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 PRESENTED BY 
 
[No. 5.] 
 
 ISSUED BY 
 
 The Central Committee of Republicans and Independents. 
 
 Room 28, Palmer House, Chicago. 
 
 Franklin MacVeagh, Edwin Burritt Smith, Wm, T. Baker, 
 
 Chairman. Secretary. Treasurer. 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 or 
 
 ey. James Freeman Clarke, 
 
 AT TKEMOXT TEMPLE, 
 
 OCTOBER 1, 1884. 
 
 AND THE 
 
 BETTER OF RET. ROBERT COLLYER, D.D. 
 
 Dear : You want to know what I think of the 
 
 beech made in Boston the other evening by my friend 
 ames Freeman Clarke, and I will answer you frankly. I 
 iiink he was right. His speech, to my mind, was wise, 
 lanfuL, and true, and just what we should expect from 
 ne who has always made the mere politician give place to 
 •ie patriot when the need came, and has stood in the van- 
 [tiard as a leader in every true reform. Dr. Clarke has a 
 ngular aptitude for this sort of work; the courage also 
 c his deep convictions, and the faith which holds on until 
 aose come up he has left behind him. I remember more 
 Ijian one instance in the twenty-five years I have known 
 [id loved him in which he has led a forlorn hope in the 
 pod city of which he is now perhaps the most eminent 
 ; tizen, to find in a few years the old comrades were stand- 
 i g with him again, shoulder to shoulder, who had hung 
 \ ick puzzled and perplexed by the stand he had taken on 
 ••me burning question of the time. 
 
 This is not a forlorn hope he is leading now; still I 
 ptice the same trouble in talking with Boston men and 
 ; ading their letters, and look for exactly the same indorse- 
 
2 ADDRESS OF REV. JAS. FREEMAN" CLARKE. 
 
 ment of my old friend's speech and action when this woe- 
 ful war is over we are conducting, for the first time in our 
 history, with the Chinese arm of "stink-pots/' and as far 
 as I know, I am what Coleridge calls "an inveterate 
 hoper." I hope in no long time to see every honest and 
 fair-minded man of Dr. Clarke's mind touching the can- 
 didate he should vote for, no matter to which party he 
 may belong, or who is elected in November. 
 
 You are at perfect liberty to print this note if you 
 think it is worth any other man's reading, and however 
 widely we may differ in our opinion of the candidates now 
 before our people, you must believe in my absolute loyalty 
 to this great and free Republic, as I do in yours. 
 
 Indeed yours, Robert Collyer. 
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 Friends, — We meet here as Republicans, and as Inde- 
 pendent Republicans. Once, to be a Republican meant to 
 be independent; it meant to follow principle rather than 
 party, and to refuse our votes to any man whom we 
 deemed unfit for an office, no matter how popular he 
 might be, or what influences he might combine in his 
 support. But now, unfortunately, men may be Repub- 
 licans, and not thus independent; and, therefore, we must 
 add this qualifying term, in order to define our position. 
 We mean, then, to say that we belong to that class of 
 Republicans who in 1876, in 1880, and in this very year 
 1884, opposed the nomination of Mr. Blaine, throwing the 
 vote and influence of Massachusetts against him in three 
 national conventions. Returning from the convention 
 which met in Cincinnati in 1876, I heard some delegates 
 from Pennsylvania who had voted for Mr. Blaine com- 
 plaining that the moral influence of Massachusetts had at 
 that time prevented his nomination. "For," said they, 
 << when the convention saw the Massachusetts delegation 
 passing by an eminent citizen of a neighboring State in 
 New England and voting for Mr. Bristow, of Kentucky, 
 they said, ' There must be something morally wrong about 
 
ADDKESS OF EEV. JAS. FREEMAN" CLARKE. 6 
 
 Mr. Blaine/" And I recollect that, in our State conven- 
 tion at Worcester in 1880, Mr. Boutwell, who is now an 
 ardent advocate of Mr. Blaine's election, was so sure of the 
 repugnance felt to him by Massachusetts, that his strong- 
 est argument to induce us to favor the renomination of 
 General Grant was this — that, it Grant did not receive the 
 nomination, it would certainly be captured by Blaine. 
 And Blaine himself felt so deeply this opposition that he 
 uttered some bitter words in the senate against the char- 
 acter and history of Massachusetts — so bitter that our 
 senator, Mr. Hoar, felt called on to reply with consid- 
 erable severity. We also stand where the Republicans 
 of Massachusetts stood in the convention at Worcester, 
 when General Butler — then seeking a Republican nom- 
 ination — moved that a delegate had no right to sit in 
 that convention who had said that, if Butler were nom- 
 inated, he would not vote for him. Massachusetts Repub- 
 licans then decided that they and their delegates were just 
 as free after the convention as they were before, and always 
 had a right to bolt a bad nomination. Indeed, these argu- 
 ments were so stringent that they seem even to have con- 
 vinced and converted Butler himself to our view; for now, 
 having been a delegate to the Democratic convention at 
 Chicago, he has bolted its nomination, and is running on 
 his own ticket. 
 
 Finally, we stand where the Republicans of Massachu- 
 setts stood in 1875, when they passed the following reso- 
 lution, reported by H. L. Dawes, our Massachusetts 
 senator. It is in the platform of 'the Republican State 
 convention of 1875, of which H. L. Dawes was chairman 
 of the committee on resolutions: — 
 
 "It is therefore declared by the Republicans of Massa- 
 chusetts that they will support no man for official position 
 whose character is not an absolute guarantee of fidelity to 
 every public trust; and they invoke the condemnation of 
 the ballot box upon any candidate for office who failc 
 this test, whatever be his party name or association 
 
4 ADDRESS OF KEY. JAS. FREEMAN" CLARKE. 
 
 Where the Eepublicans of Massachusetts stood in 1876, 
 in 1880, and in the present year, we stand to-day. We 
 cannot see why a man who was opposed by Massachusetts 
 as unfit to be a candidate for the Presidency then, should 
 be regarded as fit to be elected to the Presidency now. 
 What, then, are our objections to Mr. Blaine? They fall 
 into two classes, — his course in congress, which showed 
 that he did not understand the duties of a legislator: and 
 his course since, in Garfield's cabinet, which proved him 
 unfit for the duties of an executive office. I have been ac- 
 cused of having a personal hostility or pique against Mr. 
 Blaine. Far from it. My personal intercourse with him, 
 though slight, has been pleasant. I regard him as an able, 
 agreeable, and polished gentleman. My objections to him 
 are wholly on public grounds. I have carefully studied 
 the Congressional Record of the investigation made in 
 1876, and the so-called Mulligan letters. I think that, 
 whatever else may be implied and suggested by them, this 
 at least is certain: That Mr. Blaine, during the time that 
 he was a member of congress and Speaker of the House, 
 was earnestly engaged in buying and selling the stocks of 
 railroads, — accumulating wealth and deriving special ad- 
 vantages from these roads on account of his official position 
 and influence; that on one occasion he urged again and again 
 that he should receive pecuniary favors, because as Speaker 
 of the House he had helped a railroad by his decision; 
 that these railroads from which he sought and obtained 
 such advantages were those which were receiving help by 
 acts of congressional legislation. It is not necessary to v go 
 into details. I only say what is plain on the face of these 
 transactions: that Mr. Blaine was using his public position 
 and influence to accumulate a fortune; that he was receiv- 
 ing great pecuniary advantages from moneyed corporations, 
 which could only be accounted for by his possessing that 
 political position and official influence. Now, we have 
 seen as honest a man as ever went from Massachusetts to 
 Washington censured by congress for doing what was not 
 
ADDRESS OF REV. JAS. FREEMAN CLARKE. 5 
 
 a tenth part as bad as what Mr. Blaine evidently did. He 
 was censured for mixing up his private business with his 
 public duties. And yet his motive was the public service, — 
 to gain help in carrying through a great national enter- 
 prise; and, more than all, he practiced no disguise, but, 
 like a man of truth, told the whole story when called upon, 
 though while he told it, reputations were dropping around 
 him like soldiers in battle. Here comes the misery of it! 
 Mr. Blaine concealed the truth, denied the facts, and 
 falsified the record. That is the bitterness of it. Oh! if 
 he had only come forward manfully in that investigation, 
 and said: "Yes, I admit that I did what I ought not. I 
 see now that it was wrong. I wish I had not done it. 
 But, at all events, I will not deny the facts." If he had 
 done that, I believe we should all of us have forgiven him. 
 I, for one, would vote for him for the Presidency. 
 
 With these documents before us, the Congressional 
 Record and the Mulligan letters,— documents the authen- 
 ticity of which is not denied, — we are sorrowfully brought 
 to the conclusion that the present candidate of the Repub- 
 lican party is an unfit, discreditable, and unsafe person to 
 be President of this nation. He is unfit, because he has 
 used public office and position for private gain and per- 
 sonal emolument; discreditable, because he has disguised 
 and concealed those transactions by constant duplicity; 
 and unsafe, because, during his brief term of office in an 
 executive department, he has interfered without justice or 
 reason in the affairs of other republics, and prostituted in 
 the service of private interests the power confided in him 
 for public ends. No doubt, he has upright and honorable 
 men among his supporters, — some who, like Mr. Hoar, 
 support him eagerly,— some who, like Mr. Roosevelt, sup- 
 port him languidly, and others, like Mr. Edmunds, who 
 maintain their place in their party, but cannot make up 
 their mind to say a single word in his defense. It was 
 certainly an event without a parallel in the history of 
 politics, when the presiding officer of a meeting called to 
 
b ADDRESS OF KEV. JAS. FREEMAN CLARKE. 
 
 confirm the nomination of a Presidential candidate did not 
 allude to him at all in the course of his whole speech. It 
 was like what Tacitus says of the absence of the statues 
 Brutus and Oassius from the funeral of Junia, — "they 
 were all the more conspicuous because they were not 
 there/' But the pity of it is that the former leaders of the 
 Republican party have now become the followers. The 
 leaders now are those who skillfully combine politics and 
 personal gain, men who belong to rings, men who sneer at 
 civil service reform, as one of Mr. Blaine's chief wire- 
 pullers has lately done, as "namby-pamby politics, cant, 
 and babyism." The real leaders of the party now are such 
 as we scarcely care to name. The only policy which Mr. 
 Blaine seems earnestly to have adopted is that of keeping the 
 tariff as high as possible, so as to satisfy at once the manu- 
 facturers of New England and New York, the iron masters 
 of Pennsylvania, and the wool-growers of Ohio. The 
 only policy of which he is the exponent is to continue to 
 compel the people to pay in taxes $100,000,000 more than 
 is needed for the expenses of the nation, and then to dis- 
 tribute it among the States. It seems to me that nothing 
 could be more dangerous than four years of an adminis- 
 tration like this. One pretty sure result would be the 
 destruction of the Republican party. Four years of 
 Blaine's administration would bury it in a dishonored 
 grave. Indeed, Mr. Chairman, I think that the only hope 
 for the Republican party itself is the defeat of Blaine. 
 Going out of power for awhile, it would recover something 
 of its former quality, and return to its better traditions. 
 We do not cease to be Republicans because we vote for 
 once by the side of our opponents. When the best Repub- 
 licans of Buffalo united with the Democrats in choosing 
 Cleveland their mayor, they did not cease to be Repub- 
 licans. When the Republicans of the State of New York 
 united with the Democrats in electing Cleveland their 
 governor by one hundred and ninety thousand majority, 
 they did not cease to be Republicans. Nor should -we 
 
ADDRESS OF REV. JAS. FREEMAN" CLARKE. 7 
 
 cease to be Eepublicans if we joined the better class of 
 Democrats in electing Cleveland to the Presidency. We 
 should only show that we prefer our country to party, and 
 the safety of the nation to the temporary triumph of so- 
 called Eepublicanism. Those who are so carried away by 
 party spirit and the influence of a name that they think 
 the party which supports Mr. Blaine is the same with that 
 which elected Abraham Lincoln, because both are called 
 Eepublicans, show that they are cheated by words and 
 mistake appearance for reality. Such loyalty to party is 
 disloyalty to the country; and to those who act thus we 
 may apply the poet's words, and say, — 
 
 "Their honor rooted in dishonor stands, 
 And faith unfaithful makes them falsely true." 
 
 I»well remember how, years ago, when Daniel Webster 
 made his famous 7th of March speech, the leaders of his 
 party in Boston seemed for a time struck dumb with aston- 
 ishment, anger, and grief. But soon the power of parYy 
 reasserted itself, and before long a meeting was held in 
 which these same men thanked him for what he had said. 
 The same power of party shows itself again to-day. With 
 scarce an exception, the leading Eepublican public men in 
 this State have opposed Blaine until he was nominated; 
 with scarce an exception, they have since come round to 
 excuse, to defend, to admire, and finally to put him by the 
 side of Washington and Lincoln. Does not this remind 
 us of our copybook lines, — " First endure, next pity, then 
 embrace"? Some of my friends cannot bear the idea of a 
 Democratic success, because the Democrats were so bad 
 forty years ago. To such an argument what statute of 
 limitations can be applied? The Democrats to-day are not 
 those who began the war twenty-three years ago, not those 
 who defended slavery before that time. Let us follow Mr. 
 Hale's good advice, and "look forward, not backward." 
 Let us remember that "new occasions teach new duties," 
 and not attempt, as Lowell says, to open the portals of the 
 
8 ADDRESS OF KEY. JAS. FREEMAN CLARKE. 
 
 future with the blood-rusted key of the past. Mr. Chair- 
 man, when a citizen of a vast nation like this is to perform 
 the serious duty of voting for its chief magistrate, he 
 should first ask: "What is a President most needed for at 
 the present time? What are the most imminent dangers 
 which he must avert by the power of his magistracy, the 
 principal evils of the hour which he must subdue by the 
 influence of his authority? And who is the mau^he best 
 fitted for this work?" To me, Mr. Chairman, the chief 
 evils which endanger our nation and public life to-day 
 seem those so forcibly described by our Massachusetts 
 senator, Mr. Hoar, many years ago. They have not 
 diminished since that time. We have since then seen 
 the robberies of the public treasury by whisky rings and 
 Star-route rings, which the government has found itself 
 unable to punish. Strange that Mr. Hoar, who brings 
 this terrible indictment against the national honor, should 
 accuse President Eliot of teaching our youth to be ashamed 
 of their own history. Both President Eliot and Senator 
 Hoar do the State service when they plainly point out these 
 public crimes and public dangers. Each is seeking to 
 teach the young men how to help to make better history. 
 "My own public life," said Mr. Hoar, in May, 1876, 
 "has been a very brief and insignificant one, extending 
 little beyond the duration of a single term of senatorial 
 office; but, in that brief period, I have seen live judges of 
 a high court of the United States driven from office by 
 threats of impeachment for corruption or maladministra- 
 tion. I have heard the taunt from friendliest lips that, 
 when the United States presented herself in the East to 
 take part with the civilized world in generous competition 
 in the arts of life, the only products of her institutions in 
 which she surpassed all others beyond question was her 
 corruption. I have seen in the State in the Union fore- 
 most in power and wealth four judges of her courts 
 impeached for corruption, and the political administra- 
 tion of her chief city become a disgrace and by-word 
 
ADDRESS OF REV. JAS. FREEMAN" CLARKE. 9 
 
 throughout the world. I have seen the chairman of the 
 committee on military affairs in the House, now a distin- 
 guished member of this court, rise in his place and demand 
 the expulsion of four of his associates for making sale of 
 their official privilege of selecting the youths to be educated 
 at our great military school. When the greatest railroad 
 of the world, binding together the continent, and uniting 
 the two great seas which wash our shores, was finished, I 
 have seen our national triumph and exultation turned 
 to bitterness and shame by the unanimous reports of 
 three committees of Congress — two of the House and 
 one here — that every step of that mighty enterprise 
 had been taken in fraud. I have heard, in higher 
 places the shameless doctrine avowed by men grown 
 old in public office that the true way by which power 
 should be gained in the republic is to bribe the peo- 
 ple with the offices created for their service, and the 
 true end for which it should be used, when gained, is the 
 promotion of selfish ambition and the gratification of per- 
 sonal revenge. I have heard that suspicion haunts the 
 footsteps of the trusted companions of the President. 
 
 "These things have passed into history. The Hallam, 
 or the Tacitus, or the Sismondi, or the Macaulay who 
 writes the annals of our time will record them with his 
 inexorable pen. And now, when a high cabinet officer, 
 the constitutional adviser of the executive, flees from office 
 before charges of corruption, shall the historian add that 
 the Senate treated the demand of the people for its judg- 
 ment of condemnation as a farce, and laid down its high 
 functions before the sophistries and jeers of the criminal 
 lawyer? Shall he speculate about the petty political cal- 
 culations as to the effect on one party or the other which 
 induced his judges to connive at the escape of the great 
 public criminal? Or, on the other hand, shall he close the 
 chapter by narrating how these things are detected, re- 
 formed, and punished by constitutional processes which 
 the wisdom of our fathers devised for us, and the virtue 
 
10 ADDRESS OF REV. JAS. FREEMAN" CLARKE. 
 
 and purity of the people found their vindication in the 
 justice of the Senate?" 
 
 This is the great evil which threatens the virtue of the 
 community. It is the mad desire for great fortunes which 
 causes the defalcations taking place every day, — of presi- 
 dents and cashiers of banks, of town and city treasurers, 
 of trustees holding the estates of widows and orphans, and 
 forces them to finish lives begun in usefulness in exile, 
 death and dishonor. The rings and lobbies which infest 
 the halls of Congress and dictate legislation, make those 
 halls the places round which the infection mostly rages; 
 and, to check it, we need, most of all, a man as President 
 honest and firm, belonging to the older type of magistrates, 
 who has the courage to defy bad men in his own party and 
 to check assaults on the treasury when mado by his own 
 friends. And such a man we have in Grover Cleveland. 
 First, as mayor of Buffalo, he delivered the city from the 
 plunderers who were laying it waste, and received the cor- 
 dial thanks of the best 'men of both parties. Next, as 
 Governor of New York, he has supported, as my friend 
 Dorman B. Eaton and others assure me, every measure 
 tending to protect the people from official plunderers. 
 Because he has plucked the prey from the jaws of the 
 wicked, the baser elements of his party have combined 
 with bitter hatred against him. This itself is a proof that 
 he is the man needed now to execute justice on a still 
 higher platform. For he had, evidently, only to concede 
 a little, to give way a little, to make a few promises to 
 these Democratic leaders, bribe them with a few offices, to 
 have their support, as he now has their determined and 
 unconcealed and inveterate hostility. 
 
 "But what," it will be said, "shall we support an im- 
 moral and depraved man for President, — a man whose life 
 is stained with debauchery and vice?" No. No such 
 man shall ever have my vote; for, no matter what his other 
 qualities might be, he never could fulfill his public duties 
 right. A depraved man could never have the moral 
 
ADDRESS OF REV. J AS. FREEMAN CLARKE. 11 
 
 strength to resist evil. But I do not believe Cleveland to 
 be such a man, and I will give my reasons for this convic- 
 tion. 
 
 First. — If he were so, why did the best citizens of 
 Buffalo, who knew him well, support and elect him tri- 
 umphantly for the office of mayor? Why was not this 
 charge made against him then by those who knew him? 
 Why did such an eminent man as Sherman S. Rogers lead 
 the Republican party to his side? And why were these 
 charges not brought forward, when he was candidate for 
 Governor? The apparent reason is that there were people 
 enough in Buffalo and New York who knew that such 
 charges were false, and only when his candidacy extends 
 to states where he is not known are the accusations made 
 against him. 
 
 Second. — These charges originated in one Buffalo news- 
 paper, of which hundreds of thousands of copies have 
 been circulated, which accused him of "beastly drunken- 
 ness," "habitual immorality with women/' of being found 
 in a drunken fight in a saloon, of seduction, and of being 
 a notorious libertine. Thereupon, Rev. Dr. Twining, one 
 of the editors of the New York Independent, was sent to 
 Buffalo to investigate the facts. This is his report: 
 
 "There remain the worst and damning charges of gen- 
 eral libertinism and drunkenness. I say distinctly, after 
 abundant inquiry, they are false. They are, I believe, the 
 product of the imagination of the stews. Every attempt 
 to trace them led back into the merest gossip of saloons 
 and brothels. On the other hand, my inquiry of the 
 noblest Christian men in this city, especially in the legal 
 profession, men above all reproach, men who will vote for 
 him, and men who will vote and speak against him for 
 political reasons, men who know Cleveland most intimately, 
 who have been his partners in business or his nearest 
 neighbors, men who know him by day and by night, bring 
 the unanimous reply that it is utterly impossible that such 
 reports can be true. He is a man of true and kind heart, 
 
12 ADDKESS OF REV. JAS. FREEMAK CLARKE. 
 
 frank and open, so intensely devoted to his business duties 
 that it is impossible that he should be a debauchee. He 
 has the heartiest respect of the best families in the city, 
 who only regret that he keeps himself so much out of the 
 society to which he would be welcome. There are some 
 severe prejudices against Mr. Cleveland in Buffalo. They 
 have their chief seat in the saloons, against whose tyranny 
 his election to the mayoralty was the protest of all good 
 citizens of both parties. They have not forgiven him for 
 their defeat. From the best sources of information, I 
 received testimony of the strongest character that Mr. 
 Cleveland is a born ruler of men, of the greatest inde- 
 pendence and honesty of character, a man who believes in 
 reform to the bottom of his soul, and has the independence 
 to carry it out, and a man on whom the responsibilities of 
 office have rested with a serious and solemn weight. The 
 men are very few who could have received such testimoni- 
 als to their efficiency and conscientiousness and independ- 
 ence in public duties as I heard given to Mr. Cleveland 
 from the most influential and trustworthy citizens of Buf- 
 falo. 
 
 Third. — A committee of sixteen Buffalo gentlemen 
 were appointed to search this matter to the bottom, and 
 this is the substance of their report: 
 
 "We have, therefore, through a committee appointed 
 from our number for that purpose, carefully and deliber- 
 ately made such an investigation; and we have taken every 
 available means to ascertain the precise facts in each case. 
 The general charges of drunkenness and gross immorality 
 which are made against Governor Cleveland are absolutely 
 false. His reputation for morality has been good. There 
 is no foundation for any statement to the contrary. He 
 was sought out and nominated for the mayoralty against 
 his will, and was supported for that position by the larger 
 portion of the educated, intelligent and moral citizens of 
 Buffalo without regard to politics, and on purely personal 
 grounds. We are able to speak from personal knowledge, 
 
ADDRESS OF REV. JAS. FREEMAN" CLARKE. 13 
 
 as his acquaintances of long standing, and to say that his 
 general private life has been that of a quiet, orderly, self- 
 respecting, and always highly respected citizen. Since he 
 assumed his present office, his visits to Buffalo have been 
 few and of short duration. It is susceptible of absolute 
 proof, and has been proved to us, that upon no one of 
 these visits has anything occurred to justify the statements 
 which have been made by his detractors. The charge that 
 he has recently taken part in a drunken and licentious de- 
 bauch in Buffalo, on the occasion of such a visit, is en- 
 tirely false." 
 
 Fourth. — One of the signers of this paper, Josiah G. 
 Munro, is a gentleman whom I know well. I wrote to 
 him personally, and received the following answer, which 
 I will read to you : 
 
 Buffalo, N. Y., September 6, 1884. 
 Rev. James Freeman Clarke, Magnolia, Mass. : 
 
 My Dear Sir, — I beg to acknowledge your valued letter 
 of the 5th. During the ten years I have lived in Buffalo, 
 Mr. Cleveland has been my own trusted legal adviser as 
 well as that of the Boston corporation whose interests I 
 represent. 1 have never seen anything in Mr. Cleveland 
 which would lead me to think he was a licentious man or 
 one who would associate with dissolute or abandoned 
 characters. His associates, whom I know, are men of high 
 standing in the community, — most of them of the highest 
 standing. He would be welcomed into my own household, 
 and I do not think anything has kept him out of Buffalo 
 society but his own modesty and retiring habits. It is im- 
 possible to answer a general accusation except in a general 
 way. Wherever our committee could find a specific charge, 
 they followed it to the source and absolutely disproved it. 
 I agree in thinking that this failure to substantiate specific 
 charges is good proof that the general charge is false. 
 The whole tone of Mr. Cleveland's daily life and conver- 
 sation, as I have seen it in private life, is so high, his faith- 
 fulness in the discharge of duty is so marked, and the 
 
14 ADDRESS OF REV. JAS. FREEMAN" CLARKE. 
 
 controlling principal of his public life is so grand and yet 
 so simple that it would be impossible for me to believe he 
 was either a profligate or licentious man, unless the charge 
 was supported by strong and convincing proofs. Believe 
 me, sir, very truly yours, 
 
 Josiah G. Mukro. 
 
 Fifth. — A few days since, I met at Saratoga Dr. Put- 
 nam, of Brooklyn, New York, who told me that he had 
 within a few weeks been at the seaside with an eminent 
 and well-known citizen of Buffalo, Mr. E. Carlton Sprague, 
 who told him he had known Cleveland intimately for 
 many years, and that, though he was a Republican him- 
 self /and should probably vote the Republican ticket, yet 
 that, " if any one was not prevented by political reasons 
 from voting for Cleveland, he need not be prevented by 
 moral reasons." 
 
 Sixth. — I recently visited Governor Cleveland in Al- 
 bany, and spent an hour with him alone in his private 
 room. He talked with simplicity and freedom, with a 
 manner which carried conviction of his truthfulness. He 
 did not pretend that he had not done wrong, he did not 
 wish me to think of him as better than he was; but he 
 thought he had a right to say that, since he had been in 
 public office, and for the last eight or ten years, no man 
 could truthfully accuse of having done anything to dis- 
 grace himself or to offend his friends. From what he 
 said, I was satisfied that no one had suffered more than 
 himself from his past errors, and I was convinced that he 
 had left them behind. But I gathered this, not from any 
 formal confession or profession, but from the depth of con- 
 viction with which he spoke. 
 
 The one sin which he committed, and which neither 
 he nor his friends disguise or excuse, is that he lived, some 
 ten years ago, with a widow as his wife, without being mar- 
 ried' to her. This was an offense which no one will defend; 
 but he has greviously suffered for it, and shown his repent- 
 ance in the truest way, by a change of life, and by doing 
 good and useful work "meet for repentance." I agree 
 with my old friend, Bishop Huntington, of New York, 
 that Cleveland, having risen above these past errors and 
 left them behind him, is not, if we follow the principles 
 of the gospel of Christ, to be prevented from rising to any 
 height of usefulness. He has shown his repentance in a 
 true way, by doing works meet for repentance. It is only 
 
ADDRESS OF REV. J AS. FREEMAN CLARKE. 15 
 
 a hard and narrow bigotry which would condemn a man 
 forever for a past ill deed. 
 
 " But," you may say, " will you reward a man with the 
 presidency who has committed this offense against social 
 morals?" No; public office is not a reward, but a duty. 
 If we make him, or any other man, our president, it is 
 because he is well fitted for the work of a president. He 
 was not rewarded by the people of Buffalo for this offense 
 {though they knew it perfectly), when they made him 
 mayor. They took him because they needed him to 
 do a work; and he did it honorably and well. The people 
 of the State did not reward him when he was chosen gov- 
 ernor. He was taken because he was the right man in 
 the right place. If elected President, it will not be as a 
 reward of merit, but as selected to do the work because he 
 has the power. If the nation needs him for that work, 
 he must not be excused from doing it because of any sin 
 committed in the past. This great people have a right to 
 the best service they can find, anywhere, and in any man. 
 The difference between Mr. Blaine and Cleveland as can- 
 didates is not merely that the offenses of one belong to 
 private life, and of the other to public affairs, though that 
 distinction is important, but chiefly this: that the offense 
 of Mr. Cleveland is not disguised nor excused nor de- 
 fended, but that of Mr. Blaine is denied or excused or 
 defended. The great harm to morality does not come so 
 much from the wrong action as from its being defended, 
 palliated and called right. This great injury to the pub- 
 lic morals is now being done by Mr. Blaine's advocates. 
 They are putting evil for good and good for evil, darkness 
 for light and light for darkness, bitter for sweet and 
 sweet°for bitter.^ No young man, who has seen what an 
 awful burden Governor Cleveland has had to carry in conse- 
 quence of this one offense, can possibly be tempted by his 
 example to any like iniquity. But, when a man who has 
 devoted himself to making money out of office is defended 
 for doing so by our best men, when asked to be paid for 
 doing justice in a high judicial position is treated as a 
 mere accident, when asking a man to perjure himself by 
 writing a letter prepared for him full of falsehoods is con- 
 sidered as something not worth speaking of, then the 
 morals of society are being cankered at their heart. Oh, 
 it grieves me to see how men, whom I have honored, and 
 honor still, can allow themselves to be thus misled by the 
 spirit of party ! It is the saddest fact in the story of our 
 
16 ADDRESS OF REV. JAS. FREEMAN CLARKE. 
 
 time; and I say, " Oh for an hour of Charles Sumner, or 
 for one burning speech from John Andrew! " 
 
 "One blast upon his bugle horn 
 ' Were worth a thousand men . " 
 
 But the " knights are dust, and their good swords 
 rust." Instead of the upright soul of Sumner, we have a 
 bronze statue of him in the Public Garden, probably 
 erected by the help of the Eepublicans who assisted in re- 
 moving him from his place as chairman of the committee 
 on foreign affairs to please General Grant, or who passed 
 a vote of censure on him in the Massachusetts Legislature 
 because they thought it would be popular. Instead of 
 John Andrew, I am glad to say that we have a son who 
 inherits his father's spirit, and will not become a slave of 
 party in order to go to Congress. And I see around me 
 young men full of the energy and hope of youth who will 
 yet redeem the Republican party, and set it in a better way. 
 I saw its rise, and I may live to see its fall; but, if it falls, 
 something better will take its place. For this Independent 
 movement has come to stay. Some of the Republican 
 orators who have come from a distance to instruct us have 
 been disposed to jeer at this Independent movement as a 
 very trifling affair. So, I remember, men jeered at the 
 humble beginnings of the Liberty party, and the Free Soil 
 party, and at the whole anti-slavery movement. They 
 laughed and made merry as that great storm was coming 
 up the sky, as the people did in the days of Noah, and 
 knew nothing till the flood came and swept them all away. 
 
 Gentlemen, if you will, permit me to close this serious 
 speech with a light anecdote. I remember my friend, the 
 late James T. Fields, once told me he ©\ras crossing the 
 Common one night, when a partially inebriated man 
 stopped him, and pointing to the sky, said, " Why does 
 not that rocket come down?" "Rocket!" said Fields: 
 "that's not a rocket, that's a star P' "Oh! I beg your 
 pardon," said the other: " I am a stranger in these parts." 
 Those who think the Independent movement is only a 
 rocket, and that it is about to fall, are, I think, strangers 
 in these parts. They do not know the motives nor the 
 men nor the spirit nor the power of this movement. It 
 has come to work, and it has come to stay. 
 
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