013 789 630 8 pennulife* pH83 681 G24 Copy 1 SPEECH [16 pp OF HON. JAMES A. GARFIELD, OF OHIO, DELIVERED AT CLEVELAND, OHIO, OCTOBER 11, 1879. WASHINGTON, D. G, : 188§. • G[Z<\ IN EXCHANGE JAN 5 - 1915 a SPEECH OF HON. JAMES A. GARFIELD, AT CLEVELAND, OHIO, OCT013ER 11, 1879. Fellow-Citizens- : The distinguished gentlemen who have preceded me hare covered the ground so completely and so admirably that I have a very easy task. I will pick up a few straws here and there over that broad field and ask you for a few moments to look at them. I take it for granted that every thoughtful, intelligent man would be glad, if he could, to be on the right side, believing that in the long run the right side will be the strong side. I take it for granted that every man would like to hold political opinions that will live some time, if he could. It is a very awkward thing indeed to adopt a political opinion, and trust to it, and find that it will not live over night. [Laughter.]; It would be an exceedingly awkward thing to go to bed alone with your politi- cal doctrine, trusting and believing in it, thinking it is true, and wake up in. the morning and find it a corpse in your arms. [Laughter.] I should be glad for my part to hold to a political doctrine that would live all through summer, and stand the frost, and stand a freeze in the winter, and come out alive and true in the spring. [Laughter.] I should like to adopt po- litical doctrines that would live longer than my dog. [Laughter.] I should be glad to hold to a political doctrine that would live longer than I shall live, and that my children after me might believe in as true, and say, " This doctrine is true to-day, and it was true fifty years ago when my father adopted it." Every great political party that has done this country any good has given to it some immortal ideas that have outlived all the members of that party. The old Federal party gave great, permanent ideas to this country that are still alive. The old Whig party did the same. The old, the very old, Democratic party did the same. [Laughter.] The party of Andrew Jackson, Benton and Calhoun. But THE MODERN DEMOCRATIC PARTY has given this country in the last twenty years no idea that has lived to be four years old. [Laughter.] I mean an idea, not a passion. The Democratic party has had passions that have lasted longer than that. They have had an immortal appetite for office. [Laughter.] That is just as strong to-day as it was twenty years ago. Somebody has called the Democratic party " an organ- feed appetite. " [Laughter.] But that is not an idea; that is of the belly [laugh- ter] and not of the heart, nor of the brain. 1 say again they have given to this country no great national idea or doctrine that has lived to be four years old ; and if we had in this great park, as in a great field, herded here together all the ideas that the Democratic party has uttered and put forth in the last twenty \ears there would not be found a four-year-old in the lot, [laughter]— hardly a three-year-old— hardly a two-year-old. They have adopted a doctrine just to last till election was over, and if it did not succeed, they have dropped it to try another ; and they have tried another until it failed, and then tried another : and it has been a series of mere trials to catch success. Whenever they have started in a campaign, they have looked out to all the political barns to see how the tin roosters were pointing, to learn from the political weather-cocks which way the wind is likely to blow ; and then they have made their doctrines ac- cordingly. [Laughter and applause.] This is no slander of the Democratic pan j . As my friend Mr. Foster has said, this is true not so much of the body of the party as of the leaders. What a dance they have put the good, sound. quiet, steady-going Democrat through during the last twenty years ! [Laugh- ter.] They made him denounce our war for a longj ime ; and then, when itwas all over, they made him praise it. [Laughter.] They made him vote with a party that called our soldiers " Lincoln's hirelings " and "Lincoln's dogs;" and this very day one of the men who did that is parading up and down this State praising the Democratic party because it has two soldiers at the head oJ its t Lcket, and sneering at us because Mr. Foster was not a soldier in the field. Thai party has taken both sides of every great question in this country in the iventy year.-. They arc in favor of the war— after it is over. [Laughter.] Tiny are in favor of hard money — or they will be next year, after it is an ac- complished fact. They were opposed to greenbacks when greenbacks were necessary to save the life of the nation, and when they thought it would be pop- ular to oppose greenbacks. The moment they found it was unpopular they faced the other way. and declared that the greenback was the best currencythe world ever saw. 1 would like to ask that good, old, quiet Democrat how he has felt when they have told him to vote against the war one year and then praise it the next, anil he had to follow his leaders all the while, how he felt when they told him to curse greenbacks, and he voted the ticket, and then when they ordered him to wheel right around on his heel and march the other way. and vote the Demo- cratic ticket all the time. They told him. for example, that the proposition to let the negro have his freedom was an outrageous thing that must not be list- ened to. and he voted the Democratic ticket. A little while after they came around and said : ; * We will enforce all the amendments of the Constitution. the negro amendment among the rest, and we are among the best friends that the negro ever had." And yet he voted with them every time, [laughter.] facing right the other way. AVhen we proposed to give the ballot to the negro, the- -aid : " Why, he is an inferior race. God made him to lie a hewer of wood and a drawer of water. He is inferior to us. He is of bad odor, and bad every way. of low intelligence, and we will never, never allow him to vote." What do thev say n< >w ? They are cooing and billing with every negro that will listen to them, and asking him to vote the Democratic ticket. They are saying to him, "My friend, the Democratic party was always a good friend of the negro. [ Laughter.] The Democratic party knows the negro better than the Republi- cans do. We have been nearer to you. We know your habits. [Laughter.] We understand your character and we can do you more good. " Yes, they have been nearer to you. The fellow that flogs you with a cat-o '-nine-tails has to be pretty near to you. [Laughter.] They have a warm feeling for you. [Laugh- ter.] The man that brands your cheek witli a red-hot iron gets up a good deal of warmth towards you. [Laughter.] But, my friends, the curious thing is how a steady-going, consistent Demo- can have followed all these crooks and turns and facings-about of his party in all t hese years, and not have gotten dizzy by turning so frequently. [Laugh ter. | They shouted for hard money and he voted the Democratic ticket. They shouted for soft money and he voted the Democratic ticket. They said the three amendments to the Constitution were void and should not be obeyed, and he voted t he i >emocratic ticket. They walked right out to the next great elec- tion bringing Horace Greeley in their arms and said, " We will carry out all the amendments to the Constitution ; we will be thebest friend of the slave in the world.'" and he voted the Democratic ticket, [laughter,] following in the same wake. Now, my friends, there lias not been a leading prophecy, there has not been a leading doctrine put forward by the Democratic party in all these years that if has not itself abandoned. 1 do not believe there is a fair-minded Dem- ocrat here to-night who does not rejoice in his soul that his party has aban- doned the leading doctrines of the last twenty yours. [Laughter.] Aro you sorry, my Democratic friend, that slavery is dead ? 1 believe you are not. Then you are glad that we outvoted you when you tried to keep it alive. [Ap- plause.] Are you sorry that rebellion and secession are dead i If you are not, then you are glad that you were overwhelmed and outvoted when you tried to keep the party that sustained them alive. [Applause.] Are you glad that our war was not a failure ? If you are, you are glad that we voted you down in 1864, when your central doctrine was that the war was a failure and must be stopped. If you are glad of so many things, will you not be glad when we hava voted down your party next Tuesday and elected Charley Foster governor of Ohio? [Applause. A voice, "We are going to do it for a fact.''] You are going to do it, I have no doubt. WHY REPUBLICANS WILL SUCCEED. There are two great reasons why the people of this State are going to do it. One is that they do not intend to allow any more fooling with the business of this country. [Applause.] For the last four years the chief obstacles in the way of the restoration of business prosperity and the full employment of labor in this country has been the danger threatened to you by the politicians in Con- gress. [Applause.] Business has waited to awaken. Prosperity has been try- ing to come. General Ewing tells us that it is Divine Providence and a good crop that brought revival of business this year. I remind General Ewing that we had a bountiful crop last year, and business did not revive. I remind him that the year before was a year of great harvest and plenty, and prosperity did not come. EWING 'S GOSPEL. Do you know that when we commenced this campaign General Ewing began to preach his old sermon of last year — his gospel of gloom, and darkness, and distress, and misery ; and some of his friends said : " But see here, Ewing, the furnaces are aflame ; the mills are busy. It will not do to talk that these peo- ple are all in distress." And for a week or two Mr. Ewing denied that there was any revival of business. He denied it flatly. But every mill roared in his ears, and every furnace and forge flashed in his eyes the truth that there was a revival of business ; and then for about four days he undertook to say that it waa A campaign dodge of the Republican party, [laughter-,] that they started up a few iron-mills until election to affect the election. But that would not work, for Democratic States began to start their iron-mills, [laughter;] rebel States began to Doom in business, and that second explanation of Mr. Ewing 's would not work. Then he undertook, and is still undertaking, to explain this prosperity away. [ heard a gentleman lately tell an incident that illustrates this futile attempt of Mr. Ewing. England wanted Garibaldi married to some distinguished Eng- fisk lady so as to ally free Italy to England. They got it well talked up in dip- lomatic circles, but finally some unfortunate fellow suggested a fact that dis- turbed their calculations. It was that Garibaldi was married, [laughter J that be had a young, healthy wife, likely to outlive him. The old diplomatist, not to be balked by any obstacles, said : " Never mind, we will get Gladstone to ex- plain her away." [Laughter.] Gladstone is a very able man, but when he at- tempts to explain away as real a thing as a womaD, [laughter,] and a wife at that, he undertakes a great contract. [Laughter.] Thomas Ewing is not any abler than Gladstone, and his attempt to explain away this prosperity of ©ux eountry will be more disastrous than the attempt of Gladstone would have bee» if he had made it, [Applause ; cries of " Hear I " " Hear I "] Everywhere he goes it meets him. THE REVIVAL OF BUSINESS. Pig iron in this country, the lowest form of the iron product, has risen ia price almost thirteen dollars the ton since resumption came, [applause,] andaH industries depending upon it have risen in proportion. My only fear — and I say* it to the business men around me to-night— is that the revival of business is coming too fast, and that we may overdo it and bring a reaction by and by. But that prosperity has come, and, if we do not abuse it, has come to stay, I have no doubt. I do not claim that the resumption of specie payments has done it at ail. I admit that the favorable balance of trade, that the operation of our 6 tariff laws, that our own great crops and the failure of crops in Europe have done much to secure and aid this revival of business. But there is an element in this revival distinctly and markedly traceable to the resumption of specie payments, and I ask your indulgence for a half a min- ute to state it. WHAT RESUMPTION HAS DONE. All over this country there was hidden away in the hands of private men, in stockin g f eet, in tills, in safes, capital that they dared not invest. Why? Because they did not know what Congress would do ; whether it would vote their prosperity up or down, whether "the wild vagaries of tiat money should rule or whether the old God-made dollar of the Constitution and the fathers, the hundred-cent dollar, the dollar all round, should come to be our standard or not ; and they waited. But the moment our Government, in spite of the Dem- ocratic party, in spite of the fiat-money party, in spite of all croakers of all part ies, resolved to redeem the great war promises of the nation, and lift our cur- rency up to be as good as gold the world over, that moment the great needed resto- ration of confidence came, and when it came, capital came out of its hiding places and invested itself in business. [Applause. J And that investment, that confidence, that stability, gave the grand and needed impetus to the restoration of prosperity in this country. Now, what lias been the trouble with us? Eighteen hundred and sixty was one shore of prosperity and 1879 the other ; and between tho^e two high shores has Mowed the broad, deep, dark river of fire and blood and disaster through which this nation has been compelled to wade [applause] and in whose depths it has been almost suffocated and drowned. In the darkness of that terrible pas- sage we carried liberty in our arms ; we bore the Union on our shoulders ; and we bore in our hearts and on our arms what was even better than liberty and Union — we bore the faith and honor and public trust of this mighty nation. [Applause.] And never, until we came up out of the dark waters, out of the darkness of that terrible current, and planted our feet upon tho solid shore of 1879— never, I say, till then could this country look back to the other shore and feel that its feet were on solid ground, and then look forward to the rising up- lands of perpetual peace and prosperity that should know no diminution in the years to come. [Applause.] I rejoice, for my part, that the party to which I belong has not been fighting against God in this struggle for prosperity. [Applause.] I rejoice that the pari y to which I belong lias not had its prospects hurt by the coming of pros- perity. [Applause.] Can you say so much, my Democratic friend, for your party ? Would it not have been better for you at the polls next Tuesday if the blight had fallen upon our ereat corn crop, if the Colorado beetle had swept every potato Meld in America, if the early fruit had smitten us all ? Don't you think Mr. Ewing could then have talked more eloquently about the grief, and Suffering, and outrage, and hard times brought upon you by tho Republican policy of resumption? [Applause and laughter.] I should be ashamed to be- long to a political party whose prospects were hurt by the blessing of my country. But it so was all during the war. Just before election day time in. Ohio dur- ing the war, a great battle that won a victory over the rebellion hurt the Dem- ocratic party in this State, and they walked about our streets looking down their noses in sadness and gloom, recognizing that their ballots would be fewer en election day because of . the success of our arms; audit' our soldiers were Overwhelmed in battle, if five thousand of your children were slaughtered on the held by the enemies of the Republic, the Democrats in Ohio walked more confidently to the polls on election day, and said: " Didn't I tell yon [Applause.] There is something wrong with a party about which those things could be truthfully said, and you know that they are the truth. THE REPUBLICAN PARTY TRUE TO THE PEOPLE. Now, I leave all thai with tills single reflection : That- it, is to me for my party a matter of pride and congratulation tliat in all the darkness of these years we have not deceived you by any cunning device to Matter your passions or your hopes. We have told you these are hard times ; wears in the midst of suffering, and there is no patent process by which you can get out ol It. You cannot print yourselves rich. You have got to suffer and be strong, "bfou have got to endure and be economical. You have got to wait in patience and do justice, keep your pledges, keep your promises, obey the laws, and by-and-by prosperity will come with its blessings upon you. We have now nothing to take back. We rejoice that we were true to you in the days of darkness, and we congratulate you that you have stood by the truth until your hour of tri- umph has come. [Applause.] ANOTHER REASON FOR TRIUMPH. I said there were two reasons why I theught we would triumph next Tues- day. I have hinted at one ; I will now speak briefly of the other. I mean to say that the great audiences that have gathered everywhere in Ohio during this campaign have had more than finance in their hearts. They have thought of something as much higher than finance as liberty is more precious than cask [Applause.] They have been moved— and I ask all Democrats to hear it with patience — by what I venture to call THE NEW REBELLION against liberty and this Government. [Applause.] I do not mean a rebellion with guns, for I think that was tried to the hearts' content of the people that undertook it. [Applause.] Not that, but another one no less wicked in pur- pose and no less dangerous in character. Let me try in a few words, if it be possible to reach all this vast audience, to make you understand what I mean by this new rebellion. Fellow-citizens, what is the central thought in American life ? What is the germ out of which all our institutions were born and have been developed ? Let me give it to you in a word. When the Mayflower was about to land her precious freight upon the shore of Plymouth, the Pilgrim Fathers gathered in the cabin of that little ship, on a stormy November day, and after praying to Almighty God for the success of their great enterprise drew up and signed what is known in history, and what will be known to the last syllable of recorded time, as " THE PILGRIM COVENANT." In that covenant is one sentence which I ask you to take home with you to- night. It is this : " We agree before God and each other that the freely-ex- pressed will of the majority shall be the law of all, which we will all obey." [Applause.] Ah, fellow-citizens, it does honor to the heads and the hearts of a great New England audience here on this Western Reserve to applaud the grand and simple sentiment of the Pilgrim Fathers. They said, " No stand- ing army shall be needed to make us obey. We will erect here in America a substitute for monarchy, a substitute for despotism, and that substitute shall be the will of the majority as the law of all." And that germ, planted on the rocky shores of New England, has sprung up, and all the trees of our lib- erty have grown from it into the beauty and glory of this year of our life. [Applause.] Over against that there grew up in the South a spirit in absolute antagonism to the "Pilgrim Covenant." That spirit, engendered by the institution of! slavery, became one of the most powerful and despotic of all the forces on the face of this globe. Let me state, even as an apology for that tyranny— if you and I owned a pow- dcr mill in the city of Cleveland, we would have a right to make some very stringent and arbitrary rules about that powder mill. We would have a right to say that no man should enter it who had nails in the heels of his boots,, because a single step might explode it and ruin us all. But that would be an absurd law Lo make about your own house or about a green grocer's shop. Now, the establishment of the institution of slavery required laws and cus- toms absolutely tyrannical in their character. Nails in the heels of your boots in a powder magazine would be safety compared with letting education infcqj Slavery. [Applause.] It was an institution that would be set on fire by the torch of knowledge, and they knew it, and therefore they said, " The shining gates of knowledge shal be shut everywhere where a slave lives. It shall be a crime to teach a black man the alphabet ; a crime greater still to teach him the living oracles of Almighty God ; for if once the golden rule of Christ finds its way into the heart of a negro man, and ho learns the literature of liberty, our institution is in danger. Hence the whole Southern people became a discip- lined, banded, absolute despotism over the politics of their section. They had to be. I do not blame them. I only blame the system that compelled them to be so. Now, therefore, all before the war the Southern people were the best disciplined politicians in this world. They were organized on the one great idea of protecting their Southern society with slavery as its center. Do you know the power of discipline ? Hero is a vast audience of ten or fifteen thou- sand people in this square, and you are not organized. One resolute captain with one hundred resolute, disciplined soldiers, such as stormed the heights of Kenesaw, could sweep through this square and drive us all out hither and thither at their pleasure. And that is nothing against our courage. It is in favor of their discipline. The clinched fist of Southern slaveholders was too much for the great, bulky, proud strength of the North. They went to Wash- ington, consolidated for one purpose, and they called all their fellows around them from the North, and said, " Give way to our doctrine, and you have our friendship and support. Go against us at all, and we rule you out of place and power." The result was that the Southern politicians absolutely commanded and controlled their Northern allies. They converted the NORTHERN DEMOCRATS INTO DOUGH-FACES of the most abject pattern ; and you know here to-night, if there be a Demo- crat who listens to me, that the Republican party was born as a protest against the tyranny of that Southern political hierarchy that made slaves of all North- ern Democrats. [Applause.] Three-quarters of the Republican party were made up twenty-live years ago by Democrats that would no longer consent to be slaves. Now, why am I going into that long tirade in the past? For this purpose: After the war was over, and reconstruction completed, thi s same Southern po- litical hierarchy came back into power in Washington, and to-day thev are as consolidated as the slaveholding politicians of 18G0-'l were! [''Hear!" "hear ! "] And to-day they hold in their grip absolutely all the Northern mem dots of their party ! The Northern dough-face has again appeared in Ameri- can politics, and he is found wherever a Democrat Congressman sits. [Ap- plause.] I say without offense, it is the literal truth that this day there is not in all this country a free and absolutely independent-minded Democratic mem- ber of either House of your Congress at Washington. [Applause.] Now let me go back for a moment, and return to this point with a reinforce- ment. Are you aware that there is one thing that can kill this country and kill it beyond all hope ? That one thing is the destruction or enslavement of its voting population. The voting population of the United States is the only sovereign on this continent. [Applause.] You talk about the sovereign States, or even the sovereign nation. A corporation is not a sovereign. The corpor- ation that we call Ohio was made by the people, and they are its sovereigns. Even the grand corporation that we call the United States was created also by the people, who are its superiors and its only sovereigns. Now, therefore, if anything happens in this country to corrupt, or enslave, or destroy the voters of the United States, that is an irreparable injury to liberty and the Union. [Applause.] If in Europe they slay a sovereign, one man is killed, and another can be found to take his place ; but when they slay our sovereign theve is no heir to the throne ; our sovereign has no successor. Well, now, that is rather general, but I ask you to come down to particulars. Let me make this statement to you : In 1S72, only seven years ago, in the eleven States that went into rebellion there were cast, at a free and fair elec- tion, 750,000 Republican votes and 650,000 Democratic votes. There is liberty for you 1 There are a million and a quarter of free voting citizens casting their ballots for the men of their choice ! This country has been growing in the last seven years, but let me tell yen what calamity lias happened to us. In those same eleven late rebel States thore have disappeared apparently from the face of the earth 100,000 American voters. Fellow-citizens that is an awful sentenee which 1 have just spoken in your 9 hearing. I repeat it. In eleven States of this Union there have disappeared, apparently from the face of the earth, 400,000 American voters. Where have they gone ? They are all Republicans. Have they gone to the Democratic party ? No ; for the Democratic party has also lost some of its voters in those States. What has happened? I will tell you. That spirit of Southern tyranny, that old spirit of despotism born of slavery, has arisen and killed freedom in the'South. It has slain liberty in at least seven of the eleven States of the South. MISSISSIPPI BULL-DOZING. It happened in this wise : In 1872, in five States of the South, we had a marked, overwhelming, and fair majority of Republican votes. For example, in the State of Mississippi, at the Congressional election of 1872, there were thrown 80,803 Republican votes, and there were thrown 40,500 Democratic votes. That was a fair test of the strength of the two parties. Five Republicans and one Democrat were elected to Congress from the State of Mississippi. Six years passed, and in 1878 there were just 2,056 Republican votes thrown in the State of Mississippi. How many Democratic votes ? Thirty-five thousand. They had fallen off 5,000 ; the Republicans had fallen off 78,000 votas. Where had the 78,000 voters gone ? I will tell you. The rebel army, without uniforms, organized itself as Democratic clubs in Mississippi, and armed with shot-guns and rifles, surrounded the houses of Republican voters, with the muzzles of their guns at their heads, in the night, and said, "You come out and vote, if you dare. We will kill you when you come." And all over the State of Mis- sissippi the Democratic party, being the old rebel army, deployed itself among the cabins of the blacks and killed liberty everywhere throughout that State. Why, in a district of Mississippi where, in 1872, 15,000 Republican votes were polled and 8,000 Democratic, there were but 4,000 polled for a rebel general and twelve scattering votes polled for other people— not one Republican vote put in a box in all the district. So it was in Alabama. So it was in Louisiana in part. So it was in the two Carolinas. The result was this : Four hundred thousand voters substantially annihilated. And the further result was this : Thirty Democratic rebels elected in Republican districts where liberty had first been slain ; and to-day there are thirty members of Congress, not one of whom has any more right to sit there and make laws for you and me than an inhabitant of that jail has a right to go there and make laws for us. [Applause.] They are not created Congressmen by virtue of law, but by virtue of murder, assas- sination, riot, intimidation ; and on the dead body of American liberty they stand and make laws for you and me. [Applause.] That gives them the House. That gives them the Senate. That gives the old slave power and the old rebel power its grip again on this country, and it gives them what we call the Solid South. I am talking plain talk. I am talking words that I expect will be read by every gentleman in Congress whom I am to-night denouncing. I expect to meet those gentlemen and make good every word I say. [Great applause.] THE AIM OF THE SOLID SOUTH. If ow, what purpose has this Solid South in thus grasping power and killing liberty ? This : They are determined to make their old " lost cause " the tri- umphing cause. Who is their leader to-day ? By all odds, the most popular man south of Mason and Dixon's line is Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi. He is to-day their hero and their leader ; and I will give you my proof of it. THE RICE PENSION BILL. Do you know that our friend General Rice has been making a great deal of small capital out of the fact that he introduced an arrears of pensions bill for soldiers V You all know what kind ®f a bill that was. It was a bill granting arrears of pensions to our soldiers ; but it also granted arrears of pensions to all rebel soldiers who had fought in the Mexican war. We made a law that the name of a man who had taken up arms against this country should be stricken from our pension roHs, and he should receive no money out of our Treasury. That law Mr. Rice's bill repealed in so far as it related to the Mexican soldiers, and he knew and was told plainly that that clause included Jefferson Davis as one of the pensioners to be helped by that law ; and even in that rebel Congress! ther-> wvij many Democrats that could not quite be brought up to the scratch 10 to vote to pension Jefferson Davis ; and hence Mr. Rice's bill kiting in the com- mittee and was not reported. Then a Republican member of the House moved to discharge the, committee from the consideration of the whole subject. He introduced a bill that did not have Jefferson Davis in it, but liad only our sol- diers in it ; and that bill, not Mr. Rice's, passed. [Applause.] But when that bill got to the Senate a Democrat moved to add the Rice section that covered all rebel pensioners under its provisions; and then it was that Mr. Hoar, of Massachusetts, called the attention of the United States Senate to the fact that that amendment would include Jefferson Davis, and he moved an amendment to the amendment that it should not be so constructed. THE DEFENDERS OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. What followed ? Immediately there sprang to his feet our Ohio Senator. 1 blush for my State when I repeat it. Allen G. Thurman arose to his feet and said : " The Democratic Legislature of Ohio has instructed me to vote to pen- sion the soldiers of the Mexican war, and they did not instruct me to make an exception against Jefferson Davis, and therefore I vote against Mr. Hoar's amendment." Thereupon Mr. Hoar spoke against the amendment that would pension Jefferson Davis, and the moment he did it there sprang up all over that chamber champions and defenders of Jefferson Davis. The tomahawks liter- ally flew, or rather metaphorically flew, everywhere at the head of any Repub- lican that dared to suggest that the Government ought not to pension Jefferson Davis. Lamar, of Mississippi, an eloquent and able Senator, arose in his place and said that there had not lived on this earth, from the days of Hampden to Washington, a purer patriot and a nobler man than Jefferson Davis, of Missis- sippi. Man after man exhausted his eloquence in defending and eulogizing the arch-rebel, who led this country into oceans of blood. I give you that to show the spirit that animates the people that rule in Congress to-day. Now let me say a word more that connects what I am saying with the old story of the days' before slavery was dead. I have been seventeen years a mem- ber of the House*, and in all that period 1 never have once known, as my friends here on the stand can testify in their experience, of the members of the Repub- lican party binding themselves in a caucus to support any bill before Congress. I have seen it tried once or twice, but I have always seen dozens of Republi- cans spring to their feet and say, " I am a free man, and I will vote according to the interests of my constituents and the dictates of my conscience, and no caucus shall bind me." THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY RULED BY THE CAUCUS. But the moment the Democratic party got back into power again, that mo- ment they organized the caucus— the secret caucus, the oath-bound caucus, for within the recent extra session they have actually taken oaths not to divulge what occurred in caucus, and to be bound by whatever the caucus decreed, and I have known man after man, wdio had sworn by all the wicked gods at once that he would not be bound to go for a certain measure, walk out ®f the caucus like a sheep led to the slaughter, and vote for the bill that he had cursed. They brought bills at the extra session so full of manifest errors that when we pointed them out fchey would admit in private that there were errors that ought to be corrected^ but they would say, u I have agreed to vote for it without 'amend- ment, and I will." We pointed out wretchedly bad grammar in bills, and they would not even correct their grammar, because the caucus had adopted ii [Laughter.] Now, therefore, gentlemen, the Congress of the United States is ruled by a caucus. It has ceased to be a deliberative body. It is ruled by a georel caucus, and who rules the caucus ? Two-thirds of its members are men who foughl this country in war; who tried to destroy this nation, and who to- day look upon Jefferson Davis as the foremost patriot and highest political leader in America. Therefore, the leadership which rules you is the rebellion in Congress. THE DEMOCRATIC PLAN FOR SUCCESS IN 1S80. Well, now, what of that ? This is not all. They look over the field of 1.880 and they Bay they have got in their hand*? the solid South, and they lack only one thing more." They lack thirty-seven electoral votes to add to their one 11 hundred and thirty-five and they have captured the offices of the Government and have captured the Presidency. The South will have the whole control of this Republic in its hands. Now, how are they going to get the thirty-seven electoral votes ? There are two States that will fill the bill— New York and Ohio. If they can get those two States next year they have indeed captured the Government. [A voice : " They can't have them."] This good friend says they can't have them. [A voice: " Never."] They cannot get them in this audience. This is not the place to capture the State of Ohio for rebel brigadiers. They cannot capture it in any of the great agricultural counties of Ohio, for they are sound and true to the Union, and loyal to their heart's core. They cannot go into the central parts of patriotic New York and capture the thirty-seven votes. But 1 will tell you, fellow-citizens, what they hope to do, and there is one way by which they may succeed. Let me stop and say one single word to you about the great cities. Thomas Jefferson said that great cities were the sores on the body politic— the cancers whose roots run down and curse, and will ulti- mately break up the country unless they are ruled. A city of the size of Cleve- land has its troubles. A great city like the city of New York has passed the bounds of safety in this country. The ablest orator that Rome ever produced, in describing the political party led by Cataline, said that all the bankrupts, all the desperadoes, all the thieves and robbers and murderers gathered around Cataline, and finally, in a horrible figure of tremendous power, he said that the party of Cataline was " the bilge water of Rome." What a figure that is, my friends ! What do you mean by " bilge water V " That water that leaks stealthily through your planks and down below tlie deck and in the darkness, out of sight, out of reach : it reeks and stagnates and stinks, breeds pestilence and brings death upon all that are on board. Cicero said that that party that gathered in Rome was " the bilge water of Rome," and into that bilge water, in the cities of Cincinnati and New York, the Democratic party desire to insert their political pumps and pump out tho hell broth that can poison and corrupt and ruin the freedom of both these great cities, and gain them to the solid South. [Applause.] That is the pro- gramme. If they can get control of the elections, they will make both those cities strong enough Democratic to overwhelm all the votes that the green lanes of our country can grow. THE ELECTION LAWS. Now, what is in the way of that ? Just two things. The United States have passed a law to put a Democrat at one end of the ballot-box in the great cities and a Republican at the other end, and it empowered those two men, not to run the election, but to stand there as eyes of the Government and look— look first to see that the ballot-box is empty when they begin, and then to stand and look into the face of every man that votes, and if he comes to vote twice record it and have him brought before the judge and sent to the penitentiary for his crime; and to stay there until the polls are closed, and then not allow the ballot- boxes to be sent off and the vote counted in secret by partisan judges* but to be opened and unfolded and read in the light of day, recorded and certified to by the Republican and Democratic officers, so that the justice of the ballot-box should not be outraged and freedom should not be slain. No j uster law was ever passed on this continent than that. It saved -New York from the supremest of crimes. It elicited, even from a Democratic com- mittee, of which A. V. Rice was a member, the highest possible encomium in 187G. And he and "Sunset " Cox, of New York, in their official report to Con- gress, recommended to all parts of the country the admirable election law of Congress that brought into unison and co-operation the officers of the fetate and the officers of the nation, in keeping a pure ballot and a free election in the great cities. That is what the Democratic party said of this law m 18box. Wipe out the election law so that the Tweeds of New \ ork and the Bph Hollands of Cincinnati may have free course, and do the work, and hx 18S0 in their own way." That is the programme of the rebel brigadiers in Congress. Ml I understand that Mr. Ewing said here the other night lie was amazed to hear Republicans talk as though they were afraid of a few rebel brigadiers, i t was not so surprising, he said, that our friend Foster should be afraid of them, throwing a slur at him because he was not in the army, hut he was surprised that General Garfield should be alarmed at the brigadiers. [Laughter.] I am here to answer General Ewing. [Applause.] As to who is afraid of brigadiers, let him boast who has the first need to boast. [Applause.] But there are some things I am afraid of, and I confess it in this great pres- ence. I am afraid to do a mean thing. [Applause and cries of " Good."] I am afraid of any policy that will let the vileness of New York city pour its foul slime over the freedom of the American ballot-box and ruin it. [Ap- plause.] And the man that is not afraid of that I am ashamed of him. [Ap- plause.] THE REBEL PROBLEM. Now. how to get those two men away from the ballot-box is the rebel prob- lem. If they get them away, the solid South has triumphed. If they get them away, "the lost cause " has won, and Jefferson Davis is crowned as the foremost man in America. If they get them away, good-bye for a generation to come to the M ''pilgrim covenant " and the doctrine of the right of the majority to rule. Now, how did they undertake to get them away ? In this way : They said to us, "At last we have got you. We have the control of the Treasury". Xo money can be employed to support the Government unless we vote it by an appropriation. Nf eighteen years ago. we reply, ' You shall not starve this Government to death, por shall you tear down these laws. The men that saved it in battle Avill now feed it in peace. [Great applause.] The men that bore it on their shields in the hour of death will feed it with the gift of their hands in the hour of its glory.'" And they said, " You shall try it." And they passed their iniquitous bill. They took the bread of the Government and spread upon it the poison of the bilge water of New York and Cincinnati, and they said to the Government, " Bat this or starve." They passed the iniquity through the I!- 8 and through the Senate, and it went to an Ohio Republican who sits in the seat of the great Washington, [applause.] whose arm is mailed with the thunderbolt of the Constitution ;• and he hurled the power of bis veto against the wicked bin, and tilled it. Fiye times they tried the iniquity, and live times he killed with the power of I he ( lonsl it nl ion 1 be wickedness I bej sought rpetrate. [Applause.] And then, like sneaking cowards as thej were, they passed the appropriations all but six hundred thousand dollars and said, " We will OOme hack to it next winter, and we will never give it up until we conquer you •, and in the meantime.'" they said, " we will appeal to the people ballot-box." They are now making thai appeal. And so are we. That is what, v.e are nere for to-night. | Applause. J And it is that appeal that awakens this people as it has never been awakened before Binoe the days of Vallandigham and Brough, especially Brough. [Laughter.] In the presence of this people, in the heart of this Old Reserve, I feel the consciousness of our strength and the aslurance of our victory. [Applause.] AN APPEAL TO YOUNG MEN. Now, fellow-citizens, a word before I leave you, on the very eve of the holy day of God— a lit moment to consecrate ourselves finally to the great work of next Tuesday morning. I see in this great audience to-night a great many young men, young men who are about to cast their first vote. I want to give you a word of suggestion and advice. I heard a very brilliant thing said by a boy the other day up in one of our northwestern counties. He said to me, " General, I have a great mind to vote the Democratic ticket." That was not the brilliant thing. [Laughter.] I said to him, "Why?" "Why," said he,, "my father is a Republican and my brothers are Republicans, and I am a Re- publican all over, but I want to be an independent man, and I don't want any- body to say, ' That fellow votes the Republican ticket just because his dad does,' and I have half a mind to vote the Democratic ticket just to prove my independence." I did not like the thing the boy suggested, but I did admire the spirit of the boy that wanted to have some independence of his own. Now, I teU you, young man, don't vote the Republican ticket just because your father votes it. Don't vote the Democratic ticket, even if he does vote it. [Laughter.] But let me give you this one word of advice, as you are about to pitch your tent in one of the great political camps. Your life is full and buoyant with hope now, and I beg you, when you pitch your tent, pitch it among the living and not among the dead. [Applause.] If you are at all inclined to pitch it among the Democratic people and with that party, let me go with you for a moment while we survey the ground where I hope you will not shortly lie. [Laughter.] It is a sad place, young man, for you to put your young life into It'is«=to me far more like a grave-yard than like a camp for the living. Look at it ! It is billowed all over with the graves of dead issues, of buried opinions, of exploded theories, of disgraced doctrines. You cannot live in comfort in such a place. [Laughter.] Why, look here ! Here is a little double mound. I look down on it and I read, " Sacred to the memory of squatter sovereignty and the Dred Scott decision. " A million and a half of Democrats voted for that, but it has been dead fifteen years— died by the hand of Abraham Lincoln, and here it lies. [Applause.] Young man, that is not the place for you. But look a little further. Here is another monument, a black tomb, and be- side it, as our distinguished friend said, there towers to the sky a monument of four million pairs of human fetters taken from the arms of slaves, and I read on its little headstone this : "Sacred to the memory of human slavery. " For forty years of its infamous life the Democratic party taught that it was divine— God's institution. They defended it, they stood around it, they fol- lowed it to its grave as a mourner. But here it lies, dead by the hand of Abra- ham Lincoln. [Applause.] Dead by the power of the Republican party. [Ap- plause.] Dead by the justice of Almighty God. [Great applause and cheers.] Don't camp there, young man. But here is another. A little brimstone tomb, [laughter,] and I read across its yellow face in lurid, bloody lines these words : " Sacred to the memory of State sovereignty and secession." Twelve millions of Democrats mustered around it in arms to keep it alive ; but here it lies, shot to death by the mill- ion guns of the Republic. [Applause.] Here it lies, its shrine burned to ashes under the blazing rafters of the burning Confederacy. [Applause.] It is dead ! I would not have you stay in there a minute, even in this balmy night air, to look at such a place. [Laughter.] But just before I leave it I discover a new-made grave, a little mound— short. The grass has hardlv sprouted over it, and all around it I see torn pieces of paper with the word "fiat" on them, [laughter,] and I look down in curiosity, wondering what the little grave is, and I read on it : "Sacred to the memory of the Rag Baby. Hauchter Q nursed in the brain of all the fanaticism of the world, (laughter :1 rocked by Thomas Ewing, George II. Pendleton, Samuel Cary, and a few others throughout the land. " But it died on the 1st of January, '1879, and the one hundred and forty millions of gold that God made, and not fiat power, lie upon its little carcass to keep it down forever. [FroFongad ap- plause.] 14 . Oh, young man, come out of that I [Laughter.] That is no place in which to put your young life. Come out, and come over into this camp of liberty, of order, of law, of justice, of freedom, ["Amen,"] of all that is glorious under these night stars. Is there any death here in our camp ? Yes 1 Yes! Tln-ee hundred and fifty thousand Boldiers, the noblest band that ever trod the earth, died to make this camp a camp of glory and of liberty forever. [{Tremendous applause.] But there are no dead issues here. There are no dead ideas here. Hang out our banner from under the blue sky this night until it shall sweep the green turf under your feet! It hangs over our camp. Read away up under the stars the inscription we have written on it, lo! these twenty-five years. Twenty-live yeai^s ago the Republican party was married to liberty, and this is our silver wedding, fellow citizens. [Great applause.] A worthily married pair hive each other better on the day of their silver wedding than on the day of their first espousals.; and we are truer to liberty to-day and dearer to God than we were when we spoke our first word of liberty. Read away up under the sky across our starry banner that first word we uttered twenty-five years ago. What was it V "Slavery shall never extend over another foot of the Ter- ritories of the Great West." [Applause.] Isthat dead or alive? Alive, thank God, forevermore I [Applause.] And truer te-night than it was the hour it was written. [Applause.] Then it was a hope, a promise, a purpose. To-night it is equal with the stars— immortal history and immortal truth. [Applause.] Come down the glorious steps of our banner. Every great record we have made we have vindicated with our blood and with our truth. It sweeps the ground, and it touches the stars. Come there, young man, and put in your young life where all is living, and where nothing is dead but the heroes that defended it! [Applause.] I think these young men will do that. ["Of course they will!"] Gentlemen, we are closing this memorable campaign. We have got our enemies on the run everywhere. [Laughter.] And all you need to do in this noble old city, this capital of the Western Reserve, is to follow them up and finish it by snowing the rebellion under once more. We stand on an isthmus. This year' and next is the narrrow isthmus between us and perpetual victory If you can win now and win in 1880, then the very stars in their courses will fight for us. [Applause.] The census will do the work, and will give us thirty more free men of the North in our Congress that will make up for the rebellion of the South. [Great applause.] We are posted here as the Greeks wera posted at Thermopylae to meet this one great Barbarian Xerxes of the isth- mus. Stand in your places, men of Ohio ! Fight this battle, win this vic- tory, aud then one more puts you in safety forever! 1 thank you, fellow-citizens, for your patienoe- ? SOLD A^ LIBRAE OF CONGRESS IIHIIHw! 1 013 789 630 8