achievement, beginning in St. Domingo. His second step was to 
 have been in Louisiana. Talleyrand, writing by his inspiration 
 said: "We shall find in the Indian tribes (adjacent to Ohio, Mis- 
 sissippi and Missouri) an army permanently cantoned in most con- 
 venient stations, endowed with skill and temper best adapted to 
 the nature and the scene of the war (against the United Stat:s), 
 and armed and impelled with far less trouble and expense than 
 an equal number of our troops. * * * Such will be the power 
 we will derive from a military station and a growing colony on 
 the Mississippi.'* Could anything be more explicit? Imagine 
 30,000 Indians wesl of the river led by Frenchmen like Mont- 
 calm and Duquesne, and armed and supplied by France! 
 
 The second great deed to which 1 have referred was the war 
 of 1812. England concluded our revolution, you .vill remember, 
 h\ acknowledging our independence. She even embodied the 
 acknowledgment in a formal treaty. Yet we were not free in 
 fact. We wanted to engage in manufacturing and commerce. 
 Europe was occupied with Napoleon; we were almost the only 
 
neutrals; so tbat the time was favorable to our ambition. But 
 the old enemy, true to his everlasting policy of holding the whole 
 earth as a market to be supplied by him, and knowing perfectly 
 the principle that no people can rival him in manufacturing for 
 exportation except they be masters of a marine for carriage on 
 their own account, repudiated the rights of neutrals as defined by 
 the law of nations, boarded our ships on the high seas, and plun- 
 dered them at pleasure; nor stopping there, he bore our seamen, 
 native and foreign born, from their decks, and mustered them 
 at his guns. At last the condition became intolerable. A war 
 party asserted itself in Congress — Calhoun against John Ran- 
 dolph, Henry Clay against Josiah Quincy — the West and South 
 against a faction in New England. James Madison, a Demo- 
 cratic President, approved and published the declaration of war. 
 Then, for the first time, appeared the motto emblazoned on our 
 flag — "Free Trade and Sailors' Rights. 11 The free trade of that 
 day, however, is not to be confounded with the free trade of the 
 present. It meant, simply, as Madison and Perry understood it, 
 the right of our people to send ships to sea, and that was all. 
 The policy of levying duties upon imports for purposes of rev- 
 enue and protection was not in the consideration. The end was 
 glorious. Our real independence must be reckoned from the date 
 of the treaty of Ghent, Dec 24, 1814, not from Sept. 3, 1783, 
 the date of the treaty of Paris, by which the revolutionary war 
 was finished. 
 
 The third great event which I include in my reference was 
 the war with Mexico. 1 am aware of the prejudice existing 
 against that measure upon the part of many good and wise 
 Americans. Still I insist that the war was inevitable — some- 
 thing bound to come — if not in 1846, then later. It was the 
 logical consequence of the annexation of Texas. If the Rio 
 Grande, a rushing torrent from its first fountains to its final 
 plunge into the Gulf, is now a boundary line of difficult observ- 
 ance, what would the unsettled line terminal on the south by the 
 ^ Nueces have been? It is true that the motive of the Democratic 
 majority in the annexation of Texas was indefensible. The ex- 
 tension of slavery cannot be sepaiated from slavery; but after our 
 government committed itself to the measure, the question chang- 
 ed; the soil became ours; we had to defend it; the people of Texas 
 
6 
 
 became our people, and we had to defend them. In dealing with 
 foreign powers, I reserve the right to oppose a policy down to the 
 moment when the national sanction is attested by the national 
 seal fixed fast to the proper document; then T am an American 
 against the world. The unrighteousness of the policy disappears 
 in the light of the stars upon the flag, and where the flag is order- 
 ed I am ready to go, though it be up the Thames to the heart of 
 London. I followed it a soldier across the Rio Grande; and now, 
 forty years after, I look upon the map, and in a vain effort to 
 estimate in dollars and cents the value of California alone, I rest, 
 thinking of the future that was secured. Slavery is dead, but 
 the right of way between ocean and ocean survives, a fee-simp'e 
 to our people forever. 
 
 These, I repeat, are the special glories of the Democrats 
 party, and I call upon you to observe that they were all of occur- 
 rence during the first era. 
 
 Up to this point, at least, my Democratic friends cannot 
 complain of me; and as, in what is to come, I shall try to be not 
 less considerate of their feelings, let me hope to have their con- 
 tinued attention. This is the time for them to hear; the time for 
 them to think of what they have heard, and to digest it, is when 
 they are at home in the quiet of their families. 
 
 Did you never ask yourselves, my friends, why, with such 
 mighty things as those I have mentioned to mark its history, 
 there should have been a necessity for any other than the Dem- 
 ocratic party? As a rule we send gratitude hand in hand with 
 our public pride, so that he who does a deed or great good may 
 count upon one day having a niche in his honor. The conspic- 
 uous exception is the case of General Grant. The city which un- 
 dertook his monument stands dishonored by its failure. To make 
 amends he has a memorial in every loyal heart. 
 
 Listen to me now. The Democratic party fell by as base 
 a betrayal as is to be found in profane history. The mind of man 
 cannot conceive ol a fouler perversion than that to which it was 
 subjected. True, it lives, and holds the government, but its grip 
 is uncertain and feeble. There is no prophecy in saying that its 
 days of usefulness are over, for the reason that the conspirators 
 wlni worked upon its magnificent loyalty before are using it again. 
 
and to the same end. And of that, my Democratic friends, it is 
 now my business to tell you. 
 
 The space between our seaboards, east and west, is vastly 
 wider than that between the lakes and the gulf. Its climates are 
 different, and there are differences in the pursuits and business in- 
 terests of its inhabitants; yet its inhabitants are one in affection 
 for the Union. If so, why should there have been, why should 
 there now be, a division between the North and the South ? 
 Why should that division have led down to the rebellion? 
 
 The man who lives by his own labor comes afterwhile to 
 love his occupation; disliking to be disturbed in it, he grows 
 patient and calculating, and to a degree submissive. Not so he 
 who habitually derives his bread from the enforced toil of another 
 man. He turns self-willed, impatient, haughty, tyrannical; and, 
 afterwhile, when the enforced toil, a thing of inheritance, passes 
 to succeeding generations, they exalt themselves into superior be- 
 ings. That somebody should bring them their meat ready cooked 
 and set it before them is of course. They exercise domination as 
 of natural right. In their eyes labor is a sign of inferiority. The 
 indisposition of the working man to be disturbed they take to be 
 cowardice, and they say of the mechanic — "Hit him — use him — 
 he is without spirit — he is only a mudsill." My fellow-citizens, 
 this is the whole philosophy of our sectional differences North 
 and South. The North built upon Free Labor; the South 
 feasted, fattened, and made merry on Slave Labor. In course of 
 time, by natural law, the inhabitants of the two sections grew 
 apart into two peoples. They are two distinct peoples now — two 
 peoples, with a terrible unsettled aggravation on the part of the 
 South. My associates here (Mr. Johnston and Captain Hegler) 
 will tell you when they come to speak, that the question of the 
 hour is Protection or Free Trade. If they will allow the opinion, 
 for the utterance of which nobody is responsible but myself, I 
 tell you the issue to be decided next month — the issue to which 
 all others are but incidents — is which of the two distinct peoples 
 will be chosen as trustees of the government. 
 
 Now, my Democratic friend, if you had a supernumerary dog 
 which you thought well of, but were called upon to give to one 
 of two neighbors, I take it you would giye it to him you thought 
 most friendly to the brute. Wouldn't you? Is it possible you 
 
8 
 
 chic less for your government? If I am justified in thinking 
 better of you than that, the point of consideration is, which of 
 the peoples of the sections is the best friend to the government? 
 
 One sentence will dispose of the question as respects the 
 majority in the North. They never struck a blow, nor tired a 
 shot, except in defense of the Union — of such are tke Republican 
 party, and Beujaman Harrisou. Can as much be said of the 
 South? Let us see. 
 
 A moment ago, speaking of the necessity for another than 
 the Democratic party, I said there would have been no such need 
 had not the latter been wickedly betrayed. Tt is in order now to 
 speak of that betrayal. 
 
 I will not dwell upon the rebellion. I am trying to be dis- 
 passionate judicial, if you please — and would like to have you 
 follow me in the same temper. So let pass its thousands fields of 
 blood — its outlay of treasure — its debt yet upon us — its pension 
 list, which, after all, is but a partial record of the men it left 
 maimed and diseaee-struck, and of the widows and orphans of the 
 dead — for your accommodation, my Democratic friend, and the 
 sooner to get at my real argument, let the rebellion be treated as 
 a tremendous , nightmare, a horror impossible except in the 
 dream of a murderer who is to die in the morning, cr of a leper 
 asleep in his scabs. Who made it? To accuse you would be to 
 accuse myself, for while it was hatching we were Democrats to- 
 gether. Your case was exactly mine. Before the war opened, 
 we thought it would come. In anticipation of it, I studied mili- 
 tary text-books and drilled a company for six years. In our eyes, 
 Seward, (ireelej', (Harrison, and gentle singers like Whittier, the 
 Quaker, were the unnaturals stirring the fire to fetch the hell- 
 broth to a boil. They sent the "hymn-books" to Kansas, and old 
 •John Brown to Harper's Ferry- so it seemed to us. And when 
 Abe Lincoln, erected his gaunt body to its full height, said, 
 shaking his bony finger in Douglas's face — "A house divided 
 against itself cannot stand 11 — we called to each other, "Now it is 
 coming! 11 We passed the warning on, and were not afraid. 
 Afraid? Of what? The old Democratic party was true. We 
 saw it alert and ready, all its armor on — we saw the lion-heart 
 on its shield, and in the center of the heart, the Constitution, an 
 illuminated word of Grod. In this spirit we sat looking expect- 
 
antly at the North. By and by the Charleston convention came 
 on, and startled us. It ended with a division: part adjourned to 
 Baltimore; th.211 there were two candidates in the field. We were 
 dazed by the procession of events that followed. Abe Lincoln 
 was elected. A Cabinet officer from Virginia plundered the 
 treasury; the navy was distributed over the seas; the contents of 
 the arsenals were expressed South — all under Mr. Buchanan's 
 eyes. Still we sat dazed. With farewells of defiance, Jeff Davis 
 and a following of Southern Senators abandoned their seats in 
 the Capitol. A convention was held at Montgomery, Ala.; an- 
 other constitution was promulgated; the Fourth of July was 
 abolished; a new flag adopted. Still we sat dazed, or if we went 
 about, it was to ask, with chilly premonition, What is the 
 meaning of it all? If a Republican answered, ''Treason — war," 
 we whistled to keep our courage up or tried to laugh at him. At 
 last, from a girdle of batteries, a gun was fired at Fort Sumter. 
 You remember the sound of that gun, my Democratic brother; 
 in your field, on the highway, at home, wherever you were, you 
 heard it— and then— well, speaking for myself, I heard it, and 
 knew what it was— a call to arms. Then we came out of our 
 dazement, and stood up, you— I— all of us, even the humblest 
 man— knowing who began the rebellion— knowing upon whom 
 history would eternally fasten it— knowing it was begun for 
 Slavery— knowing that the Democratic party had been the victim 
 of a conspiracy; that the lordly Southern barons had done their 
 work secretly; that they had not consulted us of the rank and 
 file in the North ; that some body in our political household had 
 assured them it was not necessary to consult us; that somebody 
 had pledged a hundred thousand of us to hold the Republicans 
 from crossing the Ohio river; that somebody had written for arms, 
 that we might open a war here, and signalize our devotion to the 
 party by making Indiana the twelfth Confederate State. You 
 were innocent of the intent— so was I. We stood up, I say, 
 knowing that we had been betrayed. None the less each of us 
 was then summoned to choose between the North and South; and 
 now to-day the same summons is upon us, the same choice offered 
 
 us. 
 
 I pause here to beg that you will not misunderstand me. I am 
 not saying that the South contemplates renewing the war. no! 
 
10 
 
 Why should it? By some madness of trust on the part of the 
 North, some inscrutable decree of Providence, the engineers of the 
 late Confederacy are in possession of the government: their 
 scheme is now to hold it; and as they relied upon you to help 
 them destroy it, they are relying upon you to help them farm it. 
 The audacity of their reliance satisfies me that, in their opinion, 
 we of the North are the hewers of wood they thought us in 1860. 
 Neither am I saying what they will do with the government, if you 
 help them to it. It is partly because we do not know their in- 
 tentions, and partly because all the evidence they have furnished 
 us is against their honesty of purpose, that I would dissuade you 
 from trusting them further. We cannot shut our eyes to the 
 fact that within our generation they set up a government of their 
 own, and fought four years to maintain it. Is that nothing 
 now? In those four years the Union was in abeyance. Is that 
 nothing? Is it something to be repeated? They surrendered 
 with arms in their hands. Why should I Hot speak plainly? 
 They became conquered enemies, and who of you has advices of 
 the breaking of the millennium? 
 
 Hands were given us for defense; our reason was designed to 
 enable us to anticipate danger. Let us use it, m this instance, to 
 test the spirit of the South. Let us go out in search of proofs of 
 their friendliness; so shall we determine their fitness or unfit- 
 ness for the mighty trust they seek. 
 
 Since the rebellion closed, what one of their leaders has been 
 heard to publicly recant his treason? 
 
 Are not the offices high and low now held by them the rewards 
 of military service in the rebellion ? 
 s, When the war closed there was a large emigration of North- 
 ern men to the South. Were not the emigrants villainously de- 
 nominated, socially branded, and killed or run out? 
 
 You may say that these things were too directly after the war 
 for the hot Southern blood to have cooled. Very well. It is now 
 twenty-three years — nearly a quarter of a century — since the 
 affair at Appomattox, and yet we are confronted by the Solid 
 South, a new name for the old Confederacy, and which, because 
 it is an organization, cannot be viewed as other than a menace. 
 Trifling, do you think? With the help of three Northern States 
 that organization elected the man it chose for President— aye, its 
 
11 
 
 President. In Rome the other day the new German Emperor 
 bent his knee to the Pope; that was nothing but ceremonial eti- 
 quette. Very different President Cleveland. He has been on his 
 knees to the solid South ever since it nominated him. On his 
 knees he ordered the return of the captured flags. On his knees 
 he signed his pension vetoes. 
 
 Through the President the Solid South holds the sword of the 
 Nation. With a majority in tlte House of Representatives, it is 
 master of the national treasury. A bill was introduced into the 
 House this session to refund to the States money raised from 
 them by special tax in aid of the government during the war- 
 The share due Indiana would have been over $900,000. Forty 
 and more members, all ex-confederates, banded together, held a 
 dead-lock of days, and finally defeated the measure. The lesson 
 is not the loss of money justly due ns, but that they know their 
 power. 
 
 The South is not permitting any lapse of war recollections. 
 The cause may have been lost; strangely enough the Southern 
 managers are doing many things which suggest studious effort 
 on their part to keep its memory sacredly alive. Such is the tes- 
 timony of their monuments; and nothing signifies separateness 
 amongst peoples as positively as public memorials. You would 
 no more look for a tomb of Napoleon in Trafalgar square than 
 for a pillar to Nelson overhanging the Invalides. A soldier in 
 bronze, mounted, booted, sworded, and in martial regalia, is an 
 everlasting teacher; the generations are his scholars. 
 
 In localities the South is materially recovering from the effects 
 of the war; its natural resources are undergoing development; it 
 is beginning to feel the good effects of varied industries and free 
 labor; withal, however, I do not hesitate to say, that if Northern 
 capitalists were to abandon the enterprises begun by them in 
 those localities, the whole broad section would within three years 
 return to its wrecked condition of 1865. Every Southerner muet 
 know that; upon what theory, then, consistent with friendly in- 
 tention, can you, my Democratic friend, explain the fact that 
 eyery representative Southern politician is a free-trader? One 
 would think members of Congress from districts in which fur- 
 naces and factories have been established would be keenly alive to 
 protecting them by duties upon foreign competitors; but it is not 
 
12 
 
 so. To find the true reason for this amazing circumstance, you 
 will have to look under the surface, and when found it will be 
 identical with the reason of the prohibition of duties in the Con- 
 federate constitution. The men who adopted that constitution, 
 and the men who represent the Solid South in Congress, were 
 born and brought up on Slave Labor: in their eyes a slave is a 
 worthier object of respect than a mechanic; with their three great 
 products — sugar, rice and cotton — they couM buy any manufac- 
 tured article of which they had need; consequently they looked 
 the world over with but one demand — who will furnish us goods 
 at the cheapest rates? Do you flatter yourself they care more for 
 the condition of factory operatives than they did in the old plan- 
 tation days? They have the negro yet; his average of daily wages 
 does not exceed 30 cents; and, most significant of ail, they still 
 have the exclusive production of sugar, cotton and rice, of which 
 under the Mills bill, sugar is dutiable at the rate of 68 cents and 
 rice 100 cents. purblind friend, not to see that your agricul- 
 turedoes not interfere with theirs; that when they have destroyed 
 your industries, by opening the gates to foreigners, they will be 
 the lords they used to be, and you the doted mudsills they used 
 to think you! Slavery plays no part in the motive. The condi- 
 tion of the negro now is better for their purposes than when he 
 was a chattel — he must maintain himself — he costs them nothing. 
 In short, the Free Trade of the South is aimed at the Free Labor 
 of the North; giving them the government is giving the great 
 American market to England, and you — when the transfer is 
 completely effected, in the bottom of a beggar's purse you will 
 find the price paid you for helping them in this part of their con- 
 spiracy! 
 
 I care now to consider but one other question in the connec- 
 tion — How nearly has the solid South come to mastering the 
 government? And what manifestations of good will has it left 
 on the .vay? We calculate the performance of a ship by knots, 
 of a locomotive by miles, of a horse by minutes and seconds. Un- 
 fortunately, the inquiry I am putting cannot be gauged by such 
 measurements; it can only be reached by deduction from ciicum- 
 stances, and it is only as the circumstances are known and deter- 
 minable facts that we can assure ourselves of certainty in the 
 investigation. 
 
13 
 
 The Territory of Dakota covers an area in square miles four 
 
 times that of Indiana; its population is over 700,000; of whites, it 
 lias over 50 per cent, more than Mississippi, 50 percent, more than 
 Louisiana, and nearly double that of South Carolina. The ten 
 Democratic Representatives of Georgia received a total of 20,482 
 votes. Dakota has more than six times that ni.niber; yet she can- 
 not get a place in the Union of States. Who keeps her outside? 
 What is the motive? Her people have been knocking at the 
 gates for years. They are intelligent, industrious, able. The 
 majority of them went forth from these upper-Mississippi States 
 taking with them our habits, modes, and ideas. My Democratic 
 friend, they are of your likeness bodily and spiritually, and guilty 
 of no offense. Had they raised their hands against the Union, 
 could they be counted upon as faithful allies of those who did at- 
 tempt to destroy it, they would have been admitted long ago. As 
 a State Dakota would seat in Congress two Republican Senators. 
 There you have their offending. No deep-sea sounding here; you 
 have only to look ov.r the shady side of the ship, and see the 
 motive black in the shallows below. The Presidency belongs to 
 the Solid South; the House belongs to it; give it two Senators 
 more, and American right will become of no consequence, though 
 it have the sanction of an hundred years, with countless pre- 
 cedents. It is easier to keep 300,000 loyal men voiceless than it 
 is to kill them. Who knows that better than the Solid South? 
 In a word, it is near enough to absolute mastery of the govern- 
 ment to dare disfranchise the 700,000 people of Dakota. 
 
 The lesson in history which has always made the strongest 
 impression upon me is that there has never been a republic that 
 did not die before the people knew it was in danger. We in 
 America have been accustomed to believe that as long as the Con- 
 stitution is observed our government is safe. Tell me, my Dem- 
 ocratic friend, is not that so? W 7 ell, as calmly as I can state a 
 circumstance of such import, and that you may never plead 
 ignorance or want of notice, I tell you that the Constitution is now 
 a nullity in the South, and has been for years. Do not consider 
 me as threatening a calamity to come. I speak of what is. A 
 Southern, though steeped in treason from head to heel, though 
 he have led armies in rebellion, can come into any Northern State, 
 live there long enough to attain citizenship, and vote without 
 
14 
 
 challenge. How is it under the domination of the Solid South 
 with respect to us of the North? There are States— observe that 
 I speak in the plural— in which the majority, so far as expression 
 of political opinion is concerned, go about with gags in their 
 mouths; as to expression at the polls, they might as well be 
 worms under foot in rotted coffins. "Negroes," you say. Not 
 entirely; there are thousands of white men among them; but 
 grant the discrimination— those negroes are citizens, and in their 
 residences voters exactly as you are voters here. Shall I stop now 
 to lecture you about the origin of the right of suffrage, 
 and what all, under our form of government, depends 
 upon its free and uninterrupted exercise? God for- 
 bid! If you have yet to be taught in that depart- 
 ment, you will not believe, though an angel of grace came to 
 tell it to you, that we are already far advanced on the road to an- 
 other rebellion. In the first place, it is not true that color has to 
 do with the suppression of the majority in those States; for if 
 negroes will vote the ticket their masters give them, called by 
 courtesy the Democratic ticket, they are welcome at the polls, 
 and their ballots are faithfully counted. But they will not. 
 They know instinctively that to do so is to reinforce the iron 
 plates already on the doors of their exclusion. In the next place, 
 in learning the alphabet, they carry off with them the lesson that 
 as there is a first letter and a last one, so there is a highest posi- 
 tion and one the lowest in society; in teaching them to read, you 
 quicken the sensibility of their souls to the pleasures and de- 
 lights of liberty; to keep organized against them, is to reveal to 
 them afterwhile the power there is in organization. Killing 
 them is but instructing them how to kill. Events travel fast in 
 in these days. The avengers of wronged peoples do not always 
 bear the name of Moses. In one age, we had Washington; in 
 another Lincoln: and I do not think it straining the imagination 
 to believe that in a public school somewhere in the land there is 
 a black man bending over his desk, taking on mind and soul to 
 lead his race up to perfected freedom. A few days ago a United 
 States Senator from the Solid South boldly defended the policy 
 of forcible exclusion. My reply to him is simply, "Sir, it would 
 be safer for you to kill your colored constituents while you have 
 the power." What is the offense of the disfranchised majority 
 
15 
 
 in those States? Exactly the offense of the disfranchised people 
 of Dakota — they are Republicans. In a word, the Solid South is 
 so nearly master of the government that it dares nullify the Con- 
 stitution of the Nation, and then ask tauntingly, What are you 
 going to do about it? 
 
 After all, however, probably the best way to reach the point 
 in hand is by inquiring what the Solid South has yet to do before 
 it completely pockets the government. Given two Senators more, 
 then there remain between them and their prey but four men 
 whose terms of life, as defined by the Psalmist, are already run. 
 In other words, four of the judges of the Supreme Court are 
 reasonably sure to superanuate and retire or die within the next 
 administration. Are you willing the Solid South shall dictate the 
 appointment of their successors? Consider before you commit 
 yourself. All the conditions under the latest constitutional 
 amendments have been settled by the present court; yet their de- 
 cisions are open to rehearing and reversal. Ponder the confusion 
 that would follow such a step. I can scarcely imagine a greater 
 calamity. To want those amendments wiped out or even ser- 
 iously disturbed looks like wanting the war re-opened in more 
 dreadful form than ever — an unchaining of Satan himself. In 
 that day God help you! — God help us all! 
 
 Let me conclude now. I hope I have not said anything per- 
 sonally offensive to you, my old Democratic friends. I certainly 
 have not meant to do so. It seemed to me a good time to tell 
 you why, long ago, I quit being a Democrat. Recognizing that 
 the conspirators of 1861 betrayed the party, recognizing that they 
 were trying to use it for the destruction of the Union, along with 
 Douglas, Logan and Grant, not to speak of the thousands of 
 others who might be named, I broke away from them. Is it 
 not time for you to do so? Dot not say to yourselves that the 
 Confederacy is dead; it lives, not merely in spirit, but organized 
 and active; its new name is the Solid South. How much longer 
 can you consent to be its voluntary servants? Its grasp is upon 
 your shoulders; shake it off, and prove you? equality in under- 
 standing and courage. If you think it deserving your sympathy 
 and gratitude, vote for Grover Cleveland; on the other hand, if 
 you have the slightest doubt of the honesty of its intentions, if 
 you would certainly save your government for yourselves and 
 your children, then vote for Benjamin Harrison. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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