THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Louisiana Scott Shuman 
 
LATER SPEECHES 
 
 POLITICAL QUESTIONS 
 
 SELECT CONTROVERSIAt>APERS 
 
 GEORGE W. JULIAN 
 
 EDITED BY HIS DAUGHTER 
 
 GRACE JULIAN CLARKE 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS 
 
 CARLON & HOLLENBECK 
 
COPYRIGHT BY 
 
 CAELON & HOLLENBECK. 
 
 1889. 
 
 LOAN STACK 
 GIFT 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE following speeches deal with questions of current 
 American politics from 1871 to 1889, and they embody, to 
 some extent, the political history of the country during 
 this period. The greater part of them will particularly 
 interest the surviving associates and friends of the men 
 who withdrew from the Republican party in 1872, and 
 thenceforward remained outside of its fold ; for they 
 set forth with clearness and force the reasons which 
 prompted them to this memorable revolt against organ 
 ized intolerance and political greed, and made their re 
 turn impossible. Although the party still lives, it has 
 completely outlasted the causes which produced it and 
 made it a necessity, while in the clear mirror of his 
 tory and the light of existing facts it is now seen that the 
 old rallying-cry of "reform within the party" was a 
 false pretense and a mischievous delusion. 
 
 The controversial papers which follow the speeches 
 sufficiently disclose the occasion for writing them, and 
 fairly indicate the character and material points of the 
 articles to which they reply. The historical paper which 
 closes the volume is one of numerous magazine articles, 
 and is reprinted because it deals with a vital political 
 question, and is believed to be a real contribution to the 
 truth of history. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 THE CAMPAIGN OF 1872. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Speech in the Academy of Music, Indianapolis, on the 12th of June. . 1 
 
 THE NEW TRIALS OF DEMOCRACY. 
 Delivered at Rockville, September 13, 1873. , 27 
 
 THE SLAVERY YET TO BE ABOLISHED. 
 
 Delivered at various points in Michigan and Iowa, in the year 1874. . 58 
 
 EVOLUTION AND REFORM. 
 
 Delivered at an Anti-Slavery Reunion in Greensboro, on the 14th of Octo 
 ber, 1875 . .79 
 
 THE GOSPEL OF REFORM. 
 
 Delivered in the Grand Opera House, Indianapolis, on the 26th of August, 
 
 1876 106 
 
 THE FRAUD OF 1876. 
 Delivered at Indianapolis, on the 8th of January, 1877. . . , . . 141 
 
 THE ISSUES OF 1880 CHARACTER OF THE CANDIDATES. 
 Delivered in the Wigwam, at Indianapolis, on the 24th of August. . . 176 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND REFORM. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Delivered at Indianapolis, on the 28th of August, 1884. .... 215 
 
 THE AUGURIES OF VICTORY. 
 Read before the Hendricks Club, on the 18th of September, 1888. . . 239 
 
 SELECT PAPERS. 
 
 REPLY TO HON. TIMOTHY O. HOWE. 
 New York World of May 7, 1878. .266 
 
 REPLIES TO HON. CARL SCHURZ. 
 
 New York World and New York Sun, in the Spring of 1883. . . .270 
 
 THE LIMNING OF STEPHEN W. DORSEY. 
 Published in various Leading Newspapers in January, 1888. . . . 297 
 
 WEBSTER AND ELAINE : HISTORIC JUSTICE. 
 From the Magazine of Western History, September, 1888 308 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1872. 
 
 SPEECH AT THE ACADEMY OF Music, INDIANAPOLIS, ON THE 
 I2TH OF JUNE, 1872. 
 
 [This speech opened the campugi for Greeley, and forcibly presented the 
 issues from the Liberal Republican standpoint. The formidable secession 
 from the Republican party which occurred this year, headed by its chief found 
 ers and fathers, was an event of historic significance, and the grounds of the 
 movement, which provoked so much parly exasperation at the time, can now 
 be dispassionately considered.] 
 
 Fellow Citizens: The political situation to-day is, indeed, 
 novel and peculiar. It invites our careful study, and de 
 mands an intelligent solution. When I was in California, a 
 few years since, I was very much interested in the rugged 
 and volcanic look of the earth s surface in certain remark 
 able localities. Bowlders of immense size, and rock of every 
 conceivable character and shape were tumbled together in 
 the wildest confusion and the strangest fellowship. It was a 
 striking illustration of what is sometimes called " confusion 
 worse confounded," and it forcibly reminds me of the pres 
 ent state of our politics. It is difficult to realize what we 
 witness daily, when we remember the absolute party discip 
 line which for so many years has marshaled the people 
 against each other like two hostile armies. Politically men 
 are now assorted so oddly as to excite both surprise and 
 amusement. Those who have been strongly united through 
 long years of intense party warfare are now separated, while 
 those who have been divided into fiercely contending camps 
 are united. This is true alike of our party leaders and of the 
 masses, and the spectacle presented is one of such apparent 
 
2 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 confusion and bewilderment that many find the path of pres 
 ent duty considerably tangled and obscure. 
 
 The problem, however, is easily solved. The student of 
 American politics who looks beneath the surface of things, 
 and remembers the history of parties in this country, can not 
 fail to see that we are in the midst of one of our periodical po 
 litical revolutions. Through the sudden upheaval of our poli 
 tics, we have entered upon a new epoch, very clearly foreshad 
 owing the radical reconstruction of parties on the new and 
 living questions of the times. Parties can not live forever. 
 Political parties are not immortal, as Senator Morton seerns 
 to believe. They have their time to be born, and their ap 
 pointed time to die. They are called into life by certain 
 public exigencies which are now and then evolved from the 
 ceaseless activity and inevitable vicissitudes of our national 
 affairs, and when these exigencies pass away the parties them 
 selves must perish. If they do not, they at once degenerate 
 into mere factions, the great bane of Republics, and ought 
 to be exterminated. Take the old Federal party as an illus 
 tration. It was a grand old party in some respects, and had 
 the support of as strong and true men as ever lived ; but 
 when its work was done it passed away. The old Whig 
 party had its day, struggling manfully for certain special 
 measures of policy, but when the nation finally pronounced 
 against them the party died and was buried. The old Free- 
 soil party, born of the question of slavery in our national 
 territories, had its day, and it was a day of great usefulness. 
 It was a sort of political John the Baptist, preparing the way 
 for the mightier organization which followed ; but when this 
 was done, it was translated into the Republican party, which 
 it first committed to the essential articles of its faith. The 
 Know-Nothing party had its day, and a dark day it was, 
 and, thank the Lord, a short day; and then it also died. 
 The Republican party had its birth in the organized at 
 tempt to withstand the further aggressions of the slave 
 power ; but as slavery now sleeps in its bloody shroud the 
 mission of the party is ended, and its time* to die has come. 
 
LIBERAL REPUBLICANISM. 3 
 
 How can a man live when the breath has gone out of his 
 body? How can a party survive when the work which gave 
 it life has been accomplished and irrevocably settled? My 
 friends, the Republican party is a spent political force. It 
 is an " organized epitaph. It is to-day as dead as the bones 
 of the prophet Ezekiel, and its issues as perfectly gone as 
 those of the Mexican war. And the trouble with the fol 
 lowers of General Grant is that they are to-day standing in 
 the ruts of the past, or moving along in the same old party 
 grooves, through the mere force of party traditions and the 
 memory of past conflicts, while the supporters of Horace 
 Greeley have the sagacity to perceive the real situation, and 
 the courage to take their stand on the broad level of inde 
 pendent and untrammeled political action. 
 
 Gentlemen, am I not right in these views? Is it reason 
 able to preserve and garnish the scaffolding around an edi 
 fice after it has been finished? If Christianity were estab 
 lished throughout the earth would the organization and ma 
 chinery of our religious denominations be any longer needed ? 
 The champions of General Grant seem to forget that a po 
 litical party is not an end, but a means ; that it is simply the 
 instrument through which some desirable purpose is sought 
 to be accomplished,- I respectfully commend to them the 
 views of Gerrit Smith, now their favorite idol, as he ex 
 pressed himself in 1869. Here is what he then said: 
 
 "A very lamentable evil is the education of the people into the belief that 
 a perm-anent political party is a great good ; and, therefore, that such a party 
 as the Republican or Democratic ought not to be broken up. But a permanent 
 political party, with the constant tendency of every such p irty to deterioration, 
 is a heavy curse for it plants itself with great, and too frequently wiih in 
 vincible power, in the way of all progress, and clings for its own existence to 
 the wrongs with which it is identified. No other but temporary political par 
 ties are justifiable no other but such as occasions call for." 
 
 Our Grant friends who are so industriously peddling Mr. 
 Smith s late speech at Petersboro, are respectfully invited to 
 ponder the words of their champion, as I have quoted them. 
 I do not say that political parties are an evil in themselves. 
 I do not deny their usefulness. The point which I empha- 
 
4 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 size is, that they are temporary formations, which are to be 
 dispensed with just as soon as the occasions which produced 
 them have passed away. In the very nature of things they 
 can not be permanent ; and I am surprised that so wise a 
 man as Charles Sumner, in the year 1860, prophesied that 
 the Republican party, after the accomplishment of its im 
 mediate work in dealing with slavery, would be " filled with 
 higher life," and lifted to yet other efforts," which would 
 demand its continued existence. In this prophecy Mr. Sum 
 ner uttered the dream of a philanthropist, and not the sober 
 judgment of a statesman. Gentlemen, every one of you will 
 admit, on a moment s reflection, that in the very fact that the 
 Republican party was created to deal with the single ques 
 tion of slavery, and would not have existed without it ; in the 
 very fact that all its energies were constantly directed to the 
 settlement of this single question, and its whole heart con 
 stantly absorbed in the problem, it necessarily became un 
 qualified and unfitted to deal with other vital questions which 
 would follow. Its very education and training could not fail 
 to be a hindrance, instead of a help, in the solution of other 
 problems. A political party is not like a machine, which 
 you can apply to a new task. You might as well say that a 
 man who has learned how to make a watch has qualified 
 himself to build a ship. I have said that parties are created 
 by new exigencies, and these exigencies naturally require 
 organizations composed of the fragments of dead parties, 
 which are drawn together by the growing sense of public 
 necessity. Do you ask for confirmation of what I say? 
 You have it, as I have shown, in the history of parties in the 
 United States. And you have it in palpable facts now before 
 the country. The special work of the Republican party has 
 been concluded for some years, and it has applied itself to 
 other tasks. Has it shown itself able to deal with them? 
 Has it not failed, and shamefully failed, in dealing with 
 the question of civil service reform? Has it not equally 
 failed in dealing with the tariff question? Has not is 
 land policy been a disgrace to our legislation, and a con- 
 
LIBERAL REPUBLICANISM. 5 
 
 spiracy against coming generations? Has our financial pol 
 icy, including our system of national banks, been a remark 
 able success? Is not the Republican party to-day the hired 
 man of corporations and associated wealth? Is it not the 
 party of aristocracy and privilege, settling down into the 
 tracks of the old Federal party? Do you not see, gentle 
 men, the absolute need of political reconstruction? 
 
 But let me not be misunderstood. I honor the Republi 
 can party for all its grand and glorious work. I preached 
 its doctrines long years before it dared live. I sustained all 
 its grand measures of war and reconstruction during its days 
 of trial. If I differed with it, it was because I espoused its 
 vital doctrines and policy before it was ready to accept them. 
 I gave it my dedicated energy and zeal in putting down a 
 mighty civil war, in emancipating four millions of slaves, and 
 in establishing the principle of universal equality before the 
 law throughout the republic. I have no interest, certainly, 
 in turning my back upon the past, and no motive whatever 
 for plucking a single laurel from the brow of the Republican 
 party. I can well understand the feeling which prompts the 
 members of this old party to cling to its traditions, and rev 
 erently cherish the memory of its achievements. I can per 
 fectly understand, also, how naturally its glorious success 
 has given to the organization a momentum that outlasts its 
 mission. And yet I must repeat all I have said as to the 
 complete accomplishment of its work, and the necessity of 
 facing the fact, however unwelcome, that henceforth it has 
 only a place in history. Let it have an honorable place. 
 Let no man grudge it the honors with which history is sure 
 to crown it ; but let it now go down to its grave in peace, 
 and not, as did the old Whig party, survive its integrity and 
 moral influence by throwing itself across the track of prog 
 ress. Its career has been a marvelous one, and its acts are 
 not all of them safe precedents. In facing the great trials 
 and responsibilities which the war imposed it was tempted to 
 resort to extraordinary measures. It dealt with a very strong 
 hand. It accustomed itself to know no law but its own will, 
 
O SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 and to stretch the constitution itself, in some instances, in the 
 prosecution of its purposes. Even since the war it has 
 trampled down the principle of local self-government, and 
 carried the policy of centralization to the most alarming 
 lengths. It has no right to press these mistakes upon the 
 country as rightful constitutional measures. It is neither 
 just nor politic to thrust them upon the people of the South, 
 if reconciliation and peace are to be sought between the two 
 sections of our country. The training of the Republican 
 party was that of war. Its spirit was antagonism ; and in the 
 very nature of things it can not now be made the instrument 
 of concord and union. The work it had in hand during the 
 conflict was thoroughly done ; but the work of peace, of fra 
 ternity, of a restored Union and constitutional civil govern 
 ment belongs now to quite other agencies, and far different 
 instrumentalities. What the nation needs to-day is amnesty, 
 complete reconciliation, and oblivion of the past; and it is 
 both logically and morally impossible that these precious 
 blessings can come through the continued life of the Repub 
 lican party. 
 
 But, gentlemen, perhaps some of you feel a little curious 
 to know what I have to say about Democrats and the Demo 
 cratic party. I shall not ignore this topic, though there is 
 less occasion to dwell upon it. My chief purpose, to-day, is 
 to appeal to my old Republican friends ; but I rejoice to find 
 Democrats, in every section of our country, rallying to the 
 support of Horace Greeley, a veteran Republican journalist, 
 and an honest man. I rejoice, also, to find them, with equal 
 unanimity, standing on the Cincinnati platform. They are 
 thus publicly committed, as a finality, to the Thirteenth Con 
 stitutional Amendment, abolishing slavery in the United 
 States forever ; to the Fourteenth Amendment, which recog 
 nizes the negro as a citizen, secures to him the equal protec 
 tion of the law, guarantees the validity of the public debt, 
 and forbids the United States, or any State, from assuming 
 or paying any debt incurred in aid of insurrection or rebel 
 lion, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave ; 
 
LIBERAL REPUBLICANISM. 7 
 
 and to the Fifteenth Amendment, which arms our emanci 
 pated millions with the ballot. This, gentlemen, is the Dem 
 ocratic gospel to-day throughout the land : and when the 
 Democratic party thus turns its back upon all that portion of 
 the past which has been offensive to Republicans, and com 
 mits itself unequivocally to wise and just measures respect 
 ing living issues, it sets an example which I would gladly 
 have the Republican party imitate. It confesses that its mis 
 sion, as a party of the past, is ended, and comes forward 
 itself with the honorable proposition to fraternize with all 
 who will join it in the endeavor to reorganize and reconstruct 
 the parties of the future. I rejoice at this, and it seems to 
 me thai every good man ought to rejoice ; for if our Demo 
 cratic friends to-day had persisted in the desperate party 
 madness which characterizes the champions of General 
 Grant, nothing could be hoped for but interminable discord 
 and strife between the lately warring states of this Union. 
 But, gentlemen, shall I quarrel with Democrats for taking a 
 right position? Shall I imitate Senator Morton by black 
 guarding and insulting them because they assume a position 
 which for years past we have been pleading with them to 
 accept? Shall I tell them they are hypocrites, when they 
 declare they have turned their backs upon the past, and are 
 willing to stand with us in the issues of the present? When, 
 let me ask, would quarrels ever come to an end, if, when 
 one party proposes peace, the other charges him with du 
 plicity, and insists upon fighting it out to the bitter end? I 
 appeal to the justice and common sense of my old Repub 
 lican friends, and ask them when the Democrats of the South 
 and the Democrats of the North propose to join us in march 
 ing out of the graveyard of dead issues, whether we ought 
 not to meet them in a fraternal spirit? When they offer 
 us the pipe of peace shall we give them the tomahawk and 
 the scalping-knife? Senator Morton tells us that the issue 
 to-day is the same old issue between the boys in blue and 
 the boys in gray. Is this true or is it false? Why, my 
 friends, thousands and thousands of the boys in blue and 
 
8 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 the boys in gray have gone down to their graves since the 
 bloody conflict ended. The fourth part of a whole gener 
 ation of men has passed away ; while thousands and thou 
 sands of those who were mere children and boys during the 
 struggle have now come to the political front, innocent of 
 any part in the bloody drama, and with a constitutional right 
 to be heard in the settlement of the great questions of the 
 time. Gentlemen, I piiy the public man who tells you that 
 the old bitterness and strife of the past must still dominate 
 in our politics, and who seeks to continue his hold on office 
 and power at the expense of the nation s peace. You will 
 all agree with me that peace between the two sections must 
 come some time. You will all agree with me that the law of 
 hate is not the higher law among men, which must be per 
 petuated in our republic. Tell me, you followers of General 
 Grant and devotees of Judaism in politics, what sort of a 
 union do you desire between the North and the South? Do 
 you want to make another Ireland of the South? Do you 
 want a union symbolized by two hostile armies, threatening 
 each other with slaughter, and only held back for a fit op 
 portunity to strike? Do you want a union like that between 
 the Jews and Samaritans, or the old Anglo-Saxons and Nor 
 mans, or the Orangemen and Ribbonmen? What sort of a 
 restored union did we fight for? Was it not a real union of 
 hearts and of hands, cemented by common affections, by the 
 spirit of brotherhood, and by the aspirations of the people of 
 every section of the land for the national well-being? 
 
 But, you insist that the Democrats are insincere. You 
 say they have mounted the Cincinnati platform deceitfully, 
 and as a means of regaining power. You say they are sup 
 porting Greeley from compulsion, and have simply changed 
 their base because they are weary of wrestling with fate and 
 kicking against thunder. I have already said that I do not 
 approve of this method of dealing with men who assume a 
 right position. You yourselves do not adopt it respecting 
 the Democrats who have espoused the cause of General 
 Grant. You believe in the sincerity of the rebel officer who 
 
LIBERAL REPUBLICANISM. 9 
 
 presided over your national convention. You doubtless be 
 lieve Mosby to be a patriot, and Governor Orr, of South 
 Carolina, and other ex-rebels of the South whom I could 
 name, who are now supporting your cause. Why, then, do 
 you take it for granted that Democrats who support Greeley 
 are hypocrites? If a Democrat can be sincere in supporting 
 Grant, and standing on the Philadelphia platform, why not 
 allow that he may be equally sincere in supporting Greeley, 
 and standing on the Cincinnati platform? 
 
 But let me agree now, for the sake of the argument, that 
 our Democratic friends are insincere, and that they adopt 
 their present tactics from the mere force of political necessity. 
 Giving you the full benefit of this argument, let us apply it 
 on all sides and see how it affects you. You Grant men 
 were generally members of the old Whig party, because the 
 Republican party in the main was formed out of old Whig 
 material. Now I ask you why you gave up your old party 
 and joined a new one? When your party perished, why did 
 you unite with the olJ Free-soilers in organizing a new party, 
 called the Republican party? You did it because you could 
 not help yourselves. Politically, there was nothing else for 
 you to do. But did I or any other old Free-soiler abuse you 
 for it? Did we impugn your motives? Did we tell you you 
 were eleventh-hour men and hypocrites, ashamed of your 
 party, joining our ranks because you could not help your 
 selves, and plotting your way into office and power? Not a 
 word of it. We were right glad to see you. We welcomed 
 you into our ranks, and turned you to pretty good account 
 afterward as Republicans. We were not fools enough to de 
 nounce and traduce you for offering us your help which we 
 so greatly needed, and so rejoicingly accepted. 
 
 The Democrats, you say, are taking the right side now 
 from compulsion. Let me deal with this argument still fur 
 ther. Why, I ask you, did the Republican party abolish 
 slavery during the war? Was it done through the motive 
 power of philanthropy, or the impulse of humanity toward 
 the negro? Was it the embodied virtue of the Republican 
 
IO SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 party that did it? Every Republican and every Democrat 
 knows the answer. The party abolished slavery because it 
 could not help it. For nearly two years of the war, with 
 Abraham Lincoln at its head, it tried with all its might not 
 to do it. It tried, with all its might, to save the Union and 
 save slavery with it. When I introduced measures in Con 
 gress for the repeal, or even modification, of the Fugitive 
 Slave Act, they were overwhelmingly voted down. When 
 the contrabands came throngi ig to our military lines, tender 
 ing us the secrets of the rebel cause and the aid of their mus 
 cles in fighting their old masters, they were driven from our 
 camps by our Republican generals, while fugitives were 
 sent back to their rebel masters. We, like the rebels of the 
 South, were fighting for slavery. But when the nation was 
 finally in danger of perishing in the Red Sea into which sla 
 very had plunged it, and we could neither save the country 
 nor ourselves without clutching at black ropes, the Republi 
 can party became an anti-slavery party. It armed the negro 
 as a soldier, and set him to shooting at his old master. It 
 struck at the institution of slavery through our confiscation 
 laws. Through Abraham Lincoln it issued its proclamation 
 of emancipation, and it finally consummated the work by the 
 Thirteenth Constitutional Amendment. My old Republican 
 friends, therefore, when they charge Democrats with acting 
 from compulsion, can not fail to see how justly the compli 
 ment may be returned. I speak, of course, of the Republi 
 can party as such. I except, of course, the old Free-soil and 
 abolition element in that party, which, from the beginning, 
 recognized slavery as the guilty cause of the war, and the 
 grand obstacle to peace. But the Republican party, as such, 
 did nothing, I repeat, for the slave, except upon compulsion. 
 And notwithstanding its loud and continued boast to-day that 
 it gave freedom to four millions of slaves, the honor which it 
 earned is simply that which pertains to a great and benefi 
 cent act which could not be avoided by the part} 7 that per 
 formed it. 
 
 Gentlemen, this argument will not avail the followers of 
 
LIBERAL REPUBLICANISM. II 
 
 General Grant. It is a two-edged sword, cutting them quite 
 as severely as it cuts Democrats. But neither should shrink 
 from its fair application. The truth is, men often adopt a 
 course of action from compulsion, and afterward espouse it 
 from conviction, and maintain it with enthusiasm. I have 
 already referred to the reluctance with which our old Whig 
 friends joined the Republican party, but when they finally 
 did so, and repudiated their servility to slavery, they gave 
 their whole hearts to the very cause they had so bitterly op 
 posed. With what hesitation and anxious misgivings did 
 Mr. Lincoln make up his mind to strike at slavery as a meas 
 ure of war. But when he finally did it, his heart and con 
 science and judgment came to his support and made him 
 desperately in earnest. I have referred to the anxious desire 
 of the Republican party to spare slavery ; but does any man 
 doubt that, after it had made up its mind to destroy it, Re 
 publicans gradually became convinced of the righteousness 
 of the policy and the wrong of slavery? What multitudes of 
 our people longed to avoid the conflict with the South, and 
 espoused the cause of the government with hesitation and 
 doubt, and yet afterward became the most pronounced and 
 uncompromising Unionists. In our Revolutionary struggle 
 thousands espoused the cause of Independence through a 
 virtual compulsion, but after they had embarked in what 
 seemed to them a desperate enterprise, they maintained it 
 with all the fervor which patriotism could inspire. There is 
 often a measure of selfishness in the most praiseworthy acts 
 of men, while enlightened selfishness is not inconsistent with 
 justice and the- public good. And let me remind you, my 
 old Republican friends, who are so unforgiving toward Dem 
 ocrats, that you yourselves have some cause to judge them 
 with charity. Our bloody war with the South was the child 
 of slavery, and you, as well as others, had your share of 
 guilty complicity with it. For long years you abetted its 
 monstrous pretensions by your political action. You de 
 nounced and opposed all opposition to it. You did every 
 thing in your power to make the slavery of the South our 
 
I 2 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 slavery. We have all done our part in pampering the insti 
 tution into madness, and tempting it into its evil deeds. Ger- 
 rit Smith used to say that we ought to pay for the slaves of 
 the South on the principle of " honor among thieves." And 
 can you remember your political partnership with the rebels 
 of the South, whom you now denounce, and the Democrats, 
 whom you distrust, and tell them they are incapable of re 
 pentance, while wrapping yourselves in the robes of self- 
 righteousness? 
 
 But our Republican friends say that they can not work 
 alongside of Democrats. They say the conduct of those 
 men during the war was such that they can neither forgive 
 it nor identify themselves with the movement in which they 
 are the principal element. They say that if Greeley is 
 elected President the great body of his supporters will be 
 Democrats ; that he himself will become their instrument, 
 and the Democratic party will find its way back to power. 
 Let us dispassionately consider these objections. My old 
 Republican friends, let me ask you why this dreadful appre 
 hension of Democratic contamination? Since when did you 
 become so sensitive and gingerly as to your political associa 
 tions? Let us consider the matter in the light of known 
 facts. I refer, in the first place, to a little matter of history 
 which my old Free-soil friends have not forgotten. In 1849 
 I was elected to Congress from what was known as the 
 " Burnt District" by a political combination. I was nomi 
 nated by the Free-soil party of that district, but the great 
 body of my supporters were Democrats. Did I become a 
 tool of these Democrats and betray the anti-slavery cause in 
 Congress? No man of any party, in the district or out of it, 
 ever made such an accusation. About the same time Chase 
 was sent to the United States Senate for six years by a handful 
 of Free-soilers in combination with Democrats in the Legisla 
 ture of Ohio. Did he become a Democrat and turn his back 
 upon his anti-slavery professions? The whole country knows 
 how grandly he fought Douglas and Buchanan and the slave 
 power during the whole of his Senatorial term. Some twenty- 
 
LIBERAL REPUBLICANISM. 13 
 
 one years ago Charles Sumner was first elected to the Sen 
 ate of the United States by a combination of conscience 
 Whigs, Free-soilers and Democrats, the latter forming the 
 great body of his supporters. Has Charles Sumner ever 
 wavered as the advocate and champion of freedom? Has 
 he ever been the tool of any man, or faction, or party? I 
 need not answer the question. Let me come nearer home, 
 and refer to later events. In 1856 the Republicans of Indi 
 ana nominated Oliver P. Morton as their candidate for gov 
 ernor. If my recollection serves me, he came to us from the 
 Democratic party, and had been a very distasteful specimen 
 of a Democratic politician. He tells us, to-day, that Liberal 
 Republicans are all sore-heads, and that every man who went 
 to the Cincinnati Convention had a plaster on his cranium. 
 But when he came over to us he had been a candidate for 
 office in the Democratic party every year, from the time he 
 became of age till he joined us. The truth is, he had soured 
 on his party friends, who were quite willing to surrender 
 their claims on him to us. His head at that time needed a 
 plaster almost as badly as his moral character has done ever 
 since. But with all his sins, political and moral, we took 
 him and made him our standard-bearer in that memorable 
 campaign. Indeed, wherever we could persuade a Demo 
 crat to join us, we gave him a cordial welcome. If we saw 
 a Democrat coming toward us, we wooed him onward, took 
 him into our political embrace, and bestowed upon him our 
 fondest caresses. You know how many prominent Demo 
 crats, in the different states in the Union, joined our ranks, 
 and how glad we all were to receive them. When the war 
 came they were equally welcome, and we made brigadier 
 and major-generals of a goodly number of them. Ben. F. 
 Butler, who had voted for Jefferson Davis fifty-eight times in 
 the Charleston Convention, became a converted political sin 
 ner, and we turned him to the best account we could during 
 the war. Of course, his conversion was genuine, for he now 
 supports Ulysses S. Grant! General Dix, General Rose- 
 crans, and scores of others were Democrats, and we were 
 
14 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 glad to get their help in fighting the rebels. General Grant 
 himself was a Democrat, and his Republican followers would 
 do well to remember this while boasting that the Republican, 
 party put down the rebellion. Indeed, I think the boast 
 a questionable one, since we were not certain that if the 
 Democrats who gave us their help had served the rebels as 
 zealously as they served us, the Union cause would have 
 triumphed. The boast, at all events, is not altogether con 
 sistent with the claim now constantly made that General 
 Grant is the savior of the country, for he never voted except 
 for Buchanan, in 1856, when the Republican party was 
 struggling into life, and never became a Republican, accord 
 ing to Colonel Forney, until he was made one by the bribe 
 of the Presidency, and the assurance that he should have it 
 for two terms. 
 
 My friends, in the light of these facts, which could read 
 ily be multiplied, how are we to account for this nervous 
 dread of cooperating with Democrats? And if they were 
 good enough to fight with us during the war, why are they 
 not good enough to vote with us after the war is over, if we 
 are agreed as to public questions? And what pretense of 
 decency can there be in shunning political association with 
 Democrats who support Greeley, when we find you hand-in- 
 glove with the same naughty people who are willing to sup 
 port Grant? Should not a decent respect for the opinions of 
 mankind make you ashamed of such pitiful subterfuges? 
 How is it that you are willing to fellowship one class of Dem 
 ocrats and at the same time denounce Liberal Republicans 
 for associating with another class, whose political prin 
 ciples and antecedents are the same? And how is it, that 
 through all the years since the Republican party was formed, 
 you have been so willing to accept the help of Democrats in 
 detail, or in small squads, while you now blaze with indig 
 nation at the idea of welcoming the whole body of Demo 
 crats in the nation? Can some of you Grant men solve this 
 problem? Can you tell me why you consider it a capital 
 thing to have caught a few straggling Democrats now and 
 
LIBERAL REPUBLICANISM. 15 
 
 then, during the past sixteen years, while yet you count it a 
 fearful disaster for the whole body of Democrats to join you I 
 I say, shame upon such logic, and such political morality I 
 Do you not see that no man s essential character can be af 
 fected by the fact that this man or that man votes with him? 
 Can any contamination arise from such a circumstance? Am 
 I responsible for the character of a man who votes my ticket? 
 Can I be made responsible when he openly subscribes to my 
 political creed, and professes to have the same political aims 
 with myself? And do you not see that if you refrain from 
 voting till all who vote your ticket are known to be honest 
 men, and inspired by pure aims, that you could never vote 
 for anybody? Would not all political action cease, if your 
 ideas are to be accepted and put in practice? For myself, I 
 rejoice unspeakably in the united action of the Democrats 
 throughout the country this year, in their readiness to stand 
 with us. I rejoice because it promises reconciliation and 
 peace to the nation. I rejoice because it delivers us from the 
 ugly trammels and wicked strifes of the past, and thus opens 
 the way for the calm consideration and wise settlement of 
 those living problems which for years past have invoked the 
 judgment of the people. 
 
 But even granting the truth of all I have said, our old 
 Republican friends are not satisfied. Let me, therefore, fol 
 low up my appeal to them still further. They say they can 
 not support Horace Greeley because he is inconsistent. 
 They say he is a vacillating old man, who could not safely 
 be trusted as President. They say he is a political weather 
 cock, and they copy this from an English journal. I ask 
 you to consider these objections for a moment. For nearly 
 a third of a century Horace Greeley has been the leading 
 editor of one of the foremost journals of the world. For some 
 thirty years past he has each day written down his opinions 
 and impressions upon current events, telling the people just 
 what he thought at the time as to political, social and reform 
 atory questions. Undoubtedly he made mistakes. Of course, 
 he expressed opinions which afterward, on fuller informa- 
 
1 6 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 tion, he reconsidered. It would have required the talents of 
 an angel to write down the truth in every instance and upon 
 all subjects. Of course, the record of such a man presents 
 some inconsistencies, for the very reason that he grew wiser 
 from year to year, and, as an honest man, was ready to con 
 fess his errors. But, I ask you, has Horace Greeley really 
 been inconsistent and vacillating upon great and vital ques 
 tions? Has he not been a firm and unflinching Republican 
 ever since the Republican party was formed? You say he is 
 a political weather-cock. I have a right to what the lawyers 
 call a bill of particulars. Give me the items of his inconsist 
 ency as a Republican politician and journalist. A friend of 
 mine said to me, the other day, " My objection to Greeley 
 is, that he lacks that soundness of judgment which is abso 
 lutely necessary in the Presidential office." I asked him to 
 specify wherein he was wanting in soundness of judgment, 
 but the specifications were not given. He has certainly man 
 ifested a good deal of " soundness of judgment" and execu 
 tive ability in establishing one of the grandest newspaper 
 enterprises in the country. Undoubtedly he is liable to be 
 duped and deceived, like other men. No man could fill the 
 Presidential office without being exposed to danger in this 
 direction. We all know how sadly President Lincoln was 
 imposed upon, through his misplaced confidence, and what 
 unworthy characters gathered around Mr. Chase, while Sec 
 retary of the Treasury, and commanded his unhesitating 
 friendship. That General Grant has been most unfortunate 
 in the men he has drawn about him, and intrusted with re 
 sponsible positions, is too well known to be questioned. I 
 believe the strong common sense of Horace Greeley, unin 
 fluenced by the temptation to work for a second term, and 
 guided by his ambition for an honorable fame, would save 
 him from fatal mistakes. It does not look well, at all events, 
 for the champions of General Grant, whose ugly record must 
 be confessed, to assail Horace Greeley by assuming that he 
 would imitate the bad example set by their own candidate. 
 Gentlemen, I have little respect for those who raise the 
 
LIBERAL REPUALICANISM. Ij 
 
 cry of inconsistency. Suppose I plead guilty for Horace 
 Greeley ; what then? Is he the only inconsistent public man 
 in our country? Can you name a prominent statesman or 
 politician in the land whose record is perfectly consistent? 
 I can scarcely think of one, after I have named Charles 
 Sumner. Who of the famous men of the generation past can 
 be referred to as examples? Would the list include Clay, 
 or Webster, or Calhoun, or Benton? Take the notable men 
 of our own time. Take the Grant candidate for Vice-Presi- 
 dent. He is my personal friend, and I honor him ; but when 
 I first knew him, I believe he was a Whig, afterward he be 
 came a Conscience Whig, then a Free-soiler, then a Know- 
 nothing, then a Republican, and, by-and-by, he will become 
 what we shall see. His devotion to the Republican party 
 to-day, and his yearning desire to see it continued, are not 
 at all consistent with his past record. And when, in his 
 opinion, its mission shall have ended, he will probably be as 
 little inclined to linger at its funeral as he was to cling to 
 former party organizations after he had used them as so 
 many ladders to climb up higher. Take the case of your 
 distinguished Senator. As I have told you, he began his 
 career as a Democrat ; he then found his way into the Re 
 publican party by the light of the dark lantern. You know 
 his record since. On the finance question he has favored 
 the greenback theory of Mr. Pendleton, and opposed it. 
 Early in the war he was opposed to arming the negroes, and 
 to everything savoring of hostility to slavery ; bat afterwards 
 became a radical of radicals. In the summer of 1865 he de 
 clared, with an oath, that negro suffrage "must be put 
 down;" and in the fall of that year, as you well remember, 
 he made his grand hegira into the old Burnt District, and 
 delivered his memorable Richmond speech. In that speech 
 he sounded the key-note of the Johnsonized Conservative Re 
 publican New Departure, denouncing the doctrines of Charles 
 Sumner, the policy of negro suffrage, and the principles of 
 reconstruction, as they were subsequently carried out by the 
 Republican party. But very soon afterwards, on finding his 
 
 2 
 
i8 
 
 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 fatal political mistake, he became the champion and eloquent 
 defender of the very principles he had denounced ; and while 
 he and his friends busied themselves in hunting up and con 
 signing to the flames the large edition which had been 
 printed of his speech at Richmond, our Democratic friends, 
 in some half-dozen states, made it a campaign document, 
 and printed it by the hundred thousand. Such is the record 
 of your " great war governor, who is now the right-hand 
 man of this administration, and whom the Grant Republicans 
 so delight to honor, while charging Greeley with incon 
 sistency, and pointing to him as a political weather-cock. I 
 could easily multiply these examples of political inconsistency, 
 but your own knowledge of our public men will readily sug 
 gest them, and add confirmation to what I have said. 
 
 But Greeley, you say, bailed Jeff. Davis, and therefore 
 you can not support him. My friends, he did bail Jeff. Davis, 
 and if you understand the facts you must honor him for the 
 act. If you are ignorant of the facts, then your first duty is 
 to ascertain them. I have found some people who actually 
 believe that Horace Greeley saved Davis from the halter. 
 They have persuaded themselves that Greeley so sympa 
 thized with treason, and so loved the arch-traitor, that he 
 volunteered his efforts to save him from the gallows. Noth 
 ing could be further from the truth. When Davis was bailed 
 he had been imprisoned some two years, although the con 
 stitution required that he should have a speedy trial. The 
 question was what the government should do with him. It 
 was not possible to try him by a military court, for the war 
 was over, and no such tribunal could be resorted to. To try 
 him before a Virginia jury would certainly result in his ac 
 quittal of the crime of which the whole world knew him to 
 be guilty. To let him rot in prison would not only violate 
 the letter and spirit of the constitution, but outrage our civ 
 ilization and kindle the fires of a fearful reaction in the South. 
 What was the government to do with the troublesome ele 
 phant which it had acquired by the unlucky capture of Davis ? 
 I am not now talking about the fit chastisement of the rebel 
 
LIBERAL REPUBLICANISM. 19 
 
 chiefs at the end of the war. 1 expressed my decided 
 opinion on that subject at that time, and I have nothing to 
 take back ; but the question I am now considering is, what 
 the government ought to have done with Davis two years 
 after the war, and under the circumstances I have stated? 
 Gentlemen, I submit that the very wisest thing possible was 
 the very thing which the government itself desired to have 
 done, and that was the bailing of Davis. After a conference 
 with leading and influential public men of different sections 
 of the country, this was agreed upon as the way out of the 
 dilemma. But who should go on his bond? Could we take 
 Lee, or Longstreet, or Toombs, or some other rebels, who 
 had probably been made insolvent by the war? If we al 
 lowed Davis to go at large, must not the loyal states, as well 
 as the loyal men in the rebel states, be made secure in the 
 forthcoming of Davis, should his trial ever be demanded? 
 If we bailed Davis, the bail, of course, must be amply re 
 sponsible ; and it was to this end that Horace Greeley, Com 
 modore Vanderbilt, and other wealthy men in the North, 
 signed their names to the bail bond. 
 
 These are the facts, gentlemen, and I ask you to remem 
 ber them when you tell us that you " prefer the man who 
 whaled Jeff . Davis to the man who bailed him." I ask you 
 to remember, too, that your candidate for the Presidency 
 approved the act of Horace Greeley, and that Gerrit Smith, 
 whom you now love so tenderly, united with Greeley in the 
 act which you denounce. Remember, also, that this act was 
 the natural and consistent expression of that policy of univer 
 sal amnesty which Greeley proclaimed the moment the war 
 was ended ; and that, although you call him a political 
 weather-cock, no power was strong enough to swerve him 
 from it. Remember that while he was a candidate for a seat 
 in the United States Senate, and could certainly have been 
 elected by modifying or suppressing his views, and was so 
 earnestly assured by his friends, he said to them, "It is of 
 small consequence that I should be a Senator ; but it is of 
 great consequence that the North and the South should be 
 
2O SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 reunited in fraternity and good will, on the basis of universal 
 amnesty." And I ask you to remember further, that while 
 Mr. Greeley, in the act of signing the bail-bond of Davis, 
 and in maintaining his policy of universal amnesty, encoun 
 tered a torrent of abuse such as has rarely fallen to the lot of 
 any public man, he never faltered in his devotion to what he 
 believed to be the truth ; and that now, at last, all parties in 
 this country have practically sanctioned his policy, and vin 
 dicated his wisdom. 
 
 But Greeley, we are told, was an original secessionist. 
 The charge is grossly untrue. In common with thousands 
 of good and true men in our country, he recoiled from the 
 dreadful alternative of civil war. He hoped it was possible 
 to avert it. He prayed that this bitter cup might not be 
 pressed to the nation s lips. He sympathized with Abraham 
 Lincoln in those earnest strivings for conciliation, which 
 gave offense to many Republicans of a bolder type. He 
 believed the rebel states themselves, if a fair vote could be 
 had, would condemn the policy of secession. If he ever 
 favored the secession of these states, it was upon conditions 
 which were impossible, and which he assented to as the 
 means of securing an important vantage ground to the North 
 if the war should become inevitable. He never favored se 
 cession at their own option, and on their own chosen con 
 ditions. He never admitted their right to fire on the old flag, 
 and steal our arms and munitions of war, aud thus establish 
 their independence. If 1 am not mistaken, his views were 
 substantially those expressed by the Indianapolis Journal at 
 the time. They were shared by a very large proportion of 
 the people throughout the country. The Northern States 
 had been educated in the ideas of peace. General Scott 
 himself, then at the head of the army, scouted the idea of 
 putting down the rebellion by war. He favored a pacification 
 on the basis of Crittenden s infamous compromise, and, if that 
 failed, he was for letting the " wayward sisters go in peace. " 
 Mr: SeVard, as Secretary of State, declared that none but a 
 despotic or imperial government would seek to subjugate 
 
LIBERAL REPUBLICANISM. 21 
 
 thoroughly dissaffected states. Mr. Lincoln himself ex 
 pressed the same idea in his message to Congress of July, 
 1861. It required time and reflection, and the display of 
 desperate rebel madness, to fire the heart of the country 
 with the spirit of war. It was honorable to Mr. Greeley, 
 Mr. Lincoln and his many sympathizers at the time, that 
 they were so anxious to have the nation lay hold of every 
 means in its power to save it from the appalling calamities of 
 a bloody conflict between the two sections of the Union. But 
 when, at last, this became inevitable, Mr. Greeley threw his 
 whole heart into the loyal cause Having done so much in 
 previous years through his famous journal to create the pub 
 lic opinion which now made the conflict irrepressible, he felt 
 bound to spare no effort within his power to sustain the na 
 tion in its struggle with armed rebels. And I believe it safe 
 to say that no man in the republic rendered more effective 
 service, or is better entitled to its gratitude. The truth is, 
 this charge of favoring secession, which is now flung at Mr. 
 Greeley by the supporters of General Grant, is as infamous 
 as it is ridiculous ; and the men who have coined it, and are 
 now striving to give it currency, ought to be ashamed of the 
 baseness and indecency which can thus seek to strengthen 
 their cause by calumniating the character of a man whose 
 whole life has been so grandly devoted to his country, 
 and whose pen has been " mightier than the sword " in the 
 battle between liberty and slavery. 
 
 Our Grant men blame Greeley, for his attempts, during 
 the war, to restore peace between the two sections of the 
 country. These attempts proved futile, and may have been 
 unwise. The lack of wisdom, however, is not apparent, 
 while the spirit that prompted them is to be commended. 
 The rebels professed a desire to negotiate, but it was quite 
 evident they would agree to no terms which the government 
 could accept. Mr. Greeley and Mr. Lincoln were well con 
 vinced of this, but if the attempt at negotiation should reveal 
 this fact, it must strengthen the loyal cause, and thus prepare 
 us for the final struggle. Mr. Greeley is blamed for his 
 
SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 readiness to pay four hundred millions of dollars as a condi 
 tion of emancipation and peace. But if his proposition had 
 been accepted, it would have saved many thousands of lives, 
 and probably one thousand million dollars, which the fur 
 ther prosecution of the war cost us. Why blame Greeley 
 for this proposition? And how is it that you Grant men do 
 not measure out even-handed justice in censuring our public 
 men ? You remember that Mr. Lincoln, in his Proclamation of 
 Emancipation, in 1863, tQ ld the rebels that .if they would lay 
 down their arms within ninety days, the institution of slavery 
 should be spared. Gentlemen, if ever a great and priceless 
 God-send was vouchsafed to any people, it came to us in 
 that rebel madness which rejected Mr. Lincoln s offer. I 
 express no censure of this act, which, like the other propo 
 sition referred to, was rejected. Doubtless Mr. Lincoln did 
 what he thought was the wisest and best thing possible in 
 the trying circumstances under which he was placed. It is 
 fair to give Mr. Greeley the same credit ; but if he must 
 be censured for his act on moral or political grounds, much 
 more should you censure the act of Abraham Lincoln. I 
 am sorry to say that in this case, as in so many other in 
 stances, the champions of General Grant single out Horace 
 Greeley as the only public man who has gone astray. They 
 are hungering and thirsting for his mistakes and shortcom 
 ings. They are pouncing upon him like beasts of prey, and 
 howling over his pretended political sins, while totally obliv 
 ious of the fact that others have been wrong, and especially 
 that their own party idols and chiefs can be successfully as 
 sailed. I am sorry to witness so many manifestations of this 
 bad spirit, so dishonoring to our politics, but my consolation 
 is that the people love justice and fair-dealing, and will, in 
 due season, adequately rebuke the crooked and insincere 
 tactics of partisan demagogues. 
 
 And now, in general response to all I have said, will you 
 insist that General Grant nevertheless, is your choice for 
 President, and that one of your reasons is, that he is paying 
 off the national debt? You might just as well credit him 
 
LIBERAL REPUBLICANISM. 23 , 
 
 with sending the sunshine and rain, and causing the earth to 
 bring forth of her abundance. General Grant s share in the 
 work of paying our debt consists in the payment of his indi 
 vidual taxes, just as you pay yours. The reduction of the 
 debt at the rapid rate of one hundred millions per annum is 
 due to the energy, enterprise and thrift of our people, and is 
 accomplished through the machinery of the tax and tariff 
 laws passed by Congress. The honor belongs to the people ; 
 but if you ascribe it to Grant, a still larger honor should be 
 awarded to Andrew Johnson, under whose administration a 
 still more rapid reduction was accomplished. 
 
 Do you tell me that Grant should be still further honored 
 because he has been the savior of the country? Undoubt 
 edly he did his part in saving it, and did it well ; and the 
 nation has abundantly honored and rewarded him for it. 
 But General Thomas did his part. So did General Sherman. 
 So did scores of other Generals. But none of our Generals, 
 nor all of them together, could have saved the country with 
 out the heroic courage and unselfish devotion of the common 
 soldier. He, after all, was the real hero of the war. But 
 behind the General and the common soldier stood the great 
 people, from whose ranks our armies were recruited, who 
 furnished the government with its supplies, and with the sin 
 ews of war, whose heroic patience and endurance never 
 failed in the darkest hour, and whose aggregate common 
 sense at last gave our civil and military rulers a war policy 
 that saved us. Gentlemen, the real saviors of the nation are 
 the people of the nation, and I am not willing that any man 
 or party shall pluck from them the honor which is theirs. I 
 pity the servile spirit of man-worship, and the sickly craving 
 for personal government, which we daily witness in the effort 
 to exalt and aggrandize one man at the expense of the people. 
 Such despicable exhibitions of latter-day flunkeyism are as 
 disgusting to all sensible and decent people as they are dis 
 honorable to those who profess to believe in our popular in 
 stitutions. 
 
 Do you tell me that the Republican party, with General 
 
24 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 Grant at its head, is in favor of abolishing the franking priv 
 ilege? The action of that party during the entire term of its 
 ascendency in Congress belies its profession. Parties, like 
 individuals, must be judged by their acts, and if these are 
 inconsistent with their professions, the sin of hypocrisy must 
 be added to that of faithlessness. I have been very familiar 
 with the temper and feeling of both houses of Congress for 
 the past eleven years, and I know that if the party in power 
 had desired to abolish this privilege, it would have been done. 
 You know this as well as I do. And I am equally sure there 
 is not a man in Congress to-day who does not openly or se 
 cretly laugh at the false pretense impudently put forth in the 
 Philadelphia platform respecting this issue. 
 
 Do you plead that the Republican party is the enemy of 
 land monopoly, and the champion of the rights of settlers? 
 The persistent effort in Congress for years past to so amend 
 the Homestead Law as to prevent the further sale of the 
 public lands to non-resident purchasers for speculative pur 
 poses, has been again and again voted down by a Republican 
 Congress. Indeed, from the very date of the passage of the 
 Homestead Law, the policy of the Republican party has 
 systematically favored its nullification by legislation utterly 
 inconsistent with its spirit and purpose. For the leaders of 
 the party to parade their devotion to the welfare of our 
 pioneer settlers and landless poor, is to insult decency and 
 crown party audacity as king. No honest Republican can 
 defend the land policy of his party, because that policy out 
 rages justice, wages war against the equal rights of the peo 
 ple, and is a wanton conspiracy against posterity itself. 
 
 Do you point me to your resolution in favor of tariff re 
 form? If interpreted by the action of the Republican party, 
 it means that you are in favor of a tariff for protection, with 
 incidental revenue. It means that you are in favor of tariff 
 monopoly, and not tariff reform. And the best proof of this 
 is the tariff bill hatched by the last session of Congress, after 
 an incubation of five or six months, and which puts on the 
 free list the chief luxuries of the rich, while imposing its 
 
LIBERAL REPUBLICANISM. 25 
 
 heavy burdens upon the necessaries of life, which bear hard 
 est upon the laboring poor. Your talk about adjusting duties 
 so as to secure remunerative wages to labor, and promote the 
 industries, growth and prosperity of the whole country, sa 
 vors entirely too much of the other false pretenses to which 
 I have already referred. 
 
 Do you refer me to the professed friendship of the Repub 
 lican party for the soldier? His demand for an honest equal 
 ization of his bounties has been denied, and the denial reit 
 erated by Congress during the last seven or eight years. It 
 is true that Congress, at its late session, passed a sort of 
 land-bounty bill ; but its provisions w r ere so clumsily framed 
 that the General Land-office confessed itself incapable of ex 
 ecuting them, \vhile I believe that no mistake was ever made 
 in any great land-grant through which the corporation ask 
 ing it failed to get all, if not more than all, that was contem 
 plated by the act. Be it remembered, also, that multitudes 
 of our maimed soldiers are necessarily incapable of tilling 
 the soil, and that \vhat they want is not the common oppor 
 tunity which the homestead-law opens to all, but a substan 
 tial provision for themselves and their little ones by w r hich 
 they may be enabled to live and to enjoy life. 
 
 Do you point me to your Philadelphia resolution on the 
 subject of capital and labor? No man, without divine illum 
 ination, can tell what it means ; but when I interpret it in the 
 light of your party action, of your huge grants of land to 
 raihvay and other corporations, of your legislation for the 
 rich in the tariff laws to which I have referred, of the organ 
 ized monopolv in the interest of capital which we see in our 
 system of national banks, and the growing tendency of Re 
 publican legislation in the direction of aristocracy and privi 
 lege, I can readily perceive in your professed friendship for 
 the laboring classes a measure of insincerity and demagog- 
 ism which can scarcely be paralleled by any other plank in 
 the Philadelphia platform. Shame upon the false pretense 
 that can thus insult the public intelligence and set all politi 
 cal decency at defiance. 
 
 But, gentlemen, I am taxing your patience too long. Cer- 
 
26 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 tainly I need not further discuss particular questions of policy 
 or legislative reform. These, I doubt not, will be wisely dealt 
 with if we can first emancipate the people from their thraldom 
 to the past, and from the corrupt and mercenary leaders who 
 are still bent upon controlling them, in the name of radicalism 
 and loyality. The great and overmastering want of the coun 
 try to-day is peace. This is the travail of the republic " Let 
 us have peace ! " Not a hollow and hypocritical peace, such 
 as this administration and its leaders are seeking to give us, 
 by keeping alive the old fires of hate and war, in order to 
 their continued ascendency, but a real peace, which shall 
 bless and gladden the vvhole land. This, after all, is the grand 
 question to be settled by the national canvass. Shall the states 
 of the South and the states of the North, now once more look 
 ing at each other with friendly eyes, be really reconciled in a 
 common forgetfulness of their strifes, and a common purpose 
 to love each other? Shall their political marriage be again 
 solemnized, under the priesthood of our new dispensation, or 
 shall their strifes still prevail, after the cause of their estrange 
 ment has been forever removed? Shall we, at last, become 
 one people, instead of two? Shall the nation, purged of the 
 guilt of slavery, and purified by trial, employ its time in crim 
 ination and recrimination over questions that need nothing 
 but forgetfulness? This is the question for the country to 
 ponder to-day. It is always easy to pursue a wrong course. 
 It is easy to yield to passion and revenge. It is easy to resur 
 rect passions and resentments after they have been buried. 
 It is easy to remind others of their faults, and thus hinder the 
 healthy tendency toward fraternity and good will. Ic is easy 
 for Republican politicians to repeat and reiterate their old war 
 speeches, as it would be easy for me to repeat mine, which I 
 would do if you could set back the clock of our history and 
 place me where I stood when I spoke. God forbid that I 
 should utter a word or breathe a whisper that could hinder 
 the approach of peace and brotherhood between the people 
 of the North and the people of the South, when I see the way 
 opening for their advent. Let by-gones be by-gones, and the 
 dead past bury its dead. 
 
THE NEW TRIALS OF DEMOCRACY. 
 
 DELIVERED AT ROCKVILLE, SEPTEMBER 13, 1873, 
 
 [This speech was delivered in the lull which followed the campaign of 
 1872, and deals with the general subject of politics in a perfectly dispassionate 
 and non-partisan style. Whoever may read it will notice how remarkably the 
 questions it discusses have since forced their way to the front and compelled 
 all parties to consider them.] 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Fellow- Citizens; The present season 
 of unusual political quiet in Indiana seems to me remarkably 
 favorable to calm judgment and an honest search after the 
 truth. While party feeling has died away among us to an 
 unprecedented extent, and the issues of by-gone strifes have 
 gradually disappeared, the political developments of the past 
 year have powerfully stimulated earnest thought and inde 
 pendent action among the people. New questions are now 
 to be debated, and new dangers are to be met. The dawn 
 of a new epoch in our politics, which was becoming visible 
 last year, is now unmistakable ; and both the love of country 
 and the instinct of self-preservation plead with the people for 
 some wise and timely methods of reform. In the light of 
 these facts, I believe this is a time to speak, rather than a 
 time to be silent ; and I have, therefore, accepted an invita 
 tion from personal and political friends in this section of our 
 state to address the people at this point to-day. I have 
 chosen for my subject, The New Trials of Democracy. In 
 selecting this topic I assume that popular institutions, how 
 ever admirable in theory or beneficent in practice, are yet 
 exposed to dangers and vicissitudes. I take it for granted 
 that democracy is inevitably bound by the laws of its condi- 
 
28 SELECTED SPEECHES. ^ 
 
 tion. "It is not born out of the sky, nor wrought in dreams." 
 It is necessarily colored by the atmosphere in which it lives, 
 and takes on the qualities with which it is mingled. It is an 
 Opportunity, quite as much as a Power. While decidedly 
 acting upon society, and multiplying the sources of its own 
 life, it is constantly acted upon by external forces which hin 
 der the free play and full sweep of its energy. It is always 
 on probation, \vaiting for its complete ascendency upon the 
 advance of knowledge and virtue, the ministry of equal laws, 
 and the "eternal vigilance" of the people. It may fitly be 
 compared to the Christian life, in which the very best men 
 never rise to those heights of goodness which lie beyond the 
 reach of temptation. Mr. Buckle argues that in some coun 
 tries democracy is impossible, owing to the influence of soil, 
 climate, food, and what he calls "the peculiar aspects of 
 nature ;" but even under the most favored conditions, and 
 in the most enlightened communities, it is only a grand ex 
 periment, a heroic endeavor of the people, a ceaseless con 
 flict with ever re-occurring dangers, which invoke the help 
 ing hand of every man who is ready to show his faith in free 
 institutions by his works. 
 
 THE PEOPLE AND THE LAND. 
 
 Without further preface I proceed to notice some of the 
 new trials of democracy in our own country ; and perhaps 
 the most formidable of these is the result of false relations be 
 tween the people and the land. So intimate and vital are 
 these relations in all countries, that in the nomenclature of 
 politics the words "people" and "land" are convertible 
 terms. The laws regulating the ownership and disposition of 
 landed property necessarily shape the institutions of a peo 
 ple. Real democracy must have its roots in the soil, because 
 the land owners of every country are its masters. A demo 
 cratic government which allows the land to become the patri 
 mony of the few can not possibly be enduring, since liberty 
 and slavery are not more utterly repugnant to each other 
 than are free institutions and the unrestricted monopoly of 
 
THE NEW TRIALS OF DEMOCRACY. 29 
 
 the soil. Such a government is democratic in name only, 
 and is, in fact, the most galling and fatal form of aristocratic 
 rule. It has justly been remarked that laws of primogeniture 
 and entail cause an aristocracy to spring out of the ground, 
 and affect the well-being of unborn generations. They make 
 the existence of a true yeomany impossible, and wage war 
 against the normal life of the family. They breed pauperism 
 and crime, and lay the many prostrate at the feet of the few. 
 It was through the abolition or radical curtailment of these 
 laws by the Puritans that American democracy was born. 
 Not even the germs of aristocracy were originally planted in 
 New England. Her political institutions were the logical 
 product of her laws respecting landed property, which, by 
 favoring a great subdivision of the land, favored great equal 
 ity among the people. This produced prosperous cultivation, 
 closely associated communities, free schools, a healthy public 
 opinion, democracy in managing the affairs of the church, 
 and that system of local self-government which has spread 
 over so many states, and must Finally prevail throughout the 
 world. English ideas, however, took root in the states of the 
 South, and the result was the system of entails and large 
 landed estates, fitly supplemented by African slaverv, which 
 simply emphasized the irrepressible antagonism, between the 
 democracy of one section of the Union and the aristocracy of 
 the other. The land policy of New England would have 
 made slavery impossible, while democratic institutions would 
 have been the common heritage of North and South. 
 
 This vital mistake might have been partially remedied 
 after the colonies became a nation, if a just and comprehen 
 sive national land policy had then been adopted. But the 
 colonies emerged from the revolutionary struggle burdened 
 with an immense debt, and our fathers knew of no other 
 considerable source of payment than the public lands. In 
 the disposition of these lands there was but one thought, and 
 that was revenue. In fighting the divine right of kings^. the 
 divine right of the land monopolist was forgotten. In 
 stead of laying the foundations of democratic equality in the 
 
3O SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 soil itself, and thus taking a bond of fate for the welfare of 
 coming generations, the goading need of money and the very 
 abundance of our lands paved the way for great monopolies, 
 which have increased and multiplied ever since. The pur 
 chase of vast tracts by individuals and companies was not 
 only allowed, but encouraged by the government. The pol 
 icy of disposing of the public domain at low or nominal rates, 
 to actual settlers only, and in limited quantities, was not then 
 dreamed of; and so potent was the influence of those feudal 
 ideas which had been transplanted from the Old World, that 
 the enactment of our homestead law did not become possible 
 till seventy-five years after the establishment of the American 
 land system. But this law did not emancipate the public 
 domain. It was a sign of promise, but it did not fulfill the 
 nation s desire. Non-resident speculators are still at liberty 
 to purchase great tracts of the public domain, and hold them 
 indefinitely for a rise in price, which is at war with the whole 
 spirit and policy of the homestead law, and as flagrantly un 
 just as it is financially stupid. Our land grant system has 
 already surrendered to railroad corporations a territorial em 
 pire of over two hundred millions of acres. Our Indian 
 treaty policy has robbed poor settlers of great bodies of 
 choice lands, and handed them over to monopolists and 
 thieves. Our legislation on the subject of military land boun 
 ties, while nearly profitless to the soldiers, has been a national 
 disaster, beneficial only to speculators and monopolists. The 
 acts of Congress on the subject of swamp lands and college 
 and Indian scrip have been equally vicious and indefensible. 
 The rights of settlers under the homestead and preemp 
 tion laws have been seriously threatened by department rul 
 ings in the interest of railway companies, while the growing 
 power of land monopoly has found a powerful ally in the state 
 and federal courts. The policy of the government and the 
 spirit of the times are alike hostile to those ideas on which 
 alone a true democracy can stand. Under the vicious legis 
 lation to which I have referred only one person in fifteen, 
 outside of the towns and cities, is the owner of a home in 
 
THE NEW TRIALS OF DEMOCRACY. 3! 
 
 the land states of the South. In California quite a number 
 of men own hundreds of thousands of acres each, and in 
 crossing the lands of one of these you are obliged to travel 
 seventy -five miles. The curse of land monopoly in the states 
 of the Northwest, caused by the cruel commerce in land 
 which the government has encouraged, has been an irrepar 
 able blight and blast to their prosperity. Great estates are 
 everywhere tending to swallow up the smaller ones, and to 
 produce a constantly multiplying and crouching tenantry. 
 Even in New England, owing greatly to her tariff policy, 
 non-resident proprietors are becoming common in large dis 
 tricts, while the general education of farm laborers is below 
 that of the factory operative, and the condition of agriculture 
 itself is that of rapid decay. These facts are as significant 
 as they are alarming. They foreshadow the approach of a 
 deadly danger to our institutions, and the new and fearful 
 trial which certainly awaits them. 
 
 We have here, it is true, no crushing system of landlord 
 ism, founded on despotic laws and traditions, but through the 
 land policy of the nation and the machinery of great corpo 
 rations we have inaugurated a system of feudalism as com 
 pletely at war with the principles of free government as that 
 which scourges England to-day. I believe that nothing is 
 more logically certain than that this system must be con 
 fronted and overthrown, or the epitaph of American democracy 
 must be written. This is the simple but pregnant alternative ; 
 and the statesmanship that would postpone or evade it is 
 criminally recreant to the most imperative demands of the 
 hour. Men do not gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles. 
 In politics, as in morals, we shall reap as we sow. Land 
 monopoly has preyed upon every age of the world. It has 
 sapped the life of every free government of the past, and is 
 to-day the stronghold of every despotism on earth. History 
 ever repeats itself, and the believers in popular institutions 
 are therefore utterly without excuse if they allow its solemn 
 and reiterated warnings to go unheeded. 
 
SELECTED SPEECHES 
 
 THE GROWTH AND DOMINATION OF CITIES. 
 
 We are threatened with another serious trial of our demo 
 cratic institutions in the growth and domination of cities. I 
 do not mean to say that great cities are in themselves an evil. 
 They are the necessary outgrowth of our civilization. They 
 supply the producer with a home market. As great intel 
 lectual and commercial centers they are the natural hand 
 maids of social and economic progress. They ought to be 
 the natural allies of democracy ; but I believe they are pre 
 paring for it an ordeal which will tax all the resources of the 
 people to save it. The danger to which I allude is two-fold. 
 In the first place, the government of great cities by demo 
 cratic methods is an unsolved problem. Thus far, at least, 
 we are obliged to confess that the chief cities of our own 
 country have proved ungovernable. The forms of democracy 
 have been laid hold of by its enemies, who have trampled its 
 substance under foot. In our Northern states, outside the 
 great cities, popular government has been a success. Life 
 and property, as a rule, are secure. Education is widely 
 diffused, and society makes a healthy and natural progress. 
 There is a general equality of condition among the people, 
 which holds in check the spirit of aristocracy and caste. 
 The laws are respected, and the voice of the majority is hon 
 estly registered and cheerfully accepted. But in our great 
 cities all this is changed. In the city of New York official 
 thieves have robbed the treasury. Offices are bought and 
 sold like merchandise. Legislatures are auctioned oft to the 
 highest bidder. Courts are bribed bv villains who escape 
 justice through the power of their money. Great masses of 
 men, native and foreign, cursed by ignorance, poverty and 
 drink, become the miserable tools of demagogues and gam 
 blers, while opposing political parties are equally corrupt, 
 and decent men are tempted to give up public affairs in dis 
 gust. The voice of the church, if heard at all, is unheeded. 
 No man s life, property or reputation is safe, and nothing 
 is sincerely believed in by the men who rule the hour but the 
 
THE NEW TRIALS OF DEMOCRACY. 33 
 
 beauty and blessedness of wealth. This picture of democ 
 racy, as practically illustrated in New York, and in several 
 other chief cities of the Union, shows how powerless it is in 
 these great centers of population and wealth, and how well- 
 founded seems to have been the apprehension of De Tocque- 
 ville, uttered more than forty years ago, that our system of 
 government must find its ruin in the growth of our cities and 
 the character of their population. But this failure of democ 
 racy is not the fact which is most alarming. We not only 
 fail to govern the cities, but the cities govern the country. 
 In several of the states they hold the balance of power. 
 They hold it, and wield it, in the nation. The same igno 
 rant and brutalized horde which demagogues and thieves em 
 ploy in the government of the cities, is made to turn the scale 
 in state and national contests. Here is our greatest peril. 
 And this frightful evil is constantly increasing. The domi 
 nation of our cities, it must be confessed, is every day gaining 
 ground. Through the concentration of capital and its result 
 ing oligarchy of wealth, the " dangerous classes " are all the 
 while on the increase, while the growth of our cities far out 
 strips that of the nation. In the United States, as in Europe, 
 men are running away from rural pursuits, and coveting the 
 excitements of town life. The professions are more and more 
 crowded, while increasing multitudes are seeking a liveli 
 hood in some form of traffic. The character of our civiliza 
 tion and the whole current of modern life favor the growth of 
 these evils. We see this illustrated in our great railway and 
 banking corporations, which so powerfully tend to aggregate 
 capital in the hands of the few, and to draw the many under 
 their control. We see it in the growth of great manufactur 
 ing establishments, called into life by labor-saving machin 
 ery, which capital can so easily command, and cause the de 
 pendent masses to gravitate around new centers. We see it 
 in the monopolization of lands and the absorption of small 
 estates, decimating the farming population, and portending 
 a centralization in agriculture through the combination of 
 capital and machinery, such as we have seen in manufac- 
 3 
 
34 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 tures and commerce. We see it in the growth of habits of 
 luxury and extravagance, and the decline of those domestic 
 virtues, without which the family and the home lose their 
 sacredness and the state its best support. We see it in the 
 alarming increase of taxes throughout the country, which 
 are chiefly saddled on the poor, and especially in our tariff 
 laws, exempting from duty the chief luxuries of the rich, and 
 heavily taxing the articles of prime necessity to the producer, 
 such as iron and steel, and thus at once taxing his transport 
 ation, and his plow, his reaper, and everything else into 
 which these metals enter, while the price of his produce is 
 as low as it was before the late war. We see it, in short, in 
 the unmistakable purpose of the government to lend itself to 
 the service of capital, and to show the world the spectacle of 
 a great nation founded on the aristocracy of wealth, instead 
 of resolutely maintaining the principles of real democracy 
 and fostering the republican virtue of the people. 
 
 "Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
 Where wealth accumulates and men decay." 
 
 Hitherto the hope of our country has been in our rural 
 districts. In peace and in war we have leaned upon our 
 yeomanry, and they have never failed us. Brave, patriotic, 
 and incorruptible, they have been our strength and our pride. 
 Will they be able to save us in the trial of democracy in 
 volved in the unhealthy growth of our cities, and the increas 
 ing distaste for rural pursuits? Can the country stand the 
 present drain upon the farming population, and the growing- 
 ascendency of the bad elements which rule our large towns? 
 Rome perished in the destruction of her peasantry and the 
 concentration of her population in the capital. Great estates 
 destroyed the family life of the people, and while the culti 
 vators of the soil became slaves, luxury and vice preyed 
 upon the empire. The same fate awaits us if we follow in 
 the same path. I believe our deliverance is largely in the 
 hands of the cultivators of the soil. I rejoice to find them so 
 apprehending the dangers which threaten them that they are 
 
THE NEW TRIALS OF DEMOCRACY. 35 
 
 earnestly setting about the work of self-defense. While cap 
 italists are combining for their own aggrandizement, and 
 mechanics and workingmen are organizing in various forms 
 to resist their usurpation, our farmers are finding that their 
 policy of isolation is a mistake. They see that organization 
 is both a duty and a necessity. As a matter of self-protec 
 tion, they are adopting well considered methods of industrial 
 co-operation. In order to break up the monotony of rural 
 life, and beautify its pursuits, they are inviting their wives 
 and daughters to join them on the platform of perfect equal 
 ity, and thus rebuking the senseless aristocracy of sex, and 
 opening the way for the enfranchisement of woman. The 
 social element and spirit of fraternity enkindled by such 
 methods must naturally lead to concerted political action 
 against whatever grievances may invite it, and thus, it is to 
 be hoped, the exodus from the country to the city will be 
 checked, the thinned ranks of agriculture in some degree 
 recruited, and the cities themselves redeemed in the act of 
 saving the country. The prophecy of this is pretty clearly 
 seen in the various farmers movements which have recently 
 sprung up throughout the United States. The agriculturists 
 of our country comprise a majority of its population, and if 
 perfectly united could, therefore, outvote all other classes 
 combined. Their business feeds the human race, and is the 
 natural employment of man. It was enjoined upon him by 
 his Maker, and from it both manufactures and commerce 
 draw their life. Every interest of society must necessarily 
 suffer when the great underlying industry of the farmer lan 
 guishes. One of the most significant and cheering signs of 
 the times, therefore, and the harbinger, as I believe, of the 
 political as well as the industrial regeneration of our land, is 
 the spirit of union which has so suddenly and so marvelously 
 inspired the tillers of the soil, and which, I trust, will finally 
 draw into a common brotherhood the workingmen of all 
 other occupations. Undoubtedly it will adopt some unwise 
 methods. It may now and then strike out wildly and blindly 
 in seeking just ends. It will not be exempt from the mis- 
 
36 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 chiefs of self-seeking, demagogism and bad leadership. 
 Leaping into life all at once among men who have known 
 so little of organization, it will sometimes hinder the cause 
 it would promote ; but time, experience, and an honest en 
 deavor, will at last enable a powerful body of united and 
 sober men to accomplish their deliberate purpose. 
 
 THE POWER OF GREAT CORPORATIONS. 
 
 A more immediately threatening danger to oar institutions 
 is the growing power of great corporations. Democracy 
 needs the constant support of equal laws. It demands com 
 mon opportunities for the people. It can tolerate no privil 
 eged classes, and no legislative favoritism of any sort. If cor 
 porations are created, they should be a clear public necessity 
 or convenience, and never cease to be the servants of the peo 
 ple. Without these conditions they have no right to exist. 
 The question of railroad transportation affords the best illus 
 tration of what I wish to say on this subject. Political econ 
 omy teaches that good roads are equivalent to good tools. 
 They are a part of the economy of labor. They are regarded 
 as a diminution of the cost of all things sent to market by 
 them. But our railways, though the mere instruments of 
 commerce and agents of the people, and often richly en 
 dowed by the government, have begun to play the role of 
 master. Instead of helping the people they are becoming a 
 hindrance, and in some instances a positive public grievance. 
 The great railway corporations have grown so powerful that 
 they can manipulate both State Legislatures and Congress. 
 The power of associated capital embodied in them, and exer 
 cised in the way of exorbitant freight charges, is rendering 
 agriculture an unprofitable business. In some regions of the 
 West it does not pay to plant a crop. While millions of 
 bushels of corn and wheat are rotting in the fields, thousands 
 of people in the East are suffering for bread. Thousands of 
 bushels of grain are being burned for fuel, while charities 
 are organized to feed the starving poor of New York and 
 other cities. Of the immense crops of corn in Iowa, we are 
 
THE NEW TRIALS OF DEMOCRACY. 37 
 
 told by the best authority that it takes five bushels to get one 
 to the seaboard. Owing to the growing spirit of railway 
 rapacity, and the increasing demand for large profits caused 
 by the policy of watering stocks, matters are rapidly growing 
 worse. In portions of Illinois the farmers have actually gone 
 back to the primeval habit of hauling their grain to market 
 on wagons, for the simple reason that they can save money 
 by the operation. The railroad rates are not only exorbitant, 
 but as unjust and unfair as a perverse ingenuity can con 
 trive them, in their discriminations as to distance and the 
 articles shipped. 
 
 The exact remedy for these frightful evils has not yet 
 been discovered. Undoubtedly Congress has the right to 
 control the charges on inter-state lines of railroads, under 
 the constitutional power to regulate commerce between the 
 states ; but Congress itself has become the servant of the 
 great railway power. We see this shamefully illustrated in 
 the Credit Mobilier developments, and in the ugly fact that 
 their pretended investigation was simply a whitewashing 
 pastime. It is true, also, that the states have the same 
 power as to the roads within their borders, but thus far their 
 legislation has been a confessed failure, for the reason that 
 their law-makers, too, have been the stipendiaries of these 
 monopolies, while in some instances our state and federal 
 courts have succumbed to their purposes. Some relief might 
 be found in the thorough reform of our tariff abuse, cutting 
 down the cost of iron and other fabrics used in railway ma 
 chinery and equipment. The people are beginning to see 
 this, and will necessarily make tariff reform a battle-cry in 
 their conflict with the railroads ; but this reform would be a 
 mitigation, rather than a cure, of the mischief. As a great 
 practical question, demanding immediate public attention, it 
 is by far the most serious one now before the people of the 
 United States. It completely overshadows the ordinary top 
 ics of political discussion, because it involves the right of the 
 people to live. The railroad power of our country wields a 
 consolidated capital of four thousand millions of dollars. 
 
38 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 The network of its ramifications reaches throughout the con 
 tinent, and as against the public is as completely a unit as 
 was the slave power of the South. We have now about sev 
 enty thousand miles of railroads in the United States, to 
 which we are adding five or six thousand per year. Their 
 annual earnings are more than half a million dollars, and 
 they have in their employ an army of two hundred thousand 
 men, including the ablest legal talent in the nation, and 
 drawing into their support every influence that great wealth 
 can command. The privileged classes of aristocratic Europe 
 are unknown here ; but we have in their stead these great 
 corporations, armed with equal or greater power, and threat 
 ening the complete subjugation of the people. It is the one- 
 man power in a new and most alarming form. We have no 
 dukes, lords or barons, and in theory can guard against po 
 litical abuses by frequent changes of our public servants ; 
 but we have our great railroad kings, who control the makers 
 and expounders of the law, and are practically endowed with 
 life offices and powers of hereditary succession. Is not this 
 as fatal to democracy as would be the life tenure of the office 
 of President, with power to name his successor? If the Eu 
 ropean system of government is abominable, is not our sys 
 tem of railway rule equally so? The question thus forced 
 upon us is that of democracy on the one hand, backed by 
 forty millions of people, and struggling for its very existence, 
 and commercial feudalism on the other, dominated by great 
 corporate monopolies which own the wealth of kingdoms, 
 and will be content with nothing less than imperial power 
 over the government and people. I sincerely regret that 
 this grave issue has become inevitable. I certainly cherish 
 no hostility to railroads. Undoubtedly they help develop 
 the country. They often create the towns which they con 
 nect. They extend civilization and all its appliances. They 
 are of inestimable value to the country, under a just admin 
 istration of their affairs, and while content to act as the ser 
 vants of the public. But they are built by the people s re 
 sources and labor, for the people s advantage, and the people 
 
THE NEW TRIALS OF DEMOCRACY. 39 
 
 must resist their attempted usurpation at whatever cost. How 
 they are to do this the future alone can fully reveal ; but I 
 am sure they will do it, because they are sovereign on their 
 own soil and over their own affairs. I believe they under 
 stand their rights, and in the end will find the means of 
 maintaining them. They can not long fail to see that the 
 very life of our government is at stake in this controversy. 
 They will see that it is one thing to establish great lines of 
 intercommunication, foster great commercial enterprises and 
 amass great wealth in the hands of the few, and quite another 
 thing, while reasonably favoring the healthy development of 
 commerce and the activity of capital, to so shape the admin 
 istration of affairs as to maintain, in their full vigor, the vital 
 principles of democracy. My hope is in the people ; and if, 
 in a crisis like the present, they should rally under old polit 
 ical watchwords, and invoke the party machinery through 
 which the evils now complained of have been brought to 
 their doors, they will deserve the humiliation and defeat 
 which their conduct will certainly invite. 
 
 In this reference to the conflict between our democratic 
 institutions and the power of great corporations, I must not 
 omit the subject of our national banks. They number more 
 than two thousand, and represent an aggregate capital of 
 nearly five hundred millions of money. If they were neces 
 sary during the war as a means of enlisting capital on the 
 side of the government, that necessity has long since ceased. 
 But they still exist, and their number is increasing. Nor is 
 bank extension governed solely by the business wants of the 
 people. To a great extent it depends on what the politicians 
 call " influence. That this system of national banks might 
 readily be made a tremendous political power, no sane man 
 will deny. That this power was almost perfectly united on 
 the side of the administration in the national canvass of last 
 year, is equally undeniable. In the very nature of things it 
 must become a political engine ; and -in comparison with this 
 great oligarchy of capitalists the old Bank of the United 
 States, which justly alarmed the people, was insignificant if 
 
40 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 not contemptible. And there is, I repeat, no valid excuse 
 for its existence. The banks are supported by the govern 
 ment at the bidding of capital, and capital demands it, be 
 cause they pay their stockholders from fifteen to thirty-odd 
 per cent, per annum for the little clerical work involved in 
 running their machinery, while these profits must come out 
 of the pockets of the people, and necessarily aggrandize the 
 rich and heap exactions upon the poor. Why should the 
 government make itself substantially responsible for national 
 bank notes, and hand them over to corporations to be loaned 
 as money, without exacting anything for their use? Why 
 not issue greenbacks at once, and retire the government 
 bonds held by the banks, amounting to over three hundred 
 millions of dollars, and thus save to the nation twenty mil 
 lions in interest? But I can not here enlarge upon this topic, 
 and I only repeat what I have said on other occasions, that 
 the people of the United States have the right to a sound 
 national currency without the costly machinery of these 
 banks, which are a pure monopoly in the interest of Capital, 
 demanded by no public necessity, and rendering no service 
 to the country that can justify the expense which they occa 
 sion or the profits they receive. A national currency of uni 
 form value throughout the Union is exceedingly desirable ; 
 but if that currency must be irredeemable paper, let the gov 
 ernment issue it directly, and thus rid the people of the bur 
 den of supporting a great moneyed power for the enrichment 
 of a privileged few, and at war with every principle of dem 
 ocratic equality. 
 
 THE LABOR PROBLEM. 
 
 The practical success of our democratic experiment is 
 seriously menaced by the labor problem. This subject is 
 involved in what I have said of the monopolization of lands, 
 the growth of cities, and the power of corporations ; but it 
 demands a distinct consideration. A right adjustment of the 
 relations of capital and labor is absolutely necessary to the 
 permanent success of popular institutions. We have seen 
 this .illustrated in the old slave system of the South, which 
 
THE NEW TRIALS OF DEMOCRACY. 4! 
 
 was simply an extreme form of the tyranny of capital. It 
 was the logical climax of that system of political philosophy 
 which makes the protection of property the chief end of gov 
 ernment. Democracy teaches that the laborer is worthy of 
 his hire, and that man is paramount to wealth. Whether 
 the domination of capital takes the form of chattel slavery, 
 or serfdom, or that practical ownership of the laborer which 
 our system of modern industrial skill has inaugurated, can 
 make no sort of difference in principle, since in all such cases 
 the sacredness of humanity is invaded, and democracy, in 
 the same degree, renounced. The great practical difficulty 
 is that the improvement in the condition of the working peo 
 ple does not keep pace with the increase of the wealth which 
 they produce, and its constant accumulation in the hands of 
 the few. While the forms of aristocracy and privilege have 
 been driven from our political system, they have reappeared 
 in the industrial. Our great manufacturing establishments 
 are so many great centers of aristocratic power. The cost 
 of labor-saving machinery, which the wealthy alone can af 
 ford, causes great mills to spring up which do the work that 
 before was done by the handicraftsman. It is true that the 
 cost of production is lessened by the extent of the establish 
 ment, the amount of capital and credit employed, and the 
 division and subdivision of labor. It is likewise true that a 
 better article is manufactured, and that the mind of the mas 
 ter is invigorated and enlarged by the training involved in 
 the supervision of such an establishment. But the laborer is 
 sacrificed. He becomes the perfect master of the little task 
 allotted to him, but dwarfed in everything else. "In pro 
 portion as the workman improves the man is degraded." In 
 the manufacture of a pair of boots there are more than a 
 dozen distinct processes, supervised by as many hands. It 
 takes sixteen persons to make a pin, and each must become 
 more and more a machine the longer he pursues his business. 
 " Hitherto," says John Stuart Mill, "it is questionable if all 
 the mechanical inventions vet made have lightened the day s 
 toil of any human being. They have enabled a greater pop- 
 
42 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 ulation to live the same life of drudgery and imprisonment, 
 and an increased number of manufacturers and others to 
 make fortunes. They have increased the comforts of the 
 middle classes. But they have not begun to effect those 
 great changes in human destiny which it is in their nature 
 and in their futurity to accomplish." They have achieved 
 signal material results, but as yet they have not proved the 
 handmaids of human welfare. On the contrary, they have 
 plunged the laboring classes of all countries into new dan 
 gers, which invoke new safeguards for their protection. 
 They have created a new trial for democratic institutions, 
 and thus pointed the way to new fields of political action in 
 the interest of multitudes, who will need the strong hand of 
 law in their struggle against new and formidable forces. 
 
 The abolition of the small industries which once flourished 
 and the substitution of the factory system, carried on by great 
 capital and the vast power of machinery, have founded a new 
 era in industrial economy, to be followed by a new era in leg 
 islation. It is estimated that the steam engine is now doing 
 the work which would employ the whole population of the 
 globe without it. Improved machinery is revolutionizing the 
 business world. The innumerable contrivances for econo 
 mizing labor now in use, while they greatly facilitate produc 
 tion, naturally tend to the concentration of capital, and thus to 
 render the laborer more and more dependent, while the cap 
 italist is enabled to amass increasing wealth. This law of 
 concentration is to-day in full blast, pointing to the still 
 further degradation and helplessness of the masses, and the 
 more complete domination of the few. Can American democ 
 racy stand so severe a trial of its very life? Is there no rem 
 edy? We are often told that this ugly conflict between the 
 power of wealth and the rights of humanity will settle itself. 
 Pretended political economists and great party leaders as 
 sure us that the law of supply and demand will solve the 
 whole problem, and that government has nothing to do with 
 it. This is as shallow as it is heartless. "Two great dis 
 coveries," says the Duke of Argyle, " have been made in 
 
THE NEW TRIALS OF DEMOCRACY. 43 
 
 the science of government : the one is the immense advan 
 tage of abolishing restrictions upon trade ; the other is the 
 absolute necessity of imposing restrictions upon labor." The 
 law of supply and demand works very well where the par 
 ties stand on an equal footing ; but where one party, from 
 whatever cause, is so circumstanced that he holds the other 
 completely in his power, the law is a law of death to the lat 
 ter. The author I have just quoted illustrates this by refer 
 ence to the workings of the English factory system. He 
 shows that the great mill-owners compelled children from 
 seven to ten years old to work twelve hours per day, in dens 
 of dreariness and filth, shut out from God s sunlight and air, 
 and treated like brutes, while men were worked from twelve 
 to twenty hours. The English people finally saw that the law 
 of supply and demand sacrificed humanity itself on the altar 
 of mammon. They saw that it made cotton king, as it did 
 in our Southern States, and its dehumanizing effects were at 
 length checked by an act of Parliament fixing a limit to the 
 hours of toil. The sad truth is that capital, under the stimu 
 lus of modern society, is utterly deaf to the appeals both of 
 justice and mercy. It cares for nothing but its own increase. 
 It has been said with as much truth as force that the love 
 of gain overrides even the love of life, and silences even the 
 fear of death. There is too much truth in the saying of one 
 of our foremost writers and thinkers, that " the mere men of 
 wealth, the bankers and brokers, are those who exert the 
 worst influence upon the state ; their maxim is, let the state 
 take care of the rich, and the rich of the poor, and not let 
 the state take care of the weak, for the strong it need not." 
 Non-intervention, we are told, is the gospel to be preached 
 to the workingman when he asks fair play at the hands of 
 the government ; and yet the government has always inter 
 vened against him, and does to-day. This is true in all 
 countries. Our laws of property were originally founded in 
 conquest and violence, and still bear some of the marks of 
 their beginning. Instead of taking pains to temper the ine 
 qualities which exist in the conditions of men, they have 
 
44 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 taken pains to aggravate them. Instead of favoring the 
 diffusion of wealth they have constantly favored its concen 
 tration. Instead of taking care of the weak they have all the 
 time given their help to the strong. All this, as I have 
 shown, is illustrated in our legislation respecting the public 
 lands, in our banking and financial system, in the monstrous 
 power of great corporations, in the frightful monopolies in 
 the interest of favored classes which have grown up under 
 our tariff laws, and in the despotic power of great manufac 
 turing establishments over the lives and fortunes of the poor. 
 And yet we are gravely told, in the face of facts like these, 
 that the law of supply and demand will right their wrongs ! 
 Their present condition of helplessness is the result of a sys 
 tematic and long-continued course of legislation dictated by- 
 capital ; but instead of undoing this legislation, and turning 
 the current at last in favor of the working classes, the con 
 venient makeshift of supply and demand is appealed to, 
 which is exactly what capital wants and all it needs. I do- 
 not condemn this principle, but only its misapplication. I 
 would accept it in the adjustment of our tariff, and in the ex 
 change of all articles which are properly commodities. I 
 would not deal with labor as merchandise, but as capital, 
 endowed with the sacred right to have its human needs at 
 tended to. I would treat the labor market as different from 
 every other, since the seller of a commodity has the option 
 to sell or not, while the capital of the workingman is life, 
 and he must sell it or perish. I would have government rec 
 ognize the principle that " the man who has labor to sell has; 
 as many rights as the man who has it to buy." To refer 
 him for relief to the law of supply and demand, when capital 
 has already glutted the market and holds him by the throat, 
 is like commending the lamb to the jaws of the wolf. Pre 
 cisely how the despotism of capital is to be overthrown, and 
 the grievances of the working classes redressed. I do not 
 pretend to decide. I only know that this is the grand prob 
 lem of our coming statesmanship, and that it must be solved, 
 if democracy is to be carried safely through the trials I have 
 
THE NEW TRIALS OF DEMOCRACY. 45 
 
 mentioned. In this work the laboring classes must them- 
 .selves take the lead, and this, I rejoice to see, they are likely 
 to do. They are coming to the front. Their power was sig 
 nally felt in the late victory of the people in California. 
 Their general discontent with their lot is a good augury. 
 "Their numerous organizations are signs of promise. They 
 are coming into closer relations in all civilized countries, and 
 reaching a better understanding of their needs. They are 
 very sure to make many mistakes, but these will be school 
 masters, teaching them a better way. Through the princi 
 ple of co-operation, and by intelligent combinations among 
 themselves to resist the never-ceasing combinations of capi 
 talists, they will be able to do much for their own redemp 
 tion, but their appeal, at last, must be to politics. Legisla 
 tion has placed them where they are, and this legislation 
 must sooner or later be reversed. Capital has too long 
 shaped our laws and ruled our politics with an eye single to 
 its own greed, and it should now cease to be the master and 
 accept its place as the servant of the people. This is at once 
 the impelling demand of labor and the supreme need of de 
 mocracy. 
 
 FEDERAL USURPATION. 
 
 A fearful trial awaits our system of government in the 
 growing tendency towards federal usurpation and the cen 
 tralization of power. During the late civil war the national 
 government was compelled to deal with a strong hand. A 
 thorough schooling in the use of power seemed to be its only 
 alternative. Theories of strict construction found little favor 
 when the life of the nation was menaced in the name of State 
 Rights. The people looked for their salvation only in the 
 vigorous exercise of power by the central government, and 
 cared far more about the end to be obtained than the means 
 of its accomplishment. The natural effect of this military 
 training was to familiarize the people with military ideas and 
 habits, and to attach them to loose and indefensible opinions 
 respecting the relative powers of the general and state gov 
 ernments. At the same time, and just as naturally, these 
 
46 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 mischiefs of war crept into the civil administration after the 
 war was ended, largely coloring the views of the leading 
 public men who had most zealously sustained the govern 
 ment in the great conflict, and producing a final harvest of 
 maladministration and misrule which the country has had to 
 reap during the past four years. This was inevitable. 
 DeTocqueville asserts that war " must invariably and im 
 measurably increase the powers of civil government," and 
 that " if it lead not to despotism by sudden violence, it pre 
 pares men for it more gently by their habits." These un 
 avoidable mischiefs were considerably aggravated by a re 
 markable popular fallacy, which still extensively prevails. 
 The effect of the war was mistaken for its cause. The rebel 
 lion was charged upon a particular theory of State Rights, 
 whereas its real cause was African slavery, and the pretended 
 right of secession was only a pretext. Devotion to this insti 
 tution was the overmastering sentiment of the people of the 
 South, and while at one time they manifested this devotion 
 by setting up their pet dogma of secession in its support, at 
 another they were equally ready to strike at the very citadel 
 of States Rights by a policy of monstrous federal aggression. 
 The right of the states to secede at their own pleasure was 
 not more indefensible than the federal authority assumed in 
 the Dred Scott decision, and the Fugitive Slave act of 1850. 
 The cotton states did not secede on account of the tyranny 
 of the national government, but because of their inability 
 any longer to rule it in the interest of slavery. The simple 
 truth is, that in the hands of the old slave masters the consti 
 tution was made to dip towards centralization or State Rights, 
 exactly in the degree it promised help to the claims of the 
 slave power. These facts are perfectly evident, and must, I 
 am sure, enter into the verdict of history. But the peo 
 ple, as a rule, judged otherwise, and their judgment neces 
 sarily exercised a shaping influence over the action of the 
 government. In insisting that it was the heresy of State 
 Rights which caused the war, they believed it was not only 
 necessary that that heresy should be crushed, but that in do- 
 
THE NEW TRIALS OF DEMOCRACY. 47 
 
 ing it the central power should be sustained in its most lati- 
 tudinarian pretensions. The whole policy of the government 
 was thus swerved towards centralization, and with such an 
 impulse that it still continues. The constitution expressly 
 declares that "The powers not delegated to the United 
 States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, 
 are reserved by it to the states respectively, or to the peo 
 ple ;" but the theory on which General Grant conducts his 
 administration is that all powers not conferred on the states 
 by the constitution are reserved to the United States, thus 
 completely overturning the doctrines of the fathers, and set 
 ting at defiance the express words of the constitution itself. 
 This is now the political creed of the men who sit at the 
 right hand of the President. And he not only tramples 
 down the principle of local self-government, but sets up his 
 own will as law, even against the authority of Congress. 
 
 In the San Domingo affair we have seen him deliberately 
 usurp the war-making power which is vested in Congress by 
 the constitution. On the pretense of helping the farmers in 
 "moving the crops," we have seen him assume powers 
 which no despot would dare exercise, in issuing millions of 
 currency without any warrant of law, and on his own indi 
 vidual caprice. We have seen him appointing to civil places 
 about him men in the military service, in violation of an ex 
 press statute which he is sworn to execute. We have seen 
 him grant a leave of absence to General Sickles from his 
 mission at Madrid, to aid him in an effort to gain control of 
 the Erie Railway for his own private advantage, and issuing 
 a ridiculous order authorizing the inspection of the books of 
 the company, which his own Secretary of the Treasury was 
 obliged to revoke. In disregard of law, and in violation of 
 the constitution and his oath of office, we have seen him 
 quartering federal soldiers on the Cherokee neutral lands in 
 Kansas to protect a railroad corporation in driving from their 
 homes hundreds of settlers who claimed the lands occupied 
 by them in good faith under the preemption laws. We have 
 seen him standing by a reckless and corrupt federal judge 
 
48 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 in Louisiana, and using him in crushing out the lawful gov 
 ernment of that state in order that a gang of graceless dema 
 gogues and conspirators may set up a pretended state gov 
 ernment, which even his own leading friends and most zeal 
 ous partisans confess to be a cheat and a sham. These are 
 a few examples only, selected from many, showing how the 
 President carries the imperial and military spirit into his 
 high office, and sets aside the laws which are as binding 
 upon him as upon any other citizen, while the example of his 
 disobedience is pre-eminently mischievous. The same dis 
 regard of law of its spirit, if not of its letter is shown in his 
 gross misuse of the power of pardon. Since his late elec 
 tion, I believe the first subject of his tender mercy was the 
 Philadelphia repeater and ballot-box stuffer who was right 
 eously sentenced for a term of years to the state prison, 
 but promptly pardoned out of it. A defaulting paymas 
 ter and gambler who stole from the treasury some four 
 hundred and sixty thousand dollars, and was sentenced 
 to a service of ten years in the penitentiary, is the next 
 favorite of the Executive. If I am not mistaken, some 
 pardoned forgers come next, while his rescue from the 
 gallows of the murderer O Brien is an utter mockery of crim 
 inal justice, and an atrocious tampering with murder itself. 
 In granting a pardon without cause, or on insufficient 
 grounds, the President violates the oath which solemnly 
 binds him to "take care that the laws are faithfully exe 
 cuted," and becomes himself an offender against society by 
 interfering with the operations of law in the interest of its 
 violators, instead of enforcing its mandates. If our govern 
 ment is one of law, and not of force, and if the well-being of 
 society can only be maintained by steadfastly upholding the 
 Anglo-Saxon principle of the sacredness of law, then the 
 time has come for the people, the fountain of law, to make 
 their voices heard by the Executive. Nor has Congress es 
 caped the centralizing influences to which I have referred. 
 Instead of rebuking, it has approved, the conduct of the 
 President. It has been at all times his ready and faithful 
 
THE NEW TRIALS OF DEMOCRACY. 
 
 49 
 
 ally. The authority conferred on him to suspend the writ of 
 habeas corpus at his own pleasure, armed him with the powers 
 of an autocrat. It was a plain violation of the constitution, 
 since neither "invasion" nor " rebellion" justified it, and no 
 better plea could be made in its support than that the end 
 justified the means. The enforcemenc acts of Congress em 
 body provisions at war with the very principle of municipal 
 government, and which can only be defended on the tyrant s 
 plea that the central power can administer the affairs of a 
 locality better than the people can do it themselves. The 
 same spirit has occasionally cropped out in the judicial de 
 partment of the government. It uniformly leans to the side 
 of power. In controversies between the citizen and the gov 
 ernment, the Supreme Court of the United States for many 
 years past has unquestionably favored the strong against the 
 weak, and has thus shown itself the watchful guardian of the 
 government, instead of administering impartial justice. 
 
 This centralizing tendency, independent of the particular 
 causes to which I have referred, seems to be a marked fea 
 ture of the age. According to the high authority last quoted, 
 it constitutes the chief danger of every people in Europe, 
 and is, at the same time, the special danger of our demo 
 cratic institutions. They had their birth and first trial in the 
 town meeting, the township, the county and the state. With 
 out this schooling in local self-government, the development 
 of a nation would have been impossible. The people must 
 be trained to freedom in small concerns before they can be 
 trusted with great ones. "The end of good government," 
 says DeTocqueville, "is to insure the welfare of a people, 
 and not merely to establish order in the midst of its misery." 
 He shows that the very principle of equality works in favor 
 of centralization, since the love of equality is stronger than 
 the love of liberty, and the general hatred of privileged 
 classes finds satisfaction in the strength of a common gov 
 ernment under which the rights of all are equal. Democracy 
 has failed in France because it has discarded provincial gov 
 ernment, trusting in the dogma of equality, without the sup- 
 
 4 
 
5O SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 port of democratic institutions in detail. The French people 
 have lost sight of the danger of a centralized tyranny, in the 
 desire "for an equal chance to everybody of tyrannizing." 
 American democracy may fall into the same fatal mistake, 
 and has abundant reason to remember its old maxim, that 
 power is ever stealing from the many to the few. Decentral 
 ization, inspired by slavery, struck at the nation s life ; but 
 it lies buried in the grave of treason. The real danger 
 which now confronts us is the insidious approach of imperial 
 power, the blight and paralysis of paternal government. 
 This is not only evident in the light of what I have said, but 
 is still further illustrated in the efforts of the government to 
 secure the control of the telegraph, in stupendous projects of 
 internal improvement which it evidently favors, in its dis 
 graceful interference with state politics, in the late nefarious 
 attempt, undoubtedly inspired in Washington, to crush out 
 the freedom of the press, and in meretricious schemes of ter 
 ritorial annexation which, if consummated, would bring new 
 perils to our institutions, and mould them into still closer 
 resemblance to those of European despotisms. 
 
 THE DECLINE OF POLITICAL MORALITY. 
 
 The last trial of democracy which I shall notice is the 
 rapid decline of political morality throughout the country. 
 This is the most alarming evil of the times, because it under 
 lies and aggravates every other. Political corruption is a 
 great canker at the heart of the republic. It is the dry rot 
 which threatens to undermine the whole fabric of our gov 
 ernment. In the sphere of politics the divine command, 
 " Thou shalt not steal," is rapidly becoming obsolete ; and it 
 is inevitable that this political absolution from moral obliga 
 tions must seriously infect the whole community. If a public 
 man may steal, it necessarilv weakens the standard of integ 
 rity by which men regulate their affairs in private life. The 
 lapse from honesty of a trusted politician is a public misfor 
 tune, because it becomes a conspicuous and mischievous ex 
 ample. One public rascal, as has been well remarked, be- 
 
THE NEW TRIALS OF DEMOCRACY. 5 I 
 
 comes the father of a multitude of private ones. If a member 
 of Congress, on the plea that he is insufficiently paid, is justi 
 fied in stealing five thousand dollars, any private rogue, under 
 similar temptations, may do likewise. If men in office may 
 prize their own interest above that of the public, why may not 
 every man steal from his neighbor? The old ethical writers 
 went further, and insisted that every moral rule is magnified 
 a hundred fold in relation to the public. This is a sound 
 principle, and should be thoroughly instilled into the minds 
 of young and old. Cheating the state should be regarded as 
 next to blasphemy, because government is a divine ordi 
 nance, and because the consequences of such cheating are 
 wholesale and widespread. Stealing from the state is steal 
 ing from the poor whose toil produces the wealth of the state. 
 It is stealing from the resources by which the people combine 
 to procure the blessings of good government. It has been 
 branded as worse than robbing widows and orphans, because 
 it breeds general corruption and misgovernment, and thus 
 multiplies widows and orphans. Stealing from the state by 
 the guardians appointed to watch over her interest, is like 
 robbing a blind man, whose helplessness adds a special igno 
 miny to the deed. 
 
 That principles so elementary and obvious should be fla 
 grantly set aside by men high in official position, and some 
 times winked at by the people, is as dishonoring to our poli 
 tics as it is shameful to our virtue. The evils of political 
 ambition are bad enough, but they are trifles light as air 
 in comparison with that inordinate greed of clutch which 
 now pollutes the very fountains of political action. It was 
 the pursuit of power for the sake of plunder that destroyed 
 the French Empire ; and the same malign spirit may work 
 out like results in our own country. Offices are now sought 
 as the chosen means of amassing wealth. Men are nomi 
 nally elected bv the people to take care of their interests, 
 while in fact they are the hired men of corporations and cap 
 italists, whose money manipulates the machinery of politics. 
 Judges are bribed, and state legislatures are bought and 
 
5 2 
 
 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 sold. Jay Gould says under oath, " I needed the legislatures 
 of four states, and in order to acquire them I created the 
 legislatures with my money. I found that this is the cheap 
 est way." It is no secret that through the power of money 
 drunken libertines are sometimes installed in high places, 
 and that men are made Governors and United States Sen 
 ators who ought to be in the penitentiary. The traffic in 
 human flesh still goes on, but white men are now the chief 
 victims. Popular elections are carried by wholesale bribery, 
 while the convicted ringleaders in grand schemes of ballot 
 stuffing are allowed to go unpunished. Political magnates 
 and reputed "Christian statesmen" are persuaded to invest 
 their money and their influence where they " will do the most 
 good" to a great railroad corporation in its organized rob 
 bery of the treasury, while both Houses of Congress and the 
 President of the United States join hands in a salary theft, 
 which makes the average rogues of society comparatively 
 respectable. 
 
 The civil service of the government, which is vaunted by 
 some of its modest champions as the "best on the planet," 
 is so disgusting a system of official huckstering and political 
 prostitution that nothing can possibly match it but the un 
 blushing duplicity and demagogism of the administration 
 in pretending to favor^its reform. Of course, this fountain 
 of corruption, breaking out in high places, must find its level, 
 overflowing the county and the township, and poisoning the 
 moral as well as the political life of the people. Whether 
 this evil originates in the laxity of moral training in the fam 
 ily, or in some radical defect in our system of education, or 
 in the recreancy of the church to her high mission as a moral 
 instructor and guide, or in all these causes, it presents a pro 
 blem which every true man and woman should earnestly 
 ponder. Its .successful solution involves the salvation of the 
 land. No reform is possible in any direction if we can not 
 stem the black tide of political corruption which threatens to 
 lay waste the republic. In meeting the great dangers I have 
 mentioned we shall fail hopelessly if we can not inspire in the 
 
THE NEW TRIALS OF DEMOCRACY. 53 
 
 people, and especially in the coming generation, the love of 
 rectitude, and resture the maxims of common honesty to their 
 rightful sway. The grand need of our time is a general 
 resurrection of conscience. Legislatures are purchased, be 
 cause the moral sense of the people permits knaves and tra 
 ders to represent them. Congress is controlled by the rail 
 ways, because the people fail to choose incorruptible men to 
 stand in the places of great temptation. Courts are bribed 
 and seats in Congress are bought, because the general 
 mammon worship of the times fails to see in these acts their 
 real turpitude, or their treason to democracy. Cities are 
 governed by the mob, and the ballot ruthlessly profaned, be 
 cause decent men retreat from politics in despair, and thus 
 become themselves a mob, by disowning the government 
 which demands of them political duties as the price of protect 
 ing their rights. The word "politics" is synonymous with 
 plunder, because the people heap honors upon men who abjure 
 every principle of morality in public as well as private life, and 
 are by nature incapable of any higher aim than political suc 
 cess. And this fearful treachery to virtue does not stand alone. 
 It finds its strong allies in widespread popular ignorance, which 
 is itself a great national danger, and in the vice of intemper 
 ance, which lends itself to the service of every evil element 
 in society. Nothing less than the power of indwelling moral 
 principle, and the most devoted and patient labors of the 
 preacher, the schoolmaster, and the patriot, can rescue our 
 country from this appalling assemblage of perils. 
 
 I have thus approached the conclusion of what I desired 
 to say respecting the new trials of American democracy. I 
 have referred to the false relations between the people and 
 the land, as illustrated in the growth of great estates and the 
 resulting inequality of the people ; to the domination of great 
 cities, and its antagonism to popular institutions and the 
 prosperity of the rural districts ; to the dangerous power of 
 great corporations over the national and state governments 
 and the rights of the people ; to the concentration of capital 
 in alliance with labor-saving machinery, and its remorseless 
 
54 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 power over the working classes ; to the centralization of po 
 litical power, keeping step to the march of great industrial 
 and social forces, and helping them in their evil direction ; 
 and to the shocking decay of political morality now every 
 where visible, and which is partly the cause, and partly the 
 effect, of the evils I have mentioned. These are some of the 
 dangers which cast their baleful shadow over the future, 
 and summon the people to the work of reform. In pointing 
 to these dangers and emphasizing their magnitude, I have 
 taken the first step toward their removal, since men are not 
 willing to wage war against an evil till they are convinced of 
 its existence. I can not here enter into the discussion of par 
 ticular remedies or methods of action which the new trials of 
 democracy may demand ; but one preliminary duty will be 
 found absolutely necessary, and that is organization. This is 
 now the watchword of progress throughout the world. Those 
 who see a great and threatening evil must combine against it. 
 Those who think and feel alike respecting the dangers I have 
 set forth must find each other out and stand together. New 
 political occasions demand new agencies to meet them. I 
 earnestly hope that the people of this country have by this 
 time discovered that a political party is not a deity to be 
 worshiped, nor a master to be served, but simply a means 
 to an end. It is a political make-shift. It is only a tempo 
 rary contrivance, born of some new exigency, which men 
 lay hold of in order to accomplish a cherished purpose, and 
 when that purpose is attained it becomes as worthless as the 
 scaffolding about an edifice after it has been finished. I hope 
 the people have also learned that a party, once corrupt, 
 whether religious or political, has lost the power to reform 
 itself, and that a long lease of power breeds corruption in 
 any party, and compels the people, in self-defense, to disown 
 it. They must see how such a party reduces the manipula 
 tion of conventions and caucuses to a fine art, in which the 
 people have no share, save as victims, and that it converts 
 our national politics into a great national industry, with sub 
 ordinate bureaus of lying, cheating and stealing, all directed 
 by a few party potentates, under whose inspiring genius the 
 
THE NEW TRIALS OF DEMOCRACY. 55 
 
 general welfare is made entirely subservient to their selfish 
 ambition. 
 
 If I am right in these views, the reformation of existing 
 abuses must begin in the rebellion of the people against the 
 party tyranny of the times. Their emancipation from 
 their old political masters must precede the overthrow of the 
 evils which confront us, and which have grown to their full 
 stature under the nurture of the great organizations which to 
 day contend for the mastery, and have alternately ruled the 
 country in the past. Instead of watching over the interests 
 of the people, they have themselves been the ready instru 
 ments of those grand schemes of jobbery and corruption 
 which have so long afflicted the republic, and at last clutched 
 at its life. They have not only accomplished their mission 
 and outlived their usefulness, but they are organized obstruc 
 tions to the public welfare, and quite as potent for evil as 
 they ever were for good. Their machinery has been so long 
 prostituted to base ends that it has become incapable of serv 
 ing any other. Their discipline has degenerated into a wan 
 ton tyranny over individual judgment and conscience, and 
 an unmixed curse to the country. One of them struggles to 
 prolong its rule after the death and burial of its conscience, 
 and while shamelessly wallowing in the mire of its damning 
 apostacy ; and the other gasps for life with equal despera 
 tion, after forfeiting its right to live by its unhallowed service 
 of negro slavery, and writing its own epitaph last year in the 
 nomination and support of Horace Greeley on the Cincinnati 
 platform. They present the wretched spectacle of one fac 
 tion struggling to keep the other out of power, and the other 
 struggling to get in, while roguery and charlatanism rule 
 them both. Each holds the other in its orbit, and revolves 
 round a common center of antagonism, which is its life. 
 Like the two great parties of twenty years-ago, they are sub 
 stantially agreed as to their declared principles and policy, 
 while the spoils alone divide those who are brethren in heart. 
 They rival each other in the alacrity with which they engage 
 in schemes of pelf and plunder, and the refreshing audacity 
 with which they violate their political professions. Each 
 
56 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 justly charges the other with venality and corruption, and 
 each pleads the existence of the other as the excuse for its 
 own. Neither of them could survive if the other should per 
 ish, and either of them would mourn the death of the other, 
 since it w r ould inevitably liberate the people from party 
 thraldom and usher in a new dispensation akin to that which 
 at first followed the disruption of the old Whig party, and 
 finally buried the Democratic organization in irretrievable 
 dishonor. One of them impudently makes its strut before 
 the nation as "the party of great moral ideas," while num 
 bering among its chief apostles and recognized leaders such 
 characters as Simon Cameron, Oliver P. Morton, Benjamin 
 F. Butler, Matt H. Carpenter, Powell Clayton, Thomas 
 Murphy and Brother-in-law Casey ; and the other is obliged 
 to confess itself the political father of these anointed patriots, 
 that it taughtthem their first lessons in modern democracy, and 
 at last sorrowfully gave them up to the more inviting service of 
 the enemy. The marvellous energy displayed by one of these 
 parties during the late war has since been triumphantly turned 
 into the channels of profligacy and plunder, with results that 
 have startled the whole land and made its very name a stench ; 
 while the other, throwing away its many opportunities of re 
 trieving its fortunes and saving its once-honored name from 
 disgrace, has joyfully shared in the worst misdeeds of its de 
 bauched rival, and thus richly earned the honors of burial in 
 a common grave. No friend of his country should therefore 
 think of pouring the new wine of reform into these old bot 
 tles, now so thoroughly defiled by foul uses, and so hope 
 lessly beyond the power of disinfection. 
 
 What we want is a perfectly unshackled movement of the 
 people a fellowship of honest men in every section of the 
 land against the new forms of aristocracy which the greed 
 of sudden wealth and the agencies of modern society have 
 created. We must have the substance, and not the form 
 merely, of free institutions. We must snatch freedom itself 
 from the perilous activities quickened into life by its own 
 spirit. We must search out new defenses of democracy in 
 
THE NEW TRIALS OF DEMOCRACY. 57 
 
 the new trials of its life. The grand work of our times is 
 not the highest development of favored individuals or classes, 
 or the accumulation of great wealth in their hands, but the 
 utmost enlightenment and supreme welfare of the masses. It 
 is not the exceptional culture or commanding advantage of 
 the fe\v, but the uplifting of the many to a higher level. This 
 is the blessed mission of Democracy, and the true religion of 
 humanity. It may be delayed for a season. It may be tem 
 porarily frustrated by the great and impending dangers I 
 have attempted to depict. The blindness of organized cu 
 pidity, trampling down the rights of the people, may even 
 precipitate the country into revolution and violence, as did 
 the slave power of the South, but in the end democracy will 
 be vindicated. All the divine forces are on its side. Chris 
 tianity is pledged to its triumph and coincident with its teach 
 ings. The great law of social evolution foreordains it. De 
 mocracy is to come in its fulness, sweeping away the con- ( 
 spiracies of wealth and the subterfuges of monopoly, and 
 enforcing "all rights for all;" but whether this shall be 
 sooner or later, and whether heralded by the kindly agencies 
 of peace or the harsh power of war, must depend upon the 
 wise and timely use of opportunities. The result is certain, 
 since justice can not finally be defeated, but the circum 
 stances of the struggle and the cost of the triumph are com 
 mitted to our hands. We can help, or hinder, the grand 
 march of human progress. We can smooth its pathway and 
 speed its momentum, or fold our arms in slothful indifference, 
 and thus hand it over to the unpitying logic of events. Let 
 us not shrink from this solemn responsibility. While hold 
 ing fast our faith in God, in the might of the truth, in the 
 victory of right over wrong, let us dedicate our lives anew 
 to the grand tasks appointed for us as the servants of our 
 kind. 
 
 "And though age wearies by the way, 
 
 And hearts break in the furrow, 
 We 11 sow the golden grain to-day, 
 
 The harvest comes to-morrow." 
 
THE SLAVERY YET TO BE ABOLISHED. 
 
 DELIVERED AT VARIOUS POINTS IN MICHIGAN AND IOWA 
 IN THE YEAR 1874. 
 
 [During this year the question of Woman Suffrage became a practical one 
 in the states named by its submission to the people as a proposed constitutional 
 amendment. The off-hand and colloquial style of this speech makes it excep 
 tional in character.] 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen: It must be quite apparent to every 
 thinking man and woman that we have entered upon a new 
 epoch in our politics, a new dispensation of reform. The aboli 
 tion of slavery has lifted the curtain which so long bounded the 
 horizon of progress, and brought us face to face with vital 
 problems which else might have remained in abeyance for gen 
 erations. " It is not only the slave who has been freed" 
 says John Stuart Mill "the mind of America has been 
 emancipated." The spirit of reform is in the air, and years 
 are now crowded into days. The common life of the people 
 palpitates with its new-born interest in momentous questions 
 which have hitherto engrossed the attention of a select few. 
 Even our little boys and girls have caught the contagion, 
 and are in a fair way to outstrip their fathers and mothers in 
 a knowledge of the fundamental principles of free govern 
 ment and the rights and duties of the citizen. Indeed, the 
 \vork of social evolution has secured such a footing, and is 
 impelled by such an impulse, that humanity is being trun 
 dled onwards, whether it sees the way and desires to move 
 or not ; and the chief work of the reformer to-day is to oil 
 the machinery of progress and remove certain ugly obstruc 
 tions from its path, not so much to speed its momentum as to 
 
THE SLAVERY YET TO BE ABOLISHED. 59 
 
 avert the dangerous friction which is always threatened by a 
 stupid conservatism. Permit me to approach my subject by 
 referring to some of these hindrances to progress. 
 
 One of the most formidable of these is the one-sidedness 
 of reform movements. All reforms constitute a brotherhood. 
 They have their logical relationships to each other, and 
 the proper rank and value of each should be recognized. 
 But sometimes we lay hold of a particular phase of a reform, 
 or some particular method of serving it, and push it into a 
 false position. We unduly emphasize it, and confound it 
 with the reform itself. We get so in love with our panacea 
 that the welfare of the patient is endangered. Let me refer 
 to the temperance movement as an illustration. The evils 
 of intemperance are not only great, but incalculable. They 
 fully justify a specific, organized endeavor to suppress them. 
 But we must remember that the vice of drunkenness is an 
 effect, quite as much as a cause. It has its genesis in une 
 qual laws, in the domination of wealth over the poor, in the 
 lack of general education, in inherited infirmities, physical 
 and mental, in the false maxims of our modern society and 
 civilization, in neglected household training, in a word, in 
 untoward social conditions which must be radically reformed 
 before we can strike with effect at the root of the evil. The 
 temperance question is thus a many-sided one. The tem 
 perance reform presupposes attention to vital questions which 
 underlie it, and which must be intelligently dealt with if we 
 would go beneath the surface. It involves, in fact, the gen 
 eral uplifting of humanity, and no legislation will avail much 
 which loses sight of this truth. We must reform our land 
 policy, and thus facilitate the acquisition of homes by the 
 poor. We must curtail the remorseless power of corporate 
 wealth. We must legislate for the rights of labor, as well as 
 the prerogatives of capital. We must educate the masses, 
 and equalize their opportunities. We must check the appe 
 tite for drink by kindling the thirst for something nobler. 
 We must reduce the supply of alcohol by first lessening the 
 demand. The magnitude of the temperance reform, in this 
 
60 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 comprehensive sense, can not well be overstated. But while 
 it summons every good man and woman to its support, it 
 gives countenance to no schemes of fanaticism. Its wisest 
 friends have little faith in the sufficiency of any legislative 
 short-cut to the virtue of temperance, but rely chiefly upon 
 time, toil, and patience, in dealing with the essential condi 
 tions of progress. They comprehend the logic of their en 
 terprise, and its inevitable limitations, and only expect the 
 final overthrow of the fabric of intemperance by undermining 
 its foundations. This view of the temperance reform is not 
 very satisfying to those eager and impatient men whose zeal 
 for the good cause blinds their eyes to unwelcome facts, but 
 the truth is better for all men and for every reform than any 
 possible delusion. 
 
 The anti-slavery reform furnishes another illustration of 
 my thought. The abolition of negro slavery was a grand 
 work, but it was the abolition of one form of servitude only. 
 Others remain to be abolished. Among these is that system 
 of agricultural serfdom which we call land monopolv. A 
 government which allows the land to became the patrimony 
 of the few can not be democratic, can not be free. Land 
 monopoly is one form of slavery, and, indeed, the underly 
 ing foundation of all slavery, because freedom must have its 
 roots in the soil. The fact will not be disputed that the land 
 owners of every country are its masters, and I repeat what I 
 have so often said, that under our popular form of government 
 w^e must have small farms, thrifty tillage, compact commu 
 nities, free schools, respect for honest labor, and equality of 
 political rights. We may as reasonably attempt to make 
 brick without straw as to build our free institutions on any 
 narrower foundation. On the other hand, if we journey on 
 as we have started towards the policy of large estates, widely- 
 scattered settlements, slovenly agriculture, the decline of ed 
 ucation and the arts, contempt for honest labor, and a pam 
 pered aristocracy lording it over the poor, then the epitaph 
 of our vaunted free government may be written, for it can 
 not stand. In one of the states of our Union there are sev- 
 
THE SLAVERY YET TO BE ABOLISHED. 6 1 
 
 eral men who own live hundred thousand acres each, and in 
 crossing one of these" plantations " you have to travel 
 seventy-five miles. It suggests the kindred ease of an Eng 
 lish lord who can travel from his castle a hundred miles in a 
 straight line on his own estate owning the land, and prac 
 tically owning the men who till it. Through our policy of 
 large land grants to corporations, our system of Indian trea 
 ties, our legalized speculation in the public domain, and 
 other forms of misgovernment and maladministration, a sys 
 tem of feudalism is rapidly taking root in these states which 
 should alarm every friend of democratic government. Even 
 in old Massachusetts, where American liberty and local self- 
 government had their birth in her system of limited land 
 holding, the small farms are rapidly being swallowed up by 
 the larger ones, while a crouching tenantry toils for absentee 
 landlords. This growing serfdom must be resisted and over 
 thrown, and it constitutes an essential part of the anti-slavery 
 movement. 
 
 Commercial Feudalism is another remaining form of sla 
 very. It finds its fittest expression in the power of our great 
 corporations. The old slave power had an estimated com 
 bined capital in human flesh of two thousand millions of dol 
 lars. It ruled the nation forty years. But the railway power 
 to-day has a combined capital of four thousand millions. It 
 has in its employ an army of two hundred thousand men, in 
 cluding the ablest legal talent in the nation and a considera 
 ble per cent, of its brains. You know something of its well 
 nigh absolute power over Congress and our state legislatures. 
 Already it has been crawling into our courts of justice and 
 coiling itself about the necks of our judges. This power is 
 kingly, because it controls the makers and expounders of the 
 laws, and through its great corporations is practically en 
 dowed wdth life offices and powers of hereditary succession. 
 In the days of slavery it was exceedingly hard for a North 
 ern man to stand up in Congress and look the slave power 
 in the face ; but I speak from personal observation and ex 
 perience when I say that I believe it to be quite as difficult 
 
62 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 now for a member of Congress, North or South, to face the 
 railway power. The danger is different, but not less. It is 
 not any longer the fear of personal violence, or the frowns 
 of a compact oligarchy of domineering men, bnt the insidi 
 ous tactics of the lobby, in sapping and mining its way 
 through the consciences of members. That this fearful sys 
 tem of serfdom must be overthrown will not be disputed. It 
 is a new form of slavery, scarcely a generation old, but it 
 already menaces the liberty and welfare of white and black, 
 and its abolition is imperatively demanded. 
 
 The logic of the. anti-slavery movement demands the abo 
 lition of another form of slavery, which may be called indus 
 trial serfdom. It has its birth in the alliance of concentrated 
 capital with labor-saving machinery, and displays its worst 
 qualities in the Factory System. It teaches that the chief end 
 of government is the protection of property, and practically 
 justifies the maxim that capital should own labor. It pro 
 poses to adjust the relations of capital and labor by the law 
 of supply and demand, and it commends this principle to 
 the workingman as the remedy for his grievances. No form 
 of slavery is more cruel, for its tap-root is pure cupidity, the 
 naked rapacity of gain, with conscience and humanity turned 
 adrift. Accordingly, under the English factory system be 
 fore Parliament intervened, men and women, and children 
 of very tender years, were worked in dismal dungeons, un 
 der cruel task-masters, from twelve to twenty hours per day, 
 and were frightfully brutalized by their treatment. Human 
 ity was forgotten in the worship of mammon as completely as 
 under our system of chattel slavery. The defenders of this 
 system of serfdom should remember that liberty is not a 
 mere dream. It is a substance, not a mocking shadow. It 
 is not the " liberty to die by starvation," but means just laws 
 for all. It means opportunity. It means a home, and bread, 
 and education, and fair play in the race of life. The law of 
 supply and demand is well enough when the parties stand on 
 an equal footing ; but when the capitalist holds the laborer 
 absolutely in his power this law is a mockery of justice. 
 
THE SLAVERY YET TO BE ABOLISHED. 63 
 
 When the workingman, with no capital but his muscles, 
 goes into the labor market, he must sell or perish, since the 
 employer can force upon him the alternative of starvation on 
 the one hand, or work on the other for the mere pittance he 
 may choose to offer. The principle of slavery thus neces 
 sarily involved in. the dependence and helplessness of the 
 poor, should be restrained by legislation. Government should 
 help the weak, rather than the strong. From the beginning 
 of civilization capital has been the world s lawmaker, and 
 labor has been enslaved or degraded ; but slowly and grad 
 ually the working classes are emerging from their bondage, 
 and their final emancipation will come through that spirit of 
 humanity which triumphed over the spirit of mammon in the 
 abolition of negro slavery. 
 
 It is thus evident, my friends, that the slavery question, 
 like that of temperance, is a many-sided one. Devotion to 
 humanity was the basis of the anti-slavery enterprise, and 
 that devotion should find expression against every form of 
 oppression. It should heed the logic of its work, and when 
 one task is done proceed to another. The abolition of the 
 chattel slavery of the southern negro only brought anti- 
 slavery men to the threshold of their undertaking. It was 
 the mere prelude to a far grander movement, looking to the 
 emancipation of all races from all forms of slavery. It not 
 only opens the way for systematic opposition to the several 
 forms of slavery I have mentioned, but it makes inevitable 
 the demand for the enfranchisement of woman ; and thus I 
 am naturally conducted to the principal subject of my pres 
 ent discourse. 
 
 In entering upon it, let us first endeavor, if possible, to 
 ascertain how far we are united, and how far we are divided. 
 Let us determine how much common ground there is on 
 which all of us can stand, and how narrow is the territory in 
 dispute. Let us see, as clearly and as precisely as we can, 
 what is affirmed on the one side and denied on the other, so 
 that we may hope for an intelligent and decisive verdict upon 
 the issue we are to try. I ask you to follow me, step by step, 
 
64 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 in the argument I shall make, and if I do not deal fairly 
 with the subject I bespeak your condemnation. But if I rest 
 my argument on undisputed facts and the conclusions which 
 inevitably follow my premises, then, as a matter of simple 
 fair-dealing, I ask you to surrender your prejudices and lay 
 hold of the truth. 
 
 In the first place, I take it for granted that we are all 
 agreed in the purpose to stand by our popular form of gov 
 ernment. I assume that none of you desire to reopen the 
 controversy between monarchy and aristocracy on the one 
 hand, and democracy on the other, which was settled by our 
 fathers a century ago in the forum of argument and by the 
 ordeal of battle. You would not call in a king and reinstate 
 an order of nobility if you could ; or if such persons exist in 
 our midst they are so few in numbers and so prudently non 
 committal that I need not notice them in dealing with the 
 problem I am considering. You all believe in a "govern 
 ment of the people, by the people, and for the people," and 
 you all concede that it must be carried on by a majority, 
 through the instrumentality of the ballot. So far, I am sure, 
 there is no difference of opinion between the friends and 
 opponents of woman s enfranchisement. 
 
 We are equally agreed upon the fundamental principle of 
 American democracy, that in the exercise of the right of 
 suffrage there shall be no qualification founded on property. 
 It makes no difference whether the voter is worth one hun 
 dred dollars or one hundred thousand dollars, for we agree 
 with Dr. Franklin that "the poor man has an equal right, 
 but greater need, of the ballot, than the rich man." In the 
 early period of our grand experiment a property qualification 
 was required in all the states ; but as a nation we have long 
 since outgrown this political folly. I rejoice that we have 
 done so, for if we had allowed this heresy to be engrafted 
 upon our system of government the right of property to rule 
 would have been recognized, and the corruption of voters 
 and the bribery of officials would have been legitimated. In 
 disowning this qualification the American people have wisely 
 
THE SLAVERY YET TO BE ABOLISHED. 65 
 
 placed humanity before property, repudiating the European 
 principle that the chief end of government is the protection 
 of what a man owns, and not of the owner himself. 
 
 In the next place, we have definitely settled the kindred 
 principle that the right to vote shall not depend upon the 
 .-nativity of the voter, or the race to which he belongs, or the 
 color of his skin, or the religion he may have embraced. 
 The foreigner, upon a brief probation, is allowed his equal 
 right with the native to share in the government. To have 
 denied him this right would have been as mean a political 
 discrimination as can well be conceived, since he is no more 
 to be blamed for having been born abroad than the native is 
 to be praised for his accidental birth here. So of the ques 
 tion of race. The various nationalities and races of the civ 
 ilized world have sought their welfare in this grand political 
 asylum, and they are all made welcome to the hospitality of 
 equal rights. So, likewise, the color of the skin is no longer 
 a bar to the right of suffrage. Some of you earnestly op 
 posed the enfranchisement of the negro, while others assented 
 to it with hesitation and reluctance, but whether you were wil 
 ling or unwilling, it has been done, and nobody pretends that 
 it will be undone. No party proposes, or is likely to propose, 
 the disfranchisement of the black millions who are now play 
 ing their part in American politics, and whose loyalty to our 
 flag in the nation s great peril was never found wanting. 
 Necessity, which knows no law, rather than our love of the 
 negro, or our devotion to democracy, has compelled us to 
 treat the African as a man, and to recognize his rights as a 
 -citizen. In like manner we have no religious test of fitness 
 to vote, because w r e have no established religion. The gov 
 ernment of the United States has no religion, and in the light 
 of current political events I think you will not dispute this 
 fact. It is not sir-religious, but non-religious. Theists, Athe 
 ists, Jews, Christians, Mohammedans, and Pagans, are equal 
 before the constitution and at the ballot-box. During the 
 
 O 
 
 Black Friday of Know-nothingism, twenty odd years ago, 
 an attempt was made to institute a religious qualification for 
 
 5 
 
66 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 suffrage, but it failed so signally that it will scarcely be re 
 peated. 
 
 Still another cardinal principle of our democracy has been 
 settled, namely, that no literary qualification for the ballot 
 shall be demanded. This is settled by American usage. It 
 may be regarded as our political common law. Some years 
 ago Massachusetts adopted a reading and writing qualifica 
 tion, and I believe she still nominally retains it; but her ex 
 ample has not been followed. Reading and writing are me 
 chanical operations. According to the late census tables we 
 have in the United States over one million six hundred thou 
 sand males over twenty-one years old who can neither read 
 the constitution nor write their- names. They freely share 
 with the educated classes in the exercise of political power, 
 and no intelligent man anticipates their disfranchisement. 
 We give these uneducated masses the ballot for three princi 
 pal reasons. In the first place, we hold that the ballot is 
 itself a schoolmaster, and consequently that one of the means 
 of fitting men to use it is to put it into their hands. We be 
 lieve, with Archbishop Whately, that " to wait before you be 
 stow liberty or political rights till the recipients are fit to em 
 ploy them aright, is to resolve not to go into the water till you 
 can swim. 7 We agree with Lord Macaulay, that "if men 
 are to wait till they become wise and good in slavery, the*y 
 may indeed wait forever." In the second place, we believe 
 it is far less difficult to manage a great mass of unenlightened 
 men by giving them a share in the government, a stake in its- 
 success, and an incentive to rise, than by imposing upon them 
 its burdens while withholding their political rights, and thus 
 tempting them to become domestic enemies by making them 
 aliens in heart. In the third place, the denial of the ballot to 
 our illiterate citizens would inaugurate class legislation, and 
 all class rule is vicious. It would confide political power ex 
 clusively to those who are best able to take care of them 
 selves without it, while the ignorant, who would especially 
 need the ballot as their defense against a privileged class, 
 would be helpless. We agree with Richard Cobden, that 
 
THE SLAVERY YET TO BE ABOLISHED. 67 
 
 one of the chief arguments in favor of the extension of the 
 suffrage is that it promotes the extension of education, as it 
 has done in England. Privilege always takes care of itself, 
 and always stands in the path of the unprivileged. 
 
 These are the decided convictions of the great body of 
 the American people, and I believe nothing is more morally 
 certain than that they will stand by them. They do not dis 
 parage education. Their interest in the subject is constantly 
 and increasingly manifested. Even the policy of compulsory 
 education is rapidly growing in general favor. Their pur 
 pose is more and more evident to make universal enlighten 
 ment, as far as possible, go hand in hand with universal suf 
 frage. They understand that the ultimate tendency of knowl 
 edge in any state or community is good, and that through its 
 diffusion lies the only sure way out of comparative barbarism 
 into a higher and higher civilization. But they regard as 
 both unwise and impracticable the policy of requiring any 
 specific educational test of fitness for the exercise of political 
 power in the United States. In doing so I believe they have 
 builded wiser than they knew. Time is vindicating them,, 
 and the best thought of the age sustains them. Herbert 
 Spencer asks such questions as these : What connection is 
 there between the ability to read, or the knowledge that cer 
 tain marks on paper stand for certain sounds, and a higher 
 sense of duty? How can a knowledge of penmanship in 
 crease the desire to do right? How can a knowledge of the 
 multiplication table, or quickness in adding or dividing, 
 restrain the desire to trespass on the rights of others? How 
 can accuracy in spelling or parsing make the sentiment of 
 justice stronger? He insists that the attempt to teach moral 
 or political duties by the mere training of the intellect is an 
 absurdity as great as would be the attempt to teach geometry 
 by the study of Latin, or drawing by the study of music. In 
 tellect has no conscience, and therefore its discipline will 
 neither teach a man his duty to his country or to his neigh 
 bor. It can no more judge of right and wrong than a blind 
 man can judge of colors. Do you doubt the soundness of 
 
68 SELECTED SPEECHES 
 
 these views? Are they not almost daily justified by startling, 
 and multiplied facts? Who are the foremost rascals of our 
 time ? A goodly per cent, of them are educated men, includ 
 ing fraudulent bankrupts, embezzlers of public money, bank 
 cashiers, the concoctors of thieving corporations, the makers 
 of adulterated goods, the receivers and givers of bribes 
 among the so-called higher classes, and sometimes govern 
 ors of states, members of Congress, cabinet ministers, and 
 eminent clergymen. 
 
 The rebel leaders of the South were educated men, who 
 ransacked history for precedents for their infernal crusade 
 against the rights of man ; while nearly the entire literary 
 class in England has been on the side of power in its conflict 
 with the people. History tells us that Greece, in her decay, 
 was crowded with rhetoricians and sophists, while her citi 
 zens were slaves ; and that Rome, in her transition from a 
 nation to an empire, was characterized by a wide intellectual 
 culture. In the progress of political and economic science, 
 in modern times, many of the men least fitted for the art of 
 government and most obstinately opposed to all great reforms 
 have been the graduates of universites. The lesson taught by 
 such facts is that in dealing with moral and social problems 
 we must study the relationship of conduct and feeling, and 
 rely upon the education of the heart. This will point the 
 way to the duties of citizenship as well as all other duties. 
 " Talent," says Emerson, " uniformly sinks with character." 
 ** In work," says one of our first political writers, " rather than 
 in a certain literary or scientific acquisition, is the evidence 
 of the capacity for political power ; the life of the workman, 
 the fulfillment of human relationships in the family and com 
 munity, the endeavor of men in the realities of life, is a deeper 
 education." For the truth of this I appeal confidently to 
 the testimony of your own experience and common sense. 
 The man who loves his home and is true in the relations of 
 family and neighborhood is entitled to the ballot, whether 
 technically educated or not. " Whosoever," in the language 
 of Milton, * has but sucked in this principle, that he was not 
 
THE SLAVERY YET TO BE ABOLISHED. 69 
 
 born for his prince, but for God and his country," has as 
 sacred a right to share in its government as the best educated 
 man in it ; and I would quite as willingly commit the public wel 
 fare to the keeping of such men as to those who have gone 
 through the educational drilling so graphically described by 
 Carlyle, as " working into the mental food of our children 
 a yeast of frothy vocables, and littering the roots of their 
 brains with etymological compost, words and not things, the 
 oretical and not practical training." 
 
 Thus far, my friends, I think we stand together. We 
 are all in favor of our democratic form of government, and 
 we all agree that it must be carried on by a majority, through 
 the agency of the ballot. We all agree that the right of suf 
 frage does not depend upon property, or nativity, or race, or 
 color, or religion, or any specific literary qualification. We 
 have settled it that none of these mere accidents of humanity 
 can be the basis of the right, and consequently that it must 
 rest upon humanity itself. The right to the ballot, therefore, 
 by which I mean the right to be represented in the organism 
 which deals with your liberty, your property, and your life, 
 is as natural and as inborn as the right to the breath of your 
 nostrils. A responsible human being, innocent of crime, 
 yielding his allegiance to the government, answerable to it 
 in his person and property for disobedience, and yet denied 
 any political right, is a slave. So thought Samuel Adams, 
 James Otis, and the Fathers, and if it is not true, then nothing 
 is true. "Taxation without representation is tyranny ; " that 
 is to say, a man who is taxed and governed, with no voice 
 in the taxing and governing power, is not and can not be 
 free. Dr. Franklin says that "they who have no voice nor 
 vote in the choosing of representatives do not enjoy liberty, 
 but are absolutely enslaved to those who have votes." Will 
 any American deny this? The essence of slavery is en 
 forced obedience to irresponsible power, and therefore it can 
 make no difference in principle whether that power is exer 
 cised by a single master or by society. As to the suffrage, I 
 admit that the manner and circumstances of its exercise are 
 
7O SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 properly conventional, as, for example, whether the citizen 
 shall vote under a registry law or without it, whether he 
 shall vote viva voce or by ballot, whether he shall vote in his 
 precinct, or without such restriction ; but the right itself to be 
 represented is a totally different matter, and is as natural as the 
 right to liberty or life. If not, then there are no natural rights, 
 since neither liberty nor life itself could be enjoyed save by 
 the mere mercy or grace of the governing power. I am sure 
 you will agree that the fundamental idea of democracy is the 
 equality and sacredness of human rights, and the consent 
 of the people as the only basis of government ; but this 
 idea is completely overthrown if any class of citizens can be 
 deprived of their common and equal right with all others to 
 be heard through their representatives. It is no answer to 
 my position to say that the state always determines who shall 
 participate in its powers, and that therefore the right to vote 
 is necessarily conventional. It is undoubtedly true that the 
 state, through the machinery we call government, does de 
 cide who shall be entrusted with its powers ; but the very 
 point I am arguing is the principle on which the state is 
 bound to make its decision, where the people themselves are 
 the rulers. A free government is one carried on by the free 
 choice of the people, and it unavoidably follows that every 
 citizen having the capacity to choose has the same perfect 
 and inherent right of choice as every like citizen. The gov 
 ernment, for example, may withhold the right of suffrage 
 from infants, idiots and lunatics. The very principle of rep 
 resentative government demands this, since these persons 
 are wanting in the power of choice, or self-determination. 
 On kindred grounds, it may withhold the ballot from those 
 who have committed high crimes, and have thus proved 
 themselves lacking in the moral power of choosing. But 
 with these unavoidable exceptions, which only prove the 
 general principle I have been affirming, the state can not 
 deny the right of representation to any of its citizens without 
 espousing the maxims of despotism. To argue the question 
 further would be an inexcusable affront to common sense. 
 
THE SLAVERY YET TO BE ABOLISHED. 71 
 
 And here, at length, are we brought directly to the ques 
 tion of woman s right to the ballot. We touch the simple, 
 naked and sole issue to be tried. Having demonstrated that 
 the right of representation rests upon personality, that is to 
 say upon humanity itself, being the inherent right of the peo 
 ple to choose their rulers and manage their own affairs, it 
 only remains to inquire whether woman is a part of humanity. 
 Is she a human being? If so, then my argument is clinched, 
 and nothing more need be said. If she is not, then the case 
 must go against her. On this question of fact, I repeat, the 
 whole controversy must turn, for if the opponents of woman s 
 enfranchisement admit the affirmative, they admit away their 
 whole case. I expect them to face this issue as becomes 
 brave men. Twenty years ago, when the champions of 
 slavery were driven to the wall by the humanitarian argu 
 ments and appeals of the abolitionists, their respect for logical 
 consistency finally compelled them to deny that the ne^ro be 
 longs to the human species. They pronounced him a monkey, 
 or an orang-outang, and thus made his humanity the single 
 issue in the angry dispute about slavery. Their perfect cour 
 age was only equalled by their perfect contempt for common 
 sense. Their absolute fidelity to the logic of an infernal en 
 terprise was so charmingly intrepid that I think it commanded 
 general admiration, when contrasted with the cowardly pet 
 tifogging by which the doughfaces sought to reconcile the 
 crime of slaveholding with the rights of humanity. I commend 
 the example of these heroic men to the enemies of woman s 
 enfranchisement, and I trust their courage may prove equally 
 heroic. I think they will be found ready, at all events, to 
 face the only issue involved in the controversy, and either 
 have the gallantry to surrender at discretion, or the match 
 less audacity to deny the humanity of the mothers who bore 
 them. Taking the latter for granted, I must meet them on 
 their own ground, and insist that woman is a part of the hu 
 man family. This is my decided opinion. Indeed, I have 
 always understood that fully one-half the human race is fem 
 inine. Woman stands related to us as wife, mother, sister 
 
72 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 and daughter. She is a citizen by the unmistakable words- 
 of the constitution. She is a tax-payer, and as to certain- 
 positions, in some of the states, she is already allowed to 
 vote and hold office. We are enlarging her sphere of em 
 ployment, and increasing her compensation for her work. 
 We are recognizing her equality with man by securing to 
 her the same educational opportunities. We imprison her 
 for crime and hang her for murder. We baptize her as a 
 Christian, and send her abroad as a missionary. I suppose 
 Christ died for her in the same sense in which he died for 
 man. She is endowed with the same faculties and affec 
 tions, is animated by the same hopes, shares with man his 
 joys and sorrows, and strives with him for the same bless 
 ings. Indeed, the case seems to me so plain that until those 
 who deny woman s humanity are more particularly heard 
 from, it can hardly be worth while to argue the question 
 further. 
 
 But perhaps, after all, they will admit it, and still insist 
 that she shall not vote because of her sex. But in the name 
 of justice and political decency what has sex to do with the- 
 question of moral and political right? If you say to woman, 
 "You shall not vote because you are a woman, v and she 
 retorts, " You shall not vote because you are a man," is not 
 the account balanced? You agree with me in disowning the 
 principle of an aristocracy founded on property, or nativity, 
 or race, or color, or religion, and yet you approve an aristoc 
 racy founded on sex, which is just as anti-republican and in 
 defensible, and if possible still more hateful. 
 
 But you will say, perhaps, that you would not withhold the 
 ballot from woman because of her sex, but her inferiority. I 
 answer, that in mere muscle and general physical power she 
 is unquestionably inferior, as a rule, to man ; but I have not 
 yet learned that our American democracy has instituted any 
 test of mere bodily strength as a qualification for voting. Do- 
 we require a man to be a Samson before we allow him the 
 ballot? On the contrary, the smallest and feeblest men have 
 equal rights with the largest and stoutest. We sometimes- 
 carry to the polls cripples, and men in the last stages of in- 
 
THE SLAVERY YET TO BE ABOLISHED. 73 
 
 curable disease. Do you tell me that the inferiority you com 
 plain of is not physical, but intellectual? Let me, for the 
 sake of the argument, admit this inferiority. Let me accept 
 the declaration so often made that in the higher departments 
 of science, philosophy, and art, woman is inferior to man, 
 and that history has so made the record. What then? Is it 
 a part of the gospel of democracy that none but great scien 
 tists, philosophers, and artists shall vote? I think I have 
 seen a good many men vote who would have been excluded 
 by any such rule. Why raise the question of intellectual in 
 feriority, when we give the ballot to the whole mass of our 
 male population above the level of idiots and lunatics? Be 
 sides, do you not see that the argument of inferiority is not 
 an argument against, but in favor of, woman s enfranchise 
 ment? If she is really inferior to man in capacity, and con 
 sequently less fitted to take care of herself, does she not need 
 the ballot all the more for her protection and help? Is not 
 the law intended for the weak? And is not the ballot in the 
 hands of man the gateway to opportunity and the defense of 
 his rights? If woman is man s inferior, and is obliged all the 
 days of her life to encounter the sharpened faculties of a su 
 perior order of beings who have thus far made her a slave or 
 a dependent, it must be quite evident that this is the strong 
 est possible argument for giving her a voice in the manage 
 ment of public affairs. 
 
 But, in answer to all this, or in evasion ot it, I shall be 
 told that woman is not Jit for the ballot. Let me ask, what 
 is fitness to vote? I repeat what I said years ago in arguing 
 the question of negro suffrage, that fitness is a relative term. 
 Nobody is perfectly fit to vote, because perfect fitness would 
 require perfect knowledge and perfect virtue. A man would 
 have to be a god, or an angel. The truth is, we are all more 
 or less unfit for all our duties, whether civil, social, religious, 
 or what not. The fitness to govern which must be our reli 
 ance, as I have already argued, is not scientific or literary. 
 It is not the fitness of a select few, but of the many. It is aggre 
 gate fitness. During the late civil war, and in all our pre- 
 
74 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 vious trials, our deliverance came through the inconspicuous, 
 unheralded rank and tile, "the common people, whose in 
 tegrity of character, solid sense, and well-ordered homes 
 have given the republic its place among the nations. In the 
 light of this fact, who shall bar the door against the political 
 rights of woman? Who of us can object to her fitness, after 
 giving the ballot to ignorant and untrained masses of males, 
 north and south, white and black? What possible test of fit 
 ness would exclude woman that would not disfranchise mil 
 lions of our male voters? 
 
 The plea of unfitness seems still more preposterous if we 
 keep in mind the ugly facts which our masculine voting has 
 brought to the surface. Women, we are told, are unfit to 
 vote. If enfranchised, they would vote on the wrong side. 
 Undoubtedly they would sometimes do so. They would 
 make mistakes ; but could they not profit by them? And if 
 a careful search were made, is it not barely possible that 
 cases could be found in which men have voted on the wrong 
 side? I think I have known such cases myself, and proba 
 bly you can recall others. How stands the account? Have 
 we, in fact, such a record as makes it decent for us to sit in 
 judgment upon the fitness of woman for politics? Look at 
 our Sanborn contracts, our Moiety system, and our custom 
 house thieving. Look a t our eminent Christian statesmen 
 auctioning their consciences to a great railway corporation. 
 Look at the great salary theft of the last Congress. Look 
 at our civil service to-day, as foul and feculent a system of 
 huckstering and plunder as our thoroughly debauched party 
 politics could make it. Look at our drunken libertines ele 
 vated to high places by male voting. Look at the open and 
 wholesale pollution of the ballot, and the spectacle of bribery 
 and perjury we have witnessed in so many states. Look at 
 the frightful decay of political morality in every section of 
 the land, and listen to the prayers of good men for a speedy 
 resurrection of conscience as the only possible salvation of 
 the country ! 
 
 Or look at the wisdom which male suffrage has made 
 
THE SLAVERY YET TO BE ABOLISHED. 75 
 
 manifest in our parties and politicians. Take the tariff ques 
 tion. It is as unsettled as it was a half century ago. Each 
 of the great parties is divided upon it, and neither can define 
 its position. So of the question of railway transportation. 
 Neither is competent to deal with it, and neither, as a party, 
 has any defined position respecting it. The same is true of 
 the finance question. As national parties they are internally 
 divided, while no man can name any vital point on which 
 they stand opposed. Some of the leaders of both are for 
 hard money and a return to specie payments, while others 
 scout this idea, demand more printed money, and refer to 
 Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill as theorists and dreamers 
 whose doctrines of political economy are not applicable to 
 the United States. Take the slavery question. Male suf 
 frage could not settle it, and we were obliged to try it by bat 
 tle. The labor question succeeds it, and no party has yet 
 appeared that seems at all able to grapple with it. On the 
 temperance question our parties have tried their hand at leg 
 islation for more than a generation, but thus far the result is 
 a muddle. The picture thus imperfectly sketched is the pic 
 ture of our country under the full blaze of masculine wisdom 
 and virtue ; and I respectfully submit that it does not war 
 rant the arraignment of woman as unfit to share in our poli 
 tics. On the contrary, I think it shows the need of her help 
 ing hand and saving grace, unless we decide to jump out of 
 our democratic frying pan into the fire of kingly rule, which 
 we have resolved not to do. 
 
 But we are told of the dreadful consequences that will 
 ensue if we give the ballot to woman. It will " upheave the 
 whole social system," destroy the family," inaugurate "free 
 love," and " make Beecher-Tilton scandals the order of the 
 day." This is the current style of argument, and by far the 
 most effective one I find employed ; and yet it is palpably no 
 argument at all against woman s enfranchisement, but simply 
 a prediction that certain consequences would follow the 
 event. I meet it in the words of one of the world s greatest 
 living thinkers, in speaking of "logical consequences." He 
 
76 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 says: " In the course of my experience I have found that 
 they are the scare-crows of fools, and the beacons of wise 
 men," and that "The only question for any man to ask is 
 this: Is this true, or is it false? No other question can pos 
 sibly be taken into consideration till this one is settled." I 
 have demonstrated woman s equal right with man to share 
 in the government. I have shown that the question of wom 
 an s rights is the question of human rights, and consequently 
 that if her right of representation is conventional merely, to 
 be granted or denied at the pleasure of government, the very 
 principle of popular liberty is superseded by the principle of 
 absolutism. Is my argument valid? That is the question 
 first of all to be disposed of, and I may decline to discuss any 
 other till it is settled. Until the opponents of woman s en 
 franchisement face this question and show the fallacy of my 
 argument, I must treat their " logical consequences " as the 
 "scare-crows of fools." If, as I insist, woman has exactly 
 the same right to a voice in the government as man, it is the 
 duty of man to recognize that right, and the consequences 
 have no more to do with the performance of this duty than 
 with obedience to the commands of the decalogue. They 
 can no more excuse that duty than they can excuse any other 
 duty, whether enjoined by morals or religion. You might 
 just as reasonably object to the Golden Rule that obedience 
 to it would turn the world up-side down, or refuse to do right 
 because the heavens will surely fall if you do, or decline to 
 speak the truth and deal justly because it would "upheave 
 the whole social system." Such arguments are as shallow 
 as thev are atheistical, and a good cause would disown them. 
 They are, however, the staple of conservatism, which stu 
 pidly turns its back upon all the lessons of experience. 
 When the repeal of the English corn laws was first proposed, 
 national ruin was predicted as a certain result. When Clark- 
 son began his agitation for the abolition of the slave trade, 
 the same prophesy was made. When it was proposed to arm 
 the negroes in the late Civil War, and employ them on the 
 side of the government, it was said they would certainly fight 
 
THE SLAVERY YET TO BE ABOLISHED. 77 
 
 for their masters. It was always confidently predicted that 
 the abolition of slavery would be followed by a general up 
 rising of the negroes, who would lay waste the South, make 
 a general irruption into the free states, put down the wages 
 of our poor whites, and finally marry them. 
 
 None of these prophesies ever came true, and yet the ene 
 mies of progress have never found it out, and never will. 
 They still "shiver and shrink at the sight of trial and haz 
 ard." They still believe in the omnipotence of evil, and for 
 get that the very heavens are built upon justice. They still 
 reject the faith which even a reputed Pagan proclaims, that 
 " the great soul of the World is just," and that there is " one 
 strong thing here below, the just thing, the true thing." They 
 are still prophesying that ruin and disaster will follow in the 
 footsteps of duty, and their children will doubtless take up 
 the trade when they are ready to lay it down, while all his 
 tory bears witness that loyalty to principle is safety, and truth 
 the only sure lamp to our feet. 
 
 In the light of what I have said, it can scarcely be neces 
 sary to notice the hackneyed plea that women generally do 
 not desire the ballot. I only remark, in the first place, that 
 a very respectable minority does desire it, and that if the ar 
 gument I have made is sound, the question of majorities and 
 minorities can have nothing whatever to-do with the issue. 
 It is not a problem of mathematics, but a claim of right, and 
 therefore the disclaimer of it by ninety-nine hundredths of 
 the sex could not affect the right of the remainder. 
 
 In the next place, this minority includes many earnest 
 and highly gifted women who have given the subject much 
 thought, and whose declared reasons for their position have 
 only been answered by "the gospel of ridicule." On the 
 other hand, the position of the majority is that of indifference, 
 rather than hostility, and results largely from inattention and 
 lack of thought. The mass of the slaves of the South were 
 so accustomed to their lot that they gave no sign of discon 
 tent ; but Frederick Douglas and scores of others ran away 
 from their masters, and denounced the whole system of op- 
 
78 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 pression as an outrage apon humanity and a crime against 
 God. The world has accepted their testimony, and rejected 
 the negative evidence of the great majority, whose very con- 
 tentedness with their condition was itself the strongest con 
 demnation of their enslavement. 
 
 In the third place, this minority is rapidly growing. It 
 is already quite as large as minorities usually are in the early 
 stages of a reform. A great cause never musters a majority 
 in its beginning, and does not need it. It has the truth on 
 its side, and that never fails to prove all-sufficient. The 
 cause of woman s enfranchisement is so woven into the logic 
 of progress and the spirit of the age that its failure is impos 
 sible. It is coming, in the language of Colonel Higginson, 
 as " a part of the succession of civilizations. It is coming 
 as the final product and ripe fruit of democratic institutions. 
 It is coming in obedience to the law which has made the 
 progress of society and the elevation of woman go hand in 
 hand in the past. It is coming through the principle of so 
 cial evolution which has made the condition of woman con 
 stantly approach that of equality with man in the history of 
 the world. It is coming in response to the spirit of human 
 ity which centuries ago swept away the code which gave 
 woman in marriage without her consent and made her the 
 chattel slave of her husband, who could exercise over her the 
 power of life and death ; while that same spirit is now reform 
 ing and humanizing our laws respecting her personal and 
 property rights, enlarging the sphere of her occupations, in 
 creasing her wages, and promoting her higher education. Its 
 enemies may throw obstacles in its way, and distress them 
 selves by the childish dread of consequences, but they will 
 be as powerless to defeat it as to stay the tides of the sea. 
 
EVOLUTION AND REFORM. 
 
 DELIVERED AT AN ANTI-SLAVERY REUNION IN GREENSBORO, 
 ON THE I4TH OF OCTOBER, 1875. 
 
 [This speech was also delivered before the literary societies of the North 
 western Christian University, on the 22d of February, 1876, and at Watkins, 
 New York, in the latter part of August, 1878. In September following, it ap 
 peared as an article in the North American Review, under the title, "Is the Re 
 former Any Longer Needed?"] 
 
 Fellow- Citizens: The philosophy of evolution, as applied 
 to the problems of the physical world, is rapidly winning the 
 victory over all opposition. Resting upon the sure founda 
 tion of known facts and necessary inductions, it has little to 
 fear from the assaults of mere declamation, or the unbeliev 
 ing conservatism which sees only danger and disaster in 
 courageously following the truth. But the attempt of some 
 of the chief apostles of this philosophy to apply its teachings 
 literally in the domain of morals and politics involves con 
 siderations of very grave moment to the cause of social prog 
 ress. They tell us that society is not a manufacture, but a 
 growth : and that civilization, therefore, is not an artificial 
 thing, but a part of Nature of a piece with the development 
 of the embryo, or the unfolding of a flower. Manufacturing 
 morals, we are told, is as unscientific as manufacturing 
 worlds ; while social progress is to be wrought out by grad 
 ual development, and not by spasms of philanthropy or sud 
 den outbreaks of reform. It is not an accident, but a neces 
 sity, and therefore all special reforms are to be superseded 
 by social evolution. The Clarksons and Wilberforces of a 
 past generation must give place to the Spencers and Bage- 
 hots of the present, and thus usher in a new dispensation in 
 
8O SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 the history of the race. According to Herbert Spencer, no 
 teaching or policy can advance the work of social develop 
 ment beyond a certain normal rate, while it is quite possible 
 to perturb, to retard, or to disorder the process ; and, by 
 maintaining favorable conditions, there can not be more good 
 done than by letting social progress go on unhindered, while 
 an immensitv of mischief may be done in the way of disturbing 
 and distorting and repressing, by policies carried out in pur 
 suit of erroneous conceptions. The growth of society is 
 thus analogous to the growth of an animal, or a plant, pro 
 ceeding in a predetermined order under the influence of 
 causes which act spontaneously and in perfect harmony with 
 all cosmical development. 
 
 A very high authority on moral and social questions, 
 catching the spirit of these ideas, traces a great portion of ex 
 isting evils to benevolent interferences for their removal. He 
 asserts that in this world a large part of the business of the 
 wise is to counteract the efforts of the good, and that those 
 only can safely and serviceably encounter social evils who 
 can both watch and in some measure imitate God s mode of 
 dealing with them. He tells us that the coldest tempers are 
 generally, in matters of philanthropy, the soundest thinkers 
 and safest guides and administrators, and that a tender 
 hearted statesman is almost more to be dreaded than a despot 
 or an adventurer ; while, to be worthy and efficient coadju 
 tors with God on the great arena of the world, we must be 
 able to borrow some of the sublime, impassive calm with 
 which, age after age, he has looked down upon the slow pro 
 gress and lingering miseries of his children. The motto of 
 the social evolutionist is, " Slow and sure ; " and he exhorts 
 us, as far as possible, to eliminate the time element from our 
 reckoning of human progress, and imitate nature in her in 
 finite patience in waiting so long for the physical world to 
 grow into decent and comely shape. With him human en 
 deavors for ameliorating the condition of humanity are, of 
 course, hindrances rather than helps, and the refoimer is to 
 be regarded as representing a type of mind no longer needed, 
 
EVOLUTION AND REFORM. 8 1 
 
 and as destined soon to disappear under the law of the sur 
 vival of the fittest. Like the mastodon, the dodo, and other 
 creations of the past, he will become extinct, and we shall 
 patiently and placidly look on while social evolution does the 
 work which his ignorance and fanaticism so clumsily at 
 tempted in a ruder and less advanced stage of society. 
 
 This new gospel demands our attention. It makes its 
 appeal in the name of science, and it has the support of great 
 names. Its teaching is plausible, and it embodies a measure 
 of truth. It is remarkably solacing to a certain order of 
 minds, and we believe multitudes will be tempted to embrace 
 it as a welcome scapegoat for their laziness or moral indiffer 
 ence. It arraigns all the great reforms of the world, and 
 would substitute a sickly moral fatalism for those deeds of 
 heroism and self-sacrifice which have glorified human nature 
 and lighted the world on its way to higher truth. Let us 
 briefly consider it. 
 
 The fallacies on which it rests are not difficult to discover. 
 In the first place, it assumes the existence of an obviously 
 false and impossible analogy. When we are exhorted to im 
 itate God s mode of dealing with social evils, and to become 
 coadjutors with him by borrowing his sublime patience, it 
 may be well to remember that we are not gods, but human 
 beings, very limited in our knowledge and circumscribed in 
 our sphere of action. The folly of the suggestion that we 
 should put ourselves in the place of the Creator, in order that 
 we may have wise and comprehensive views of our duties to 
 our fellow-creatures, is only equaled by its sublime effront 
 ery. Whoever believes in a Supreme Intelligence must be 
 lieve that he sees the end from the beginning. The universe 
 is his expression and breath. All its parts and appointments 
 are the fruit of his infinite wisdom, and are seen to work to 
 gether for good. What is hidden and inscrutable to us must 
 be to him as transparent as light, and in perfect accord with 
 justice, mercy, and truth. To talk about the patience of the 
 Deity, therefore, is to apply the vocabulary of mortals to a 
 Being who infinitely surpasses our comprehension. Patience 
 6 
 
82 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 is a human virtue, implying weakness and imperfection. It 
 means enduring, suffering with meekness, sustaining pains 
 and trials without murmuring or fretfulness, bearing trouble 
 with equanimity. This can not be predicated of God, whose 
 very attributes must make him impassive in surveying the 
 work of his hands. And even this human virtue is only en 
 joined upon us in encountering evils which are unavoidable ; 
 for, if we have the power to remove them, our patience under 
 their burden ceases to be a virtue, if it does not become a 
 vice. 
 
 Equally irrational is the notion that we may become God 
 like by eliminating the element of time in dealing with the 
 evils of society. We have no right to break away from those 
 limitations which make us what we are, and we have no more 
 power to do so than we have to add to our stature by taking 
 thought. With our Creator, as we are told and believe, the 
 universe is "an everlasting Now;" but with us the little 
 fragment of time which rounds out our life is simply the gate 
 way of duty and toil. It is our providential opportunity, into 
 which we should crowd every beneficent activity which an 
 unselfish devotion to truth and humanity can kindle. We can 
 not, therefore, become coadjutors with our Maker by folding 
 our hands and waiting upon evolution, or the cold logic of 
 events, but by acting well our appointed part in the fleeting 
 drama of life by plunging into the strifes and struggles of 
 our time, and wisely but fervently toiling for our kind. These 
 strifes and struggles afford ample scope for our powers, and 
 we have no right to shirk the task to which we are sum 
 moned. Evolution is God s method of operating in the natu 
 ral world, and, in a qualified sense, in the moral ; but it can 
 perform no vicarious office for us as intelligent beings en 
 dowed with a conscience, who must work out our own sal 
 vation. It can not supersede the strivings and sacrifices of 
 good men for the race. It can not cancel our social obliga 
 tions by eloquent talk about gradual development and com 
 prehensive views. It can not cure the ills of society by as 
 suring us that progress is a necessity, and that, while we may 
 
EVOLUTION AND REFORM. 83 
 
 cripple and retard social development, we have no power to 
 aid it. It can not strengthen the hands of struggling virtue, 
 or increase our reverence for our Maker, by reminding us of 
 his unruffled serenity in looking down upon the tardy pro 
 gress and lingering miseries of his children. It can not 
 bring reproach and derision upon the world s great reforms 
 and reformers without a corresponding blight and paralysis 
 of the world s faith in goodness. It can not reform society 
 by proclaiming abstract theories of progress, while those who 
 would smite social evils in their concrete form are branded 
 as fanatics and men of " one idea." It can not save the 
 world through the leadership of men who boast of their philo 
 sophic principles, and their patience under the troubles and 
 sorrows of their fellow-creatures. It can not establish its 
 doctrine of scientific fatalism without sapping the very 
 foundation of morals. Every civilized commuru ty is scourged 
 by some devouring evil, which invites the organized resistance 
 of good men. Through their agency the work of social evo 
 lution goes forward, and they are without excuse if they fail 
 to put forth their endeavors. The shortness of life and the 
 feebleness of our powers make the time-element in our reck 
 oning of progress all the more vital. They should render us 
 not more but less patient in dealing with curable social ills. 
 They should incite us to lavish our efforts in the service of 
 humanity, instead of stingily withholding them, and waiting 
 supinely for evolution to take up our task. They should 
 teach us to capitalize our philanthropy to the utmost, and 
 fund it freely in deeds of active beneficence. Any one of 
 the reforms of our day is large enough to tax the best ener 
 gies of our strongest men, and all of them must lag and lan 
 guish if, instead of looking to partial and immediate results 
 through our personal exertions, we commit the solution of 
 social problems to the working of inevitable laws. 
 
 But I observe, in the next place, that the central idea of 
 this new philosophy is fallacious. It is not contended that 
 the forces which rule society naturally gravitate in the direc 
 tion of evil, nor is it denied that their tendency as in the 
 
84 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 case of individual men, is toward improved conditions. If 
 this were not true, there could be no such thing as a science 
 of history, and the moral world would be the sport of 
 chance. I accept Mr. Bagehot s general idea of a philoso 
 phy of progress, which he so skillfully labors to enforce and 
 illustrate; but Mr. Bagehot himself asserts that "the prog 
 ress of man requires the cooperation of men for its develop 
 ment/ It is not true that the process of civilization is a part 
 of nature, like the unfolding of a flower. It is not true that 
 social progress goes on as a necessity, according to any in 
 variable law. It is not true that laws and institutions grow, 
 in the sense in which we speak of the growth of plants and 
 animals. If these premises were valid, Mr. Spencer would 
 undoubtedly be right in declaring that, while we can retard 
 or disorder the process of social development, we can do 
 nothing whatever to advance it. But the fact is that, while 
 the process of development in the animal and vegetable 
 kingdoms is achieved indirectly and unintentionally, social 
 evolution is chieflv the result of efforts consciously put forth 
 for the purpose. To a very large extent communities, like 
 individuals, are the architects of their own fortunes. Evolu 
 tion is ever at work ; but whether it takes a forward or retro 
 grade course must depend largely upon the voluntary action 
 of the people, or of their recognized leaders, in adopting or 
 rejecting particular laws or policies. Prof. Cairnes, in an 
 article written a few years ago, combating the views of Mr. 
 Spencer, proves from the highest critical and historical au 
 thority that the stationary condition of the race is the rule 
 and the progressive the exception, and that the greater part 
 of mankind has never shown the least desire that its civil 
 institutions should be improved. He shows that on this 
 ground, and not according to any theory of social evolution, 
 we must account for the retrograde course of certain nations 
 after they have reached an advanced stage of civilization ; 
 and he makes the apt quotation from Mr. Mill, that " politi 
 cal institutions are the work of men ; owe their origin and 
 existence to human will. Men did not wake on a summer 
 
EVOLUTION AND REFORM. 85 
 
 morning and find them sprung up. Neither do they resem 
 ble trees, which, once planted, are aye growing while men 
 are sleeping. In every stage of their existence they are 
 made what they are by human voluntary agency." And this 
 reasoning is justified by historical facts which he adduces. 
 Rome was incalculably indebted for her later pre-eminence to 
 the fortunate and timely adoption of her early code of laws. 
 Her decline and ruin resulted from the decay of her yeo 
 manry and her vast landed estates. The paternal despotism 
 of China carried her up to the civilization she has attained, 
 but is a most formidable barrier to further progress. The 
 absolute monarchy of the Jews produced different results, 
 because they had a peculiar body of men called prophets, 
 the patriots and guides of their time, who were able to with 
 stand the power of kings and priests. Not upon any invari 
 able law, therefore, working in the direction of good or evil, 
 but upon human agency, must the fortunes of states greatly 
 depend. The right does not always come uppermost in the 
 concerns of this world. The truth is often put down by 
 falsehood and force. In his famous essay on "Liberty, * 
 Mr. Mill says Christianity itself only became predominant 
 because the persecutions of its enemies were occasional, and 
 separated by long intervals of propagandism. Injustice is 
 not an appointed necessity, but neither is justice strong 
 enough to win in her ever-recurring conflict with the powers 
 of evil without the help of faithful and heroic men. " We 
 ought not to forget that there is an incessant and ever-flow 
 ing current toward the worse, consisting of all the follies, all 
 the vices, all the negligences, indolences, and supinenesses 
 of mankind, which is only controlled and kept from sweep 
 ing all before it by the exertions which some persons con 
 stantly, and others by fits, put forth in the direction of good 
 and worthy objects." This confession of faith of John Stu 
 art Mill, with which Prof. Cairnes enforces his argument, 
 was the key-note of his life ; and whoever thoroughly accepts 
 it as the inspiration of his labors will be ready to work for 
 humanity as if the fortunes of the world depended on his per- 
 
86 
 
 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 sonal endeavors. The fortunes of the world, indeed, to a 
 large extent, have depended upon the toils and struggles of 
 just such men ; while those who have looked on in indiffer 
 ence, or opposed all efforts at reform because they believed 
 it wiser "to let social progress go on unhindered," have left 
 the world little better than they found it, if they have not 
 been positive obstructions to human welfare. 
 
 Who can look back upon the great reforms of the world, 
 and pronounce them so many ill-fated struggles to better its 
 condition which only deflected the path of progress from its 
 true course? Who can gainsay the grand lesson of history 
 so beautifully stated by Mr. Motley, that "the generation 
 that plants is not the generation that gathers in the harvest, 
 but all mankind at last inherit what is sown in the blood and 
 tears of a few " ? Who, that is not the slave of mere theories, 
 would discrown the martyrs whose blood has been the seed 
 of the church? Who would dishonor the apostles and proph 
 ets of free thought in every age who have blazed the way of 
 progress for the race, and made our present civilization pos 
 sible? Mr. Buckle affirms that Adam Smith s "Wealth of 
 Nations has contributed more to the happiness of man than 
 has been effected by the united abilities of all the statesmen 
 and legislators of whom history has preserved an authentic 
 account. The age we live in is what we find it because of 
 the labors and sacrifices of all the great souls of the past. 
 If progress has been evolved, it has also quite as certainly 
 been propagated. It is not simply the product of law, but 
 the fruit of human toil and sacrifice, voluntarily embraced 
 for the improvement and regeneration of mankind. Our 
 churches, our educational institutions, our organized chari 
 ties, our scientific associations, our various special reforms, 
 and that marvelous instrumentality called the press, are all 
 so many testimonies to the power of voluntary efforts pur 
 posely employed in the furtherance of human well-being, 
 and so many practical refutations of the theory that social 
 development is dwarfed and deformed by attempts to im 
 prove it. 
 
EVOLUTION AND REFORM. 87 
 
 But the new doctrine is not only fallacious, but necessarily 
 demoralizing. This is implied in what I have already said, 
 but it needs to be particularly emphasized. It unavoidably 
 results from the principle that social development, while it 
 may be hindered or deranged, can not be artificially bet 
 tered. Mr. Spencer says this doctrine "is calculated to 
 have a steadying effect on thought and action." It can not 
 fail to produce a paralyzing effect. He admits that sanguine 
 reformers will feel that it takes away " much of the stimulus 
 to exertion ;" and he asks, " If large advances in human 
 welfare can come only in the slow process of things,, which 
 will inevitably bring them, why should we trouble ourselves?" 
 This staggering question he answers by saying that "on vis 
 ionary hopes, rational criticisms have a depressing influence," 
 but that "it is better to recognize the truth." The truth 
 which he thus frankly counsels us to recognize is the fatalism 
 of his theory of development, and the consequent helpless 
 ness of humanity to speed its social advancement. Accord 
 ing to this doctrine the reformer is not simply a fanatic, but a 
 social nuisance. He is a benevolent intermeddler with a 
 process which may be marred, but can not be mended ; and 
 the business of wise and sober men is to counteract his mis 
 chief. The philanthropist must surrender his vocation, and 
 his dreams of human amelioration, to men of cold tempers 
 and comprehensive views. The patriot, who pictures to 
 himself a possible future of renovated institutions and a re 
 generated state, and burns with the longing to realize his 
 aspirations, must be put under the training of Science, while 
 Evolution is to have free course and be glorified. 
 
 The effect of these teachings, if generally accepted, can 
 not be doubtful. Unquestionably, the fanaticism so com 
 monly found in alliance with reformatory movements, has 
 wrought much mischief. No one will dispute this. Fanati 
 cism is the epidemic of our times, whether it shows itself in 
 special reforms, in politics, in religion, or in trade. It seems 
 to be inseparable from human affairs, and especially all high 
 endeavors. It certainly has its uses, nor is it easy to see 
 
88 
 
 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 how the race could have advanced without it. Worldly pru 
 dence and calculation are not the highest virtues, nor the 
 chief mainsprings of human progress. They are honored by 
 the selfish and the time-serving quite as sincerely as by the 
 worthier classes in society. The reformer often finds them 
 the cousins-german of cowardice, and the most formidable 
 foes of that disinterestedness which animates his labors. The 
 philosopher, too, with his broad views and many-sided tend 
 encies, will decline to follow him. He loves. the truth, and 
 sincerely dedicates himself to its service, but is not ready to 
 bear witness to it by great personal sacrifices. He doubts 
 as much as he believes, and has no taste for any kind of 
 martyrdom. One of the foremost writers and thinkers of our 
 time tells us that profound thought, if thoroughly honest and 
 conscientious, is deplorably apt to sap the foundations and 
 impair the strength of our moral as well as intellectual con 
 victions. The thinkers of the world are not its saviors. 
 4 The tree of knowledge is not that of life." "Enthusiasm," 
 says Emerson, "is the leaping lightning, not to be measured 
 by the horse-power of the understanding." The truth is, 
 that real social progress is always accomplished by imper 
 fectly aspiring toward a perfect ideal ; and in this work the 
 faculty of imagination has the chief share. It has been well 
 said that if you destroy this faculty the condition of man will 
 become as stationary as that of the brutes. Without the 
 fanaticism of self-sacrifice which the imagination kindles, 
 our civilization would be hopelessly dwarfed and mutilated. 
 The fanaticism of the early Christians was the soil in 
 which their faith took root ; and the simple and sublime doc 
 trines of the new religion, which now bear witness to its 
 truth, were floated down the centuries on the errors and mis 
 conceptions of its disciples. Without the impelling fanati 
 cism of Luther and his collaborators, their battle against 
 Rome would never have been fought. The founder of 
 Quakerism paid little heed to the canons of worldly wisdom, 
 while the fanaticism of John Woolman purged the Society of 
 Friends of the guilt of slavery, and waked such a response 
 
EVOLUTION AND REFORM. 89 
 
 in other humane hearts, in the Old World and the New, that 
 the way was thus opened for emancipation in the British 
 West India Islands, and the ultimate abolition of slavery in 
 the United States. It was the fanaticism of Daniel O Con- 
 nel which achieved Catholic emancipation, and made Ire 
 land a nation. When he began his agitation nothing could 
 have seemed more utterly and hopelessly impossible, accord 
 ing to all human calculation ; but his soul was so burdened 
 with the accumulated sorrows of his country, which his 
 matchless eloquence set to music, that he became the libera 
 tor of Ireland by thus multiplying himself among his people. 
 It was the fanaticism of reform which repealed the English 
 Corn Laws, in opposition to the statesmanship, the public 
 opinion, and the educated classes of the times. If Garrison 
 and his associates had taken counsel of the wise and sober 
 men of America, who could see only failure and disaster in 
 the anti-slavery agitation, the world-famous crusade of the 
 abolitionists would never have been heard of, and the South 
 ern negro would have been turned over to the "slow and 
 sure" account of social evolution, through which "the sum 
 of all villainies" would have been planted in every Northern 
 State. It was the fanaticism of our fathers a century ago 
 which achieved American independence ; for no unimpas- 
 sioned judgment of their undertaking could have given 
 strength to their hopes. The chances of success were in fact 
 overwhelmingly against them. Of one thing only were they 
 sure, and that was, that England had no right to bind them 
 by laws in the making of which they were denied any share, 
 and that they were ready, if need be, to offer their lives as 
 hostages to liberty. Out of the fanaticism of Fourier, St. 
 Simon and Robert Owen has come the organized struggle of 
 labor which is now troubling the dreams of despots, compell 
 ing capital to respect it by its harsh machinery of strikes and 
 trades unions, and at the same time opening the way for the 
 just and saving principle of co-operation. Christianity itself, 
 the great seed-plot of reform, is the farthest thing possible 
 from a system of logic, nor "was it accomplished by prize- 
 
Cp SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 essays, Bridgewater bequests, and a minimum of four thou 
 sand five hundred a year." To the Jews it was a stumbling- 
 block, and to the Greeks foolishness ; and its doctrine of 
 perfect self-renunciation fares little better with the philoso 
 phers and scientists of to-day. 
 
 Indeed, if reforms were to be left to thinkers and scholars, 
 and the wise and prudent, they would never be undertaken 
 at all. The grandest efforts of heroic virtue can only be in 
 spired by that supreme devotion to a holy cause which 
 amounts to a fascination, and nothing less than this can call 
 forth the enduring admiration and perfect love of mankind. 
 This truth is illustrated in the lives of all the world s great 
 martyrs to liberty and high priests of reform. If no hazards 
 are to be braved, nothing will be attempted. None of the 
 great agitations of the world could have passed muster if 
 they had been compelled in advance to go to trial on a cool 
 calculation of the chances of success and the sacrifices in 
 volved. The reformer feels that if he would save his life he 
 must be ready to lose it. He sees the particular cause he 
 espouses with such vividness, from his mount of vision, and 
 embraces it with such unreserved ardor, that its service is 
 accepted as a divine command. The light which points his 
 way casts all else into the shade. The fire within him con 
 sumes every doubt and fear which could beset the path of a 
 cautious and considerate man. He accepts the philosophy 
 embodied in Mr. Lincoln s motto of ; one war at a time." 
 If his mind were large enough to see all reforms in their 
 just relationships, and coolly and impartially to estimate their 
 real value and the difficulties of success, he would probably 
 espouse none of them. The task would seem too large, and 
 he would lack that intensity of conviction and concentration 
 of zeal which alone could inspire the needed courage and 
 self-forgetfulness. The very one-sidedness of reformers, 
 their readiness to die for what they believe to be the truth, 
 and that element of exaggeration which so often enters into 
 their conceptions, thus become providential disguises, for 
 which the world has reason to return thanks. Unquestion- 
 
EVOLUTION AND REFORM. 9! 
 
 ably, prudence and common sense are qualities which can 
 not be prized too highly in the ordinary concerns of life. 
 Science and philosophy have also their sovereign value, and 
 have rendered inestimable service in checking the excesses 
 and extravagance of reform ; but the theory which would 
 substitute social evolution for individual and organized efforts 
 to improve society, would take the poetry out of life and re 
 duce humanity itself to a machine. It strikes a deadly blow 
 at personal responsibility, and belittles human character, 
 which is above all price. It lays its benumbing hand upon 
 the divinest charities and sweetest humanities of the world, 
 and pours contempt upon the sublimest displays of exalted 
 virtue with which the history of the race has made us ac 
 quainted. 
 
 Nor is it any answer to the views we have presented to 
 say that special reforms served their turn as a provisional 
 necessity, before the principle of social evolution was discov 
 ered, but are now to be thrust aside as the outgrown gar 
 ments of childhood. On the contrary, I believe there never 
 was a time when signal efforts and sacrifices for human wel 
 fare were more urgently demanded than now. The social 
 progress already achieved only points the way to new duties 
 and wider fields of labor. The discussion and settlement of 
 one question only reveals its relations to others, which logi 
 cally follow. In the remote future a time may come, through 
 the toils and struggles of humanity, when the work of reform 
 will end in universal conformity to the moral law ; but that 
 millenial day is rather too far off to vex us with its interests. 
 Our duty is with " the living present ;" and who believes it 
 safe to hand over the great problems of society to-day to the 
 cold and relentless law of development? Look, for exam 
 ple, at our current politics. The issues which divide our 
 great parties are as undiscoverable as they were in the year 
 1852. Neither of them dares face the real questions which 
 most deeply concern the people, and upon which, alone, 
 party organizations can be justified. Respecting the vital 
 questions of finance and the tariff, each agrees that in par- 
 
92 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 ticular states and congressional districts its leaders may pro 
 claim such doctrines as will be most likely to secure local 
 ascendency, and thus to make its pretended principles 7 the 
 foot-ball of party success. Even their national platforms 
 pipe the same music through different words. It has been 
 aptly observed that half the Democrats are good Republi 
 cans, and half the Republicans are good Democrats. Their 
 antagonisms are simply a memory and a habit, and yet party 
 loyalty is intensified just as the uselessness of party ma 
 chinery becomes more and more evident. Their heaven is 
 power, and each is striving to reach it by despicable make 
 shifts and stale appeals to its traditions. We have reached 
 one of those seasons of moral stagnation which follow revo 
 lutionary periods, and sometimes threaten the very existence 
 of free government. By a sort of universal understanding, 
 the word politics has become the synonym of "jockey ship." 
 Its higher and real meaning is practically forgotten, if not 
 openly laughed at. The old slavery question introduced 
 conscience into our public affairs. It reached do\vn to the 
 very foundations of government, and touched the great 
 springs of our national life. Heart and brain went forth in 
 the glad service of a great cause, and the spirit of reform 
 was in the air. Men of the mo.st commonplace characters 
 were so lifted up and ennobled by the struggle th at the whole 
 land seemed ablaze with the fires of a moral revolution. We 
 believe the hour has struck for another revival, and that it 
 should now be the mission of the reformer to rouse the pop 
 ular conscience from its deadly slumber, and inspire the con 
 duct of public affairs with the great moralities which dignify 
 private life. He should resolve, with all his might, to divin 
 ize instead of diabolize public life, and that the w r ord politics 
 shall no longer stand for venality and pelf, but the applica 
 tion of great and enduring principles to the public well-being. 
 He should insist that political knaves and traders shall be 
 sent to the rear, and their places supplied by men who really 
 believe in God, in humanity, and in rectitude. And, as the 
 necessary preliminary to all this, he should forthwith declare 
 
EVOLUTION AND REFORM. 93 
 
 war to the death against the despotism of the caucus, and 
 hail the independent voter as the anointed political Messiah 
 on whom we are to believe. 
 
 But some one may ask me to be more specific, and to 
 name some of the special reforms which yet demand atten 
 tion. One of them presents itself in the financial problem. 
 To the present generation, finance is a new issue in Ameri 
 can politics. It is altogether unfamiliar to the customary 
 thought of the people, because the course of our politics for 
 more than a quarter of a century has steadily turned in other 
 directions. The protracted and absorbing controversy re 
 specting African slavery necessarily diverted attention from 
 economic questions, while the war which finally swept slav 
 ery away left in its track a paper-money problem scarcely 
 less fearful than that of the rebellion itself. Financial knowl 
 edge is now the demand of the hour, for, if financial quack 
 ery is allowed to take its place, national bankruptcy and irre 
 trievable dishonor may be the result. There is but one way 
 out of our dilemma, and we shall be obliged to pursue it, 
 even should it involve as thorough an overhauling of the 
 whole question as that through which the country was finally 
 prepared to grapple with the slavery issue and to settle it for 
 ever. Why is the question of our currency now involved in 
 so hopeless a muddle? Why are so many of our politicians, 
 in dealing with it, so fearfully afflicted with mental vertigo? 
 Why do they lead us into such a wilderness of metaphysics, 
 and spread before us such a famine of ideas? How shall we 
 explain their frequent somersaults, and their marvelous per 
 formances in "ground and lofty tumbling?" It is not that 
 the question is an inscrutable one, but it has not been consid 
 ered. Until quite recently it has not found its way into our 
 politics at all, since the old issue respecting a national bank 
 was settled. What we need is a national education in the 
 elements of financial knowledge, and I should be glad to see 
 this begin in our common schools. Indeed, some of our 
 great party leaders and latter-day statesmen seem to need 
 this knowledge quite as much as the rank and file of the peo- 
 
94 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 pie. If it were possible, the horn-book of finance should be 
 placed in their hands, and they should be taught, as speedily 
 as possible, the definition of money ; that something can not 
 be made out of nothing by an act of Congress ; that real 
 money must be dug out of the earth, and can not be obtained 
 by printing any denomination of it on paper ; that a dollar is 
 a silver or gold coin of the value of one hundred cents, and 
 not any fraction of this sum, nor a mere promise to pay a 
 dollar, which can be discharged by another promise ; that a 
 paper currency, irredeemable in gold or silver, has proved a 
 curse to every country that has tried it, and that any scheme 
 for relieving the indebtedness of individuals or nations with 
 out payment is a violation of the command "Thou shalt not 
 steal." Undoubtedly, many questions in political economy 
 as yet remain unsettled, but there are certain elementary 
 principles of finance which are as well established as any 
 facts of physical science ; and, if they had been well taught 
 in our schools, the men who are now preying upon the pop 
 ular ignorance and disturbing the peace of the country would 
 have been more worthily employed. 
 
 The thorough reform of our civil service is another urgent 
 demand of the times. It has often been pronounced " the 
 best on the planet ; " but it is, in fact, a perfectly shameless 
 system of official huckstering and political prostitution. It 
 poisons the life-blood of the body politic. It places the power 
 and patronage of the government at the disposal of trained 
 political pickpockets, who make the very atmosphere me- 
 phitic with their familiar vices. It frames iniquity into law, 
 and makes law the servant of iniquity. It stains the good 
 name of our country at home and abroad. It is the root and 
 source of the most startling bribery and corruption, breaking 
 out in high places, and inundating the whole land with their 
 desolating effects. It robs the people annually to the tune of 
 millions and tens of millions, through its whisky rings, its 
 Indian rings, its custom-house rings, its railroad rings, and 
 other legalized machinery which it manipulates. It reduces 
 rapacity to a science, and elevates roguery to the dignity of 
 
EVOLUTION AND REFORM. 95 
 
 an art. It has so polluted our politics and debauched the 
 moral sense of our public servants that even so respectable a 
 man as Senator Howe, of Wisconsin, openly defends it, and 
 actually refers to the saturnalia of thieves who defied the 
 country under the two administrations of General Grant as a 
 proof of the honesty of his party. The sovereign remedy for 
 all this is the destruction, root and branch, of the whole sys 
 tem of spoils and plunder ; and this will require the bold sur 
 gery of reform. It calls for an insurrection of honest men 
 against the disciplined party of Janizaries who have so long 
 ruled them. Neither Congress nor the executive depart 
 ment of the government will take a single step until com 
 pelled to do so by public opinion. We can no more depend 
 upon our parties and politicians to begin the work than we 
 can trust the dram-shops of the country to organize against 
 their traffic. If any man doubts this, we need only refer him 
 to the spectacle of duplicity and demagogism which our ser 
 vants in Washington have exhibited in dealing with this 
 question during the past six or seven years, and to the gen 
 eral chuckle of delight which followed the final abandonment 
 of all further attempts to reform administrative abuses ; while 
 the faithlessness of the present administration to its pledges 
 in dealing with this issue and its slippery game of fast and 
 loose have provoked the disgust and contempt of honest men 
 of all parties. The remedv must come from the people, and 
 the people must be rallied and organized against the hierarchy 
 of rogues and malefactors who prey upon the nation and 
 make political honesty a jest. 
 
 The labor question involves a reform of world-wide sig 
 nificance. The question of finance is simply a part of it. 
 The abolition of negro slavery was a magnificent triumph of 
 labor reform, lifting four million human beings from the con 
 dition of beasts of burden to the dignity of men. This sys 
 tem of chattelized humanity rested upon that false relation of 
 arbitrary power upon the one side, and dependence and help 
 lessness on the other, which is the life of every form of 
 oppression. The right adjustment of the conflict between 
 
96 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 capital and labor will emancipate all the races of men from 
 all forms of slavery. It will consummate the work of which 
 abolitionism was the beginning. This involves a complete 
 revolution in our whole system of legislation and policy. 
 The foundations of our civilization were laid in conquest and 
 robbery, and these, under the names of feudalism and mon 
 archy, have held the race in subjection. The remedy is rad 
 ical reconstruction, and it involves the life of our institutions. 
 "At the very commencement of society," says Mr. Thorn 
 ton, in his valuable book on " Labor," " as soon as materials 
 for its construction were brought together, its living con 
 stituents proceeded forthwith to arrange themselves in layers, 
 the stronger, nimbler and cunninger climbing up on their 
 brothers shoulders, and occupying the higher places 
 and leaving to those below only the office of uphold 
 ing them in their elevation." He adds, "The upper 
 myriads may cry peace, peace, but there will be no more 
 peace for them, on the old terms, with the lower millions." 
 And there ought to be none. When we talk about the rights 
 of labor, we talk about the rights of man. When we say that 
 a fair day s work is entitled to a fair day s wages, we declare 
 a principle which, as Carlyle says, is as " indisputable as 
 arithmetical multiplication tables," and which " must and 
 will have itself fulfilled." We can no more escape it than 
 we can escape gravitation. Our talk about democracy, and 
 the sacredness of human rights, while capital has its foot on 
 the neck of the laborer, is a sham and a cheat. It is the 
 hollow dreariness of demagogism. The chief end of gov 
 ernment is not the protection of property, but of man ; and 
 this truth must be practically illustrated in such laws as shall 
 hold in check the power of concentrated capital in alliance 
 with labor-saving machinery, and those giant corporations 
 which too often control the makers and expounders of the 
 laws, and are virtually endowed with life-offices and powers 
 of hereditary succession. The task is a large one, and of 
 course will require time, toil and patience. It presents the 
 most fearful problem with which enlightened humanity has 
 
EVOLUTION AND REFORM. 97 
 
 yet been called on to deal. By the side of this labor question 
 the old slavery issue dwindles into a trifle. It casts its por 
 tentous shadow across every civilized land, and is rallying 
 and organizing multiplying millions of discontented and de 
 termined men, whose just demands can not safely be slighted. 
 It foreshadows a conflict between the vandalism and madness 
 of communism on the one hand, and the rapacity of capital 
 on the other, which naturally tends to provoke and inspire 
 it, and which, as the Duke of Argyll declares, "overrides 
 even the love of life, and silences even the fear of death." 
 The omens of a coming storm are quite as discernible as 
 were those which preceded the deadly struggle which at 
 last buried African slavery in its bloody grave. Shall we 
 heed these omens, and by wise and timely precautions seek 
 to avert the threatened calamity, or madly resign ourselves 
 to the reckless and pitiless principle of evolution, and thus 
 invite the lightning of retribution, which else might be con 
 ducted harmlessly to the earth? 
 
 The land question is the twin-brother of the labor ques 
 tion, and involves considerations equally momentous and far- 
 reaching. "The earth is literally the leaf we feed on ;" and, 
 therefore, no question can more vitally affect humanity than 
 the character of the laws which deal with it. This is most 
 signally illustrated in England, whose agricultural laborers 
 are among the most degraded human beings on earth. This 
 is the ripe fruit of her system of land-tenures. "Time was," 
 says the Westminster Review, "when, at the call of the coun 
 try, the yeomen of England rose and fought and conquered 
 her liberties. Their degenerate descendants would be more 
 likely to fight as hirelings for any form of slavery and super 
 stition if, indeed, they could be got to fight at all." It is 
 as true of England as of any country in Europe, that, " the 
 whole energy, and knowledge, and resources of the land are 
 barreled up in towns." Mr. Hoskyns, in his chapter on the 
 land-laws of that country, says : " There is not a living ani 
 mal connected with the farm, from the draught-team down 
 to the sheep-dog, that is not better lodged and looked after 
 7 
 
90 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 than the laborer and his family." He is a slave. His con 
 dition is exactly described by the definition of a slave, as 
 given in the old codes of the Carolinas, namely, " one 
 doomed to live without knowledge, and without the capacity 
 to make anything his own, and to toil that another may reap 
 the fruits. 1 Liberty implies opportunity,* self-culture, the 
 untrammeled development and use of the powers of a man ; 
 and all these are denied him. Land-monopoly, indeed, is 
 slavery. A government which allows the land to become 
 the patrimony of the few can not be free, for the simple rea 
 son that the land-holders of every country are its masters. 
 The most stupendous system of organized robbery which 
 scourges the world is that which strips the poor of their nat 
 ural inheritance in the soil. 
 
 Are we told that this question does not concern us in the 
 United States, since we have no laws of primogeniture and 
 entail, and no great monopolies handed down to us as the 
 fruit of feudal times? I answer, that, through our large 
 grants to railway corporations, our system of Indian treaties, 
 our swamp-land legislation, our yet-unforbidden curse of 
 land speculation, and other forms of maladministration, we 
 are laying the foundations of a system of serfdom almost as 
 fearful as that which now afflicts England. In several states 
 of our Union there are single farms of a half-million acres ; 
 and even in old Massachusetts, where liberty and local self- 
 government had their birth in he r policy of small estates, the 
 large farms are rapidly swallowing up the small ones, while 
 a crouching tenantry, toiling under absentee landlords, bears 
 witness at once to the decline of agriculture and the decay of 
 freedom. If our popular system of government is to be pre 
 served, nothing is more certain than that our land policy 
 must be radically reformed. And it will not reform itself. 
 Evolution will not meet the danger, for evil and ruin are 
 evolved, as well as good, when unchecked by human en 
 deavors. The false steps we have taken must be reversed 
 in the interest of justice and the rights of the people. We 
 need such agitators and reformers as Cobden and Mill, and 
 
EVOLUTION AND REFORM. 99 
 
 such missionaries as Joseph Arch. What will our vaunted 
 freedom be worth if we suffer the canker of great estates to 
 eat away the life of our yeomanry? What refuge will be left 
 for us against the unhealthy growth and fearful domination 
 of our chief cities, if a great system of centralization in agri 
 culture is to palsy the manhood of our "rural districts," and 
 give us such a breed of cultivators as those of England? 
 These questions demand an answer from every believer in 
 democratic government. They take hold of our social well- 
 being and our national life ; for 
 
 "A bold peasantry, their country s pride, 
 When once destroyed can never, be supplied." 
 
 The reformer is needed in dealing with still another ques 
 tion. We have only lately commemorated the nation s first 
 centennial. We fitly honored the deeds of the famous men 
 who declared that "taxation without representation is 
 tyranny," and threw life, fortune, and honor into the defense 
 of this principle. It w r as the key-note and ceaseless battle- 
 cry of their grand struggle. The right of the people who 
 paid the taxes to be heard on the question of voting them 
 was accepted as a self-evident truth. "They who have no 
 voice nor vote," said Dr. Franklin, " in the selecting of rep 
 resentatives, do not enjoy liberty, but are absolutely enslaved 
 to those who have votes." This is as self-evident as any 
 truth in the great Declaration. A free government is one 
 resting upon the free choice of the people, and every person 
 having the power of choosing has an inborn and equal right 
 to be heard, in person or by his representative, in the man 
 agement of those public interests which concern him in com 
 mon with all other citizens. Idiots, lunatics, infants, and 
 criminals who have forfeited their right, are necessarily pre 
 cluded from any share in the exercise of political power ; 
 but no other exceptions can be made consistently with the 
 rights of man. An intelligent human being, innocent of 
 crime, yielding his obedience to the government, answerable 
 to it in his person and property for disobedience, and yet 
 
TOO SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 denied any political rights, is a slave. If this is not true, 
 then nothing is true. But our fathers were not ready to 
 apply this truth in its complete length and breadth. They 
 did not perfectly keep step to the logic of their own avowed 
 principles. They lived in the twilight of the political gospel 
 they proclaimed, and scarcely dreamed of the high-noon of 
 democracy which has since lighted up the political horizon. 
 Accordingly, they withheld the ballot from the poor man on 
 account of his poverty. This was done in all the states in 
 the early years of the government. As a nation, we have 
 long since outgrown this folly. The negro was denied any 
 share in the exercise of political power on account of the 
 color of his skin, or that American prejudice which had been 
 evolved from the institution of slavery. But slavery has 
 perished, and the principles of our fathers have found an 
 other application in the conversion of the negro into a citizen 
 and a voter. We have now no qualification for the ballot 
 founded on race, color, or propeity, or any educational re 
 quirement ; and yet we have twenty million citizens in the 
 United States who are compelled to pay their taxes and obey 
 the laws, while they are denied any share whatever in the 
 exercise of political power. This is done because of their sex, 
 and is as hateful and anti-republican a discrimination as can 
 well be conceived. An aristocracy founded on it is quite as 
 odious and absurd as an aristocracy founded on color, or 
 race, or any other mere accident of humanity. It can not 
 be defended for a moment by any believer in democracy. 
 In the name of justice and decency, what has sex to do with 
 the question of moral or political right? But my purpose is 
 not now r to argue the question, but only to state it, and to 
 rank it among the grand living issues yet to be tried by the 
 people. How r it will finally be decided is not a matter of the 
 least doubt. Our exclusion of woman from politics will take 
 its place among the curious and startling barbarisms of the 
 past. It is true that as yet we are only midway on our jour 
 ney to universal suffrage ; but that journey w r ill be completed, 
 because any step backward will be as impossible as any 
 
EVOLUTION AND REFORM. IOI 
 
 pause where we are. We are constantly enlarging the 
 sphere of woman s occupations. We are reforming our 
 laws respecting her personal and property rights. We are 
 providing for her a higher education, and thus recognizing 
 her claim to equal rights. We have already made her a cit 
 izen, and in some of the states, and as to certain positions, 
 she is entitled to vote and to hold office. There is, and there 
 can be, no abiding-place in her progress toward perfect po 
 litical equality with man. When and how this goal shall 
 be reached must largely depend upon the labors and sacri 
 fices of those who would speed the work ; for the toils and 
 struggles of the abolitionists might just as wisely have been 
 renounced, as to surrender the cause of woman s enfran 
 chisement to the tender mercies of social evolution. 
 
 Time will only permit me to refer to one further task 
 which invokes the helping hand of reform, and that is the 
 total separation of our civil and ecclesiastical affairs. Our 
 Protestant sects complain that the pope, as the vicegerent of 
 God on earth, not only claims supreme authority over the 
 consciences of men, but over all human governments, and 
 thus assails civil liberty as well as religious. They say it 
 was the Catholic Church which defeated Mr. Gladstone s 
 Education Bill, and inspired the Franco-German War, while 
 it is striving to prevent the unification of Germany, and 
 blocking up the way of struggling liberalism in France and 
 Spain. They affirm that this same power is waging war 
 against our common schools, and endeavoring, by sapping 
 and mining, to intrench itself in the United States ; and that 
 it believes our free institutions offer a better soil for the 
 growth of its principles than the centralized governments of 
 Europe, while plotting the overthrow of our liberty through 
 its vast and well-drilled army of Jesuits. How shall we deal 
 with this alleged raid upon civilization and progress? Social 
 evolution will not meet the danger, for that has brought it 
 to our doors, and seems to be constantly giving it strength. 
 Shall we appeal to sectarian animosities, and array Protest 
 antism against Catholicism in deadly strife? The thought of 
 
IO2 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 such a struggle between a great centralized power, always 
 acting as a unit, and warring sects which could never be 
 effectively rallied under a common banner, is not to be enter 
 tained for a moment. The question is not so much one of 
 sects, or religions, as of constitutional liberty, vitally affect 
 ing the rights of all men. The government of the United 
 States is neither Protestant nor Catholic. It is not even 
 Christian, Washington himself being our witness ; nor is it 
 Jewish, Mohammedan or pagan. The government rightfully 
 has nothing to do with religion, and religion has nothing to 
 do with the government. The state has no more right to 
 teach religion than the church has to assume the functions of 
 the state. Our only safe ground, therefore, is the total secu 
 larization of our politics. The " concubinage of church and 
 state" must be utterly destroyed. On this principle all can 
 stand, irrespective of religious faith. While the state is 
 bound to protect all men in the unmolested enjoyment of 
 their religious opinions, it must stand entirely aloof from any 
 sort of espousal of any form of faith. This is our safeguard 
 against ecclesiastical domination, whether Catholic or Prot 
 estant. 
 
 And this will require an amendment of the constitution 
 of the United States. It declares that " Congress shall make 
 no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting 
 the free exercise thereof," and thus places the national gov 
 ernment in its true position ; but the individual states are left 
 entirely free in dealing with this question. They may make 
 the Catholic faith or that of any Protestant sect the state re 
 ligion, and levy taxes for the support of it upon those who 
 conscientiously disbelieve in its creed. The union of church 
 and state, which our fathers repudiated in the national con 
 stitution, may thus be established in defiance of the rights of 
 conscience, as was systematically done in all the colonies, 
 save one, during the period of the Revolution and at the be 
 ginning of the government. Some of them required all offi 
 cers of the state to be of the Protestant faith ; and even at 
 this day religious tests are prescribed in several of them as 
 
EVOLUTION AND REFORM. IOJ 
 
 conditions of holding office, by which the choice of lit men 
 for the public service is foolishly restricted. In violation of 
 the principles of our fathers, the church property of both 
 Catholics and Protestants is exempted from taxation, thus in 
 directly compelling Jews, Mohammedans, theists, atheists 
 and freethinkers to contribute to the support of a religion 
 which they disbelieve, and violating the rights of conscience, 
 which, to every reflecting man, are even more precious than 
 the right to liberty or life. A constitutional amendment has 
 recently been proposed in the Senate of the United States, 
 which, if adopted, will recognize the Bible in our public 
 schools by "divine right," and forever protect church prop 
 erty in its present unjust exemption ; and this amendment 
 lacked only a few votes of the two-thirds required to pass it. 
 The growth of the ecclesiastical spirit is still further manifested 
 by another proposed amendment, emanating from an organi 
 zation called the National Reform Association," providing 
 for the " acknowledgment of Almighty God as the source of 
 all authority in civil government, of the Lord Jesus Christ as 
 the ruler of nations, and his revealed will as of supreme au 
 thority." Should this be adopted, the union of church and 
 state would be complete, and " appropriate legislation " for 
 the disfranchisement and punishment of heretics would un 
 doubtedly follow. The only true remedy for these threat 
 ened dangers is the absolute divorce of civil and ecclesiastical 
 authority. There is no middle ground on which we can 
 stand. " Our constitution must be changed to suit our prac 
 tices, or our practices to suit our constitution." It must be on 
 one side or the other, and the attempt to place it on both will 
 prove as fruitless, and it may be as disastrous, as was the 
 effort to make our government "half slave and half free." 
 We oppose and denounce the assaults of the Catholic Church 
 upon our common schools as a monstrous interference with 
 purely secular affairs ; but our own sense of consistency and 
 self-respect should compel us forthwith to exclude the Bible 
 from those schools, and thus deprive that hierarchy of a very 
 convenient and weighty apology for its course. The policy 
 
104 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 of the Catholic Church, so far as it makes itself the ally of 
 ignorance and superstition, must be resolutely resisted ; but 
 that resistance can best be made by jealously maintaining 
 civil liberty, and insisting upon a well-organized system of 
 common schools and compulsory secular education. In thus 
 standing by the equal religious rights of American citizens, 
 we shall be invincible ; for liberty and popular intelligence 
 are the deadly enemies of every form of ecclesiastical usur 
 pation, as they are the impregnable bulwarks of our demo 
 cratic institutions. In seeking our purpose, through an 
 amendment of the constitution, we cherish no hostility to 
 state rights, but only an overmastering devotion to human 
 rights. We cherish no hostility whatever to any form of re 
 ligion, but would protect and defend all religions under equal 
 laws. Nor do we fear sectarian wrangles and divisions as 
 the result of the principles for which we contend. On the 
 contrary, we confidently predict perpetual peace through the 
 final removal of the chief causes of strife ; and our grand aim 
 can only fail through the criminal recreancy of the people 
 themselves to the teachings of our fathers and the pregnant 
 warnings of history. 
 
 And here I close my protest against the baleful heresy 
 which has served me for my text. In confounding the dis 
 tinction between physical and social evolution, it tends to 
 confound the distinction between right and wrong. It threat 
 ens to dethrone conscience, and substitute development for 
 duty. It exchanges liberty for necessity, and thus deals 
 with humanity as a factor in mechanics. By committing all 
 social questions to the working of inevitable laws, it dispar 
 ages the value of human character, and trifles with human 
 responsibility. It weakens the very foundations of virtue by 
 belittling the motives which inspire it. It unduly exalts the 
 intellect, and makes the follies and mistakes of good men 
 an excuse for tearing down the sanctuary of the heart. Its 
 ugly footprints are already visible on the other side of the 
 Atlantic, in the halting steps of special reforms, and the 
 growing indisposition of government to deal with great social 
 
EVOLUTION AND REFORM. 105 
 
 questions over which its jurisdiction is clear. This is true in 
 a measure of our own country, while the moral felonies 
 which blacken our politics and defile the name of religion 
 have their root, to some extent, in the same soil. This deadly 
 mildew of modern life, this dry-rot of moral unbelief which 
 would wither the leaf and flower of virtue, must be arrested, 
 if we would escape social stagnation and spiritual death. I 
 speak earnestly, because I feel deeply., when I say that by 
 all means we must keep alive our faith in virtue, in the pre- 
 ciousness of character, and in personal responsibility ; for, 
 without this faith, men will content themselves with coddling 
 their own worldly comfort, and turning every good cause 
 adrift, while we shall be left without God and without hope 
 in the world. 
 
THE GOSPEL OF REFORM. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE GRAND OPERA HOUSE, INDIANAPOLIS, ON 
 THE 26 OF AUGUST, 1876. 
 
 [This speech was delivered at the opening of the campaign for Tilden and 
 Hendricks. Its circulation was phenomenal. The National Democratic Com 
 mittee distributed two million copies in tract form, while this must have been 
 more than duplicated by its publication in the leading and local newspapers 
 in every section of the Union.] 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Citizens: It can scarcely be 
 necessary for me to remark that I do not appear before you 
 to-night as a partisan, but as an independent voter. I am a 
 member of neither of the great organizations now struggling 
 for the mastery ; and while I am ready to take my stand in 
 the pending national canvass, and to avow the reasons for 
 my action, I prefer to retain my entire political independence. 
 The perfectly faultless and straight-laced party man occupies 
 a radically different position. He feels obliged to defend his 
 party both as to what it has done in the past and what it may 
 do in the future. He believes that outside of it no good thing 
 can exist, and that inside of it all needed reforms must orig 
 inate. The platform of his party is his confession of political 
 faith, and whoever adds to it or takes from it is to be counted 
 a heretic, who should be summarily and soundly anathema 
 tized. The discipline of his party is like that of an army or 
 a military camp. If a member is found guilty of insubordina 
 tion he must be shot as a deserter and branded as an enemy 
 of society, if not a traitor to his country. This frightful tyr 
 anny over individual judgment and conscience is the root 
 and source of the most startling vices and depravities which 
 now afflict our politics and scourge society. It is, of course, 
 
THE GOSPEL OF REFORM. IO7 
 
 the deadly foe of all measures looking to the reformation of 
 political abuses ; for how can a man fearlessly advocate the 
 truth with a halter about his neck? If his party is a deity to 
 be worshiped, or a master to be served, with what propriety 
 or decency can he unfurl the flag of reform ? Every passing 
 day confirms the truth of what I said four years ago, 
 that a political party should be regarded simply as a political 
 make-shift. It is an agency, now and then made necessary 
 by some new turn in the wheel of our politics, and useful only 
 so long as the occasion for it continues. It is not an institu 
 tion, but a temporary combination of men inspired by a com 
 mon political aim ; and w r hen that aim is accomplished, the 
 combination should be dissolved. Having done its work, 
 and being unfitted . for new tasks, it becomes a stumbling- 
 block in the path of progress, and ceases to be a party by 
 degenerating into a faction. 
 
 The force of these observations is fitly illustrated in the 
 political situation to-day. Here are two powerful national 
 parties engaged in a fierce struggle for the ascendency. They 
 are grappling with each other as if the salvation of the repub 
 lic awaited the result of the conflict ; and yet the old strifes 
 which at first marshaled them against each other, and for 
 years kept alive their animosities, are all absolutely settled. 
 Their platforms are only different words, set to the same 
 music. Their antagonisms are inspired far less by any rad 
 ical difference of opinions upon any vital principles than by 
 old memories and traditionary hates which should be allowed 
 to sleep, but which continue to stand in the way of our na 
 tional well-being. Pending this embittered struggle for 
 power, the cry for reform comes up from the people, wholly 
 irrespective of party lines, and endeavors, as best it can, to 
 voice itself in political action. How shall the work of reform 
 go forward ? These old parties were organized to deal with 
 other and very different questions, which have been irrevoc 
 ably disposed of; and, what the country now needs is a com 
 plete reconstruction of parties in response to the demand of 
 the people for a purified politics, instead of forcing the new 
 
IO8 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 wine of reform into old bottles which have served their pur 
 pose and have been defiled by some very questionable uses. 
 Parties should be the servants of the people and the hand 
 maids of progress, and not " lag superfluous," as obstructions 
 to the general welfare. It is true that both of our two rival 
 parties preach the gospel of reform ; but they preach it and 
 intend to practice it subject to party discipline, and thus un 
 avoidably throw themselves in its way. Is the Republican 
 party the fit and chosen instrument of reform? In the light 
 of its record of profligacy and plunder for years past, it would 
 be impossible to persuade honest Democrats to trust it. Is 
 the Democratic party any more acceptable to honest Repub 
 licans? They point to its war record and its complicity with 
 political corruption both prior and subsequent to the late civil 
 war. This is our political dilemma, and these are the con 
 siderations which press upon intelligent, conscientious men 
 to-day, as they did four years ago. They gave birth to the 
 Liberal Republican party, and the combination thus formed 
 for the overthrow of Grantism, which has usurped the con 
 trol of the Republican organization. I labored for this com 
 bination with all my might, because I thought I saw in it the 
 blessed prospect of a general party break-up, and the eman 
 cipation of the people from their old political task-masters. 
 Owing chiefly to the monstrous prostitution of federal patron 
 age to partisan purposes, the new movement was defeated at 
 the polls. The Democrats, after having caught a glimpse of 
 the promised land of independence, fainted by the way, and 
 fell back into their old party intrenchments. The Liberals 
 likewise became disheartened. Instead of reorganizing their 
 forces and calling for recruits in order to a renewal of the 
 fight, they suffered their army to disband. They preferred 
 flank movements upon the enemy by detachments of our 
 forces, to a general engagement of the whole after a thor 
 ough organization for the purpose. Instead of commanding 
 their, own fortunes by pushing forward their work with the 
 courage and strong will of the early abolitionists, they 
 adopted the policy of hovering along the lines of the old 
 
THE GOSPEL OF REFORM. 109 
 
 parties, and making an occasional descent here and there 
 upon one or the other of them, in the hope of thus speeding 
 the work of reform. It has always seemed to me that this 
 was a great mistake, seriously retarding the progress which 
 a different policy would have secured. 
 
 I do not deny that much good has been done by the inde 
 pendent political action to which I have referred. We should 
 acknowledge this with thankfulness. The lesson of the Cin 
 cinnati Convention of 1872, as a formidable rebellion against 
 party devil-worship, has not been lost. The spirit of reform 
 has forced its way into both parties, and compelled their 
 respect. Its shaping hand is seen both in their platforms 
 and in their nominations. In the national struggle this year, 
 the men who abjure party discipline are strong enough to 
 determine the result. No man occupies a position of so 
 much importance and responsibility as the independent voter. 
 But he finds the question of present duty singularly compli 
 cated by circumstances which the logic of political events 
 has compelled him to consider. He would gladly have joined 
 a new organization, wholly unshackled by the politics of the 
 past, and able vigorously to prosecute the work of reform ; 
 but no such party is in the field. He is a member of none of 
 the existing parties, and believes their machinery a hindrance 
 rather than a help to the reformation of abuses ; and yet he 
 is obliged to co-operate w r ith one of them or accept the dis 
 tasteful alternative of temporary self-disfranchisement. Such 
 is the predicament in which the political outsider finds him 
 self to-day ; and what he ought to do in the present canvass 
 is the problem I propose to consider. Of course I shall deal 
 with it as it presents itself to me, and not as an orthodox Re 
 publican w r ho voted for Grant four years ago, and who has 
 patiently carried the ugly burdens of the party ever since. 
 What is the duty of an honest Republican who turned his 
 back upon his party four years ago on account of its mis 
 deeds? This is my question, and the answer to it naturally 
 invites the consideration of these three further questions : 
 
 Was the Liberal Republican revolt of 1872 justified by 
 facts? 
 
IIO SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 If so, has the Republican party by its general good be 
 havior and its honest zeal in the work of political purification 
 during the past four years earned the respect and confidence 
 of the people, which it had lost? If not, can Liberals con 
 sistently and honestly support Tilden and Hendricks? 
 
 In seeking the true answer to the first of these questions 
 we are obliged to recall the facts and circumstance of the 
 memorable struggle of four years ago. It should be remem 
 bered that the popular demand for reform was then almost as 
 loud as it is now. Grant and Colfax had been elected in 1868 
 on a platform pledging the party to reform the corruptions of 
 Andrew Johnson s administration ; but the pledge had been 
 shamefully belied. While the old party issues had been re 
 treating into the past, the mercenary and trading element of 
 the party had gradually found its way to the front, and com 
 pletely appropriated the President. Naturally and necessa 
 rily the spirit of reform was evoked, and the rallying cry of 
 Sumner, Trumbull, and the men who subsequently became 
 conspicuous as leaders of the Liberal Republican movement, 
 was " reform within the party." They did not dream of sep 
 arating themselves from the grand old organization in the 
 founding of which they had had so large a share, and under 
 whose banner they had fought during the nation s great peril. 
 Their attachment to it was not a matter of conviction merely, 
 but it was a passion. Sumner, especially, believed it was to 
 be "filled with a higher life" and "lifted to yet other efforts," 
 which would make its continued existence a commanding 
 necessity. All that these men asked was the expulsion of 
 political corruption, and the restoration of the party to the 
 purity which had signalized its early life. They demanded 
 the reform of abuses in the New York and New Orleans 
 custom houses ; in the war and navy departments ; and in 
 the improvident and profligate management of the civil serv 
 ice generally. To this end they proposed that a thorough 
 and impartial investigation should be made ; but the very 
 same party leaders who are preaching " reform within the 
 party" in this canvass then stoutly denied that any reform 
 
THE GOSPEL OF REFORM. Ill 
 
 was needed. Morton, Conkling, and the men since so well 
 known to the country as the "senatorial group," declared 
 that the proposition to investigate implied party guilt and could 
 only give aid to the Democrats. They branded as ene 
 mies of the Republican party the distinguished members of 
 it who simply proposed to purify and save it. When the 
 popular pressure and the fear of party detriment threatened 
 by this opposition at last drove them from their indecent posi 
 tion, the committees appointed were packed in the interest of 
 the Administration, and in contempt of parliamentary usage, 
 while the reports finally submitted, as a matter of course, 
 were shamefully spoiled by whitewash. What was to be 
 done? The men who had hoisted the flag of reform were 
 obliged to do one of two things : They must cower like 
 slaves under the party lash, in the hands of men who treated 
 their honest demands with contempt, and who undoubtedly 
 represented the spirit and policy of the Administration ; or 
 they must take counsel of their own manhood and self-respect, 
 and openly rebel against a party despotism that had become 
 a national curse. 
 
 Let us look at the situation more particularly. The mis 
 chiefs of war had crept into the civil administration after the 
 war was ended. The government had been compelled to 
 deal with a strong hand, and a thorough schooling of the 
 President and his party in the use of power had familiarized 
 them with military ideas and habits, and drawn them toward 
 loose and indefensible opinions respecting the powers of the 
 general and state governments and the prerogatives of the 
 executive. These considerations could not be overlooked 
 by the men whose hearts were on fire with the desire for po 
 litical reform. The constitution expressly declares that 
 "the powers not delegated to the United States by the con 
 stitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved by 
 it to the states respectively, or to the people ;" but the the 
 ory upon which the President had conducted his administra 
 tion was that all powers not conferred on the states by the 
 constitution are reserved to the United States, thus com- 
 
112 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 pletely overturning the doctrines of the fathers, and setting 
 at defiance the very words of the constitution itself. This 
 was Grantism and orthodox Republicanism four years ago, 
 as it is to-day. The President not only trampled down the 
 right of local self-government in repeated instances, but he 
 set up his own will as law, even against the authority of Con 
 gress. In the San Domingo affair he deliberately usurped 
 the war-making power which is vested in Congress by the 
 constitution. On the pretense of helping the farmers in 
 "moving their crops," he assumed powers which no despot 
 on earth would dare exercise, in issuing millions of currency 
 without warrant of law and on his own individual caprice. 
 He appointed to civil places about him men in the military 
 service, in violation of an express statute which he was sworn 
 to execute. In disregard of law and of his oath of office, he 
 quartered federal soldiers on the Cherokee neutral lands in 
 Kansas to protect a railroad corporation in driving from their 
 homes hundreds of settlers who claimed the lands occupied 
 by them in good faith under the preemption laws. Through 
 a subordinate officer in New Orleans he seized a federal ves 
 sel and attempted by force to overawe the people of Louis 
 iana in the interest of his renomination. These are a few 
 examples only, selected from many, showing how the Presi 
 dent carried the military and imperial spirit into his office, 
 and set aside the laws which were as binding upon him as 
 any other citizen, while the example of his disobedience was 
 preeminently mischievous. In these acts he had the sympa 
 thy and support of a Republican Congress, as he had in the 
 act to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and the enforcement 
 acts, which embody provisions at war with every principle of 
 municipal government, and can only be defended on the ty 
 rant s plea that the central power can administer the affairs 
 of a locality better than the people can do it themselves. 
 "The end of good government," says De Tocqueville, "is 
 to insure the welfare of a people, and not merely to establish 
 order in the midst of its misery." 
 
 But the most ample and overwhelming vindication of the 
 
THE GOSPEL OF REFORM. 113 
 
 Liberal movement is to be found in the management of the 
 Civil Service. In the canvass of 1872, the friends of Gen. 
 Grant insisted that he was the sincere friend, if not the cham 
 pion, of civil service reform. With airs of triumph they 
 pointed to the fact that he had already appointed an able 
 civil service commission, with George William Curtis at its 
 head, for the purpose of dealing with this vital question. 
 This commission had made its report, showing that about 
 $100,000,000 of the public revenues are annually lost in the 
 collection through the incompetence or corruption of govern 
 ment officials. The strong language of the President was 
 quoted in which he told the country that " honesty and effi 
 ciency, not political activity, should be the tenure of office." 
 The Philadelphia platform of the party was as pronounced as 
 it could be in favor of lifting the whole machinery of the gov 
 ernment out of the ruts of party, and thoroughly purifying it 
 by placing it in the hands of honest and competent men, 
 irrespective of politics. And yet in the face of all these 
 brave manifestoes the President was seeking his own re-elec 
 tion through his well-organized armv of eighty thousand 
 office holders, not a man of whom was safe if known to be 
 opposed to his re-election. The fact was perfectly notorious 
 and undeniable that the tenure of office was not honesty and 
 efficiency at all, but "political activity" for Grant. It is true 
 that the civil service commission had framed a set of rules 
 for the protection of honest officials from political interfer 
 ence, but these rules were suspended by the President just 
 as often as it suited the convenience of the party leaders who 
 had him in their keeping, and who treated the whole subject 
 with contempt. 
 
 When Senator Conklin wanted a faithful public servant 
 turned out in New York to make room for a political minion, 
 the rules were suspended for the purpose. When Gen. But 
 ler wanted a political tool in the place of an honest incumbent 
 in Massachusetts, or Senator Morton wanted a similar favor 
 in Indiana, the rules were suspended for their accommoda 
 tion. When Gen. Logan wanted the collector at Chicago 
 8 
 
114 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 turned adrift, because he would not join Orville Grant in his 
 whisky frauds, and in order to make room for one of his po 
 litical henchmen, the President was his humble servant. The 
 postmaster at the city of Galveston, who, I believe, was a 
 faithful officer, was dismissed to make room for a man who 
 had been driven out of the House of Representatives for 
 fraud. Tom Murphy, one of the partners in the Tammany 
 Ring of thieves, covered all over with his rascalities as with 
 a garment, and with neither brains nor knowledge enough to 
 fit him for the duties of any civil office, was appointed col 
 lector of the port of the city of New York, one of the most 
 lucrative and politically potential positions under the gov 
 ernment, and Moses H. Grinnell, an honest and capable man, 
 was sent into retirement as a further illustration of civil ser 
 vice reform. And when the popular pressure became so 
 portentious as to compel Murphy to resign, the President 
 " vindicated " him by a letter complimenting him on the abil 
 ity and faithfulness with which he had discharged the duties 
 of his high office, while Leet and Stocking, who had been 
 cheating public justice, were still plundering the merchants 
 of New York, in spite of their protests and in defiance of pub 
 lic opinion. In 1872, the office of collector at New Orleans 
 was held, as it is now, by brother-in-law Casey, who brought 
 out his " Gatling guns " to aid him in packing a political 
 convention for his party, and who was convicted of bribery 
 and corruption by a congressional committee of his own po 
 litical friends, who subsequently reported the facts to the 
 President and demanded his removal, which demand was 
 never complied with. 
 
 Civil service reform found an apt illustration in the per 
 formances of Powell Clayton, of Arkansas. As I remember 
 the facts, he packed the legislature of that state by corrupt 
 means with his tools, who in turn packed him into the United 
 States Senate ; but when the grand jury of that district in 
 dicted him for political corruption, and thus invited his atten 
 tion to the hospitalities of the penitentiary, the President, 
 wishing to "vindicate" his friend, removed the marshal and 
 
THE GOSPEL OF REFORM. 115 
 
 district attorney through whose agency the indictments were 
 supposed to have been found, and appointed a couple of Clay 
 ton s friends in their place, who non -prossed the indictments, 
 by which the distinguished senator was allowed to escape 
 justice and to devote his " political activity" to the re-elec 
 tion of his patron and friend. Secretary Robeson took $93,- 
 ooo of your money from the treasury, and paid it on a false 
 claim to a rascal named Secor, without authority of law, and 
 \vas excused on the score of his "good intentions;" while 
 Secretary Cox had been driven from the cabinet for refusing 
 to prostitute his office to political purposes. Postmaster Gen 
 eral Creswell tried with all his might to take from the treas 
 ury $443,000, and pay it to Chorpenning on a fraudulent 
 claim for carrying the mails in California. The President 
 approved his conduct, and his "political activity" on the 
 stump, for his re-election. The President espoused the San 
 Domingo swindle, and personally assisted General Babcock, 
 the negotiator and ringleader of the project, in lobbying for 
 it in the Senate ; and although the country with singular 
 unanimity condemned it, and compelled its abandonment, 
 Charles Sumner, for performing his simple duty in opposing 
 it, was driven from his chairmanship of the Committee on 
 Foreign Relations, and Simon Cameron, who was turned 
 out of Lincoln s cabinet during the war on account of his 
 corrupt complicity with army contracts, and disgraced by a 
 vote of the House of Representatives, who had had a national 
 reputation as a scoundrel for nearly a quarter of a century, 
 and was as ignorant of our foreign affairs as he was innocent 
 of a conscience, was made Sumner s successor, while the 
 distinguished senator from Massachusetts and the foremost 
 public character in the nation, was still further degraded by 
 the offer of a place at the tail of the Committee on Edu 
 cation and Labor, with Flannigan, of Texas, at its head! 
 Civil service reform ! Why, gentlemen, Carl Schurz told us 
 four years ago that he had seen a foreign minister at Wash 
 ington hunting the government as a man hunts for a lost 
 child, or a horse strayed or stolen. It was not at home. It 
 
Il6 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 was over at Long Branch, looking after the business of horse- 
 racing, or down in Carolina stumping for Grant, or out west 
 with Delano in its fatherly concern for land grants and In 
 dian affairs. If I am not mistaken, all the cabinet ministers, 
 except Belknap, who was probably very busy with his post- 
 traderships, were on the stump in 1872, electioneering for 
 their chief, and to keep their bread buttered four years longer ; 
 while the President, spurning the example of Washington, 
 Jefferson and Adams, had been heaping honors and emolu 
 ments upon his poor kin, and accepting presents of line 
 houses and tempting largesses in monev from men unknown 
 to fame, who were paid off in fat places. 
 
 Such is the delectable and highly flavored feast to which 
 the Liberal Republicans of 1872 were invited ; and when 
 they turned a\vay from it in sorrow and unutterable disgust, 
 and asserted their independence, they were everywhere de 
 nounced by the leaders of Grantism as political apostates 
 and rebels. Senator Morton branded Horace Greeley as a 
 traitor, secretly in league with Confederate traitors of the 
 South, and plotting his way into the White House for the 
 ulterior purpose of undoing the work of the war, re-establish 
 ing slavery, and fastening upon the nation the rebel debt. 
 And the political vultures who hounded Greeley to his grave 
 pursued Sumner, and Trumbull, and their co-laborers, with 
 the same hungry and unslumbering political venom and per 
 sonal malice. In the many political contests in which I have 
 been engaged, whether in the early times of the abolitionists 
 or during the fierce passions excited by the civil war, I can 
 recall nothing which exceeds the unmixed rancor and un 
 bridled animosity that inspired the Republican leaders four 
 years ago in their treatment of the men who rebelled against 
 the party lash in order to save their own honor and self- 
 respect. And yet they did not burn the bridges behind them. 
 The way was left open for their reunion with their old party 
 friends, whenever the party itself should turn its back upon 
 the organized roguery which had captured it ; and I am quite 
 sure that ninety-nine hundredths of the Liberal Republicans 
 
THE GOSPEL OF REFORM. 117 
 
 of the United States would to-day have been found battling 
 in the ranks of Republicanism, if the party within the past 
 four years had thrown overboard the renegade Democrats 
 who had become its recognized leaders, and proved itself 
 sincere in its demand for reform. Has this saving work been 
 accomplished? This is the next question to be considered in 
 the discussion upon which I have entered. 
 
 To ask this question is to answer it. But in the interest 
 of explicitness and particularity let us give it our attention, 
 and, in dealing with it, let us remember Senator Morton s 
 declaration three or four years ago, that "Ours is the best 
 civil service on the planet," and his assertion a few days since 
 that, "All things considered, the present is the purest and 
 best administration this country has ever had." What are 
 the actual facts which supply the commentary upon these per 
 fectly astounding statements? It can not be denied that soon 
 after the last inauguration civil service reform became a more 
 glaring political mockery than ever before. The enforce 
 ment of the rules framed by the commission was only an 
 occasional event, while their suspension was the order of the 
 day. Governor Holden, of North Carolina, who was im 
 peached, convicted and rendered incapable of holding any 
 office, was made postmaster at the capital of that state. 
 Sharp, a brother-in-law of the President, was appointed 
 Marshal of the District of Columbia, just as if no civil service 
 rules had ever been heard of. Cramer, another brother-in- 
 law, disgraced our diplomatic service as the representative 
 of the government at Copenhagen. Brother-in-law Casey, 
 who had taken on board a government vessel the Grant mem 
 bers of the Louisiana legislature to protect them from arrest 
 and prevent a mojority of the body from proceeding to busi 
 ness, because the political interests of the President demanded 
 this lawlessness, and who stood before the country thatched 
 with political corruption, was re-appointed and confirmed as 
 collector of the port of New Orleans. Even George William 
 Curtis, so long hoping against hope, and so faithfully cling 
 ing to the President through thick and thin, was at last 
 
Il8 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 obliged to resign his position in disgust, and to declare that 
 the appointments of the President showed " an utter aban 
 donment of both the letter and spirit of the civil service reg 
 ulations." About the same time, Peter Cooper wrote a most 
 earnest and friendly letter to the President, begging him to 
 rescue the city and state of New York from the custom house 
 rogues who had so long disgraced the civil service and defied 
 the people. But the President seemed entirely unconscious 
 that anything was going amiss. At the bidding of Senator 
 Morton he removed Captain Brouse from the pension agency 
 of Indiana, a wounded soldier and a faithful officer, and ap 
 pointed in his place Gen. Terrell, whose moral unfitness for 
 the place is too well known to be characterized. When Con 
 gress abolished the government of the District of Columbia, 
 in order to get rid of Boss Shepherd, who stood revealed as 
 a disgraced public swindler, the President immediately ap 
 pointed him one of the commissioners of the new District 
 government. 
 
 When the safe burglary criminals were on trial the ma 
 chinery of the district attorney s office was employed to cheat 
 public justice ; and the President, pending the trial, made a 
 most remarkable demonstration upon the jury by inviting one 
 of the defendants to join a company of distinguished guests 
 in a feast at the White House. Grantism, pure and simple, 
 finds no better illustration than in the case of Orville Grant. 
 He asked his brother to let him know when anything under 
 his control should transpire by which he (Orville) could make 
 some money. The President thought it right to gratify him, 
 and proceeded to designate certain post-traderships which he 
 might control, not because the incumbents of the places were 
 incompetent or unworthy, but that Orville should have the 
 profits, either by levying blackmail upon them as the price 
 of their retention, or by their removal, if they should refuse 
 to be bled. The department of justice was disgraced by con 
 tinuing in office Attorney-General Williams a year and a 
 half after it had been proved that he had appropriated the 
 public revenue to the private use of himself and his family ; 
 
THE GOSPEL OF REFORM. 119 
 
 and this same Attorney-General was afterwards appointed 
 Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. 
 The real working of " the best civil service on the planet" 
 and " the purest and best administration this country has 
 ever had " is made beautifully manifest in the conviction of 
 the Secretary of War, on his own confession, of making mer 
 chandise of the post-traderships under his control, while the 
 President, who had knowledge of his criminal acts four years 
 ago, accepts his resignation with "regret," and with such 
 surprising promptness as to prevent his legal conviction of 
 high crimes and misdemeanors by the Senate. The Presi 
 dent stood by Secretary Delano in his disgraceful perform 
 ances involving the management of Indian affairs, till forced 
 by public opinion to give him up, and then "vindicated" 
 him by his customary farewell letter of approval. 
 
 By one of those accidents that have now and then checkered 
 his administration, he appointed Bristow as his Secretary of 
 the Treasury ; and after the work of hunting down and bring 
 ing to justice the whisky thieves had been resolved upon by 
 the new Secretary, and while the brave words, "Let no 
 gnilty man escape," were winning the plaudits of the people, 
 and finding their way into the party platforms as the watch 
 words of reform, the President himself was drawing from the 
 Secretary and his subordinates whatever information his high 
 and trusted position could command relative to the prosecu 
 tion of his friend Babcock, and placing it in the hands of his 
 attorneys, for no other apparent purpose than that of secur 
 ing his acquittal, and defeating the execution of the laws he 
 was sworn to support. According to the sworn testimony of 
 men of high character, he had no sooner discovered that 
 Bristow was the enemy of thieves than he resolved^upon his 
 removal ; and although his purpose was temporarily delayed, 
 it was not defeated. He seems to have demanded the head 
 of Bluford Wilson for kindred reasons. The decapitation of 
 Yaryan was another sacrifice to men who deserved to be clad 
 in prison stripes. Pratt had to walk the plank because he 
 spoke a friendly word in behalf of Yaryan, and was believed 
 
I2O SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 to be an honest man. Dyer was obliged to bite the dust for 
 no reason known to the public, which will naturally infer that 
 his sole offense was his refusal to prostitute his office to the 
 use of the guilty. Henderson was stricken down for no 
 other discoverable reason than that the courageous perform 
 ance of his official duty threatened to involve the White 
 House, or such idolized friends of the President as General 
 Babcock. If Jewell was not dismissed from the cabinet be 
 cause he was the friend of Bristow and his co-worker in 
 reform, then his cause of dismissal is inscrutable. The ap 
 pointment of Tyner as Jewell s successor naturally enters 
 into the warp and woof of the same civil service fabric, he 
 being the facile instrument of Senator Morton, the leader of 
 the Indiana delegation in the Cincinnati convention in oppo 
 sition to Bristow, and claiming also the glory of having se 
 cured the nomination of General Hayes. When the nation 
 was groaning under an enormous burden of debt and taxa 
 tion, and the representatives of the people voted themselves 
 salaries they had never earned, and doubled the pay of the 
 President, he personally lobbied for the measure in both 
 houses of Congress, and promptly legalized the theft by his 
 signature. He appointed a famous poker-player as Minister 
 to England, and kept him there till public opinion on both 
 sides of the Atlantic compelled his withdrawal, on account 
 of his disgraceful connection with the Emma mine fraud. 
 He withdrew the custody of government funds from the house 
 of Barings, w r ho I believe had held it for generations, and 
 intrusted them to Clews & Habicht, who have since become 
 bankrupt, as a reward for their partisan services, and in 
 spite of warnings that this house was untrustworthy. He 
 defended the Moiety system, by which the revenues of the 
 country were farmed out to political scullions for the purpose 
 of serving the fortunes of some of his favorites, while Gen 
 eral Babcock, who has been justly branded by the press as 
 a sneak-thief in the methods employed by him in securing 
 his acquittal of a high crime, is still holding his position of 
 
THE GOSPEL OF REFORM. 121 
 
 Chief of Engineers and Commissioner of Public Buildings 
 and Grounds. 
 
 But surely I need not extend this itemized arraignment 
 of Grantism any farther. Let me say, however, that by the 
 term Grantism, I mean Republicanism under Grant, and in 
 full cooperation with him. The party unanimously indorsed 
 him four years ago, when all intelligent men knew him and 
 his evil tendencies almost as well as they know them to-day. 
 In all the state conventions of the party, north and south, 
 east and west, through all these seven years and a half of 
 misrule and profligacy, his administration has been unceas 
 ingly indorsed and lauded. Our state convention of last 
 February declared that " the administration of General Grant 
 commands our fullest confidence and approbation, and that 
 we especially commend him for the example he will leave to 
 his successors, of removing from office those of his own ap 
 pointment whenever he has found them to be unfaithful ; and 
 of causing those who are proved dishonest to be so prose 
 cuted that no guilty man should escape." As if to empha 
 size this, and to make its moral significance perfectly clear, 
 the convention fulsomely eulogized Senator Morton, and I 
 believe unanimously recommended his nomination for the 
 Presidency. The Cincinnati convention brought down the 
 record still later, and declared that "President Grant de 
 serves the continued and hearty gratitude of the American 
 people for his patriotism and his immense services in war 
 and in peace." And General Hayes, a month later, says 
 " the resolutions are in accord with my views." The mani 
 fest truth is that the President and his party are inseparable. 
 Their union is unmistakably Siamese. The party clings to 
 him as a dying man clings to life. 
 
 The Cincinnati indorsement of Grant was after the expos 
 ure of the whisky rings, and the acceptance of Belknap s 
 resignation ; after the trial of Babcock, and the shameful in 
 terference in his behalf; alter the disgraceful conduct of 
 Robeson and Delano and the disagreement of the President 
 and Bristow. The party found nothing to condemn in the 
 
122 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 later misdeeds of the administration, and remembered noth 
 ing amiss in its earlier record. It had no fault to find with 
 the ostracism of Sumner and the appointment of Cramer and 
 Casey and Packard ; with upsetting the government of Lou 
 isiana through a drunken and corrupt federal judge, and dis 
 persing the legislature of the state with the bayonet ; with 
 backing up Kellogg and Spencer, and putting Billings in the 
 place of Durell ; with encouraging the operations of Jayne 
 and Sanborn and allowing Orville Grant to make a living by 
 the traffic in appointments ; and with greedily taking the in 
 crease of one hundred per cent, on the President s salary, 
 and his lobbying for the bill allowing him to do so, while 
 making his administration an asylum for his numerous and 
 unsavory kindred. All this was meekly shouldered by the 
 party at Cincinnati, which crouched like a spaniel at the feet 
 of the master it had obsequiously served for seven years. 
 The melancholy truth is, as so admirably stated by the New 
 York Tribune, that "President Grant has dropped us by 
 easy stages to these depths of shame. He has parenthesized 
 in history eight years, which will be marked hereafter as the 
 era of personal government, and the period of greed ; eight 
 years of such official corruption and dishonesty, such selfish 
 ness and shamelessness, such low aims and base purposes, 
 such grasping avarice and eager overreaching, such specu 
 lation in official information, such bribery and such barter 
 and sale of office, and such degradation of all things which 
 the nation has held to be high and holv and worthy an hon- 
 
 O ./ J 
 
 est pride, that to-day the country hangs its head and holds 
 its nose, and waits for this administration to pass." It lies 
 wallowing in the ditch, the spectacle of nations, while Sena 
 tor Morton, from his serene mount of vision, pronounces it 
 the " best and purest the country has ever had." 
 
 But now, gentlemen, having shown by irresistible proofs 
 that the Liberal movement of 1872 was justified by facts and 
 called for by the times, and that the Republican party, in 
 stead of retracing its steps and recovering its lost estate has 
 steadily gravitated farther and farther from its primal integ- 
 
THE GOSPEL OF REFORM. 123 
 
 rity, it may still be argued that the nomination of Governor 
 Hayes will cut the ugly thread of history from behind it, and 
 launch it grandly on a new and blessed departure. Believ 
 ing as I do, that the age of miracles has passed, I find my 
 self compelled to reject this view. I am acquainted with 
 Governor Hayes, and believe him to be honest and patriotic, 
 and most gladly and cordially would I support him if any 
 Republican could explain to me how his accidental selection 
 at Cincinnati can make saints out of the distinguished sinners 
 who are the recognized leaders and managers of the party 
 now, as they were four years ago. If you place the hat of 
 an honest man on the head of a rogue, will the roguery in 
 stantly depart? Every one has heard the story of Fortunatus. 
 He had a wishing hat, which relieved him of the expense and 
 labor of traveling. By placing this hat on his head and wish 
 ing himself at a given place he straightway found himself 
 there. Who would not join in building a monument to the 
 sorely needed genius who could manufacture a presidential 
 hat that would enable Governor Hayes, by a simple wish, to 
 change the nature of Morton, and Cameron, and Butler, and 
 Clayton, and Boss Shepherd, and Babcock, and brother-in- 
 law Casey, and the rest of the unbaptized crew who are tax 
 ing their wits and pouring out their money to secure his elec 
 tion, and will darken the air about the executive mansion on 
 the 4th of March if he should succeed? Such a hat, I am 
 free to confess, would make Governor Hayes a pretty respec 
 table President, and he would be able to take up the question 
 of reform and dispose of it with tolerable success. Unfor 
 tunately no such head-gear can be found, while the great 
 leader of the party in Indiana, and the right-hand man of the 
 administration, tells us the party has no need of it, and that 
 the men who ask for reform are worse criminals than the 
 thieves they wish to expose and punish. 
 
 Here is the ugly knot which Liberal Republicans and a 
 good many other Republicans desire to see untied. Can you 
 obtain the command of a piratical craft by simply changing 
 the figure-head of the vessel? You must expel the pirates 
 
124 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 and put an honest crew in possession. This is the truth in a 
 nutshell, and George William Curtis himself admits it. His 
 cry is " reform within the party," which he is shouting along 
 the lines as he did four years ago, as if utterly unmindful of 
 the fact that under this battle-cry our civil service has become 
 as foul and feculent a system of official huckstering and po 
 litical prostitution as our thoroughly debauched party politics 
 could make it. But he is not blind, like Senator Morton, to 
 the need of reform, and he tells us in Harper s Weekly that 
 the only hope of the party lies in the power to persuade the 
 people that it is not hopelessly corrupt. He frankly confesses 
 that reform is only possible by throwing overboard the Grant 
 leaders and trained corruption! sts who have brought the 
 party into disgrace. In all soberness I ask, is this possible? 
 Have the Republican masses, after their long and patient serv 
 ice under the party yoke, the courage and virtue to take their 
 old leaders by the throat? Will the party chiefs I have named 
 meekly and penitentially take the back seats, while honest 
 and stainless men come to the front? The man who believes 
 all this must have allowed his common sense to pack its bag 
 gage. The Grant leaders would reign in any conceivable 
 political hell rather than serve in the heaven of honest 
 government. In the manipulation of caucuses and conven 
 tions, they have long been masters. They are journeymen 
 and experts in the work of politics as a trade. They have 
 reduced plunder and pelf to a science and the greed of clutch 
 to a fine art. Nothing can be more certain than that such a 
 reform as would completely dislodge these leaders and put 
 such men as Bristow and Adams in their places, would be, 
 in fact, the creation of a new party. It would have to be 
 preceded by a general disintegration, and it would be quite 
 as absurd to consider it the same party which has ruled the 
 country since Grant came into power as it would have been 
 to treat the Republican party of 1856 as identical with the 
 old Whig party, which has gone down to its dishonored 
 grave. The idea, therefore, of making the Republican party 
 the instrument of self-purification, is not only morally, but 
 
THE GOSPEL OF REFORM. 125 
 
 logically absurd. A party once thoroughly corrupt, has lost 
 the power to reform itself. Devils are not inclined to cast 
 out devils, and could scarcely be trusted with the business if 
 they should offer their services ; and it is because I entertain 
 these views and can not escape their force, that I sincerely 
 desire to see the machinery of the Republican party battered 
 into fragments, and the way thus opened for a reformation of 
 parties on the living questions of the hour, unembarrassed by 
 the memories of the past. 
 
 But let me not be misunderstood. I desire to meet the 
 question I am considering in its complete length and breadth. 
 I do not deny the exceptional power of one strong man, thor 
 oughly in earnest and thoroughly armed with the courage of 
 his opinions. A single, great-hearted, strong-willed charac 
 ter may control a mob or quell a mutiny. With a fertile 
 brain, perfect courage, absolute devotion to duty, and a 
 genius for the work of reform, he may scatter renovating 
 ideas, redeem a state from misrule, and radically change the 
 face of society. The country has seen what one man can 
 do in the stamping out of the Tammany and Canal rings of 
 New York. If a man no larger than General Grant can, in 
 a few years, drag down into disgrace a grand and powerful 
 party, a really great man, with rare force of character, 
 passionately wedded to his work, and desperately resolved 
 to submit to no defeat, might so inspire the people with his 
 own spirit of courage and faith that a revolution in the ad 
 ministration of public affairs w r ould be the result. It is 
 folly and nonsense to pretend that Governor Hayes is such a 
 man. Neither in Congress, nor as Governor of Ohio, nor in 
 his military service, has he given the least evidence of such 
 remarkable traits of character. In 1872, when the ferment 
 of reform was threatening to rend the old parties, and so 
 many Republicans \vere turning away from Grantism in dis 
 gust, Governor Hayes kept the quiet and even tenor of his 
 ways, uttering no rebuke and giving no sign of discontent 
 with the reigning order of things. During the past four 
 years of maladministration and party corruption no word 
 
126 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 has escaped his lips to show that he sympathized with the 
 men who have demanded reform. If at any time he has dis 
 covered the demoralizing and downward tendencies of the 
 administration, and felt the necessity of bravely withstand 
 ing them, he has never told the public of the fact. He has* 
 given the country no guarantee, save his letter of acceptance, 
 either by word or deed, that he will manfully wrestle with 
 the political rings that are laboring for his election. The 
 country is without any proof at all that he possesses the 
 moral courage and sturdy resolution to grapple with abuses 
 which have acquired the strength of established custom, and 
 to this end firmly resist the pressure of his party friends." 
 He has not in any way earned the "fear and hatred of 
 thieves." The Boston Advertiser, one of the leading organs 
 of Republicanism in New England, and now his warm sup 
 porter, said of him last year that " he is a man of fair ability, 
 correct in his personal habits, honest, sound in the Republi 
 can faith, but without much force or independence." This 
 is the exact truth. 
 
 Parke Goodwin is perfectly right in saying that he was 
 nominated because it was believed "his neutrality of tint 
 would harmonize the most pronounced colors." He was 
 nominated by a convention containing a majority who favored 
 Blaine, notwithstanding his remarkable record as a reformer, 
 and who was only defeated by a blunder of his friends. His 
 total strength in the convention, in the absence of combina 
 tions, was only 68 votes. Bristow, the only candidate who 
 had an unmistakable record as a reformer, received only 126 
 votes out of the 756, while Governor Hayes was nominated 
 at the instance of a political trader from Pennsylvania, who 
 seldom blunders in his party movements. Gentlemen, I do 
 not utter a conjecture, but express a perfectly evident fact, 
 when I say that, if elected, he will be the instrument of his 
 active and influential friends, and the servant of that mis 
 chievous party machinery against which he has never yet 
 made any public protest. That I am right in this I stand 
 ready to prove by the autocrat of the Republican party in 
 
THE GOSPEL OF REFORM. 127 
 
 Indiana, whose testimony will be accepted as conclusive. 
 "The administration of any President," says our distinguished 
 senator, "will be in the main what the party which elected 
 him makes it. If he breaks away from his party the chances 
 are that he will be broken down. In a government of par 
 ties like ours, the President must have his friends. The men 
 to whom he owes his election, who have defended him from 
 assaults, to whom he must look for support in the future, will 
 ordinarily control his actions, and he will do nothing offensive 
 to them." This is the naked truth, from the highest Repub 
 lican authority ; and if it does not perfectly apply to Governor 
 Haves it can have no application whatever to any man who 
 has ever been or ever will be President. Let me ask you 
 and I now address myself more especially to my old Repub 
 lican friends let me ask you if in your hearts you really be 
 lieve Governor Hayes, if elected, will enforce the principles 
 announced in his letter of acceptance? Do you believe he 
 will turn Secretary Chandler adrift, the commander-in-chief 
 of the Republican army in this canvass, because he is now 
 spending his money, levying contributions upon his subor 
 dinates, and prostituting the whole power of his office in the 
 interest of a Republican victory? Do you believe he will 
 dismiss Secretary Cameron, who led the way in his nomina 
 tion at Cincinnati, and whose active partisan service of Gov 
 ernor Hayes is a gross violation of his declared principles as 
 to the use of the civil service? Will he do so decent and 
 comely a thing as to dismiss James N. Tyner from the post- 
 office deparment, placed there at the bidding of Senator 
 Morton for the purpose of securing his official help in this 
 canvass, which he is giving freely? Will he put back in the 
 treasury Bristow, and Bluford Wilson, and Pratt, and Yar- 
 yan, and thus invite the hostility of General Grant and his 
 powerful body of friends, and incur the wrath of the whole 
 army of whisky thieves? Will he sweep out the legions of 
 placemen who are now abusing the public service, and fill 
 their places with men selected solely on the ground of their 
 fitness, and with no reference whatever to politics? Will he 
 
128 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 make it perfectly understood that senators and representa 
 tives shall no longer be consulted in the dispensation of fed 
 eral patronage? To every one of these questions the senator 
 gives the answer, No, and you all understand as well as I do 
 that the orthodox Republicans of Indiana are not the men to 
 differ with him in opinion. 
 
 And here, at length, I reach my final question involving 
 the propriety and honesty of a vote for Tilden and Hendricks. 
 It must be quite apparent that what I have said has consid 
 erably smoothed the way to the answer ; for if the Republican 
 party is so hopelessly demoralized that its reform is impossi 
 ble, its destruction becomes a public duty : and whoever so 
 regards it has a right to lay" hold on the only weapon which 
 can now be employed for the purpose with any hope of suc 
 cess. But I do not rest the case upon this point. I propose 
 to deal with the question as an independent topic, and in ap 
 proaching it I already imagine some of my Republican friends 
 mentally asking the question which has already been pro 
 pounded to me several times in words : How can an old 
 anti-slavery man, who fought the Democrats so zealously in 
 the early days of abolitionism, and poured out upon them 
 your denunciations so remorselessly during the war : how can 
 you reconcile it to yourself to support such men as Tilden and 
 Hendricks? Well, gentlemen, I have understood in differ 
 ent ways, and for years believed it to be a fact, that the war 
 is over. According to my almanac the last gun was fired 
 about eleven and a half years ago, so that we are now well 
 along in the twelfth year of peace. Senator Morton, in com 
 mon with a number of his brethren, does not know this. I 
 presume that he will go down to his grave in the full belief 
 that the " boys in blue and the boys in gray " are still fight 
 ing. At all events he will hug the fond thought to his 
 bosom that the people of the North and the people of the 
 South ought to feel towards each other, now and hereafter, 
 exactly as they did during the bloody conflict. With such 
 men I have no controversy. They are given over to their 
 madness, and it defies all remedies. But I ask all men who 
 
THE GOSPEL OF REFORM. 
 
 I2 9 
 
 love their country and are able to perform the operation of 
 thinking, why the subject of our late war should be dragged 
 into this canvass? It was a bloody and devastating conflict 
 between citizens and states that had lived together in peace 
 under a common flag, and whose union hereafter is their 
 manifest destiny. Why should any patriotic man seek to 
 keep alive its memories ! Let them fade away into the re 
 ceding past, and the old bond of union be renewed and ce 
 mented by the rivalries of a common brotherhood for the 
 common weal. Our civil war has taken its place in the past. 
 It has gone before the judgment seat of history, like the Mex 
 ican war, the war of 1812, or the war of independence ; and 
 there is no more propriety in discussing it in the coming 
 campaign than there would be in overhauling the wars of the 
 antediluvians. There is even less propriety, for we could 
 talk about these ancient wars without the least danger of re 
 kindling old animosities. When our civil war was upon us, 
 and the questions which have since been so grandly settled 
 on the side of the Union, hung in perilous dispute, I gave ut 
 terance to some strong words, which I have no desire to re 
 call. If you can set back the clock of our politics and re 
 create the circumstances in which I was placed, I will reiter 
 ate them. I tried to breathe into the hearts of the people the 
 spirit of war, and so to influence public opinion as to promote 
 the triumph of our arms and the just settlement of the great 
 issue then on trial. But why should I repeat my old war 
 speeches in this canvass? Why should Senator Morton re 
 peat his? How long are the political waters to be troubled 
 by graceless demagogues who so love the honors and emol 
 uments of office that they are willing to clutch at them at the 
 expense of the nation s peace? 
 
 In like manner let me remind our Republican friends that 
 the slavery question is settled. I am quite sure, in fact, that 
 slavery has been finally abolished. I think quite a number 
 of the Grant leaders have not found it out, but I bring them 
 the glad tidings to-night. As long ago as 1863 Mr. Lincoln s 
 proclamation and the confiscation laws of Congress gave the 
 9 
 
I3O SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 institution a pretty deadly stab, and the thirteenth constitu 
 tional amendment sent it reeling into its bloody grave. By 
 fundumental and irrepealable law, slavery is destroyed 
 forever. The fourteenth amendment provides that the negro 
 shall henceforth be a citizen of the United States, armed 
 with the equal protection which the law gives to all. It de 
 clares that the public debt, including the pensions and 
 bounties due for services in putting down the rebellion shall 
 not be questioned. It further declares that neither the 
 United States nor any state shall pay or assume any debt or 
 obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion, or in 
 payment for the loss or emancipation of any slave ; and the 
 fifteenth amendment arms these black millions with the bal 
 lot. These fundamental provisions go down to the bed-rock 
 of the whole matter ; for unless you can persuade two-thirds 
 of Congress and three-fourths of all the states to annul them, 
 they will be as enduring as the republic. And as these 
 amendments are now a part of the platforms of all political 
 parties, the slavery question is an absolutely dead issue. The 
 overshadowing, live issue of to-dav is reform, and the duty 
 which now devolves upon us is to select for the offices of 
 President and Vice-President the men best fitted for the 
 work. The records of the candidates on the questions of war 
 and slavery are not half so important as the purification of the 
 public service. We are not now living under the administra 
 tion of Pierce or Buchanan, with the Dred Scott decision cast 
 ing its baleful shadow over the northern states and territories, 
 and the whole power of the federal government relentlessly 
 employed in the enforcement of the fugative slave law of 1850. 
 A large majority of the men against whom the abolitionists 
 waged war twenty-five years ago are in their graves. The 
 Whig party is dead. Slavery has perished, and the Demo 
 crats occupy the same position respecting the new order of 
 things as the Republicans and surviving abolitionists. 
 
 A distinguished public man of Ohio has told us that 
 " war legislates." Our distinguished senator made the pub 
 lic confession a few years ago, that the logic of events r 
 
THE GOSPEL OF REFORM. 13! 
 
 had converted him from a follower of Andrew Johnson to a 
 disciple of Charles Sumner. He has never been the same 
 man since, nor is the Democratic party the same party now, 
 and inspired by the same spirit and aims, as in the evil 
 days of the past, when the slave power of the South was the 
 master alike of both the great parties of the country, and com 
 pelled their leaders to recognize the fact. In his late mas 
 terly speech in Congress, Mr. Lamar reminds our Republican 
 leaders that "there has not been a single great measure in 
 the constitutional history of England, not a single great 
 reform, which, after its establishment by one party, was not, 
 in the course of time, and a very short period, placed in the 
 hands of the party originally opposed to it." Shall we stu 
 pidly shut our eyes to the logic of such facts? The devotion 
 of the Democratic party to slavery in the past is no proof 
 whatever that it can not be trusted with the questions relat 
 ing to it that are now finally settled by the constitution. The 
 Republican party in the early period of the war did not aim 
 at the abolition of slavery, but was driven toward it step by 
 step under the pressure of necessity. Its principles and pol 
 icy were radically revolutionized by events, and, except in 
 name, it became in fact a new party, with new purposes, and 
 animated by a new spirit. On precisely the same principles 
 the transformation of the Democratic party of the past is in 
 evitable, and we can not possibly be mistaken in this conclu 
 sion. We know that the transformation is going on and has 
 already made great progress, and that no party was ever 
 strong enough to get away from the thraldom of unmanage 
 able facts. The logic of war reshapes and reinspires parties,, 
 just as the logic of events has converted so many political 
 sinners. 
 
 The folly of attempting to find a political scare-crow in 
 the record of Tilden and Hendricks on the slavery question 
 is amusingly illustrated in the late key-note speech of our 
 senator. He charges that Governor Hendricks opposed the 
 escape of slaves who came into our lines during the war. 
 In the early period of the war Governor Morton occupied the 
 
132 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 same position, and so did the administration of Mr. Lincoln, 
 while our commanding generals frequently restored fugitives 
 to their rebel masters. He says Governor Hendricks, in 
 1867, was opposed to allowing negroes to sit on juries and 
 hold office. Governor Morton held the same opinions, and 
 avowed them only two years before. He says Governor 
 Hendricks opposed the arming of negroes as soldiers. Gov 
 ernor Morton at first agreed with him, and Caleb B. Smith, 
 Mr. Lincoln s Secretary of the Interior, said it would be a 
 disgrace to the nation. He says that Governor Hendricks 
 made a speech in the constitutional convention of 1850 in 
 favor of the i3th article, excluding ne groes from the state. 
 Governor Morton voted for that article, in common with the 
 great body of the people of the state. He charges Tilden 
 and Hendricks with favoring the peace resolution in the Chi 
 cago convention of 1864, which is successfully denied ; but 
 Governor Morton himself, a year afterwards, made so thor 
 oughly sound a Democratic speech at Richmond, that the 
 men he now styles " Confederate Democrats" published it 
 as a campaign document by the hundred thousand for years 
 following in several states of the Union. He says Governor 
 Hendricks favored the fugitive slave law of 1850. So did 
 the author of all the key-notes, for he was then a Democrat, 
 and tried to raise a rebellion in the ranks of the party in the 
 Old Burnt District because it supported me for Congress 
 after I had voted against the fugitive slave act and the com 
 promise measures of the Thirtv-First Congress. I submit 
 that the senator s proverbial fondness for raking up the ashes 
 of the past should not have led him into the political grave 
 yard of prominent Democrats. His own chosen line of ar 
 gument not only shows that he himself is totally disqualified 
 for office, but that nearly all the real leaders of Republican 
 ism are in the same unhappy condition. General Grant 
 himself was a pro-slavery Democrat, voting for Buchanan in 
 1860, and never becoming a Republican till his eyes were 
 anointed by the offer of the Presidency, in two successive 
 installments. General Butler has a record still less immacu- 
 
THE GOSPEL OF REFORM. 133 
 
 late, having voted for Jeff Davis fifty-eight times in the fa 
 mous Charleston convention. According to my recollection, 
 Simon Cameron was never understood to be a very reliable 
 abolitionist. Indeed, if no men are now to be trusted but 
 those who can show a pure and undefiable abolition record 
 for the past twenty-five years, our country is in a pretty bad 
 way, for it would, in many cases, require a search warrant 
 to find such men, even in the Republican party. 
 
 But will the South be safe under the administration of 
 Tilden ? Can the freedmen safely be committed to the guard 
 ianship of the old slave masters? I answer this question in 
 the language of the ablest political journal in the United 
 States, and a supporter of Governor Hayes: "Our own 
 solemn belief is that the less said on this point on the Repub 
 lican side the better ; that the outrage argument serves and 
 can serve the purpose of nobody in this canvass but the Re 
 publican knaves, and that the probabilities are that the South 
 will be more peaceful under Tilden than under Hayes, and 
 this for reasons which lie on the surface. Tilden is not a 
 weak or foolish man. He will have no motive for tolerating 
 disorders at the South, nor will his leading followers. On 
 the contrary, they will perceive clearly the importance of 
 tranquility in that region, to the stability of their hold on 
 power in the North, while these disorders will actually con 
 stitute nearly the whole political capital of the Republican 
 Conklings, Mortons, Chandlers, and Cornells, with whose 
 support Hayes is, it seems, to be saddled." The truth of 
 this is patent to every man s unbiased common sense. The 
 great need of the South to-day is deliverance from the horde 
 of thieves and demagogues who have been fastened like 
 leeches upon the welfare of the people and backed in their 
 misdeeds by the whole power of the administration. The 
 Hamburg massacre and kindred displays of rapine and law 
 lessness admit of no defense, whatever the provocations 
 may have been ; but it is needless to deny that there have 
 been provocations, and that there are two sides to the out 
 rage controversy. Take the case of Alabama. The whole 
 
134 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 federal patronage of the state and the use of the United 
 States army were turned over to George E. Spencer, a thor 
 oughly corrupt and unprincipled political adventurer, to en 
 able him to retain his seat in the United States Senate. Thus 
 equipped for his work, he and his friends bought legislators 
 with federal appointments ; sent marshals and revenue offi 
 cers, accompanied by regular troops, to run off voters from 
 the counties where the opposition to him was strongest ; pros 
 tituted the courts by arresting Democratic members of the 
 legislature in order to prevent a quorum ; used the machin 
 ery of the custom house and revenue offices in breaking up 
 the General Assembly and getting up two rival bodies, while 
 the money to pay for these extraordinary performances was 
 obtained by embezzlement from the postoffice at Mobile. In 
 the light of these facts it is not surprising that the state is now 
 overwhelmingly Democratic, while the gratifying fact greets 
 us that order has gradually asserted itself throughout the 
 .state, as the power of the plunderers has declined. Look at 
 the state of Mississippi. In Vicksburg the whites paid 99 per 
 cent, of the taxes, and the negroes assessed and handled the 
 money. As a consequence, the debt of the city, which, in 
 1869, was $13,000, rose in five years to $1,400,000, while the 
 population was only eleven thousand, and more than half of 
 the inhabitants were colored. A ring composed of carpet 
 bag adventurers and ignorant black men of the most corrupt 
 character controlled the executive offices and courts, and 
 grew rich by forgery and fraud. These rings were sustained 
 by the whole power of the Republican administration at 
 Washington. The state of South Carolina supplies us with 
 facts equally startling. I can not go into the details, but 
 they are known to the country. It is only necessary to say 
 that after the state had been plundered and devastated by 
 the black and white scoundrels who so long controlled her 
 fortunes, and Governor Chamberlain had succeeded in in 
 augurating the work of reform, the representatives of the fed 
 eral administration demonstrated their friendship for organ 
 ized rascality and ruffianism by accusing Gov. Chamberlain 
 
THE GOSPEL OF REFORM. 135 
 
 of leaning toward Democracy, and condemning him for re 
 fusing commissions to such political reprobates as Whipper 
 and Moses, Can any man feel surprised that outrages should 
 spring out of such a soil ? Can men expect to sow the wind and 
 not reap the whirlwind? No Christian or even civilized man 
 will defend the deeds of lawlessness that disgrace so many 
 states of the South, nor can he defend the political and moral 
 outrages that have been their chief provocation. What is 
 the remedy? Shall we madly seek it in a continuation of 
 Grantism and the rule of such men as Casey, Packard, Dur- 
 rel, Kellogg, Ames, Whipper and Moses? Can the election 
 of another Republican President bring order and peace and 
 honest government to the sorely tried people of the South, 
 black or white? We have had a Republican President and 
 a Republican congress for nearly eight years, and yet the 
 chiefs of the party, who represent the South as in a perfectly 
 deplorable condition, tell us that a continuance of the same 
 party in power is absolutely necessary for the welfare of the 
 people, and especially the colored race. President Grant 
 himself tells us that " Mississippi is governed to-day by 
 officials chosen through fraud and violence, such as would 
 scarcely be accredited to savages, much less to a civilized 
 and Christian people," and Senator Morton s outrage com 
 mittee, with Senator Boutwell at its head, declares in its late 
 congressional report that the state, which last year was in a 
 condition of peace, is now so given over to incurable anarchy 
 after a ten years trial of Republican reconstruction, that we 
 may be obliged to remand it to territorial government ! 
 Gentlemen, could there possibly be a stronger argument in 
 favor of a change of administration? Could any fact stand 
 out more palpably on the background of the past than the 
 absolute need of a new and wiser policy, and new and wiser 
 men to administer it? The result of Republican rule, in fact, 
 has been to array the two races of the South in deadly hostil 
 ity, instead of making them friends and brethren. In the 
 states containing the largest negro element and under Re 
 publican rule, violence and disorder have largely prevailed 
 
136 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 since the close of the war ; while in the conservative and 
 Democratic states order and peace have been the normal 
 condition of the people. What we now want is a new dis 
 pensation, which shall blot out the color line in politics, 
 soften and subdue the antagonism so long fostered by white 
 demagogues, divide the colored vote between the parties of 
 the South as the white vote is already divided, and thus 
 make the people of the states lately in revolt, in deed and in 
 heart, one people. All this, of course, must be the work of 
 time ; but the agencies can be wisely set to work which will 
 accomplish it, and thus perfectly solve the problem of a re 
 stored Union by completely removing all the causes of strife. 
 But the question is asked, " Is Governor Tilden a genuine 
 reformer? Would he prove himself morally trustworthy in 
 the high office to which he aspires ? " The Republican leaders 
 answer the question with a very indignant negative. They 
 make the gravest of charges, both against his loyalty and his 
 integrity, and they attempt to sustain them by very remarkable 
 proofs. For example, they introduce the testimony of the New 
 York Times, and other leading journals, which flatly give the 
 lie to their current calumnies by their statements four or five 
 years ago, when Governor Tilden was making his magnificent 
 fight against Tammany. Do the Kepublican leaders believe 
 they can convict him of the frightful crimes with which they 
 charge him on the evidence of impeached witnesses? They 
 also attempt to make out their case on the testimony of Dem 
 ocratic newspapers which abused Governor Tilden before his 
 nomination, when he was likely to be in the way of their 
 favorite candidate, while these same newspapers are now 
 zealously supporting him, and thus practically confessing 
 that they did not speak the truth in the fierce diatribes they 
 had uttered previous to the St. Louis convention. General 
 Harrison, the other day, in his Danville speech, showed his 
 appreciation of the popular intelligence by parading this sort 
 of evidence and expecting it to be believed by his audience. 
 But let us refer very briefly to some of these charges. We 
 are told by the Republican authorities that Governor Tilden 
 
THE GOSPEL OF REFORM. 137 
 
 is a secessionist. General Harrison makes this charge, as 
 he made it four years ago against Horace Greeley ; and it is 
 as false now as it was then. It is not only untrue, but I am 
 sorry to believe that General Harrison knows it to be so. 
 There is a difference of opinion among American statesmen 
 now, as there was at the beginning of the government, on the 
 question of state rights and federal supremacy. Governor 
 Tilden, I believe, belongs to the Democratic or JefFersonian 
 school of statesmen, and of course rejects the constitutional 
 theories of Hamilton and the federalists ; but that he is a se 
 cessionist in the sense of disloyalty to the national flag, or 
 that he recognizes the right of a state to go out of the Union 
 at its own sweet will, with no power in the nation to hold it 
 in its place, is a pure invention. This is not a matter of 
 opinion, but of fact ; for when the civil war came, Governor 
 Tilden was actively on the side of the Union, doing an hon 
 orable part by his influence and money in sending men into- 
 the field, and exerting himself in holding in check the dis 
 loyal element in his own party, when it threatened an organ 
 ized opposition to the prosecution of the war. He was also 
 the friend and adviser of Lincoln. This is my commentary 
 upon the beautiful mosaic of mingled metaphysics and petti 
 fogging which General Harrison so artfully weaves together 
 in the hope of showing the disloyalty of the Democratic can 
 didate in this campaign. 
 
 Another charge is that Governor Tilden was the leading 
 counsel for the credit mobilier, and gave his opinion in favor 
 of the legality of the scheme. Governor Tilden is an emi 
 nent lawyer, and has had great experience in the manage 
 ment of railroad cases. It was not strange that the Union 
 Pacific Railroad Company should take his counsel as to its 
 legal right to create a fiscal agency composed of a portion of 
 the members of the company, for the purpose of taking charge 
 of the construction of the road. As a naked legal question, 
 I think it is agreed among lawyers that the company had the 
 right. I have not examined the evidence in the case re 
 cently, but if Governor Tilden gave that opinion as a lawyer, 
 
138 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 I do not see that it convicts him of any high crime. If he ad 
 vised the company that it had the right, through the ma 
 chinery called the credit mobilier, to rob the treasury of mil 
 lions, let the charge be squarely made, and let the proof be 
 produced. The curious fact is that Republican politicians 
 should allude to this question at all. With a single excep 
 tion the representative men and eminent Christian statesmen 
 who auctioned off their consciences to this great corporation 
 were members of the Republican party. They gave no 
 opinions as to the legality of the scheme, but they prosti 
 tuted their political and official influence to the base greed of 
 gain by personally joining in a gigantic fraud upon the na 
 tional treasury. Of this fraud Governor Tilden is not guilty, 
 and it seems to me that if the Republican leaders in this can 
 vass had taken counsel of their prudence they would have 
 studiously avoided any allusion to the transaction with which 
 their party relations are so exceedingly delicate and tender. 
 I notice one further charge, namely, that Governor Til- 
 den did not begin his war on the Tammany ring as soon as 
 he should have done. We are told that he was too tardy 
 and hesitating, and waited till the fight was pretty well under 
 way, with an assured prospect of victory, before he entered 
 upon his grand work. The proof of this charge is the per 
 fectly worthless testimony to which I have already alluded. 
 Like the charge last noted, it also comes from the leaders of 
 a party which not only hesitates and falters in the prosecu 
 tion of its own thieves, but throws around them its protec 
 tion, and drives from power the men who demand their pun 
 ishment. Governor Tilden, through his unexampled labors 
 and matchless courage, sent to prison or into exile the mu 
 nicipal pirates of the most povverfal organization of rogues 
 and conspirators our country has known, Defying all oppo 
 sition, and braving all dangers, he did it, and the pitiful 
 whine is now heard that he was too slow in beginning the 
 work. But the men who urge this plea are the defenders of 
 an administration which still leaves General Babcock in the 
 undisturbed possession of two important offices, while not a 
 
THE GOSPEL OF REFORM. 139 
 
 man of these Republican leaders has the courage to denounce 
 the action of the President in driving out of office Secretary 
 Bristow and his associates who were so manfully engaged in 
 the work of reform. 
 
 Gentlemen, I have little faith in a political organization 
 whose leaders, like General Harrison, raise the cry of reform 
 while there is not virtue enough in it to keep a single reformer 
 in any important position, and who, while quoting scripture 
 to prove that " offenses must needs come," coolly tell us that 
 the motto of the party is, " Woe unto that man by whom the 
 offense cometh." As for myself, regarding the question of 
 reform as the overshadowing one in this canvass, I would 
 have supported General Bristow if he had been nominated at 
 Cincinnati. Aside from his remarkable fight against the 
 whisky thieves, he was not very well known to the country at 
 large ; but this brief episode in his official life flashed forth 
 such traits of manliness, intrepidity and evident devotion to 
 the honor of the public service, that I would have been will 
 ing to trust him. Many thousands who are now rallying 
 around the Democratic banner would have done likewise ; 
 but the facts which inspire my faith in Governor Tilden are 
 ten-fold more assuring than those which have made General 
 Bristow so honorably conspicuous. Carl Schurz, who is now 
 zealously supporting Governor Hayes, admits that the elec 
 tion of Governor Tilden would be followed by the sweeping 
 out of the corrupt officials and combinations which now dis 
 honor the public service. Parke Godwin, who, in the qual 
 ities of intelligence and high integrity, is the peer of any man 
 in the Republican party, and who has been intimately ac 
 quainted with Governor Tilden for nearly forty years, says 
 he has never had the slightest occasion to suspect his abso 
 lute integrity of purpose and sincerity of conviction, and that 
 in all the relations of private life he is purity itself. I accept 
 the testimony of these witnesses, and reject the reckless and 
 unsupported declarations of Senator Morton that Governor 
 Tilden is a railroad wrecker, a rebel and a thief. 
 
 And now, in conclusion, let me remark that, in arraigning 
 
140 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 the administration of General Grant and the leaders of the 
 Republican party, I have intended no attack upon the honest 
 and intelligent masses who still follow its flag, and still hope 
 to redeem it from dishonor. In some other organization, and 
 under other leaders, they will yet perform as honorable a 
 service as they have already rendered in wisely solving the 
 great problems of the past. Neither would I pluck a single 
 laurel from the brow of the party in the days of its glory, 
 when its great hosts were led by such men as Sumner, Sew- 
 ard, Greeley, Lincoln and Chase. I was with it and of it in 
 all its grand achievements ; and no man can be prouder than 
 myself of its glorious record, and no man forsook it in 1872 
 with more sincere regret. But when I saw that its great 
 work was done, that the marvellous energy it displayed dur 
 ing the war had been turned into the channels of corruption 
 and plunder, with the startling results I have attempted to 
 depict, and that the devil had safely intrenched himself in the 
 works that had been built to bombard him, I parted from the 
 friends of a lifetime, whose love was then turned into hate 
 and scorn, and entered upon a fight for political reform which 
 I am resolved to prosecute to the end. 
 
THE FRAUD OF 1876. 
 
 DELIVERED AT INDIANAPOLIS ON THE STH OF JANUARY, 1877. 
 
 [Mr. Julian had spent a month in New Orleans as one of the men deputed 
 to look after the counting of the Louisiana vote. He thoroughly overhauled 
 the questions involved, and carefully kept his eye on the " visiting statesmen " 
 on the other side, whose mission of evil he clearly exposes in connection with 
 his analysis of the character and performances of the Louisiana u Returning 
 Board."] 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Citizens of Indiana: The re 
 markable political contest of the year just closed has been 
 followed by very serious and unexpected complications. The 
 condition of public affairs is well fitted to awaken general 
 anxiety and alarm, and calls for the best thought and high 
 est endeavor of every citizen. I believe no intelligent man 
 can disguise from himself the fact that the crisis we have 
 reached is profoundly solemnized by tokens of national dan 
 ger ; and I must not enter upon my appointed task to-day 
 without confessing my inability to perform it, and my regret 
 that it was not committed to abler hands. Most fervently do 
 I wish that I could point the safe way through the dangers 
 which cloud the political sky, and menace the peace of our 
 country ; but I must content myself with analyzing the par 
 ticular subject with which I am to deal, and simply express 
 ing, in conclusion, my individual convictions as to the duty 
 of the hour. 
 
 Soon after the late Presidential election, when Democratic 
 rejoicing was exchanged for the chilling apprehension of de 
 feat and disaster through the action of the Louisiana return 
 ing board, the chairman of the National Democratic Com 
 mittee requested sundry gentlemen of the Northern States to 
 repair to the city of New Orleans in the interest of " peace, 
 
142 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 and a fair and honest return" of the vote cast in that state. 
 The President of the United States ordered the presence of 
 an imposing military force " to preserve peace and good or 
 der, and to see that the proper and legal boards of canvassers 
 are unmolested in the performance of their duties." He de 
 clared, in this military order, that 4i should there be any 
 ground of suspicion of a fraudulent count on either side, it 
 should be reported and denounced at once," and that " no 
 man worthy of the office of President should be willing to 
 hold it, if counted in or placed there by fraud." He also ap 
 pointed a number of prominent public characters and repre 
 sentative men in the party with which he is associated to 
 visit the state of Louisiana, " to see that the board of can 
 vassers make a fair count of the vote actually cast," and ex 
 pressed the hope that " fair men of both parties 11 would at 
 tend to this duty. The returning board itself so far recog 
 nized the gravity of the situation and the wide-spread dis 
 trust of its integrity, that an official invitation was extended 
 to the visitors from distant states of the Union to attend its 
 sessions, while canvassing the returns and ascertaining the 
 result of a Presidential election in Louisiana. 
 
 These are very remarkable proceedings. They have no 
 precedent in the history of American politics, and they bear 
 witness to the fearful decay of public virtue, and the alarm 
 ing drift of public affairs toward abnormal and revolutionary 
 methods. At whose door lies the just responsibility? Who 
 is to blame for the atmosphere of suspicion which now covers 
 the land, and the feeling of national peril which recalls so 
 painfully the opening of the year 1861 ? The answer to these 
 questions is not unknown to the people. The present gov 
 ernment of the state of Louisiana was founded in flagrant 
 usurpation and bare-faced fraud. It was conceived in the 
 illegal order of a drunken and corrupt federal judge, and 
 midwived by the political knaves and traders who controlled 
 the national administration four years ago, as they control it 
 to-day. While the people of Louisiana have been prostrate 
 and helpless under the heel of federal tyranny, the returning 
 
THE FRAUD OF 1876. 143 
 
 board has been the vile instrument of that tyranny in the 
 furtherance of its baleful purposes, which it has sought to 
 drape over under the forms of law. It is the creature of the 
 same organized political rapacity which has trampled down 
 law and insulted decency in the states of the South during 
 the past eight years. Under the act creating this board, its 
 members hold their places for life, with power to appoint their 
 successors. There is no appeal from their decision, whatever 
 it may be, according to the ruling of the Supreme Court of the 
 state, and no accountability to the people for their acts. Al 
 though it is a tribunal of special and limited jurisdiction and 
 its acts, whether ministerial or judicial, are to be construed 
 strictly, and are absolutely void if not authorized by the la\v 
 from which they derive all their power, yet, according to 
 the authority cited, there is no redress against its rulings, 
 however defiantly they may transcend its jurisdiction or 
 trample justice under its feet. For any reason or for no rea 
 son at all, it may count in or count out the vote of any parish 
 or precinct in the state, and thus arbitrarily determine the 
 character of the government under w^hich her people are to 
 live, contrary to their choice, and the character of the national 
 administration for four years, should it depend on the vote of 
 the state. While the guilt of the board in an act so heaven 
 daring would be multiplied by the millions whose voices it 
 would stifle, these millions would be utterly without remedy, t 
 even in the congress of the nation, according to the leaders 
 of the Republican party. 
 
 And who are the men constituting this autocratic if not 
 omnipotent institution of the Republican party of Louisiana, 
 concocted in the worst days of carpet-bag government, and 
 for the most nefarious purposes? Tw r o of them are white 
 men and two colored. They are the same men who sat 
 upon the board in 1874, anc * after the election in that year 
 took the majority of votes aw 7 ay from one side and gave 
 it to the other by "unjust, arbitrary and illegal action," 
 as admitted by a Republican congressional committee, of 
 which one William A. Wheeler was a member. They 
 
144 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 are all members of the Republican party, and one of them 
 holds a custom-house office under the spoils -hunting sys 
 tem of the present administration. J. Madison Wells, the 
 president of the board, who was elected Governor of Lou 
 isiana under the reconstruction policy of President Johnson, 
 was summarily ejected from that office in 1857 by General 
 Sheridan, for violating an act of the legislature respect 
 ing the repair of her levees, and seeking to prostitute the 
 funds of the state to partisan purposes. General Sheridan 
 branded him as a " political trickster and a dishonored man," 
 and charged him with "subterfuge and political chicanery." 
 He declared that "his conduct had been as sinuous as the 
 mark left in the dust by the movement of a snake," and that 
 he had "not one friend who is an honest man." After a 
 stay in New Orleans of over three weeks, and mingling 
 freely with the people when not engaged in watching the 
 action of the returning board, I have no hesitation in indors 
 ing the statement of General Sheridan as true. Governor 
 Wells is not only a journeyman and expert in rascality, 
 through long years of training and experience, but he is a 
 scoundrel aboriginally ; and in saying this, I believe I simply 
 give expression to the general sentiment of the state. An 
 derson, the other white man on the board, is not quite so 
 vicious. The element of humanity is not so fatally left out 
 >f his composition. He is not so cold-blooded. If placed 
 in command of a pirate ship he might falter in some emer 
 gency which his more intreuid and satanic companion on the 
 board would enjoy as a luxury. But he is not wanting in the 
 qualities which have made the returning board famous, for 
 he is a thoroughly accomplished knave and swindler. He 
 counts well, and is, in a word, the fit companion and associ 
 ate in office of the president of the body. Cassanave, one of 
 the colored members of the board, is an undertaker by occu 
 pation, and was a slaveholder before the war. He is a man 
 of limited education and intelligence, and not at all qualified 
 by capacity or training for the position he occupies. He is 
 a very strong partisan, but is regarded as a kindly, well- 
 
THE FRAUD OF 1876. 145 
 
 disposed sort- of man, whose worst misfortune is that the 
 thoroughly unprincipled men on the board use him as their 
 tool. This must be regarded as certain, in the absence of 
 any proof that he has ever opposed the confessed illegality 
 and fraud of his associates. Kenner, the other colored man 
 and junior member of the board, is a very small, light mu 
 latto, quick and sprightly in his movements, but altogether 
 unfitted by talents, education or experience, for so responsi 
 ble a position. He is a gambler and grog-seller, a very low 
 fellow, and a few years ago was kicked out of a saloon in 
 New Orleans for stealing the money of his employer. 
 
 Gentlemen, these are the men who are to settle the issue 
 of a Presidential election for the people of the United States 
 in the centennial year of the republic. A Louisiana tribunal, 
 hatched into life by huckstering politicians, shamefully unfit 
 to pass upon the average questions cognizable in the court of 
 a justice of the peace, and condemned by the decent men of 
 all parties for its record of rascality and fraud, is to decide r 
 as a finality, a question of the gravest magnitude to forty 
 millions of people. Was it surprising, in such a crisis, that 
 the chairman of the national Democratic committee should 
 ask some of the chosen friends of Tilden and Hendricks to 
 visit Louisiana in the interest of peace and a fair count of the 
 vote of the state? Was it strange that a thrill of alarm was 
 felt in every section of the Union, and that men spoke with 
 bated breath of the situation? And was the general anxiety 
 at all assuaged by the sending of troops to New Orleans? 
 Did not the man who said "Let us have peace," destroy 
 civil government in Louisiana by the bayonet? Two years 
 later, when the same returning board cheated the people of 
 the state out of the right to their own chosen rulers through 
 a fair and valid election, did he not back up the outrage by 
 the scandalous use of federal soldiers? Has not the man 
 who said " Let no guilty man escape," systematically taken 
 sides with usurpation and roguery in Louisiana? Did he 
 need troops in New Orleans, if the returning board was re 
 solved to act honestly? Or did he mean to use them in sus- 
 10 
 
146 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 taining it in the repetition of its past offenses against justice 
 and decency? The President, in his military order to Gen 
 eral Sherman, said that " either party can afford to be dis 
 appointed in the result," but that " the country can not afford 
 to have the result tainted by the suspicion of illegal or false 
 returns." Did he mean this? Or was he firing at honor and 
 fair play from behind a masked battery? The crisis was 
 critical. Danger seemed to be in the air. The hearts of the 
 people w r ere burdened with the problem of the hour, and all 
 patriotic and sober men anxiously hoped for its peaceable 
 solution. 
 
 What was to be done? Representative men of both polit 
 ical parties had reached the theater of trouble, and as the 
 avowed missionaries of peace and fair dealing. The men 
 who represented the Democratic side of the controversy, 
 fully appreciating the seriousness of the situation, addressed 
 a brief letter to Stanley Matthews, John Sherman, and other 
 representative Republicans who had been deputed by the 
 President, proposing a joint conference " in order that such 
 influence as they possessed might be exerted in behalf of such 
 a canvass of the votes, as by its fairness and impartiality 
 should command the respect and acquiescence of the Ameri 
 can people of all parties." I submit to all just and reason 
 able men that this was a fair and manly proposition. I am 
 sure it was made in good faith, and that not a man who 
 joined in it would have been willing to see Tilden and Hen- 
 dricks counted in by fraud. We simply ask for a fair count, 
 and the supervision of the canvass by a conference represent 
 ing both sides of the disputed question. It might not have 
 accomplished any valuable result, but in so threatening an 
 aspect of public affairs the effort was certainly to be com 
 mended, and could not honorably be declined. What was 
 the answer to our proposition by the deputies of the Presi 
 dent and leaders of the Republican party? They say in the 
 outset that they " know of no reason to doubt that a perfectly 
 honest and just declaration of the results of the recent election 
 in Louisiana by its lawfully constituted authorities will be 
 
THE FRAUD OF 1876. 147 
 
 made." Gentlemen, would any of you have believed it 
 morally possible for Stanley Matthews, John Sherman, 
 and their Republican co-laborers in Louisiana to face the 
 American people with a statement so shockingly incredible? 
 And yet they were equal to the extraordinary task, and they 
 are " all honorable men." I will not be so ungenerous and 
 impolite as to call in question their veracity, but it can only 
 be defended by an impeachment of their intelligence almost 
 as disgraceful as lying. No reason to doubt that a perfectly 
 honest and just declaration of the vote in Louisiana would be 
 made by the famous returning board ! Then they had 
 mingled freely with the people of New Orleans without ever 
 having heard of the notoriously bad character of three or 
 four members of that board ! They had never heard that 
 William A. Wheeler, two years ago, pronounced it " a dis 
 grace to civilization !" They had never heard that it was 
 proved before a congressional committee of Republicans, 
 about the same time, that the president of this board perjured 
 himself in the testimony he gave respecting the election of 1874 
 They had never heard of the perfectly well-known fact that 
 in that year this board illegally and unjustly took the major 
 ity of votes honestly and fairly given to the Democratic ticket, 
 and counted them on the other side, as admitted by the con 
 gressional committee referred to, which was composed of the 
 political friends of these surprisingly innocent and ignorant 
 politicians, and of the members of the board itself! They 
 had never heard that General Sheridan summarily turned the 
 president of this board out of his gubernatorial office in 1867, 
 on account of his shameless rascality and disregard of law ! 
 Who would have supposed that our country was afflicted 
 with so rare an assemblage of political Rip Van Winkles as 
 that which reported for duty in New Orleans under the lead 
 of Sherman, Garfield and Kelly? 
 
 But these Republican patriots declined our proposal for a 
 joint conference for the further reason that they were present 
 as mere "witnesses, without power or legal influence" over 
 the action of the board. They said they were "strangers, 
 
SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 without official functions," and that " it would be a manifest 
 interference with state rights and local self-government for 
 persons like ourselves, without official rights, to attempt to 
 interfere with or control the actions of such a tribunal. 
 Angels and ministers of grace defend us I Will wonders 
 never cease? John Sherman and his confederate Republi 
 cans preaching the gospel of state rights and .local self-gov 
 ernment in Louisiana ! The chief apostles of federal usur 
 pation and the Christianity of the bayonet striving to hide the 
 villainies of a Republican returning board under the mantle 
 of Thomas Jefferson ! The sanctities of law invoked by the 
 assassins of a state ! Could anything be more sublimely 
 impudent or more charmingly Satanic? These emissaries of 
 the President knew that the men who proposed a joint con 
 ference were not such idiots as to suppose it would possess 
 any official power over the ]egal functions of the board. 
 When Senator Sherman pretended not to know this, the 
 man was forgotten in the pettifogger. What we hoped from 
 the presence and cooperative action of leading Republicans 
 and Democrats was the exercise of such a moral influence 
 over this suspected tribunal as would secure publicity, impar 
 tiality, and fairness in its methods of canvassing the votes 
 and ascertaining the result. Our purpose was unmistakable, 
 and it accorded perfectly with the declared wish of the Presi 
 dent, that " representative and fair men of both parties 1 would 
 visit Louisiana "to see that the board of canvassers make a fair 
 count of the vote actually cast." The presence of these Re 
 publican leaders in New Orleans in response to the invitation 
 of their chief, was a clear recognition of the very power which 
 they afterwards disclaimed by styling themselves "strangers," 
 with no right to "control or influence any of the officers of 
 the board as to the manner in which they shall perform min 
 isterial or political duties." Fellow citizens, can any of you 
 divine what brought these gentlemen to New Orleans? They 
 recoil from the very thought of exercising any influence, legal 
 or moral, over the action of the board, or the method of its 
 proceedings. They say they know of no reason to doubt 
 
THE FRAUD OF 1876. 149 
 
 that it would make a perfectly honest and just declaration of 
 the results of the election. And yet here were twenty-six 
 " eminent citizens" and "Christian statesmen" simultane 
 ously leaving their homes for Louisiana at the call of the 
 President, and attending the sessions of the returning board 
 in successive squads till its work was done. What is the 
 meaning of all this? They say they went as "witnesses, 
 but why go so far to witness a performance that would un 
 doubtedly be conducted with perfect honesty and fairness? 
 Why make a long journey for the mere purpose of becoming 
 spectators of a proceeding over which they could exercise 
 neither legal control nor moral influence? These provoking 
 questions are rendered all the more so by the singular fact 
 that this formidable body of " witnesses " which the President 
 detailed for duty at New Orleans disobeyed their orders. 
 The private citizens and strangers, whose innocent and use 
 less mission was that of simple spectators of the doings of the 
 board, failed even in that duty. They were in the court 
 room in which the board sat while canvassing the returns and 
 examining the papers, but with rare and very slight excep 
 tions they gave no more attention to what was going on, and 
 manifested no more interest in the proceedings than if the 
 whole affair had related exclusively to the denizens of another 
 planet. Their confidence in the board seemed to be so gush 
 ing and unreserved that they peacefully resigned themselves 
 to their correspondence, their newspapers, and their cigars, 
 while the presence of a formidable military force in this 
 city to " see that the members of the board were unmolested 
 in the performance of their duties," was probably felt as a 
 superadded solace to their souls. They may have been 
 "witnesses" to some of the acts of the board, but if so, it 
 must have been at night, in some appointed gathering of the 
 politically elect, into which no friend of Tilden and Hendricks 
 could be admitted. Gentlemen, I desire to do injustice to 
 no man. Unfounded suspicion is mean and cowardly; but 
 in the light of the facts I have stated I again ask the question, 
 why did this remarkable troupe of political partisans visit the 
 
150 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 state of Louisiana? Did they go to see the orange groves 
 and sugar mills of the state, or the jetties of the Mississippi? 
 Was it a trip of mere pleasure, or private business, accident 
 ally happening at the time the returning board was in session? 
 Was the invitation of the President utterly without meaning? 
 If their mission was political, do you believe they went as an 
 embassy of peace, putting party under their feet in the over 
 mastering desire to tranquilize the public mind and enforce 
 justice and law in counting the votes of the state? Or did 
 they go as the backers and accomplices of the returning 
 board, in the conspiracy to count out the lawfully elected 
 President of the United States, by wrenching from the people 
 of Louisiana for the third time the precious right of self-gov 
 ernment? Answer these questions for yourselves, after you 
 have followed me in the further development of my subject. 
 The board entered upon its regular duties on the 2oth of 
 November. Was it legally constituted ? The law creating it de 
 clares that it shall consist of five members, and that all the po 
 litical parties of the state shall be represented. But there were 
 but four members, and these all Republicans ; and yet Senator 
 Sherman, in the senate the other day, said " the board was 
 legally constituted." What does he mean by so reckless a 
 statement? It is not denied that the action of four members 
 would be as legal as that of the whole, so far as numbers are 
 concerned ; but here is a positive requirement that all po 
 litical parties shall be represented on the board. This is 
 just as binding as the provision fixing the number of the 
 body. A board consisting of two members could not act, 
 because it would lack the numerical qualification prescribed 
 by law, just as a board composed exclusively of members of 
 one political party lacks the political qualification prescribed by 
 the same law. The first duty of the board, therefore, without 
 which I think it was powerless to perform any other, was to fill 
 the vacancy, which the law expressly authorized and required 
 it to do. The counsel for the Democratic candidates formally 
 asked for the performance of this obvious and imparative 
 duty, suggesting the name of a most worthy and well quali- 
 
THE FRAUD OF l876. 151 
 
 fied man for the position ; but the board refused. It defi 
 antly trampled under foot the two-fold command of the law 
 to fill the vacancy, and to supply the political element which 
 was wanting. President Wells, "the plain man," who 
 seems to be a great favorite of Senator Sherman, said the 
 Democrats had lost their right to a member of the board by 
 the resignation of Mr. Arroyo, which I think took place a 
 year and a half ago. He further said that the board had 
 failed to agree as to the appointment of the gentleman sug 
 gested, as if no other man could be found among the more 
 than 80,000 Democrats and conservatives of the state. He 
 made the further pitiful plea, that when this returning board 
 was first created there was no such organization as the Dem 
 ocratic-conservative party in the state, as if that fact could 
 furnish the slightest excuse for violating the law to-day. This 
 miserable drivel, by the side of which the worst forms of 
 pettifogging become respectable, is paraded in the senate of 
 the United States by Mr. Sherman as a vindication of the 
 board ; while in a recent debate in the house of representa 
 tives, Mr. Hale, of Maine, sought to extricate Governor 
 Wells from his despicable dilemma by saying that at its late 
 session the board had offered the vacancy to as many as six 
 Democrats, who successively declined it. This statement is 
 absolutely untrue. Not a Democrat was offered the position , 
 although the board was urged, morning after morning dur 
 ing its sessions, to fill it. Why did it refuse? For the per 
 fectly manifest reason that a Democratic member would be 
 an unmanageable obstacle to the \vork to be done. He would 
 have a right to take part in the oral examination of witnesses. 
 He would have a share in the work of canvassing the re 
 turns. He would have a right to be present in the secret 
 conferences of the board, during its protracted public sessions. 
 And he would be present at the final cooking of the returns 
 by which the state was to be cheated, and would be the wit 
 ness of the transaction. 
 
 These are exactly the reasons why the board stubbornly 
 and brazenly refused to fill the vacancy ; and I believe no 
 
152 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 man will deny it who is acquainted with its history, except 
 the innocent and child-like Senator Sherman, and the guile 
 less political babes who played their parts as " witnesses " so 
 inoffensively at New Orleans. Gentlemen, the defense of 
 such lawlessness by honorable men in either branch of Con 
 gress would be a melancholy fact, even if this board had 
 been able to point to a record of umimpeachable good be 
 havior in the past. But its character was bad, in the judg 
 ment of all political parties. It had thwarted the will of the 
 people of Louisiana two years before, by making the ballot 
 the foot-ball of knavery and fraud. Its integrity was sus 
 pected by intelligent men throughout the entire land, and its 
 action in thus violating the principle that no man shall be a 
 judge in his own case, was as shameless as would be that of 
 a judge of one of your own courts who should claim the right 
 to occupy the bench and charge the jury on the trial of an 
 indictment against himself, after a former conviction for the 
 .same offense. Its audacity in clutching at party machinery 
 and scouting the virtues of honesty, impartiality and fairness, 
 while proceeding to decide the grave issues of a state and 
 national election, is enough to provoke the laughter and 
 amazement of devils. Senator Sherman defends it. He 
 thinks Governor Wells the peer of any man in the senate/ 
 and he sees nothing wrong in the further fact that the 
 clerical force of the board was also packed with Republicans. 
 He says there was no law requiring a political division of the 
 clerks, and that Democrats, when they have the offices, do 
 not divide with Republicans. But this is a very transparent 
 dodge. The point here involved is not one of law, but de 
 cency. The returning board is covered with public sus 
 picion. Its character is stained by fraud. If bent upon fur 
 ther rascalities it would, of course, want a body of faithful 
 clerical scullions, skilled in the work of falsely and fraudu 
 lently canvassing and tabulating the votes, and all acting 
 harmoniously in the service of their master. This, of course, 
 would be seriously interfered with by the presence of Demo 
 crats, while no harm would be done if honor and fair play 
 
THE FRAUD OF 1876. 153 
 
 were to be the governing principles. All this is as palpable 
 as the moral blindness which hinders very distinguished and 
 honorable gentlemen from seeing it. 
 
 But the board not only signalized the beginning of its 
 work by openly violating the law affecting its organization 
 and functions, but it still further affirmed the popular distrust 
 of its integrity by excluding the public from its sessions. 
 Judge Spofford, one of the counsel for the Democratic can 
 didates, made a very earnest and eloquent appeal for public 
 ity. He reminded the board that forty millions of people 
 were watching its proceedings, and quoted the language of 
 the President, that " should there be any grounds of suspi 
 cion of a fraudulent counting on either side, it should be re 
 ported and denounced at once." In the name of the Amer 
 ican people he asked that no part of the work should "be 
 done in a corner, 1 and declared that there was " no call for 
 privacy in applying the rules of arithmetic, 1 or in perform 
 ing "judicial duties." But the board refused to listen to this 
 demand on the flimsy pretext that if it was surrounded by a 
 multitude of people it would be disturbed and delayed in its 
 proceedings. What the country wanted was not only an 
 honest count of the vote, but that the proceedings should be 
 conducted with such evident fairness as to make this unques 
 tionable to the people of all parties. If at all possible, suspi 
 cion should have been entirely disarmed by invoking the full 
 light of day upon a transaction so pregnant with interest, 
 both to the state and the nation. But " men love darkness 
 rather than light because their deeds are evil." The people 
 of Louisiana were not allowed to witness the canvass of their 
 own votes. The press reporters, representing the leading 
 newspapers of the country, were excluded from the court 
 room on their petition to be admitted. The supervisors of 
 registration and elections who desired to witness the canvass 
 of the votes were not allowed to be present, either in person 
 or by their counsel. The Democratic candidates and their 
 attorneys w r ere also excluded, except on the hearing of con 
 tested cases, although their presence was exceedingly im- 
 
154 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 portant during the entire proceedings, owing to their famili 
 arity with the different parishes and voting precincts, and 
 their ability to detect any indications of fraud on the opening 
 of the returns, which the visiting committee present would 
 necessarily fail to discover.- The board, it is true, so far 
 yielded to the pressure from without as to permit the pres 
 ence of two political committees, with a reporter for each, 
 but this was an exceedingly frail barrier against secret ma 
 nipulation and fraud in the returns. These committees were 
 composed of strangers from distant states, wholly unfamiliar 
 with the practical roguery of Louisiana officials, while the 
 exclusion of the general press reporters, the people of the 
 state, the supervisors and registrars of elections, and the can 
 didates for office, was w r holly indefensible, and utterly irre 
 concilable with an honest purpose to serve the interests of 
 truth. It perfectly accorded, however, with the action of the 
 board in other respects. It had openly violated the law as to 
 its organization. It had excluded from any share in its de 
 liberations every element that would not yield unhesitating 
 obedience to its base purposes. It had usurped the right to 
 sit as final judge of its own flagitious acts. It had fully re 
 corded its purpose to re-enact the foul game of 1874. ^ was 
 entirely natural, therefore, that it should wrap itself in the 
 mantle of darkness when entering upon the final chapters of 
 its unhallowed conspiracy to cheat the people of the United 
 States. 
 
 But let us follow the board in its work. The counsel for 
 the Democratic candidates, at the outset, protested against 
 the right of the board to canvass the electoral vote at all, but 
 the protest was summarily overruled and no opportunity 
 allowed for argument. With characteristic one-sidedness, 
 the board ruled in favor of its own jurisdiction ; and Senator 
 Sherman, in his late letter to the President, declares that its 
 action is " independent of state and national laws other than 
 those of Louisiana," and "finally and substantially conclu 
 sive as to the votes cast and candidates elected." In sup 
 port of this position he cites a decision of the Supreme 
 
THE FRAUD OF 1876. 155 
 
 Court of Louisiana, well knowing at the time that Chief 
 Justice Ludeling, who pronounced that decision, had been 
 branded with "fraud and breach of trust" by the Supreme 
 Court of the United States, in a case which brought his char 
 acter in question. But conceding that there is no appeal 
 from the decisions of this board, their finality certainly could 
 not be admitted as to questions beyond its jurisdiction. It 
 has no right to wander away from its appointed work, and 
 pass upon questions not cognizable by it, under the law from 
 which it derives its authority. Judge Trumbull and his asso 
 ciates, in their late Louisiana report, have conclusively shown 
 that the law of 1872 creating this tribunal, and under which 
 it acted, makes no provision as to the manner of appointing 
 electors for President and Vice-President, while it seems 
 to repeal all other laws on the subject of elections. They 
 show that if the previous act of 1870 respecting the appoint 
 ment of Presidential electors is repealed, there is no law of 
 the state on the subject, and the board is consequently with 
 out authority to canvass the votes for such offices ; but that 
 if the act of 1870 is not repealed, the canvass of the votes 
 for electors must be made by the Governor in the presence 
 of the Secretary of State, the Attorney-General, a judge of 
 the district in which the seat of government may be estab 
 lished, or any two of them, as required by that act. The 
 public has been made acquainted with this argument, and I 
 need not repeat it at length ; and although Mr. Sherman 
 refers to it as " an array of technicalities," its soundness has 
 been indorsed by some of the ablest lawyers of the country, 
 and has not been successfully impeached in any quarter. 
 
 But even if the board had the right to canvass the electo 
 ral vote, it clearly transcended its legal authority in throwing 
 out votes on account of intimidation and violence. Its sim 
 ple duty was to canvass and compile the returns and pro 
 claim the result, unless the commissioners of election or the 
 supervisors of registration imposed upon it a further duty by 
 laying a legal foundation for it, as provided for in sections 26 
 and 43 of the state election law. That foundation must con- 
 
156 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 sist of the affidavit of the supervisor of registration or com 
 missioners of elections, supported by the affidavits of three 
 or more citizens, setting forth the facts of any riot, tumult, 
 acts of violence, intimidation, armed disturbance, bribery or 
 corrupt influences which prevented or tended to prevent a 
 fair, free and peaceable election, and showing the number 
 of qualified electors deterred by such proceedings from vot 
 ing or registering. This statement must be made out within 
 24 hours after the receipt of all the returns for the different 
 polling places, and shall be forwarded in duplicate to the su 
 pervisor of registration of the parish. If this foundation is 
 not laid, the board has no jurisdiction whatever except to 
 count the votes returned. It has no right to entertain any 
 outside protest. It has no right to attack the returns from 
 any poll, ward or parish in the state, for any of the causes 
 specified. If the decision of the board is final, it is because 
 its proceedings have tracked the law, and are therefore 
 backed by its authority. The board has no ex ojfi.cio power 
 to institute complaints against any poll. The special pro 
 visions of the law have an unmistakable meaning. Their 
 purpose is that all the supervisors shall be engaged simultane 
 ously in their several parishes in completing their returns and 
 statements on the spot where the election was held, without 
 communication \vith each other or with persons beyond the 
 parish, and before they can obtain information of what has 
 been done in other parishes, or any clear knowledge of the 
 result. The design is to exclude from the consideration of 
 the returning board all ex j>ost facto complaints which might 
 be trumped up at the last moment, for dishonest purposes. 
 And this was the declared opinion of Messrs. Hoar, Wheeler 
 and Frye, in their famous report of February, 1875, m which 
 they say : "We are clearly of opinion that the returning 
 board has no right to do anything except to canvass and 
 compile the returns which were lawfully made to them by 
 local officers, except in cases where they were accompanied 
 by the certificates of the supervisor or commissioner provided 
 in the third section." I believe no such foundation for the jur- 
 
THE FRAUD OF 1876. 157 
 
 isdiction of the board, as the law requires, was laid in any 
 parish of the state, and certainly not in any of the five which 
 have been the chief theater of alleged intimidation and vio 
 lence. The action of the board, therefore, in seeking to de 
 feat the will of the people of Louisiana by disfranchising 
 more than 13,000 Democratic voters, was not only a flagrant 
 usurpation of authority, but a most unpardonable sin against 
 " the habit of obedience to the forms of law," which the vis 
 iting committee of Republicans at New Orleans lately sol 
 emnly warned us "should be sedulously inculcated," and 
 that 4 the resort to extra constitutional modes of redress for 
 even actual grievances should be avoided and condemned 
 as revolutionary, disorganizing, and tending to disorder and 
 anarchy." 
 
 Gentlemen, the performances of the returning board dur 
 ing its recent sessions furnish still other illustrations of the 
 perverse and malign spirit which has flavored the entire pro 
 ceedings. Governor Wells, after being repeatedly and per 
 sistently urged to fill the vacancy on the board, indignantly 
 denied that it had ever thought of refusing to fill it ; but the 
 vacancy never was filled, while the facts of the case clearly 
 reveal a fixed determination not to fill it. The board played 
 fast and loose in its rulings relative to ex parte affidavits. 
 By a shifty and ambidextrous policy, it allowed many such 
 affidavits to be received in the interest of the Republican can 
 didates ; but after assuring the counsel on the other side that 
 counter affidavits would be admitted, on which assurance 
 they went to the labor and expense of procuring them in 
 large quantities, the board suddenly changed its mind, and 
 the permission to use them was denied. The returns from 
 many of the parishes were brought to the city in the pockets 
 of different individuals, instead of being forwarded by mail, 
 as required by law, and were received by the board without 
 objection. In a number of cases they were carried around 
 the city for days by the parties having them in charge ; and 
 when these parties, as sometimes happened, contumaciously 
 refused to deliver them to the board, or held them back on 
 
158 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 account of the non-payment of charges for their transmis 
 sion, Governor Wells manifested not the slightest desire to 
 get possession of the papers, said the board could not afford 
 to pay the charges, and falsely declared that it possessed no 
 power to compel their production. In answer to the -sugges 
 tion that a supervisor, by wrongfully refusing to file his re 
 turn, might deprive the people of their votes, Governor Wells 
 responded, " We can t help that," and that " criminality of 
 that kind should be brought before the courts." He prom 
 ised to take up the consideration of East Baton Rouge parish 
 on a specified day, and advised the counsel for the Demo 
 cratic candidates to have their witnesses in readiness, which 
 they did, and when the day came he took up the Eliza Pink- 
 ston case, in which they were surprised and entirely unpre 
 pared. He gave written and express permission to Governor 
 Wickliffe to be present at the sessions of the board, and when 
 he appeared on the following day Governor Wells notified 
 him that the permission was withdrawn, and that he must re 
 tire. In several instances the sealed returns from distant 
 parishes were clandestinely opened and the papers tampered 
 with, after they had been received by the board, as was 
 shown by inspecting the papers on the canvass of the re 
 turns. As an example, the returns from the parish of De 
 Soto were received on the i8th of November, but on opening 
 the papers on the 25th of the month, the affidavit of Mr. Fer 
 guson, the supervisor, was found in the sealed package, 
 dated on that day, having found its way there, of course, 
 through the agency of some rascal who had broken the seal 
 in order to doctor the case with ex -post facto statements, and 
 then re-sealed the package. This chapter in the record of 
 the returning board was entirely forgotten by Senator Sher 
 man in his splendid and picturesque biography of its mem 
 bers, which he embodied in his letter to the President trans 
 mitting the proofs of intimidation which the Republican com 
 mittee had procured ; but in justice to the board and its cler 
 ical force I must not fail to mention the original defense of 
 this ugly specimen of Louisiana crookedness which was vol- 
 
THE FRAUD OF 1876. 159 
 
 unteered by Mr. Stoughton, of New York, namely, that the 
 dating of the affidavit on the 25th of the month, which had 
 been enclosed and sealed up in the parish of De Soto some 
 ten or twelve days before, was a "clerical error!" Mr. 
 Stoughton was right. It was a " clerical error," and quite 
 unfortunately for the state of Louisiana such " errors " have 
 been entirely too common in the operations of her returning 
 board and the tactics of her party leaders who have used it 
 in keeping themselves in power. Indeed, " clerical errors " 
 are not confined to Louisiana, but in other states the men who 
 commit them are furnished with public lodging and employ 
 ment in our penitentiaries, as an army of forgers and coun 
 terfeiters can bear witness. But dispensing with any further 
 illustrations of returning board political morality, let me 
 come directly to the subject of political outrages in Louisiana 
 and the intimidation of voters. 
 
 In dealing with this subject I invite vour attention to sev 
 eral considerations which meet us at the very threshold of any 
 honest search after truth. Bear in mind, in the first place, 
 that Louisiana has a Republican governor, and that under 
 her anomalous constitution he is armed with powers almost 
 as great as those of the last Napoleon. He appoints and re 
 moves the registrars of election and their assistants through 
 out the state, whose judgment is final as to the right of the 
 citizen to vote, and who are generally non-residents of the 
 parishes in which they are required to do his bidding as the 
 unquestioning tools of party. He controls the appointment 
 of the commissioners of election, who receive and revise the 
 votes. In New Orleans, where the Democrats are in the 
 majority, the control of elections is given to the metropolitan 
 police, which is appointed by the governor, and may be used 
 by him as a standing army in any part of the state. He ap 
 points the tax collectors of the state, and in the city of New 
 Orleans the assessors also. He appoints the state board of 
 public works. When he deems it necessary, he may ap 
 point an extraordinary force, a chief constable and as many 
 deputies as he thinks necessary in any parish, with ex officio 
 
l6o SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 power to make arrests. He can till all vacancies in office 
 throughout the state, including constables, justices of the 
 peace and parish surveyors, and by the. help of the legisla 
 ture, which the returning board can elect, he can control the 
 judiciary of the state. He has power to appoint and pay a 
 special local police in every parish, and in such numbers as 
 he pleases. He can send a brigade of metropolitan police 
 into any part of the state at his own will, and has a steamer 
 at his command to transport them. The judges appointed 
 by him superintend the selection of juries grand and petit. 
 He controls the militia, while the United States marshal, who 
 is a Republican, has the control of federal soldiers by orders 
 from Washington, so that when Marshal Packard was chair 
 man of the state Republican committee, every United States 
 soldier in the state was bound to obey his orders. 
 
 Gentlemen, in the light of these remarkable facts, do you 
 not see the intrinsic absurdity of the stories we hear about 
 intimidation and violence? Is not their falsehood unmistak 
 ably confessed in the keen irony which they embody? Is 
 the governor of Louisiana, armed with the powers of an 
 autocrat, and backed by the whole power of the national 
 administration, utterly incapable of maintaining order and 
 securing a fair election through the officers of his own ap 
 pointment? Are the officials of Louisiana, stimulated by 
 their pampered appetite for plunder, unable to control the 
 fat places which their multiplied opportunities bring within 
 their easy reach? Such questions as these suggest their own 
 obvious answer. The intimidation of voters on any large 
 scale would be wholly impracticable under such a govern 
 ment, if its functionaries were at all disposed to do their duty. 
 The perfectly manifest truth is, that the Republican party of 
 Louisiana, through its career of corruption and misgovern- 
 ment, has deservedly lost its ascendancy in the state, and 
 confesses it by appealing to the saving grace of its returning 
 board, which would have been wholly unnecessary if its 
 administration of public affairs had been even moderately 
 decent and respectable. For several years past the colored 
 
THE FRAUD OF 1876. l6l 
 
 voters of Louisiana have been deserting the Republican 
 ranks and joining the opposition.. Thousands of them voted 
 the Democratic ticket in 1874, an< ^ tnus secured for it a ma 
 jority of nearly 3,000, in an election the fairness of which is 
 not impeached by Senator Sherman and his associates ; but 
 why seek to account for these facts on the theory of Demo 
 cratic intimidation, when they find so ready an explanation 
 in the circumstances I have stated? Who does not see that 
 the change in the colored vote would have been much greater 
 in the absence of the potent official intimidation of the Re 
 publican party? 
 
 I ask your attention, gentlemen, to a kindred consider 
 ation. I have referred to the vast power of the government 
 of Louisiana over the fortunes of her people, and indicated 
 its bearing upon the question of intimidation. The manner 
 in which that power has been employed bears still more di 
 rectly upon that question. The colored people of the state 
 labor under many disadvantages which their former enslave 
 ment has entailed upon them, but they are not so besotted 
 with ignorance as to be insensible to the ordinary motives of 
 prudence and self-interest. Bad laws tell upon their pros 
 perity. Like other citizens, they are able to realize the 
 blessings of good government, and to feel the mischiefs of 
 political corruption and spoliation in the name of law. What 
 has the Kellogg government of Louisiana, as we call it, done 
 for the people of the state, white or black? Let me give you 
 a few facts, some of which I gather from Mr. Chas. Nord- 
 hoff s book on " The Cotton States." The officers charged 
 with the execution of the laws are not only inefficient but 
 corrupt. Justice is not only denied, but openly sold. Judge 
 Ludeling, who was branded with dishonor by the Supreme 
 Court of the United States, as already mentioned, was made 
 chief justice of the state by Governor Kellogg. In the Re 
 publican parish of Placquimine, 33 persons were murdered 
 from 1868 to 1875, 3 1 of whom were colored, and murdered 
 by people of their own race, not one of whom has been hung. 
 In the parish of Natchitoches, 41 murders occured within the 
 ii 
 
l62 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 same period, but not a man of the murderers paid the forfeit 
 of his life, although the parish was all the time under Re 
 publican rule, with a corrupt judge, a thieving tax collector, 
 and a police jury made up mainly of illiterate negroes. The 
 murder of Henry Pinkston illustrates the same general fact. 
 The case has been made very sensational by Republican 
 politicians. The version of the affair given by Mrs. Pinkston 
 startled the whole country. She was brought into the court 
 room on a litter, as if in the last stages of life from the effects 
 of her fearful wounds ; and the committee of visiting Repub 
 licans evidently felt that here was a case which turned the 
 political tables decidedly in their favor. But there was no 
 evidence that the murder had any connection whatever with 
 politics. Pinkston himself was a Democrat. Many of the 
 statements of Mrs. Pinkston were conclusively shown to be 
 false. She was shown to be herself a desperado, and 
 scarcely more than half-witted. Her character for veracity, 
 as well as in other respects, was proved to be as bad as pos 
 sible. She had been indicted for murder. It turned out that 
 she was able to walk about town on the day she was carried 
 into court, and that the circumstances of her appearance there 
 were part of a theatrical performance which was planned and 
 enacted in the interest of the political cause it was designed 
 to serve. But these are incidental observations. The fact is 
 that Henry Pinkston s life was taken by violence, and that 
 no effort whatever was made to find out the criminal. The 
 coroner of the parish, a Republican, declined to hold an in 
 quest over his body. The Governor offered no reward for the 
 discovery and arrest of his murderer, and but for the effort that 
 was made to connect the affair with politics it would probably 
 have attracted no attention. 
 
 In a few parishes of the state there is a good deal of gen 
 eral lawlessness, like that which prevails in some of our 
 western territories ; but in neither of these parishes, nor in 
 the state generally, is the punishment of crime enforced. 
 The Governor rivals the President himself in the abuse of 
 the pardoning power. The government, with well-nigh ab- 
 
THE FRAUD OF 1876. 163 
 
 solute power at its command, connives at the open defiance 
 of its authority, and thus makes itself a party to the multi 
 plied acts of lawlessness and outrage which scourge the state. 
 These acts very rarely grow out of any question affecting 
 the relations of the white and colored races, but whatever 
 their origin may be, the government is wholly without excuse 
 in failing to employ against them the strong hand of power, 
 and thus making itself a terror to the people instead of the 
 protector of their rights and the avenger of their wrongs. 
 
 The failure of the civil authorities in other respects is 
 equally inexcusable and shocking. The public schools of 
 the state are converted into political engines, and largely 
 given over to the management of demagogues. Unworthy, 
 incompetent, and drunken characters are employed as teach 
 ers as the reward of political services. In many parishes 
 the members of the legislature are members and officers of 
 the school board, and the schools thus become a part of the 
 regular machinery of politics. The business of the teachers 
 is not to teach, but to talk up the man who appoints them. 
 Only a little over one-fifth of the children of the state, be 
 tween the ages of six and twenty-one, are enrolled in the 
 public schools. In one parish the treasurer of the school 
 board uses the funds for his private purposes, and pays 
 the teacher in scrip. In two other parishes the treasurers 
 abscond with a large amount of money. In another the 
 school money is invested in private business and speculation. 
 In the parish of St. James the school board burned their rec 
 ord on leaving the office. The administration of local school 
 boards abounds in embezzlements, defalcations, incornpe- 
 tency and faithlessness, as shown by the reports of the state 
 superintendent. 
 
 The financial policy of the government is equally vicious 
 and profligate. In New Orleans the assessors receive five 
 per cent, on their assessments. In the parishes of the state 
 the collectors receive ten per cent, of their collections. The 
 assessments are sometimes as high as one hundred, and even 
 one hundred and fifty per cent, above the true valuation of 
 
164 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 the property, and the assessor receives his fee on the entire 
 amount, although the false valuation may afterwards be cor 
 rected. The rate of taxation is equally startling, being some 
 times as high as seven or eight cents on the dollar. The 
 effect of this shameful maladministration is greatly to depre 
 ciate the value of all property in the state and paralyze all 
 branches of business and industry. It is simply the legalized 
 robbery of the people. The love of plunder sometimes seeks 
 to disguise itself in the form of indirect taxation. The legis 
 lature of the state has chartered a company with the exclu 
 sive right to sell lottery tickets in the state, on condition of its 
 annual payment of $40,000, and the act declares one of its 
 objects to be " to raise a fund for educational and charitable 
 purposes." On a million of capital it is said this company 
 makes not less than $750,000 clear profit yearly, and it has 
 established policy shops and petty gambling dens at various 
 points in New Orleans, and thus greatly demoralized the la 
 boring classes. Another company was chartered in 1874, 
 under the name of " Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to 
 Animals," whose object seems to have been the raising of a 
 revenue by cattle stealing, and one of the most amusing 
 chapters of Mr. NordhofF s book is that in which he refers to 
 the numerous chartered monopolies by which the people are 
 fleeced under the false pretense of promoting their welfare. 
 I can not dwell upon these matters further, nor have I the 
 time to notice in detail the election laws of the state, and the 
 use which has been made of their dishonest machinery. I 
 have already dealt with the returning board, which I am sure 
 has no honest defender in the country, unless I except Sena 
 tor Sherman and his unsophisticated associates of the visiting 
 Republican committee. I only remark that 5,200 false 
 registrations were made in the city of New Orleans alone by 
 the Republican officials in 1847, and I believe over 7,000 in 
 the late election ; that the legislature is sometimes largely 
 composed of supervisors of registration who are chosen from 
 parishes they never saw till they went there to superintend 
 the election ; and that in the election of 1874, m a case wnere 
 
THE FRAUD OF 1876. 165 
 
 the Democratic ticket succeeded, the records were carried 
 by the supervisor of the parish to New Orleans and concealed 
 in a house of prostitution, one of whose inmates was sent to 
 drive a bargain for their return. Gentlemen, is it strange 
 that such facts as I have recited should drive colored voters 
 out of the Republican party? Is it strange that thousands of 
 them deserted it in 1874, and many thousands more in the 
 late election? Is it not surprising, rather, that a general de 
 sertion, or even a stampede, has not occurred, leaving the two 
 thousand white Republican voters of the state alone in their 
 glory? Why talk about Democratic intimidation of the col 
 ored voter in the presence of the palpable facts of his situa 
 tion? Why be amazed that he should follow the example of 
 his brethren in Mississippi, or in the Democratic state of 
 Georgia, in which they own more real estate, and pay taxes 
 on more property than in any state under Republican rule? 
 Why take it for granted that the Louisiana negro is too 
 hopelessly stupid to leave his political associates in the pur 
 suit of his own interests, when such Republicans as Wheeler, 
 Hoar and Frye tell him " there has been great maladminis 
 tration " in the state, that the "public funds have been 
 wasted" and "public credit is impaired," while "taxation 
 is heavy ? " 
 
 Gentlemen, there is another consideration involved in this 
 discussion which I must not fail to notice, namely, that in 
 timidation is a game which two may play at. I do not pretend 
 that the Democrats of Louisiana are wholly innocent of this 
 political vice. Human nature is the same in both parties, 
 and both have practiced it, in some form, in every state of 
 the Union. After the war the w r hite people of the states late 
 ly in rebellion manifested a spirit of intolerance and hate to 
 ward the people who had been their bondmen and were now 
 suddenly lifted to citizenship and suffrage, and for some 
 years this spirit made its record in deeds of frightful violence 
 and crime. But a kindlier feeling has been gradually 
 evoked, notwithstanding the efforts of demagogues and car 
 pet-bag thieves to perpetuate the estrangement of the races. 
 
1 66 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 Free labor is now generally conceded to be a success by the 
 men who fought for slavery. They would not restore it if 
 they had the power, nor take the ballot from the negro. 
 Their old hostility to the Union has measurably perished with 
 the institution which inspired it. They have suffered very 
 severely from the ravages of war, and have endured with 
 singular patience and long suffering the cruel inflictions of a 
 state government which has been fastened upon their necks 
 by fraud and supported by federal despotism. What they 
 now ask is good government and a fair opportunity to rebuild 
 their shattered fortunes. They are intensely anxious to rid 
 themselves of the remorseless usurpation under which they 
 have so long groaned ; and in the scuffle for deliverance 
 against a powerful and perfectly unscrupulous foe, it would 
 be strange if they had not sometimes sought the votes of the 
 colored people by the current methods of political warfare. 
 But if they have practiced intimidation, the Republicans of 
 Louisiana are not the men to upbraid them. The Kellogg 
 government is itself an organized intimidation and standing 
 menace of all honest men, while it has taken into its embrace 
 the rogues and ruffians of the state. For years past the Re 
 publicans of Louisiana have practiced intimidation exten 
 sively and rigorously. The United States marshal for the 
 state has used cavalrv to intimidate Democrats. In his 
 official capacity, and while at the same time chairman of 
 the state Republican committee, he has on several occasions 
 employed federal soldiers in the service of his party, just as 
 the army and revenue officers were used in Alabama in se 
 curing the election of Spencer to the Senate of "the United 
 States. The white and colored testimony submitted to the 
 returning board during its late sessions, and subsequently 
 taken more fully by the congressional committees now in 
 Louisiana, shows that the negroes themselves are among the 
 most savage and ferocious intimidators in the state, and that 
 the crimes and outrages inflicted on their colored brethren 
 for daring to vote as they please are a full match for any of 
 the kindred performances charged to the Democrats. 
 
THE FRAUD OF 1876. 167 
 
 The more intelligent classes of them are powerfully im 
 pelled by the reasons already mentioned to break their party 
 ranks ; but in attempting to do so they are often obliged to 
 risk their lives. The wives of colored men frequently 
 threaten to leave them if they vote the Democratic ticket, and 
 for doing so I believe this threat has sometimes been executed 
 and a divorce demanded from the husband. Colored Dem 
 ocrats are turned out of church for the same cause ; and a 
 case has recently been reported in which the rite of baptism 
 was denied to a colored man because he had left the Re 
 publican party. Mr. NordhofTsays that in parts of southern 
 Louisiana the negroes are still summoned from the fields to 
 political meetings by order of General Butler ; and he men 
 tioned a case where a candidate for a county office circulated 
 a printed general order," commanding all colored men to 
 vote for him, and signed "U. S. Grant, President," which 
 secured him the solid colored vote. In a political canvass in 
 Louisiana the negroes are thoroughly indoctrined with the 
 idea that they will be sold into slavery if the Democratic 
 ticket should be elected, just as Senator Morton told the peo 
 ple of Indiana in the late canvass, that if Tilden should suc 
 ceed slavery would certainly be re-established, the rebel 
 debt saddled upon us, and the loval debt repudiated. The 
 Republican howl about intimidation, which is now sounding 
 through the land, comes with an ill grace from the leaders 
 of a party who demanded the votes of eighty thousand office 
 holders for Hayes and Wheeler on penalty of dismissal, and 
 tested their fidelity to their masters by levying contributions 
 upon their- earnings. But still more utterly preposterous is 
 the complaint of the Republican party of Louisiana about in 
 timidation in that state. With such leaders as Kellogg, War- 
 moth, Packard, Casey and Pinchback, armed and equipped 
 with the whole power of the state government, and reinforced 
 by the army and navy with. the entire patronage of the fed 
 eral government superadded, the cry of Democratic intimi 
 dation is like the whine of a mailed giant for military pro 
 tection against an unarmed boy. 
 
1 68 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 But perhaps it will be said, after all, that I have not met 
 the question in dispute. It may occur to some of you that I 
 have dealt only in generalities, and while indicating the 
 strong probabilities of the case, have not considered the spe 
 cific issue to be tried in its relations to the evidence. I im 
 agine some one saying: " You have been in Louisiana and 
 witnessed the proceedings of the returning board in canvass 
 ing the vote. You have had access to the testimony on both 
 sides, and have mingled with the people of both parties. 
 Tell us, if you can, the truth about intimidation. You say 
 that under the law of Louisiana the board had no right to 
 investigate this question, since the proper foundation for the 
 inquiry was not laid ; but putting the law aside, let us know 
 \hefacts. Undoubtedly there was intimidation on both sides, 
 but does the evidence show such a preponderance of Demo 
 cratic intimidation over that practiced by the Republicans as 
 to justify the action of the board in its wholesale rejection of 
 votes? If not, did it warrant any interference with the votes 
 actually cast, as shown on the face of the returns? " Let me 
 endeavor to respond to these questions : 
 
 No pretense is set up that the vote was not actually given. 
 There is no charge of repeating, ballot stuffing or fraudulent 
 returns. The sole complaint is intimidation, and for this 
 cause alone the declared result of the election is to be re 
 versed. This charge is made by the Republicans, and of 
 course they are bound to prove it. They must establish it 
 affirmatively by clear and conclusive proof. The right of 
 representation is sacred, and it must not be taken away from 
 hundreds and thousands of citizens on any ground of conjec 
 ture, or suspicion, or uncertain testimony. I have already 
 pointed out the strong moral improbability of the truth of 
 of this charge, drawn from the considerations I have pre 
 sented. I have referred to the suspicion of its falsehood 
 founded on the notoriously bad character of the institution 
 which has adjudicated upon it, and which defrauded the peo 
 ple of Louisiana in 1874 by a false count. I have mentioned 
 the fact, shown by the evidence, that the acts of personal 
 
THE FRAUD OF 1876. 169 
 
 outrage arid violence which have scourged the state during 
 the past few years have seldom had any connection with pol 
 itics or the relations of the races, and that the failure to sup 
 press such lawlessness has not been the fault of the Demo 
 crats. The charge of intimidation is not proved by Senator 
 Sherman s array of crimes and outrages, running back six 
 or eight years, and having nothing whatever to do with the 
 recent election. It is not proved by the increase of the Dem 
 ocratic majority in the recent election over that of two years 
 before, since this change is much less than we have seen in 
 various northern states in which no pretense of intimidation 
 has been suggested. It is not proved, certainly, by the fact 
 that the aggregate vote of Louisiana in the late election is 
 over 12,000 larger than ever cast before, of which increase 
 the Republican party is shown to have had its share. It is 
 not proved by the fact already stated, which the evidence 
 fully establishes, that intimidation was largely and very ef 
 fectively practiced by the negroes of the state on their col 
 ored fellow-citizens. It is not proved by evidence tending to 
 show that Louisiana is so given over to anarchy and barbar 
 ism as to be unfit for civil government, since we are now 
 inquiring into the result of an election and the working of 
 Republican machinery under the conditions actually existing, 
 and which we believe can best be reformed by Republican 
 remedies. 
 
 Where, then, is the testimony that can lift the charge of 
 Democratic intimidation out of the ugly limbo of doubt and 
 denial in which we find it, and compel us to accept it as true? 
 Where is the uncontradicted evidence of trustworthy men 
 that could have justified the returning board in converting a 
 Democratic majority of 8,000 or 9,000 votes into a Republi 
 can majority of 4,000? Gentlemen, no such testimony can 
 be found, because it has no existence. The mass of evidence 
 transmitted to the President by Senator Sherman is by no 
 means so formidable as its bulk might indicate. A part of it 
 consists of ex -parte affidavits, some of which we know to 
 have been forged, while others embody the false statements 
 
I7O SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 of negroes who can neither read nor write, and were the 
 willing tools of their managers in swearing as they were in 
 structed. Others are signed by a better class of colored 
 men on a false representation of what the prepared papers 
 contained. Many of these affidavits, and of the regular 
 depositions also, show that they were drawn up in blank as 
 to the name of the witness, of the parish, and other ma 
 terial facts, and the blanks afterwards filled in different ink 
 and handwriting, indicating the manufacture of testimony by 
 pre-arranged machinery. All of this evidence, of course, 
 had gone through the returning board mill, and some of it 
 had been corruptly tampered with, as in the case of the par 
 ish of De Soto ; but to how great an extent no one knows but 
 the guilty parties. As a further proof of the dishonesty of the 
 returning board, and the bad character of this Republican 
 evidence, I mention the fact that several of the candidates 
 for state offices, who \vere fraudulently counted in at the late 
 election, have felt obliged by their sense of honor and self- 
 respect to decline the offices to which they were not lawfully 
 elected. I do not deny that Mr. Sherman s huge budget of 
 evidence makes a frightful showing of Democratic intimida 
 tion, violence and political murder, but it is not only badly 
 tainted with well founded suspicion, as I have shown, but 
 fatally contradicted by counter testimony. This is true of 
 the evidence generally, but especially so as to what are called 
 the five "bulldozing" parishes of the state. So far as Dem 
 ocratic intimidation is concerned, the elections in the ma 
 jority if not in all these parishes were as fair and as peacea 
 ble as those in our own state on the same day, and the con 
 spicuous and controlling fact respecting the attempt to prove 
 the contrary is the dishonesty and perjury of the witnesses 
 employed in the undertaking. I make this statement in the 
 face of the evidence on both sides, and am confident it will 
 be verified by the developments of the congressional commit 
 tees now at work in the state. One fact, at all events, is ab 
 solutely certain, and that is that the Republican evidence, 
 when confronted by that on the other side, signally fails to 
 
THE FRAUD OF 1876. 1.71 
 
 justify the rejection of the vote of the parishes, while the very 
 utmost that any reasonable Republican can possibly claim is 
 the existence of a conflict in the evidence. Neither in these 
 parishes nor in the state at large, either on the day of the 
 election or during the period of registration, does the evi 
 dence show any such acts of intimidation or violence as to 
 justify the havoc which was made of the vote of the state as 
 shown on the face of the returns ; and I have no hesitation 
 in affirming that Hayes and Wheeler have no better right to 
 the electoral vote of Ohio than have Tilden and Hendricks 
 to that of Louisiana, as fairly shown by the legal returns 
 which the leaders of the Republican party are now resolved 
 to set aside by the foul methods of perjury and fraud. 
 
 Gentlemen, I have thus dealt with this Louisiana ques 
 tion somewhat fully and thoroughly because of its fearful 
 magnitude and the grave consequences which wait upon its 
 decision. If I am right in the views I have expressed and 
 the conclusions I have reached, Louisiana has cast her vote 
 for Tilden and Hendricks, and they are fairly and certainly 
 elected. But in contemplation of law no election has taken 
 place until * the president of the senate shall, in the presence 
 of the senate and house of representatives, open all the cer 
 tificates, and the votes shall then be counted/ Who is to 
 count these votes ! Upon the answer to this question de 
 pends the issue of the most fearful struggle for the Presi 
 dency that has ever stirred the passions of the American 
 people. It was a struggle altogether unexampled in the 
 efforts put forth by powerful political organizations for vic 
 tory, where defeat meant political death ; and when, at last, 
 the protracted and angry conflict was hushed by the ballots 
 of the people, a feeling of relief was universal throughout 
 the Union. Shall these ballots be smirched and dishonored 
 by a conclave of political scoundrels in Louisiana? The 
 presiding officer of the Senate, we are told, is to decide this 
 question. He is to be the grand returning board of the na 
 tion, from whose decision there is no appeal. Mr. Chair 
 man, he has no more right to count the votes and declare the 
 
172 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 result than you have. On this subject we are fortunately not 
 left to grope in the dark. According to an unbroken chain 
 of precedents, beginning with the election of Washington 
 and reaching down to the present time, the counting of the 
 electoral vote is to be done by Congress, or under its au 
 thority and direction. Universal acquiescence in this un 
 interrupted usage has made it our common law. The Presi 
 dent of the Senate is authorized to preserve order, and to 
 vote in case of a division ; but he has no right whatever to 
 canvass or count the vote for President, nor has any such 
 right ever been claimed by any presiding officer of that body 
 at any time or under any circumstances. On the contrary, 
 the two houses of Congress have always claimed and exer 
 cised it, either directly or by committees and tellers ap 
 pointed for the purpose. The twenty-second joint rule, which 
 was adopted in 1865 by a Republican Congress, and under 
 which three Presidents have been elected, was an express 
 recognition of this principle, which has the recorded ap 
 proval of nearly all the leading men of both political parties 
 during the past year. But now, after the meaning of the 
 constitution has thus been settled and stereotyped by the 
 uniform usage of more than eighty years, and a conformity 
 to this usage will no longer serve the behests of the party in 
 power, its leaders suddenly face upon the record they have 
 made in the Senate within the past nine or ten months, 
 and propose to save their political fortunes by the revolution 
 ary exploit I have mentioned. 
 
 While Grantism, stretched on its bed of death, is gasping 
 out its prayer for deliverance from the judgment to come, 
 the political mercenaries who have served at its altar for the 
 past eight years now assume the office of physician, and are 
 anxious to save the life of their patient by nostrums of deadly 
 poison to the constitution. Shall we allow this to be done? 
 Are we to sit quietly by while the republic is Mexicanized 
 by the senatorial junto of malignants who have so long kept 
 themselves in the front by making the late war the harlot of 
 their ambition? Shall we patiently submit to an act of open 
 
THE FRAUD OF 1876. 173 
 
 lawlessness, and seek our relief in its moral effect upon the 
 people in sweeping the Republican party out of power four 
 years hence? If we cravenly tolerate this rape of American 
 liberty to-day, shall we have the manhood in 1880 to con 
 front the kindred outrages it would certainly provoke? Why 
 wait four years for a remedy, when we hold it in our own 
 hands now, through the Congress of the United States? 
 Why talk about an appeal to the ballot for the redress of our 
 wrongs hereafter, if we allow it to become a cheat and a lie 
 to-day? Shall the people s will, constitutionally expressed, 
 be defeated and defied by an organized crusade against the 
 very principles of republican government? These questions 
 can neither be postponed nor evaded. The crisis compels 
 us to ponder them, in seeking an honorable way out of the 
 dreadful dilemma in which the country is placed. Not in 
 submission to flagrant acts of tyranny, but in resistance, 
 must we expect our deliverance. Senator Morton and his 
 fellow-conspirators tell us that the President of the Senate 
 will count the electoral vote and declare the result, and that, 
 if need be, it will be enforced by the army and navy. This 
 is simply a threat of revolution. Are we ready to avow our 
 willingness to acquiesce in it for the sake of peace, and thus 
 invite the very mischief we deplore by offering it impunity? 
 No. friend of Tilden and Hendricks dreams of physical re 
 sistance to the inauguration of Governor Hayes, should he 
 be declared duly elected by the Senate and House of Repre 
 sentatives. The vital question before the country is not 
 which of two men shall be President, but whether the man 
 who has been elected shall be deprived of his office by fraud 
 or force. It is because we advocate peace, and recoil from 
 the thought of civil strife, that we demand obedience to the 
 constitution and American fair play in the settlement of the 
 momentous issue which now so fearfully divides the country. 
 We plead for peace, and the calamities of war can only over 
 take us through the madness which shall set the constitution 
 and laws at defiance. It is for the sake of peace that we 
 would warn these plotters of treason that their enterprise will 
 
174 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 be resisted if they undertake it, and that the solemn duty of 
 the people to maintain the constitutional rights of the gov 
 ernment will make resistance inevitable, unless they are 
 ready to put on the livery of slaves. 
 
 We make our appeal to public opinion, which Daniel 
 Webster pronounced "the mightiest power on earth," and 
 we invoke that power in the work of curbing the evil genius 
 of the men whose unbridled ambition has palsied their reason 
 and devoured their love of country. I do not believe the 
 scourge of war is in store for us, but it can only be 
 certainly averted by the people themselves, pronouncing 
 their convictions and purposes with such unmistakable ear 
 nestness and emphasis prior to the day of counting the elec 
 toral vote as shall foreshadow certain disaster to any rev 
 olutionary movement. By argument, by persuasion, by 
 persistent appeals to the judgment of all sober and patri 
 otic men of whatever party, and by popular assemblies 
 throughout the country of earnest and determined men, 
 such as we see here to-day, I believe a public conscience 
 may be created that will drive the Republican leaders from 
 their purpose. In this work of popular agitation every citi 
 zen should share. The seriousness of the crisis demands his 
 voice on the side of law and in the interest of peace. " I like 
 a clamor," said Edmund Burke, " where there is an abuse. 
 The fire bell at night disturbs your sleep, but it keeps you 
 from being burned in your bed." Let the people speak, for 
 they hold in their hands the might of the republic, and their 
 sovereignty can not be invaded without their consent. A 
 century ago our fathers took up arms in defense of their 
 right to a voice in the government which dealt with their 
 liberty, their property and their lives. We assert the same 
 right now when we ask that the will of the people be regis 
 tered as the supreme law, and that whoever may defy it by 
 overt acts shall receive the same treatment which the nation 
 awarded to the men who appealed from the ballot to the 
 bayonet in 1861. Let them be warned in season by every 
 lover of regulated liberty that millions of men will be found 
 
THE FRAUD OF 1876. 175 
 
 ready to offer their lives as hostages to the sacredness of the 
 ballot, as the palladium of our liberty. "Whosoever hath 
 the gift of tongues, let him use it; whosoever can wield the 
 pen of a ready writer, let him dip it in the ink-horn ; whoso 
 ever hath a sword, let him gird it on, for the crisis demands 
 our highest exertions, physical and moral." 
 
THE ISSUES OF 1880. 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE CANDIDATES 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE WIGWAM, AT INDIANAPOLIS, ON THE 24x11 
 
 OF AUGUST. 
 
 [The thoroughness and fairness with which this speech dealt with the issues 
 of the canvass made it peculiarly valuable and effective as a campaign docu 
 ment.] 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Fellow- Citizens: In entering upon the 
 canvass for Tilden and Hendricks four years ago, I expressly 
 reserved my entire political independence. In doing so I was 
 not inconsistent with my previous record as a politician. 
 Through the influence of early associations I began my po 
 litical life a Whig, casting my first Presidential ballot for 
 General Harrison, and my second for Henry Clay. In 1848, 
 however, after I had become convinced that my party was 
 radically wrong in its tariff and land policy, and when I 
 found it sacrificing its character and conscience on the altar 
 of slavery, I severed my connection with it, and during the 
 seven or eight years following was an active and zealous 
 member of the old Free Soil party. But in 1856 I was quite 
 ready to join another organization, committed to the same ar 
 ticles of anti-slavery faith, and better fitted to carry forward 
 the grand enterprise in which I had enlisted. I was a Repub 
 lican of Republicans, and if I sometimes differed with my party 
 associates it was because I espoused the logic of the party 
 creed before they were ready to accept it. During the late wai% 
 especially, I was a most thoroughgoing party man, for the 
 obvious reason that in a crisis involving the nation s life I 
 could best serve the great cause by losing myself in the 
 
THE ISSUES OF l88o. 177 
 
 masses with whom I acted. But when the war ended and 
 the great national curse which made the existence of th e 
 Republican party a necessity had perished forever, and 
 when, as I said four years ago, the marvellous energy dis 
 played by it during the conflict had been hopelessly turned 
 into the channels of pelf and plunder, I joined the Liberal 
 Republicans in marching out of it, under the banner of in 
 dependence and reform. 
 
 I refer to these personal matters in no spirit of vain boast 
 ing, but simply in illustration of the duty of every man to be 
 faithful to himself, even against the pleadings of prudence 
 and peace. Nor do I wish to be understood as condemning 
 political parties. They are a necessity. They are an essen 
 tial part of the machinery through which the vigilance of the 
 people is able to preserve their liberties. The great danger 
 of our times is that excess of party spirit against which 
 Washington so solemnly warned his countrymen in his fare 
 well address, and which now seriously threatens the suppres 
 sion of individual thought and action. The path of politi 
 cal independence is by no means an inviting one. It offers 
 the fewest possible temptations to selfish ambition. Inde 
 pendent voters are generally obliged to make themselves of 
 no reputation. They can parade no grand procession of fol 
 lowers. They are allowed none of the triumphs of victory, 
 and rewarded by none of the spoils of office. They are 
 obliged to face the general hostility and scorn which the 
 smallness of their numbers and frequent potency of their 
 action naturally provoke. Senator Conkling styles them 
 " Jayhawkers," "Guerrillas," and "Tramps." They are 
 sometimes called " Deputy Democrats," " malcontents, and 
 " impracticables" who "vote in the air;" but they often 
 prove to be the true conservative force in our politics and the 
 real leaven of reform. 
 
 Undoubtedly they are liable to make mistakes. Their 
 lack of organization is certainly attended by serious disad 
 vantages. Their usefulness was greatly compromised by 
 their leaders in the spring of 1876 in their famous New York 
 12 
 
178 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 conference, in which they laid down the precise conditions 
 on which they declared they would co-operate with the other 
 parties, and then made haste to join one of them after those 
 conditions had been openly spurned. They betrayed vacil 
 lation and weakness at the critical moment which called for 
 straightforwardness and courage ; but their power in our 
 politics is unquestionable, and their persistent determination 
 to exercise it is one of the signs of the times. Independent 
 voters defeated Clay in 1844 and General Cass in 1848. They 
 destroyed the old Whig party, and formed a new organiza 
 tion, composed of Abolitionists, " Conscience Whigs," and 
 bolting Democrats. The Republican party itself was a bolt. 
 It was principally made up of " jayhawkers " and " tramps," 
 who broke away from their Democratic and Whig keepers, 
 and made common cause with the old Free-Soilers in with 
 standing the further exactions of slavery ; and the existence 
 of the great historic party would have been impossible if the 
 old Whigs who formed the great body of it had been as 
 fatally smitten with party devil-worship as are the Republi 
 cans to-day. Independent voters in 1860 rent the Demo 
 cratic party in twain, and made Abraham Lincoln President. 
 In 1872 the Republicans carried the state of New York by a 
 majority of 50,000 votes ; but in 1874 tne Democrats tri 
 umphed by the same majority, thus showing that the state 
 was not divided into two parties, but three, inasmuch as the 
 potency of the party battle-cry was dependent upon outside 
 help. So in the party divisions of to day there is a third 
 element, not under the drill of either, which holds the bal 
 ance of power, and illustrates the noteworthy fact that in 
 free governments minorities often rule. The independent 
 voters held the balance of power in the nation, and wielded 
 it four years ago, as they probably will in the canvass of this 
 year. As the make-weight in party divisions they are fre 
 quently able to create the majority they desire, and this in 
 vests their action with a commanding importance. They 
 played their part in the late Chicago convention in defeating 
 the third-term conspiracy, and preserving the great unwrit- 
 
THE ISSUES OF l88o. 179 
 
 ten law of the republic from violation. The fear of exten 
 sive bolting in the strong Republican states, should Grant be 
 nominated, was in the air, and doubtless restrained many del 
 egates who would else have fallen into the Grant column 
 under the whip and spur of Conkling, Cameron and Logan. 
 You all remember how the nation held its breath while the 
 fearful issue hung in doubt ; and when, at last, the question 
 was settled, and the lightning flashed the glad tidings over 
 the continent and kindled in millions of hearts an answering 
 thrill of gratitude to God for the deliverance of the nation 
 from a great peril, I rejoiced that, for eight years, by tongue 
 and pen, I had contributed my small quota toward the grand 
 work, and that its final triumph was largely due to the " guer 
 rillas " with whom I had co-operated. 
 
 But let us consider the issues of the pending canvass. 
 What are they? The platforms of the two parties give us lit 
 tle help in answering this question. They are as nearly iden 
 tical as those of four years ago. If there was any party is 
 sue then it related to the question of finance ; but both par 
 ties declared in favor of specie payments, as they do now, and 
 while the Democrats demanded the repeal of the resumption 
 act, the Republicans voted down a resolution in favor of car 
 rying it into execution. In the last Congress Republicans 
 and Democrats united in the effort to repeal it, and they were 
 jointly entitled to the honor of defeating that effort. The 
 financial question has since been complicated by the silver 
 agitation ; but the silver bill received the overwhelming sup 
 port of both parties, while the Republicans now totally ignore 
 the question, and its vital connection with the continuance of 
 our paper currency at par. As to the constantly boasted 
 achievement of resumption, the simple truth is that it has not 
 come through legislation, but as the natural result of favor 
 ing conditions, just as the gratifying reduction of our nation 
 al indebtedness has been made easy and almost inevitable 
 by our marvellous resources. I am glad to see in the plat 
 forms a well-defined issue respecting our tariff policy ; for 
 sooner or later our stupid and vicious tariff laws must be 
 
l8o SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 thoroughly overhauled and reformed ; but no intelligent man 
 of either party feels that the contest of this year is to turn 
 upon that question. Nor is any issue tendered on the sub 
 ject of civil service reform, Chinese immigration, or the res 
 ervation of the public domain to actual settlers ; while in the 
 matter of maintaining the purity of the ballot and the princi 
 ples of political morality, both parties are wanting. The 
 complexion of our politics, in fact, is peculiar. We have 
 outlived the era in which clearly-defined questions of policy 
 formed the pivots upon which the action of parties turned, 
 and justified their existence as the means through which they 
 sought the adoption of their cherished views by the govern 
 ment. In a political dispensation so anomalous the army of 
 independent voters should be largely reinforced ; but since 
 one of these parties will certainly rule the country for the 
 next four years, the question submitted to the popular judg 
 ment is a general one, involving simply the choice to be 
 made between them, and the personal qualities of their stan 
 dard-bearers. How should the sincere friends of adminis 
 trative reform and the purification of our debased politics 
 cast their ballots? 
 
 The answer to this question necessarily invites a compari 
 son of these parties ; but the task is not altogether free from 
 difficulties. One of them has been in power nearly twenty 
 years, and has thus supplied us with very ample means of 
 forming an opinion ; while the other has been out of power 
 nearly the whole of this period, and has necessarily left us 
 with a comparatively meager data of judgment. Senator 
 Hoar, in his opening speech at the Chicago convention, told 
 us that the parties which confronted each other in 1860 con 
 front each other now, " unchanged in purpose, in temper and 
 in character." If this is true, the question is greatly simpli 
 fied, and can be readily decided. But the assertion is an 
 affront to common sense and a reckless defiance of facts, and 
 if he believes it he is pitiably infatuated by party blindness. 
 The attitude of these parties twenty years ago, at all events, 
 
THE ISSUES OF l88o. l8l 
 
 has no necessary connection with the question of their fitness 
 for civil administration to-day. The Democratic party was 
 then divided on two rival candidates for the Presidency, 
 and after the election of Lincoln a very formidable division 
 of it appealed from the ballot to the bayonet as its last and 
 desperate method of preserving the ascendency of slavery. 
 The result was the overthrow of secession, the extirpation of 
 slavery, the enfranchisement of the negro and the reconstruc 
 tion of the government. The resistless force of events com 
 pletely changed the political horizon ; and now, in the new 
 heavens and the new earth which we witness, we find the 
 Democratic party, north and south, east and west, united as 
 one man under the banner of one of the foremost heroes in 
 the war for the Union. It is not the Democratic party of 
 1860, but the Democratic party of 1880, inevitably -molded 
 and instructed by great historic events ; and we are to judge 
 it in the light of to-day and the interest of the people of all 
 sections in national unity and peace. We have no right to 
 reproach it for an administrative record which it has had no 
 opportunity to make, nor to condemn it on Mr. Hoar s in 
 genious theory of constructive guilt and imputed depravity. 
 The same reasoning applies to the Republican party. Twentv 
 years ago it disavowed any right or purpose to interfere with 
 slavery in the states. It denounced John Brown s raid into 
 Virginia as "the gravest of crimes. At the beginning of 
 the war it was willing, for the sake of peace, to abide by the 
 Dred Scott decision and the enforcement of the fugitive slave 
 act. If I have not forgotten, it was ready to surrender the 
 principle of Congressional prohibition of slavery in all our 
 national territories. It even favored an amendment to the 
 constitution making slavery perpetual in the states of the 
 south. For nearly two years after the war began it did its 
 best to save the Union and save slavery with it, and after the 
 war was over it offered to make a complete surrender of the 
 freedmen to their old masters on the single condition that they 
 should not be counted in the basis of representation. The fit- 
 
l82 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 ness of the party to administer the government now is not to 
 be judged by these facts, nor is it by any means established 
 by its grand achievements in crushing the rebellion and 
 abolishing slavery, in which it had the powerful and indis 
 pensable co-operation of the Democrats. We are now in the 
 sunshine of peace, and must be mainly guided in our judg 
 ment by the facts which make up the civil administration of 
 the government since the close of the war and the settlement 
 of the questions it involved. What claim has the Republican 
 party to a longer lease of power, founded on the record it has 
 made during the past dozen years? This is the question 
 which now concerns us, and in seeking an answer to it let us 
 remember that it is the future, and not the distant past, which 
 chiefly interests us, and that the reformation of great political 
 abuses has become the vital issue and pressing demand of the 
 time. 
 
 In its national convention of 1868 the Republican party 
 adopted the following resolutions as a part of its platform : 
 
 " The government of the United States should be admin 
 istered with the strictest economy ; and the corruptions which 
 have been so shamefully nursed and fostered by Andrew 
 Johnson call loudly for reform." 
 
 These were timely words. The responsibility laid at the 
 door of the President was exaggerated, but the hand of re 
 form was urgently invoked by the situation. All the great 
 industries of the country demanded a thorough reorganization. 
 Our tariff legislation called for a thorough revision. Our 
 finances invited a prompt and complete overhauling. Our 
 civil service was becoming a shameless system of political 
 prostitution. Roguery and plunder, born of the multiplied 
 temptations which the war furnished, had stealthily crept into 
 the management of public affairs, and claimed immunity from 
 the right of search. What the country needed was not a 
 stricter enforcement of party discipline, not military methods 
 and the fostering of sectional bitterness and hate, but oblivion 
 of the past, both North and South, and an earnest, intelligent, 
 
THE ISSUES OF l88o. 183 
 
 and catholic endeavor to grapple with the problems of practi 
 cal administration. 
 
 But what did the leaders of the party do? After the free 
 dom and enfranchisement of the negro had been established 
 by constitutional amendments in which all parties acquiesced, 
 they seemed utterly incapable of realizing the fact. They 
 were not willing, for a single moment, to relax their hold 
 upon the party machinery. The animosities engendered by 
 the war were to be nursed and coddled as the appointed 
 means of party unity, while the party itself was regarded as 
 a permanent establishment, like the Christian religion, di 
 vinely appointed and necessary to salvation. It was not to 
 be maintained for the legitimate purpose of embodying cer 
 tain doctrines and policies in legislation, but chiefly on the 
 score of its general blessedness, and its immense usefulness 
 in holding in check a purely santanic opposition. This view 
 was openly avowed by some of its great champions, who de 
 clared, as they do to-day, that the party is no more responsi 
 ble for the corruptions and defalcations of its leaders than the 
 church for the individual sins of its priests and prelates. Of 
 course, the continued existence of such an organization was 
 indispensable, not only to the welfare, but the life of the Re 
 public, against which the " rebels " were still plotting, while 
 it was strangely taken for granted that its disruption would 
 immediately be followed by the translation of the honest men 
 who belonged to it to another and better world, instead of 
 leaving them among us to serve the country under some 
 other banner and a better leadership. This concubinage of 
 politics and theology was a very tempting contrivance, since 
 it would place the administration of the government in the 
 hands of the Republicans forever. It is true that the corrupt 
 and venal elements of society would inevitably gravitate into 
 such a party through its prolonged hold on power, and finally 
 form a perfect hierarchy of knaves and reprobates, while the 
 good men in its ranks would be obliged to keep their places, 
 instead of joining the other side or becoming the nucleus of 
 a new party ; but this would be less dreadful than the ruin of 
 
184 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 the county in the hands of an organization hopelessly dis 
 loyal and depraved. 
 
 The management of public affairs during General Grant s 
 first term was in accord with this new theory of politics. The 
 mercenary and trading element of the party naturally came to 
 the front, and became a regular purgatory of political unclean- 
 ness. I need not recite the story of its shameful performances. 
 You know it by heart. The people will not soon forget the 
 exploits of Tom Murphy in the New York custom house, 
 and the plundering of New York merchants by Leet and 
 Stocking ; the sanctioned rascalities of Casey in New Or 
 leans ; the executive assumption of the war-making power in 
 the affair of San Domingo; the violation of the President s 
 oath of omce in the appointment to civil places of men in the 
 military service ; the official corruption of Orville Grant, 
 Powell Clayton, General Babcock, Boss Sheppard and kin 
 dred spirits, who shared the smiles of the President : the 
 party expulsion of Charles Sumner from the chairmanship of 
 the Committee on Foreign Relations, and the installation of 
 Simon Cameron in his stead ; the action of the famous " sen 
 atorial group " in denouncing every proposition looking to 
 the reform of administrative abuses, and branding as enemies 
 of the Republican party the distinguished members of it who 
 demanded such reform ; and the open and systematic repu 
 diation of all attempts to purify the civil service, while falsely 
 pretending to espouse them. All this has become apart of 
 the history of the government, and forms the first half of that 
 " moral interregnum " in our politics which is best indicated 
 by the word " Grantism," and fairly entitles it to a place in 
 our growing dictionary of Americanisms. Indeed, so fla 
 grantly did the prophets of this new dispensation belie all 
 their professions, that nearly a year before the end of Gen 
 eral Grant s first term, the chief founders and preeminent 
 representatives of the party were obliged to desert it as the 
 only means of preserving their honor and self-respect. 
 
 But the men who had so marvellously succeeded to the 
 leadership of the party which signalized its early life by its 
 
THE ISSUES OF l88o. 185 
 
 championship of the rights of man, had now only entered 
 upon the threshold of their career. Nothing daunted by their 
 record, and holding fast their theory that the existence of 
 the party was absolutely necessary to save the country from 
 rebel ascendency, these body-guards of the President en 
 trenched themselves behind its early achievements and pre 
 vious good character while plotting his nomination and elec 
 tion for a second term. He was re-nominated as their stand 
 ard-bearer by the national convention of 1872, which incorpor 
 ated into its platform the following resolution : 
 
 "Any system of the civil service under which the subor 
 dinate positions of the government are considered rewards 
 for mere party zeal is fatally demoralizing, and we therefore 
 favor a reform of the system by laws which shall abolish the 
 evils of patronage, and make honesty, efficiency and fidelity 
 the essential qualifications for public positions." 
 
 On this platform General Grant was nominated unani 
 mously. Notwithstanding the revolting record he had made, 
 he was chosen by 286 electoral votes, and a popular majority 
 of nearly three-quarters of a million, carrying thirty-one of 
 the thirty-seven states, while Horace Greeley, for refusing to 
 follow his party and earnestly seeking the reform of great 
 abuses which had found shelter under the strife of sections, 
 was branded as a traitor, and hunted to his grave by politi 
 cal assassins. But what was the record of the party during 
 Grant s second term? In comparison with it his first admin 
 istration was next to immaculate. I hope you have not for 
 gotten the Republican " Rogues Gallery " which I painted 
 four years ago. You will remember that the civil service 
 rules, which had been framed during his first term, now be 
 came a more glaring political mockery than ever before. You 
 have not forgotten his disgusting prostitution of the civil 
 service in connection with his brother-in-law Casey ; the 
 prompt appointment of Sheppard as one of the Commissioners 
 of the District of Columbia, after its government had been 
 abolished in order to get rid of him ; his sympathy with the 
 safe-burglary criminals, and official aid to his brother Orville 
 
I 86 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 in making merchandise of post-traderships ; the disgrace of 
 the Department of Justice by Attorney-General Williams, 
 which was followed by his appointment as Chief Justice of 
 the Supreme Court of the United States ; the crime of Secre 
 tary Belknap, and the unsavory performances of Secretary 
 Delano ; the President s hostility to Secretary Bristow and 
 his subordinates for their efforts to hunt down whisky-thieves, 
 and his undisguised sympathy for General Babcock and 
 other criminals ; his personal lobbying in both houses of 
 Congress for the passage of the salary theft ; his defense of 
 the moiety system, by which the revenues of the country 
 were farmed out to his favorites ; his friendship for the horde 
 of thieves and demagogues who had fastened themselves like 
 leeches upon the people of the South, and were backed by 
 the whole power of the administration ; and the entire system 
 of carpet-bag spoliation and bayonet rule under which that 
 section was given over to lawlessness and crime. I need 
 not pursue these recitals, and would gladly draw a veil over 
 the sickening picture, if the lessons of political wrong-doing 
 could safely be slighted. In fact, the spectacle of our public 
 affairs became so revolting under this dynasty of huckstering 
 politics and personal government, of groveling purposes and 
 ravenous greed, of bribery and nepotism and shamelessness, 
 that before the middle of Grant s second term all the great 
 Republican states of the North were lost to the party, while 
 leading Republicans began to agitate the question of remand 
 ing the states of the South to territorial rule on account of 
 their disordered condition. In 1868 the Senate contained a 
 Republican majority of fifty-four members, and the House of 
 Representatives 104; but at the end of General Grant s sec 
 ond term the majority in the Senate had dwindled from fifty- 
 four to seventeen, while in the House the majority of 104 had 
 been wiped out to give place to a Democratic majority of 
 seventy-seven. These were the inevitable fruits of Grantism, 
 for its career had been inaugurated in its overwhelming as 
 cendency, and with the amplest possible opportunities to 
 demonstrate its capacity to govern the country. While they 
 
THE ISSUES OF l88o. 187 
 
 completely vindicated the greatly maligned Liberal Repub 
 licans of 1872, they summoned to the bar of history the party 
 whose fatal blunder then brought disgrace upon the nation 
 and a stain upon Republican institutions throughout the 
 world. 
 
 But let us still further continue our survey of the Repub 
 lican party in the clear perspective of its history. Notwith 
 standing the perfectly defiant repudiation of its professions, 
 the party faced the country in its national convention of 1876 
 with the following declaration, embodying its confession of 
 faith on the subject of reform : 
 
 "Senators and representatives who may be judges and 
 accusers should not dictate appointments to office. The in 
 variable rule for appointments should have reference to the 
 honesty, fidelity and capacity of appointees, giving to the 
 party in power those places where harmony and vigor of 
 administration require its policy to be represented, but per 
 mitting all others to be filled by persons selected with sole 
 reference to the efficiency of the public service and the right 
 of citizens to share in the honor of rendering faithful service 
 to their country." 
 
 On this platform Governor Hayes was nominated, and he 
 emphasized it in his letter of acceptance, in his inaugural 
 address, and in his famous civil service order, which followed 
 a few months later. By these documents he unequivocally 
 pledged himself that senators and representatives should 
 not dictate appointments, and that they were no longer to be 
 made merely as rewards for partisan services ; that no officer 
 should be required or permitted to take part in the manage 
 ment of political organizations, caucuses, conventions or 
 election campaigns ; that no assessments for political pur 
 poses on officers or subordinates should be allowed, and that 
 this rule was applicable to every department of the civil ser 
 vice. Here were promises and pledges quite as sweeping as 
 those which had been invariably trampled under foot for 
 eight years. How were they carried out by the party under 
 its new leader? Some of you may remember the prophecy 
 
1 88 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 I made four years ago, and my quotation from Senator Mor 
 ton, that "in a government of parties, like < urs, the Pres 
 ident must have his friends," and that " the administration 
 of any President will be, in the main, what the party which 
 elected him makes it." That this would prove true in the 
 case of Mr. Hayes was rendered certain during the canvass. 
 Morton, Conkling, Elaine, Cameron and Chandler assumed 
 exactly the same leadership as if a politician of their school 
 had been nominated. The administration of General Grant, 
 which had brought the party to the verge of ruin, was in 
 dorsed by the national convention which nominated his suc 
 cessor. The managers of the canvass studiously avoided all 
 reference to civil service reform and the letter of acceptance 
 of their candidate, while their conduct constantly assumed 
 that his administration, should he be elected, would be a 
 continuation of that of General Grant. The canvass, in fact, 
 was merely a renewal of the struggle between the policy of 
 hate and the policy of reconciliation which had so long di 
 vided the people, and under cover of which the Republican 
 leaders were still determined to maintain their hold on power. 
 Governor Hayes himself serenely looked on, and if he did 
 not expressly sanction this mode of conducting the canvass, 
 he certainly could not have been ignorant of the issue on 
 which the battle was being waged and the methods employed 
 to secure the victory. His election, in short, was the unques 
 tionable triumph of the " machine politicians," and they had 
 a perfect right to claim it as logically redounding to their 
 glory and advantage. 
 
 It was not a matter of the least surprise, therefore, that the 
 civil service policy of the new President proved to be a per 
 fect travesty of the party platform and his own declarations. 
 Indeed, the very beginning of his administration was signal 
 ized by acts of the most shameless recreancy to his pledges. 
 For several months following the election the result was in 
 doubt. It depended upon the votes of Florida and Louisiana, 
 and these were to be counted by state officials of exceedingly 
 bad repute. M. L. Stearns was governor of Florida at the 
 
THE ISSUES OF l88o. 189 
 
 time, and, contrary to law, withheld from the Tilden electors 
 the certificates to which the returns entitled them, and gave 
 certificates to the Hayes electors, who had not received a ma 
 jority of the votes of the state. Stearns was defeated for gov 
 ernor at the same election in which Hayes was held to have 
 carried the state, and was subsequently appointed one of the 
 Hot Springs commissioners, with a compensation of $10 per 
 day. McLinn was one of the state canvassers, without whose 
 arbitrary acts in throwing out Democratic votes Florida would 
 have been counted for Tilden. He was rewarded by the of 
 fice of Justice of the Supreme Court of New Mexico, at a sal 
 ary of $3,000 per annum. Dr. Cowgill, another member of 
 the board of canvassers, received an appointment in the 
 treasury department, which, for some reason, he declined, 
 while L. G. Dennis, chairman of the Republican committee 
 of Alachua county; Richard H. Black and Thomas H. 
 Vance, who acted as inspector and clerk at the election in 
 that county ; Joseph Barnes, inspector of elections in Leon 
 county ; James Bell, of Jefferson county, and J. W. Howell, 
 a slippery employe in the office of the clerk of Baker county, 
 all received official recognition for diversified acts of rascality 
 and fraud connected with the election. These were remark 
 able illustrations of the rule which made " honesty, fidelity 
 and capacity," and not partisan service, the test of fitness for 
 office. Nor were the visiting statesmen from the North, who 
 gave their attention to the Florida count, overlooked. Gov 
 ernor Noyes was appointed Minister to France ; General Lew 
 Wallace was made Governor of New Mexico, and John A. 
 Kasson, Minister to Austria. 
 
 The facts as to Louisiana are still worse. Without the 
 vote of this state Hayes could not be counted in, and the 
 count devolved upon a returning board of precious political 
 cherubs, of which J. Madison Wells was president. Their 
 work was done with infernal fidelity to the Republican party, 
 and gave further occasion for the display of civil service re 
 form. Until recently Mr. Wells held the office of surveyor 
 of the port of New Orleans, at a salary of $3, 500 per annum. 
 
190 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 One of his sons, whom Mr. Hayes recently nominated for 
 the position held by his father, occupied the place of special 
 deputy surveyor at New Orleans, at a salary of $2,500 per 
 annum. Another son holds the position of inspector at New 
 Orleans, while a son-in-law is a clerk in the custom house. 
 Thomas C. Anderson, another member of the returning board, 
 is special deputy collector at New Orleans, at a salary of 
 $3,000 per annum, and his son, his father-in-law and his 
 brother-in-law, all hold important places under the govern 
 ment. Louis M. Kenner, a colored member of the returning 
 board, is deputy naval officer at New Orleans, on a salary of 
 $2,500 per annum, while two of his brothers hold subordinate 
 positions. Casanave, the remaining member of the board, 
 strange as it may seem, has never been rewarded w r ith an 
 office, though his brother holds the position of United States 
 storekeeper at New Orleans. But, in justice to the adminis 
 tration, it should be stated that after a heavy judgment had 
 been rendered against him for counsel fees he had agreed to 
 pay for his defense against an indictment for fraudulent con 
 duct as a member of the returning board, and when, after an 
 execution had been levied upon his property for the satisfac 
 tion of the judgment, he came to Washington and appealed 
 to the President and his cabinet for financial relief, very 
 touchingly reminding them of the services he had rendered 
 in counting the vote of his state, and their obligations to be 
 friend him, the required amount was contributed, and Casa 
 nave sent home with an unburdened mind. I need not say 
 that the honors and emoluments heaped upon these men, 
 through whose official action the administration mounted to 
 power, would have been an insult to political decency and a 
 vile caricature of civil service reform if there had been even 
 a well-founded suspicion as to their integrity. I must add 
 that Governor Packard was finally rewarded for his disgrace 
 ful career in Louisiana by the best consulate in Europe, and 
 Mr. Stoughton made Minister to Russia, as a reward, un 
 doubtedly, for his services in carrying the state for the Pres 
 ident in defiance of * clerical errors ; " while the ringleader 
 
THE ISSUES OF l88o. Ipl 
 
 of the gang of visiting statesmen who went to New Orleans 
 " in the interest of a fair count" was made secretary of the 
 United States treasury. 
 
 But the civil service of the new administration has supplied 
 still further illustrations. Mr. Filley, a politician and intriguer 
 of bad repute, was reappointed postmaster at St. Louis. Gen 
 eral Babcock continued to bask in the sunshine of executive 
 approval. The office of consul general at Frankfort-on-the- 
 Main was treated as a personal perquisite of the President by 
 bestowing it upon his private secretary. A Kentucky lawyer 
 and partisan was made judge of the Supreme Court of the 
 United States for timely services rendered in the Cincinnati 
 convention in securing the nomination of his chief, and after 
 ward in settling the dispute in Louisiana. The offer of the En 
 glish mission to the Pennsylvania delegation in Congress was 
 a palpable disregard of civil service reform as the President 
 himself had defined it, and so was the offer of the German mis 
 sion to the delegation from Illinois. He has allowed his first 
 assistant postmaster general to send out blanks through the 
 mails to members of Congress, to be filled by them with the 
 names of such persons as they may see fit to recommend for of- 
 ffice, just as if he had made no public pledge that this practice 
 should be discontinued. I give him credit for the removal of 
 Mr. Arthur from the New York custom house, for the excellent 
 reason that he had made it " a center of partisan political man 
 agement," and that it was necessary "in order that the office 
 may be honestly administered." These reasons were rein 
 forced by Secretary Sherman, who said to the collector that 
 " gross abuses of administration have continued and increased 
 during your incumbency ; " that " persons have been regu- 
 larlv paid by you who have rendered little or no service ; " 
 that "the expenses of your office have increased while its 
 receipts have diminished," and that " bribes, or gratuities in 
 the shape of bribes, have been received by your subordinates 
 in several branches of the custom house, and you have in no 
 case supported the effort to correct these abuses." 
 
 But notwithstanding these grave charges the removal of 
 
192 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 Mr. Arthur was only made after great and inexcusable delay, 
 and was then accompanied by the offer to him of the Paris 
 consulate, being an evident maneuver of the President to 
 keep on both sides of the civil service question. I must also 
 give the President due credit for removing Mr. Cornell from 
 the office of surveyor, on account of his defiance of the civil 
 service order. He did this in the face of Senator Conkling s 
 denunciation of the administration, and his insolent remark 
 that reform is the last refuge of a scoundrel." But when 
 Mr. Cornell, at Conkling s dictation, was nominated for Gov 
 ernor of New York last year, and was known to be in alli 
 ance with the Tammany wing of the Democratic party, Mr. 
 Sherman entered the canvass and earnestly advocated his 
 election ; so did Secretary Evarts, while the President him 
 self caused a statement to be made in the newspapers that if 
 he were in New York he would cordially give Mr. Cornell 
 his support. During this canvass Mr. Sherman wrote to Ap 
 praiser Dutcher : " I cordially approve of your taking part 
 in the Cornell and Hoskins campaign, and will do all in my 
 power to favor their election. I have no objection to the 
 government employes making contributions to the fund." 
 So pitiful a game of fast and loose is more detestable than 
 the absence of any pretense of principle or consistency, and 
 forcibly illustrates the omnipotent moral feebleness of this 
 administration. Every feature of the civil service order of 
 three years ago ; every phase and similitude of the reform is 
 openly disregarded, and everywhere treated with contempt. 
 So completely, in fact, has the civil service become the mere 
 foot-ball of scheming party managers, and fashioned itself 
 into the old warp and woof of Grantism, that in the late Chi 
 cago convention the Committee on Resolutions, halting be 
 fore the accusing party record, repeatedly voted down the 
 proposition to allude in any way to the subject. When the 
 convention afterward was compelled to deal with it on its in 
 troduction by a Massachusetts delegate, the resolution offered, 
 according to George William Curtis, "was paired into the 
 utmost possible harmlessness," and then practically blotted 
 
THE ISSUES OF l88o. 193 
 
 out by the nomination of a man for the second place on the 
 ticket whose management of the New York custom house 
 had been the beau ideal of the spoils system, and an insult to 
 the administration which afterward crouched at his feet in 
 atonement for the only decided spasm of virtue which had 
 exercised its conscience. If anything was wanting to round 
 out and beautify these closing acts of the convention, it was 
 the keen irony embodied in the hungry and wolfish inquiry 
 of the patriot Flannegan, of Texas : "What are we here 
 for if not for office and patronage?" And if any political 
 fact could be made absolutely certain, it is, that civil service 
 reform, after a life of great travail and sorrow, was at last in 
 its grave ; while you ajl know that General Garfield himself, 
 in his letter of acceptance, has preached its funeral and writ 
 ten its epitaph. 
 
 This, gentlemen, is the record of the Republican party 
 since the close of the war and the settlement of the questions 
 it involved. This is the sum total of its promised achieve 
 ments in the work of "reform within the party;" and it 
 shows how entirely safe Secretary Schurz is in predicting 
 that the millenium will not follow the election of the Repub 
 lican ticket. I have spread out before you its reiterated pro- 
 fessio^ns and promises, and the unfailing violation of them 
 which has followed as the night the day ; and I ask any fair- 
 minded Republican to give me a single reason, or even a 
 respectable pretext, for believing that the long delayed work 
 will be accomplished. It violated its pledges made in 1868. 
 It proved equally false to those made in 1872. It has defi 
 antly mocked its plighted promises in 1876, which still kept 
 alive the hope of many Republicans ; and now, as the climax 
 of its unrebuked recreancy, it even musters the courage to 
 disavow the stock professions which have so long masked its 
 real character. If any honest man is still inclined to trust it, 
 I point him to these danger signals all along its pathway, 
 beckoning him to beware. By its fruits it must be judged, 
 and if so it will be nailed to the pillory by an overwhelming 
 popular verdict. The Republican leaders understand this 
 13 
 
194 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 perfectly ; and hence, at the very threshold of this canvass 
 we find them resorting to the old game which they played so 
 skillfully in 1872 and 1876. They are asking us to excuse or 
 condone their multiplied acts of misgovernment for the last 
 twelve years, oh the score of what the party did during the 
 war ; and they insist, with their old-time vehemence, upon 
 the total depravity of the Democratic party and the exhaust- 
 less saving grace of their own. The key-note of the can 
 vass was struck by the Republican candidate for Governor 
 in his opening speech at Indianapolis. He gave us to under 
 stand that should General Hancock be elected, Utah, with 
 her polygamy, would be admitted as a state, and thus give 
 the party two senators ; that the Indian territory would be 
 carved into another state, with two more senators ; that Texas 
 would be divided into five states, and thus give the party 
 eight additional senators ; that the judges of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States would be duplicated, and three- 
 fourths of them selected from the South ; that then the re 
 construction acts and constitutional amendments would all 
 be pronounced unconstitutional and void ; and finally, that 
 we should be saddled with the rebel debt and rebel pensions, 
 and be compelled to pay the value of the slaves unconstitu 
 tionally set free, who, of course, would all be put back into 
 slavery. 
 
 This brilliant unfurling of the "bloody shirt" at the open 
 ing of the canvass, by a gentleman of Mr. Porter s coolness 
 and proverbial moderation, seems a little remarkable, and 
 suggests the suspicion that his picture of Democratic diabol 
 ism may have been painted with a pencil bequeathed by the 
 late Senator Morton. Mr. Porter says this is "no fancy 
 sketch, no picture of the imagination, but a sober danger, 
 which may, before we know it, become an appalling one." 
 If he really believes this, his friends should provide him with 
 a guardian or a responsible committee to take charge of his 
 person and estate, instead of trying to make him Governor. 
 If he does not believe it, but is simply seeking a party advan 
 tage by a base appeal to popular ignorance, he is a dema- 
 
THE ISSUES OF l88o. 
 
 95 
 
 gogue of very considerable promise, and should be rebuked by 
 the people according to his deserts* But this is the Repub 
 lican argument, and Mr. Porter is o nly one of the many lead 
 ers who are giving it voice. When Secretary Sherman was 
 in Maine he told his audiences that " questions of money, 
 labor, and property sank into insignificance" in the presence 
 of the great sectional issue. Senator Hoar, as we have seen, 
 treats the Democratic party to-day, united under a famous 
 Union General, as imbued with the same treasonable purpose 
 and spirit which animated the revolt against the government 
 in 1861. Even Senator Edmunds, of Vermont, lends him 
 self to the same madness. These ideas will shape and in 
 spire the Republican canvass in every section of the Union. 
 The Republican leaders are the everlasting saviors of the 
 country. Since the rebellion was suppressed it has been 
 constantly nearing the gates of death, and especially at every 
 Presidential election. The war has now been over more 
 than fifteen years, and yet the "Rebels" have so fair a pros 
 pect of capturing the government that the effort to save it 
 must not be balked in the slightest degree by any inquiries 
 into the management of public affairs since the close of the 
 conflict. One-half the people of the United States are so in 
 finitely wicked that at all hazards they must be kept out of 
 power. This is the Republican issue. This view of the sit 
 uation, it is true, greatly belittles the boasted achievements 
 of the party in saving the Union and garnering the fruits of 
 the victory. It also excites a doubt as to whether a nation 
 thus fearfully beset with deadly perils and constantly on the 
 ragged edge of destruction, is worth the trouble and vexation 
 of preserving it, except to the ravenous crew who live by 
 plunder ; but these considerations probably never occur to 
 the men whose days and nights are completely absorbed by 
 their efforts to save their country from the dreadful pitfalls of 
 its enemies. 
 
 Gentlemen, I have no motive and no wish to withhold 
 from the Republican party its fairly-earned honors in the 
 work of suppressing the rebellion. I was with it and of it 
 
196 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 during the great crisis of its life, and am perfectly willing to 
 crown it with all the glory it earned ; but does it logically follow 
 that because, under the lead of Lincoln, Seward, Chase and 
 Sumner, it played a grand part in crushing out a rebellion 
 which began nearly twenty years ago, that, therefore, the 
 Republican party of to-day should be intrusted with the 
 national administration? There can be but one possible an 
 swer to this question. We are now in the enjoyment of 
 peace, and interested in the concerns of peace. More than 
 the half of an entire generation has passed away since the 
 close of the struggle, and it has no more business in this can 
 vass than our war with Mexico. What the country wants to-day 
 is an honest and capable management of public affairs ; and 
 the claim of the contending parties upon our suffrages should 
 be judged solely in reference to this consideration. As re 
 gards that portion of the Democratic party which undertook 
 the work of national dismemberment in 1861 in defense of 
 negro slavery, I am quite as ready to condemn it as I am to 
 applaud the conduct of the men who confronted it at the time. 
 Its action provoked my unmeasured abhorrence, and my em 
 phatic expression of it has never been withdrawn ; but when 
 the Democratic party now asks me to consider its claim to 
 my confidence, am I to brand it as a party of rebels because 
 a fraction of it embarked in a treasonable conspiracy nearly 
 a generation ago? As reasonable men, loving our country 
 and seeking its welfare with unbiased minds, it is our duty to 
 consider what is best in the light of existing and irreversible 
 facts, and, above all things, not to make shipwreck of our 
 common sense at the bidding of party leaders. 
 
 For myself, instead of seeking pretexts for prolonging the 
 old quarrel between sections, I am anxious, above all things, 
 to avoid them. Instead oflying in wait for some unguarded 
 expression or rash utterance, or studiously provoking it, I am 
 ready to welcome with gladness and thanksgiving every to 
 ken of reconciliation. I plead for this spirit, because just so 
 longfas parties are marshalled against each other on the bale 
 ful memories of the war, the issue of sectionalism will be the 
 
THE ISSUES OF l88o. Ip7 
 
 stalking-horse of every form of political abuse, and no remedy 
 for our political disorders will be possible* The first and in 
 dispensable step in the pathway of reform is the rearrange 
 ment of parties on questions wholly disconnected with the 
 settled issues of the past. The "Solid North" and "Solid 
 South," for which reckless demagogues are now* laboring, 
 would be a national calamity. Both should be divided ; and 
 questions of practical administration are not wanting on which 
 such divisions are invited, involving, of necessity, the division 
 of the colored vote, and thus clearing the way for the end of 
 sectional agitation by diverting attention from its cause. I 
 quarrel with the Republican party to-day because its ma 
 chinery is kept in working order by unholy appeals to pas 
 sions and animosities that need nothing so much as forgetful- 
 ness. It lives upon the consuming fires of sectional hate, and 
 makes crimination and recrimination respecting dead issues 
 the fuel of our politics. If anything could drive the people of 
 the South into the madness of treason it would be the policy 
 of the Republican leaders in perpetually branding them with 
 it, and arraigning them in the language and spirit of 1861. 
 How can a quarrel ever come to an end if the parties to it, 
 after a formal settlement, make it their constant business to 
 taunt each other with their mutual accusations ? If the ashes 
 of the past are to be constantly stirred, and our parties rallied 
 on the memories of the war to-day, who can predict the time 
 when a real union of the sections will be possible? If the 
 North and the South are to be dealt with as two hostile camps, 
 who can expect emigration to flow into the states which else 
 would invite it, and thus work out their redemption through 
 an intelligent and homogeneous population? 
 
 Gentlemen, let me deal fairly with this question. It un 
 doubtedly has its difficulties. Its just settlement demands 
 statesmanship, not passion. The people of the South are the 
 product of their political and social antecedents. They have 
 behind them a history radically different from that of the 
 people of the North, and the impress of that history can only 
 be effaced by cultivated patience and good-will in both sec- 
 
198 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 tions. In dealing with so vital and delicate a problem we 
 are obliged to accept the inevitable conditions of progress, 
 and have no right to upbraid whole communities with the 
 great facts which have made them what they are. Without 
 the intervention of a miracle the unlikeness of the two sec 
 tions can only disappear gradually, and under friendly con 
 ditions. It could scarcely be expected that the people of the 
 South can all now feel precisely the same attachment for the 
 Union they fought to destroy which is felt by the people who 
 fought to save it. They can not help remembering their suf 
 ferings and sacrifices in the struggle and hallowing the mem 
 ory of their slain. They are a different people, with a differ 
 ent historic record, and imbued with correspondingly different 
 ideas ; and these differences should be dealt with in a friendly 
 and tolerant spirit, instead of being eagerly laid hold of as 
 the occasion for strife. Our Republican leaders endeavor to 
 awaken sectional animosity by their inventory of the " Con 
 federate Brigadiers " in Congress who are now sharing in 
 the government they fought to destroy. But these dangerous 
 characters are there by the express legislative permission of 
 the Republican party, which made haste to remove their dis 
 abilities and hurried the seceded states back into their con 
 stitutional relations to the Union. They were thus armed 
 with the power to manage their own affairs without being 
 called to account by the states of the North ; and nobody had 
 any right to expect that in choosing men to serve them in 
 Congress they would select perfect representatives of North 
 ern opinion. Nobody had any right to suppose that the es 
 sential facts of the situation could be changed except by the 
 healing hand of time and the duty of men on both sides to 
 smooth the way as fast as possible to a general and genuine 
 reconciliation. It has been well said by a very able English 
 writer on political and social questions that "generations 
 change. The son is not like his father ; the grandson is still 
 less like his grandfather. They do not feel the same feel 
 ings, or think the same thoughts, or lead the same life. You 
 can no more expect different generations to have exactly the 
 
THE ISSUES OF l88o. 199 
 
 same political opinions, to obey exactly the same laws, to love 
 exactly the same institutions, than you can expect them to 
 wear identical clothes, own identical furniture, or have iden 
 tical manners. The states of the South may safely be left 
 to the operation of these obvious principles, while every pa 
 triotic man of the North should gladly accept them as the 
 prophecy and pledge of a reunited republic. These states 
 must be redeemed, if redeemed at all, through the working 
 of moral and social forces. It must be done through the or 
 dinary agencies of civilization, and not by the methods of 
 barbarism, and in the very nature of things it can not be done 
 in a day. If I am mistaken, and we are to accept the Re 
 publican view of the people as thoroughly given over to the 
 work of treason and the re-enslavement of their colored pop 
 ulation, then the Union is virtually dismembered already, and 
 the Republican party confesses the utter failure of its scheme 
 of reconstruction. The government, by constitutional meth 
 ods, of a great and united section of the republic which defies 
 the national authority, is impossible, and the folly of attempt 
 ing it should be abandoned at once. These " rebel districts" 
 not only need " troops at the polls," but troops everywhere, 
 and should be summarily turned over as outlying provinces 
 to the tutelage of a standing army. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, if I am right in these views, as I feel 
 quite sure I am if the facts which make up my premises are 
 impregnable and my deductions valid the chief task upon 
 which I set out is accomplished. The best and only possible 
 way to inaugurate political reform is to drive the Republican 
 party from power, and place the government in new hands. 
 By no other means can the era of sectional estrangement 
 be closed and the orderly and healthy administration of af 
 fairs be re-established. This conclusion is not at all affected 
 by the conduct of the Democratic party years ago, in its re 
 lations to slavery and the war, nor by its record since. It 
 has not been charged with the administration of national af 
 fairs for many vears, with the slight exception of its recent 
 ascendency in Congress, during which the power of the lobby 
 
2OO SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 has been broken, the political and social atmosphere of 
 Washington greatly improved, and the annual expenditures 
 of the government greatly reduced. But I do not rest the 
 case upon these facts. The Democratic party is not innocent 
 of very grave political mistakes and offenses. This has been 
 especially true in particular states and districts during the 
 dispensation of plunder and misgovernment which marked 
 the two administrations of General Grant. During the years 
 of sectional bitterness unavoidably resulting from the war, 
 and needlessly aggravated by demagogues, the Democratic 
 party had a very trying experience, and often sadly 
 failed in meeting the obligations of patriotism and statesman 
 ship. I am not here to defend it where its conduct is not de 
 fensible. I do not disguise the fact that should 1 it now re 
 gain power it will have on its hands a work of exceeding 
 difficulty. I do not believe in the power of any party to work 
 miracles, but it is the only instrument through which the 
 government can now be rescued from the depraved dynasty 
 which controls it, and which, as I have shown, has com 
 pletely lost the power of self-recovery. We can not afford 
 to postpone the work of saving the country till a perfect party 
 shall offer to undertake it ; and it is always wiser to run the 
 hazard of possible or even probable evils than voluntarily to 
 accept those which are certain. Twenty years of power would 
 demoralize a party of angels. It would convert them into a 
 governing class, with interests wholly apart from those of the 
 people, and the complete overhauling of their misdeeds would 
 only be possible through a new party, stimulated in its work 
 by a political victory, and having complete control of their 
 records. 
 
 In following out the line of argument in my opening 
 statements, let me now briefly refer to the personal charac 
 ter of the candidates. Of General Hancock I need say but 
 little. It is the singular good fortune of his country and of 
 himself that he does not need to be defended. In private 
 life he is above reproach. His honor is unsullied. There is 
 no stain of bribery or official greed upon his garments. His 
 
THE ISSUES OF l88o. 2OI 
 
 loyalty to the Union has been tried by fire, and demonstrated 
 by acts which will make his name as imperishable as the his 
 tory of his country. His subordination of the military to the 
 civil power, while holding an important command, is a guar 
 antee that, if elected, the arbitrary methods which have 
 brought shame upon the government under Republican rule 
 will cease, and that statesmanship, and not mere brute-force, 
 will guide the conduct of public affairs ; while there is no 
 reason whatever for believing that he will imitate the con 
 duct of General Grant by surrounding himself with political 
 bummers and knaves. He is a clean man, and if political 
 reform should not be thoroughly accomplished under his ad 
 ministration it will at least be made possible by breaking up 
 the organized machinery which now stands in its way, and 
 assuaging the bitterness of sectional strife. 
 
 As regards the Republican candidate, I know him pretty 
 well, having served with him in the House of Representa 
 tives eight years. Our personal as well as political relations 
 were at all times friendly, and I have no disposition what 
 ever to do him any injustice. He is a man of brains, and less 
 inclined to party narrowness and intolerance, and more cath 
 olic in his tendencies than the other conspicuous Republican 
 leaders. The natural bent of his character is toward in 
 tegrity, and he is not without excellent personal qualities ; 
 but in his long career he has never shown himself able to rise 
 above his party. In times of real trial he is wanting in moral 
 nerve. During the dismal political eclipse which I have 
 called Grantism, he gave no sign of revolt or discontent, but 
 meekly held his peace. He is known to be in sympathy with 
 our great railway corporations, and fully with his party in its 
 strong leaning toward centralization. I understand him to 
 be a free trader in his convictions and a member of the Cob- 
 den Club ; but I believe he has always accommodated him 
 self to the wishes of the tariff monopolists of the country, and 
 I have no doubt will be equally subservient in future. Nearly 
 two years ago, when sectionalism seemed to be on the wane, 
 he declared that " the man who attempts to get up a political 
 
2O2 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 excitement in this country on the old sectional issues will find 
 himself without a party and without support ; " but this was a 
 sporadic utterance in the face of his uniform course since the 
 war as a stalwart, in vigorously flourishing the bloody shirt. 
 At the bidding of his party he has been faithless to his own 
 expressed views on the use of the army at elections and the 
 employment of deputy marshals. In his letter of acceptance 
 he makes a very feeble effort to place himself on the side ot 
 civil service reform, while in substance he condemns the or 
 der of President Hayes to his subordinates, vindicates con 
 gressional interference with appointments and thus begins 
 the battle for reform by a surrender. His role in the Chicago 
 convention as a peace-maker aptly illustrates his natural dis 
 position, and his unfitness for any independent, aggressive 
 movement. If his intellect were inspired by profound moral 
 convictions and a strong will, his friends might plausibly 
 claim that he could lift his party to a higher level ; but he is 
 merely its expression and breath. His nomination was an 
 accident, and has no moral significance whatever. He would 
 have supported General Grant if he had been nominated, not 
 withstanding his record of eight years and the mischiefs 
 threatened by the precedent of a third term, just as he stood 
 ready to work and shout for Blaine, with his stock-jobbing 
 performances. Probably four-fifths of the national conven 
 tion favored one or the other of these two candidates, whose 
 overthrow was accomplished by outside influences which the 
 convention was unwilling to defy. General Garfield profited 
 by the embittered rivalries of the other candidates, and all 
 that can be claimed in his behalf is that he represents the 
 average political morality of the party whose record I have 
 attempted to depict, and whose national convention, with 
 only two dissenting voices, pledged itself before the nomina 
 tion to support any man who might be selected. 
 
 But the character of General Garfield is involved in cer 
 tain particular charges, to which I propose to refer. Among 
 these I shall briefly allude to the retroactive salary act, the 
 De Golyer pavement swindle, and the Credit Mobilier devel- 
 
THE ISSUES OF l88o. 2O3 
 
 opments. In dealing with these it may be well to remember 
 that every one of them has a Republican pedigree, and there 
 fore, when complaint is made about throwing "campaign 
 mud," I refer the account for settlement to the Republican 
 leaders and journalists who made these charges years ago, 
 and are now so ready to brand them as Democratic lies. 
 They dumped this " mud " on the door-steps of their candi 
 date, and it is their business to cart it away if they can. Let 
 me say further, that I wish to deal only in facts. I shall in 
 dulge in no denunciation, no personal abuse, and no extrav 
 agant assertions as to General Garfield s criminality. If his 
 early accusers and present champions had shown more can 
 dor and less partisan bias in dealing with his conduct, I 
 should have felt less disposition to arraign it. If, instead of 
 attempting to prove his character stainless, they had been 
 willing, like the Springfield Re-publican, to admit his weak 
 ness, and refer his conduct to the corrupt atmosphere of the 
 period in which he yielded to temptation, and the charitable 
 judgment of the public, there would have been less motive 
 and less inclination to overhaul the facts and sift the evidence. 
 The people have a right to know the truth respecting the 
 character of a candidate for the highest office within their 
 gift, and if it can not pass their scrutiny unscathed, no 
 amount of whitewash should be allowed to conceal the fact. 
 
 The material facts connected with the retroactive salary 
 bill may be very briefly stated. On the last day of the forty- 
 second Congress, this measure appropriated nearly two mil 
 lion dollars to pay the members of that Congress for salaries 
 they had never earned. It was regarded by the people as a 
 naked legislative theft. General Garfield was chairman of 
 the Committee of Conference having charge of the appropri 
 ation bill containing the retroactive provision, and as such, 
 engineered its passage and voted for it. It is true, that he 
 had previously and repeatedly voted against the salary in 
 crease as a separate proposition, but this does not relieve him 
 of the responsibility of finally voting for and urging its pas- 
 
204 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 sage. It is also true that he attempted to justify his action 
 on the plea that if the appropriation bill failed, an extra ses 
 sion of Congress would be necessary. But this was a pre 
 tense, and not a justification. If the measure had failed 
 through his opposition, there was time enough for another 
 Committee of Conference, and a further effort to save the 
 treasury. If, however, he clearly saw, or could have seen, 
 that an extra session of Congress would be the result, it did 
 not justify him in so flagrant a game of robbery. He should 
 have washed his hands of it, and scouted the Jesuitical prin 
 ciple which invited him to pick the nation s pocket to avoid 
 a greater evil. That General Garfield was really in sympa 
 thy with the measure is shown by his false pretense that it 
 was not a robbery or a theft at all, but justified by legisla 
 tive precedents, and by the fact that he allowed the salary 
 to stand to his credit, and of course meant to retain it. Six 
 or seven weeks afterwards, it is true, he covered it into the 
 treasury, and thereby confessed his guilt. But this was in 
 the midst of a popular indignation which had spread like fire 
 throughout the Union, and a few days after a Republican con 
 vention at Warren, in Trurnbull county, in his congressional 
 district, had censured him for his action respecting this meas 
 ure, and requested him to resign. He only dropped his swag 
 when he found the police were on his tracks. These are the 
 simple facts bearing upon his connection with this transac 
 tion, and the people will decide whether they do not signally 
 fail to relieve him of his conspicuous responsibility fur this 
 memorable legislative outrage. 
 
 The De Golyer pavement matter is connected with the 
 scheme of street improvements in Washington, inaugurated 
 by the board of public works in 1872. In response to bids 
 which were invited by the board, De Golyer & Co. applied 
 for a large contract for laying their patent wooden pavement, 
 which was rejected by the board of engineers. They there 
 upon determined to raise a large fund through which to in 
 fluence the action of the board in their favor, and the evidence 
 
THE ISSUES OF l88o. 205 
 
 taken before two congressional investigatingcommitteesshows 
 that sundry influential parties in Washington were enlisted 
 in the work, including R. C. Parsons, then Marshal of the 
 Supreme Court, who was to receive a large fee for his ser 
 vices, contingent upon an appropriation by Congress. Out 
 of this fee Mr. Parsons agreed to pay General Garfield $5,000 
 for professional services before the board, in behalf of the appli 
 cation of De Golyer & Co., for a contract. If General Garfield 
 was at that time known to the public as a lawyer, it is quite cer 
 tain that he had won no celebrity. The question to be decided 
 involved the character and comparative value of many pat 
 ents, both wooden and concrete, and could scarcely be con 
 sidered a judicial one at all. There was no case in court, 
 because nobody had been sued. It was a matter for experts 
 and not for lawyers, and it was not to be tried by a judicial 
 tribunal. General Garfield never appeared before the board, 
 and never filed any written argument. If he prepared one, 
 as he declares he did, it strangely failed to find its way to the 
 tribunal it was intended to influence. He once spoke to 
 Governor Shepard on the subject in behalf of his clients, and 
 received $5,000 for serving them. I think he must have 
 known that his opinion of wooden pavements was not worth 
 this sum. That he received it for his factitious influence as 
 a member of Congress and chairman of the committee on 
 appropriations, is as perfectly manifest as any fact can be, 
 short of a mathematical demonstration. If, as he declares, he 
 did not himself know it, nor suspect it, it is a psychological 
 phenomenon which may well awaken doubt as to that mental 
 soundness which is the special boast of his friends. General 
 Garfield and his champions are endeavoring to whiten his 
 record by asserting that the money to pay for these street 
 improvements did not come from the national treasury, but 
 from the resources of the District, and had already been pro 
 vided by the District government, so that the only question 
 involved was the kind of pavement which should be used. If 
 this were true, his official position would have been less in 
 fluential in his employment, and he would be at least partially 
 
2O6 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 exonerated. But the truth is that behind the District gov 
 ernment and its revenues stood Congress, the ultimate re 
 sponsible authority for appropriations, and that large appro 
 priations for the De Golyer pavements were afterwards re 
 ported by General Garfield s committee, and passed. That 
 his official position and influence constituted the motive of 
 his employment is shown by the fact that after he had been 
 secured, his employers made their boast that they had now 
 the influence of the man who held " the purse-strings of the 
 United States," and was " the strongest man in Congress ; " 
 and on this ground it has since been judicially determined 
 that the contract procured by such methods was against 
 public policy and void. I commend these pregnant consid 
 erations to General Garfield s over-zealous friends, whose ef 
 forts in wrestling with unmanageable facts promise to be 
 come an interesting campaign study. 
 
 Respecting General Garfield s transactions with Oakes 
 Ames, his champions make the same extravagant claim of 
 complete vindication as in the charges I have noticed. They 
 decline to make any excuses on the score of weakness or 
 ignorance, but attempt to defend him absolutely. Oakes 
 Ames testified before the Poland committee that he agreed 
 to take ten shares of the Credit Mobilier stock, and that he 
 (Ames) paid him a dividend of $329. The committee, a 
 majority of which was composed of Republicans, unani 
 mously found these facts to be true. Undoubtedly they be 
 lieved him, as the public did with scarcely a dissenting voice. 
 But, although several excellent reputations were destroyed 
 or badly damaged by the evidence of Ames before the com 
 mittee, yet now, under the impelling pressure of a Presiden 
 tial election, and when he has been seven years in his grave, 
 it is insisted that his statements respecting General Garfield 
 are wholly untrustworthy. The report of this committee is 
 assailed by leading newspapers, which strongly condemned 
 its culpable moderation at the time of its publication in not 
 including sundry other members of Congress (General Gar- 
 field among them) in the same condemnation it pronounced 
 
THE ISSUES OF l88o. 2O7 
 
 upon Ames and Brooks. Among these newspapers was 
 Harper s Weekly. Indeed, it was then very generally re 
 garded by the public as a whitewashing report, and this view 
 had strong confirmation in the fact that the members of the 
 committee were General Garfield s daily associates, and a 
 majority of them his personal and political friends, who 
 would spare him as far as possible. And yet Harper s 
 Weekly now says: "The authors of the report may have 
 thought it necessary to show their impartiality by sacrificing 
 some of their own party friends." This suggestion is as stu 
 pid as it is dishonorable to the members of that committee, 
 and shows to what desperate straits an uncommonly decent 
 newspaper may be driven by the exigencies of a political 
 campaign. This journal also says : " The whole case, as far 
 as Mr. Garfield is concerned, is a question of veracity be 
 tween him and Oakes Ames," and it has no hesitation in 
 completely discrediting the evidence of the latter, although 
 the friendly tone of his statements respecting Mr. Garfield 
 clearly indicate the disposition to spare him, and although 
 this committee had unanimously reached an opposite conclu 
 sion, after hearing all the evidence, weighing the character 
 of the witnesses who came before them, the manner in which 
 they testified, and all the circumstances of the case. The 
 Nation falls into the same vein, although at first it spoke of 
 the conduct of General Garfield in this affair as having, " at 
 the time, a very unfortunate appearance," and said, " he 
 undoubtedly bore himself badly when the uproar began, and 
 he discovered what a very serious view the public took of 
 Ames dealings with congressmen." It now strongly accen 
 tuates the bad memory of Mr. Ames, indulges in several 
 charitabje suppositions as to the conduct and motives of Gen 
 eral Garfield, and tenderly weighs the charges against him 
 in the light of his good character, about which, it should 
 remember, that opinions are very greatly divided. 
 
 These organs likewise overlook certain circumstantial 
 statements made by Mr. Ames before the committee, on the 
 2Qth of January, which, in fairness, should have been no- 
 
2O8 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 ticed in their review of the transaction. He then testified to 
 the effect that General Garfield, in interviews after the in 
 vestigation had begun, did not pretend that any money had 
 been loaned him ; that he admitted that $2,400 were due him 
 in stock and bonds ; that he said this affair would be very 
 injurious to him, and was a cruel thing ; that he was in very 
 great distress, and hardly knew what he did say ; and that 
 he said he wanted to say as little about the affair as he could, 
 and get off as easily as possible. These statements related 
 to recent conversations, and can not be got rid of on the plea 
 of the bad memory of Mr. Ames. They wear the appear 
 ance of truth ; and if they were false, they deserved a point- 
 blank contradiction by Mr. Garfield on his oath before the 
 committee. But he never made that contradiction. He 
 failed to confront Mr. Ames as a witness respecting these 
 statements, and subject himself to the wholesome test of truth 
 afforded by a cross-examination, but contented himself with 
 an ex -parte printed statement of his defense several months 
 later and after Ames had died. These facts do not favor the 
 theory of his conscious innocence. I will not brand him as 
 guilty, but the very utmost that can be claimed in his behalf 
 is that his wrong-doing is " not proven." He is entitled to 
 the benefit of all reasonable doubts, and to a fair and impar 
 tial hearing on the appeal now taken to the public from the 
 finding of the Poland committee ; but the public will remem 
 ber that this appeal is asked seven years alter his conviction, 
 and in the midst of a national canvass in which the fate of 
 his party is involved in his vindication, and it will not fail to 
 weigh the evidence accordingly. I freely give him credit 
 for his ingenious and elaborate defense of himself in response 
 to the popular clamor in the spring of 1873, but the truth is, 
 after all, that he stands before the nation under the shadow 
 of suspicion. That shadow can not be removed by calling 
 Judge Poland, General Banks and Judge McCrary as wit 
 nesses to impeach their own record. It can not be removed 
 by the opinio n of Senator Thurman that his guilt is not dem 
 onstrated by the evidence. It can not be removed by the 
 
THE ISSUES OF l88o. 2Op 
 
 friendly letter of Judge Black, expressing the strong assur 
 ance of General Garfield s ignorance of the criminal purposes 
 of Oakes Ames, but leaving unnoticed the conflict between 
 his sworn statement and that of General Garfield respecting 
 his agreement to take ten shares of stock. Nor can it be re- 
 
 O 
 
 moved by the alleged action of his immediate constituents in 
 condoning his errors. They have not condoned them. In 
 1872 his Congressional majority was 10,944; but in 1874 it 
 was reduced to 2,526, while in his last election, when the 
 memory of this transaction had considerably faded out of 
 the public mind, his majority was still 4,594 less than his full 
 party strength. 
 
 But I must pass now, in conclusion, to other and still 
 graver charges. General Garfield was one of the " visiting 
 statesmen" who repaired to New Orleans soon after the last 
 Presidential election, in response to the invitation of Presi 
 dent Grant, for the ostensible purpose of securing "a fair 
 count" of the vote of Louisiana. The President ordered to 
 the state an imposing military force to preserve the peace, 
 and see that the returning board of the state was unmolested 
 in the performance of its duty ; but as he had already de 
 stroyed civil government there by the bayonet the necessity 
 for this military order was not apparent, unless some new 
 outrage was contemplated. The situation was critical, and 
 a feeling of uncertainty and alarm prevailed throughout the 
 country. The chairman of the Democratic National Com 
 mittee invited several representative public men, of both po 
 litical parties, to visit New Orleans in the interest of peace 
 and the furtherance of the faithful performance of its duty by 
 the returning board ; and on their arrival in the city they pro 
 posed to Senator Sherman, General Garfield, and their Repub 
 lican associates, a joint conference and friendly co-operation 
 with a view to a just and satisfactory settlement of the threaten 
 ing controversy. But this proposition was summarily rejected, 
 on the pretext that these representative Republicans had no 
 legal authority to interfere with the vote of the state, or the 
 action of its officers in canvassing it. To this it was replied 
 
2IO SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 that no such authority had been thought of, and that the pro 
 posed conference contemplated only such moral influence as 
 it might be able to exert. In response to this, the Republi 
 cans disavowed any authority or wish to interfere with the 
 returning board, even to that extent, and thereby left the 
 public completely in the fog as to the meaning of their mis 
 sion. There could, however, be but one explanation, since a 
 single earnest word on their part in the interest of fair play 
 would almost certainly have been heeded, while their per 
 sonal presence and refusal to act showed that they sympa 
 thized with the determination of the board to count the state 
 for the Republicans at all events, and were present for the 
 purpose of abetting that object. The known character of 
 the board confirms this view. It was the creature and instru 
 ment of a state government founded in flagrant usurpation 
 and fraud. Although the law creating it required that its 
 members should belong to different parties, they were all 
 Republicans, and two of them officers in the custom house at 
 New Orleans. The law also required the board to be com 
 posed of rive members, but there were only four, and they 
 utterly refused to fill the vacancy. The entire clerical force 
 of the board was also composed of Republicans, who would, 
 of course, be the ready instruments of their employers. Its 
 members were the same men who sat upon it in 1874, an< ^ 
 after the election of that year took the majority of votes from 
 one side and gave it to the other, by " unjust, arbitrary and 
 illegal acts," as reported by a Republican congressional com 
 mittee. The president of the board had branded himself as 
 a perjurer in the testimony he had given respecting the state 
 election of that year, and had disgraced himself by his polit 
 ical rascality and disregard of law while holding his guber 
 natorial office in 1867. The other members of the board were 
 his fit associates, and it had been characterized by Hon. 
 William A. Wheeler as " a disgrace to civilization," and was 
 covered with universal suspicion. And yet General Garfield 
 and his Republican confederates, in reiecting the proposition 
 for a joint conference, declared that they had no reason to 
 
THE ISSUES OF l88o. 211 
 
 doubt that a perfectly honest and just declaration of the re 
 sults of the election in Louisiana would be made by this tri 
 bunal ! That this declaration was a deliberate and conscious 
 falsehood must be accepted as certain, unless we can defend 
 these distinguished statesmen by attributing to them a dens 
 ity of ignorance respecting well-known events as disgraceful 
 to them as lying. 
 
 That General Garfield had lent himself to the returning 
 board in its conspiracy to cheat the people of the United 
 States is still more fully confirmed by its action while can 
 vassing the votes. It refused to fill the vacancy in its body 
 and supply the wanting political element. It wrapped itself 
 in the mantle of darkness by excluding from its sessions the 
 public, the general press reporters, the supervisors and reg 
 istrars of elections, and the candidates for office and their at 
 torneys. In a number of instances the sealed returns from 
 distant parishes were clandestinely opened, and the papers 
 tampered with after they had been received by the board. 
 All these facts were known to General Garfield. It was 
 simply impossible to attend its daily sessions and scrutinize 
 its action without realizing that forgery, perjury, and fraud, 
 were liberally woven into its work. On the alleged ground of 
 intimidation it flagrantly violated the law from which it derived 
 its authority, by throwing out the ballots of 7,000 or 8,000 
 legally qualified voters, in order to secure a Republican vic 
 tory. This action was founded solely on this ground, there 
 being no charge of repeating, ballot-stuffing, or fraudulent 
 returns ; and inasmuch as the board could take no action in 
 any way on the subject of intimidation, without a strict com 
 pliance with the detailed and circumstantial provisions of the 
 state election law, and as the fact is undenied and undeniable 
 that no such compliance was made, the board had no juris 
 diction whatever except to count the votes returned. Its 
 action in counting them for Hayes and Wheeler was there 
 fore an utter defiance of the laws of the state, a flagrant out 
 rage upon justice and decency, and a hideous mockery of 
 representative government. This, gentlemen, is my indict- 
 
212 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 ment against General Garfield. He was an accomplice in 
 the crime of cheating the people of the United States by 
 placing in the Presidential chair a man who was never elected, 
 and by this act of treason against free institutions has for 
 feited his right to the suffrages of the American people. 
 
 But this is not all. After the Louisiana fraud had been 
 consummated, and the apprehension of civil war led to the 
 proposal of an electoral commission to settle the disputed 
 question, General Garfield opposed the measure for two re 
 markable reasons. He denied the necessitv for any such tri 
 bunal, on the ground that the Vice-President had the right 
 to count the vote and declare the result. It is true that this 
 right had been denied by nearly all the leading men of the 
 country, of whatever party, and that, according to an un 
 broken line of precedents, beginning with the election of 
 Washington and reaching down to the year 1876, the count 
 ing of the electoral vote is rightfully done by Congress, or 
 under its authority and direction. But General Garfield 
 knew that the Vice-President was ready to assume the dis 
 puted authority, and that the President, with the army and 
 navy, was ready to back him ; while he saw that the plan of 
 an electoral commission might, possibly, save the Presidency 
 to Governor Tilden. His party had the military behind it, and 
 he knew how that power would be employed. But he also 
 strenuously opposed the particular features of the electoral 
 plan. His principal ground of opposition was that it would 
 enable the commission to go behind the returns and sift the 
 real facts in dispute. This was altogether natural, for it is 
 now known through official documents that as a " visiting 
 statesman" he had taken a leading part in manipulating the 
 returns in Louisiana, and smoothing the way for a favorable 
 decision by its returning board. In a speech in the House of 
 Representatives on the 25th of January, 1877, he declared 
 that the electoral bill "grasps all the power and holds states 
 and electors as toys in its hand. It assumes the right of 
 Congress to go down into the colleges and inquire into all 
 the acts and facts connected with their work. It assumes 
 
THE ISSUES OF l88o. 213 
 
 the right of Congress to go down into the states, to review 
 the act of every officer, to open every ballot-box, and to pass 
 judgment upon every ballot cast by 7,000,000 Americans." 
 
 This was General Garfield s opinion as a member of Con 
 gress as to the powers conferred upon the commission ; but, 
 after the passage of the bill, he became a member of this 
 tribunal. He had assisted in doctoring the returns and pre 
 paring the case which was to settle the rights of " seven mil 
 lions of Americans ; " but he saw no impropriety in becom 
 ing himself a member of this great national returning board, 
 and as such he took the following oath : "I, James A. Gar- 
 field, do solemnly swear that I will impartially examine and 
 consider all questions submitted to the commission, of which 
 I am a member, and a true judgment give thereon, agreea 
 bly to the constitution and the laws, so help me God." But 
 how did he discharge his duty under this oath? In every 
 instance he voted to conceal and suppress the very facts 
 which, on his own showing, he was solemnly bound to aid 
 in uncovering. He knew all the facts to which I have refer 
 red relative to the frauds and violations of law in Louisiana. 
 He knew that its returning board had openly and defiantly 
 trampled under foot the law creating it, and from which it 
 derived its authority to count the vote of the state ; and that 
 its action in counting it for Hayes and Wheeler was therefore 
 utterlv null and void. He knew that the commission, with- 
 
 ^ 
 
 out violating the rights of the state, without going "down 
 into the colleges" and inquiring "into all of the acts and 
 facts connected with their work," but simply by ascertaining 
 whether the election laws of Louisiana had been complied 
 with, would be warranted in rejecting the action of the board 
 and awarding the state to Tilden and Hendricks. But he 
 had joined his party associates in the foregone conclusion 
 that the Democratic party must be defeated at all hazards, 
 and it was .too late to call a halt in the devilish march of 
 events through which forty-five millions of people were to 
 be deprived of the right to choose their chief functionaries. 
 The stupendous national juggle must be performed, and he 
 
214 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 was ready to act his part. The voice of the republic had to 
 be strangled, and he nerved himself for the work ; and it 
 can not be denied that in accomplishing it he achieved a per 
 fect triumph over his conscience and his country. He was, 
 however, only the faithful servant of his master. He was a 
 part of the long-used machinery which had allowed nothing 
 to stand in its way. The theft of the Presidency was simply 
 the leaf and flower of that party idolatry which has been 
 pronounced a more soul-destroying evil in our republic than 
 the worship of idols in a heathen land. It was the inevitable 
 fruitage of long years of organized political corruption and 
 prosperous maladministration ; and nothing could be more 
 perfectly natural than the effort of his party to crown General 
 Garfield with the great office which he aided in snatching 
 from its rightful claimant four years ago, while nothing could 
 more absolutely demonstrate its unfitness to govern the coun 
 try and the duty of the people to sentence it to death. 
 
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND REFORM. 
 
 DELIVERED AT INDIANAPOLIS, ON THE 28TH OF AUGUST, 1884. 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Citizens: The time was when 
 our party platforms had a recognized value, and formed a 
 part of the political education of the people. Without eva 
 sion or clap-trap, they embodied, in clear and compendious 
 statements, what was believed to be the essential truth in 
 politics, as a basis of political action and a guide in the ad 
 ministration of public affairs. Certain propositions were di 
 rectly affirmed on the one side, and as directly denied on the 
 other, and after the* election the country understood what 
 had been decided. 
 
 All this has been changed since the close of the late war 
 and the reconstruction of the government. In the year 1872 
 the Democratic and Republican platforms were substantially 
 identical, and the controversy turned upon the personality of 
 the candidates and the supposed spirit and tendencies of the 
 opposing forces. This was true again in 1876, when the 
 platforms were fitly described as different words set to the 
 same music. It was true in 1880, and history again repeats 
 itself in 1884. ^ do not deny that on the tariff question our 
 great parties are generally understood to be radically op 
 posed ; but their disagreement is set forth with such marvel 
 ous carefulness and elaboration in their platforms that the 
 issue practically drops out of the canvass in the effort to de 
 fine it. 
 
 And yet, during all these years, the most vital problems 
 have demanded attention, and the cry of reform has been 
 constantly sounded, and in louder and louder tones. The 
 
216 
 
 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 reform of our systems of tariff and taxation has been stead 
 ily pressing its way to the front as an imperative necessity. 
 So has the reform of the civil service. A very radical re 
 form of our land policy has long been needed, including the 
 rescue of every department of the government from its 
 shameful thralldom to great corporations, and the reassertion 
 of the rights of the people through the emancipation of the 
 public domain. Above all, the country has needed such a 
 regeneration of our politics as would inspire the conduct of 
 public affairs once more with the great moralities that sanc 
 tify private life, and expel from the public service the armies 
 of rogues and mercenaries that have been mobilized and 
 made ravenous under a long lease of power. 
 
 But how shall this work of reform be accomplished? 
 Shall we commit it to the Republican party? Is there any 
 ground even for hope in that direction? That party has 
 been in power, with slight exceptions, for nearly the fourth 
 of a century, and you know the result. I do not deny that 
 in its early days it was a party of reform. It drew its life 
 from that idea. Its claim to be a party of great moral ideas 
 was not without foundation. Its creed was the sacredness of 
 human rights and the natural equality of men. It blazoned 
 its principles upon its banner, and noble and heroic men ral 
 lied under it, and were ready, if need be, to die for their 
 convictions, while the Republican masses were lifted up and 
 ennobled by the struggle. Under the lead of Lincoln, Sew- 
 ard, Chase, Sumner, Greeley, and their associates, it won 
 for itself a crown of imperishable glory ; but the issue which 
 now most deeply concerns the people relates to its record 
 after its great work had been accomplished, and the govern 
 ment had resumed the regular and normal administration of 
 affairs. The question, it has been well observed, is not what 
 the party has done, but what it will do ; not what it was, but 
 what it is. 
 
 As long ago as 1868 the Republican party pledged itself 
 in its platform to reform the corruptions that had then crept 
 into the national administration. This was its first demand 
 
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND REFORM. 21 7 
 
 for "reform within the party," but it went about the work 
 after so strange a fashion that a year before the close of 
 General Grant s administration the chief founders and early 
 leaders of the party were obliged to desert it in order to save 
 themselves from insufferable shame and self-reproach. Cor 
 ruption and greed were the order of the day, and the men 
 who demanded reform were hunted down as the enemies of 
 Republicanism. But in defiance of this record General Grant 
 was unanimously re-nominated in 1872, on a platform reitera 
 ting the demand for reform, and he was reflected by 286 
 electoral votes, carrying thirty-one of the thirty-seven states, 
 and a popular majority of nearly three-quarters of a million. 
 And what was the result of this second effort at reform? 
 His first administration, as you will remember, was made 
 almost white by the transcendant and over-arching blackness 
 of his second. The political buccaneers who surrounded him 
 soon after his first election were very formidably reinforced, 
 and now held him completely in their power, while all the 
 decencies of politics took their flight, and the government of 
 the United States became the spectacle of nations. Before 
 the President reached the middle of his second term all the 
 great Republican states of the North were lost to the party, 
 and at the end of the term the Republican majority in the Sen 
 ate had dwindled from fifty-four to seventeen, while in the 
 House the majority of one hundred and four had been wiped 
 out to give place to a Democratic majority of seventy-seven. 
 During all these years the Republican party had in its service 
 both houses of Congress, the army and navy, the federal judi 
 ciary, and the unlimited employment of the appointing power ; 
 yet the southern states were in so fearfully disordered a con 
 dition that the question of remanding them to territorial rule 
 was seriously debated by prominent Republican leaders, as 
 it is to-day. 
 
 But in the canvass of 1876 the " grand old party" had 
 the unblushing audacity to reassert its demand for reform. 
 With the whole power of the government at its command it 
 had utterly failed in the business ; but its false pretenses had 
 
SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 proved so profitable that it took fresh courage in its work 
 and displayed a genuine enthusiasm in entering upon new 
 and larger tasks. Its triumph over its own conscience 
 seemed to be absolute, and its devotion to evil a fascination. 
 It was in vain to reason with a party thus devil-bent upon its 
 methods. It was in vain to argue that a party once thor 
 oughly corrupt has lost the power of self-recovery, and that 
 devils do not cast out devils, and could not be trusted if they 
 were to undertake the business. The Republicans, it was 
 insisted, were at all events not so bad as the Democrats, who 
 must be kept out of power at any cost and to the last extrem 
 ity. The people, however, had now grown weary of windy 
 promises and longed for a change of administration. They 
 really hungered for reform, but they meant reform in fact 
 in the concrete and not the merely abstract and disembod 
 ied virtue which had so long been the staple of the Republi 
 can leaders. Tilden and Hendricks accordingly received a 
 majority of the electoral votes, and an overwhelming major 
 ity of the people. 
 
 The Republican leaders, however, from their mount of 
 vision, discovered a way of escape, and made haste in fol 
 lowing it. They saw that by subsidizing the state officials 
 of Louisiana and Florida, who had in hand the work of tab 
 ulating and counting the votes of those states, Hayes and 
 Wheeler could be counted in, and Tilden and Hendricks 
 counted out. It was a deliberate and well-planned conspir 
 acy to cheat the people of the United States out of their right 
 to choose their highest functionaries, and it worked like a 
 charm. It was accomplished by the bribery, forgery and 
 perjury of the scoundrels who had been hired to play their 
 part by the recognized leaders of Republicanism, who well 
 knew that Tilden and Hendricks had carried the states refer 
 red to, and were duly elected ; while every one of these 
 officials was subsequently rewarded by lucrative positions 
 under the administration which had been helped into power 
 by his crimes. It is needless to go into details, but such is 
 the record of the party which was then howling for reform, 
 
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND REFORM. 219 
 
 and for "a free ballot and a fair count." The sense of 
 justice, however, still burns in the hearts of the people, 
 and it is some consolation to know that every passing year 
 foreshadows, with renewed clearness and certainty, the 
 damnation of history which awaits the party leaders who be 
 trayed their country for the sake of power and plunder. 
 
 The Hayes administration, of course, made its first ap 
 pearance tricked in the robes of reform. For a little while it 
 seemed to have a spasm of virtue, if not saintliness. In 
 some of its features sporadic symptoms of reform continued 
 for some time to reveal themselves, and there was a show of 
 decency and a pompous modesty in parading it, which be 
 guiled a good many honest people. The President himself, 
 early in his term, fell completely into the hands of the same 
 type of men who had made the two administrations of Gen 
 eral Grant such a stain upon republican institutions. In a 
 word, the work of reform had so completely miscarried un 
 der this administration that when the Republican national 
 convention of 1880 met in Chicago, it made no allusion to it 
 in the first draft of its platform, and only mustered the cour 
 age to incorporate an unmeaning resolution on the subject on 
 motion of a Massachusetts delegate. The campaign was 
 vigorously prosecuted on both sides, but the patronage of 
 the government, which under Republican rule had become 
 an organized machine for interfering with the freedom of 
 elections, placed the Democrats at a great disadvantage. 
 The Star-route thieves were then in their glory, and fur 
 nished very large supplies for campaign purposes. " Money 
 in elections " had never before been so plentifully and po 
 tently employed. Dorsey, who then occupied a position 
 similar to that of Elkins in the present canvass, was as active 
 and sleepless in his work as he was thoroughly corrupt. He 
 sent sufficient money to Indiana to turn that state over to the 
 Republicans ; and after the election a great dinner was given 
 him in New York, at which leading merchants, lawyers, 
 journalists, political magnates, literary men and doctors of 
 divinity united in doing him honor as "the Napoleon who 
 
22O SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 had carried Indiana," and in side-splitting laughter at the 
 humiliation of the Democrats. All this is worth remember 
 ing as an illustration of the progress and triumph of "reform 
 within the party." It also exemplifies the blessedness of " a 
 free ballot." I remember the time when the word election 
 meant choice, and implied freedom of the will. A vote was 
 understood as the honest expression of the wishes of the 
 voter. It was believed that republican institutions rest upon 
 the people s will, and that if the ballot is a counterfeit, the 
 government becomes a huge imposture and an organized lie. 
 I had read in one of Lord Macaulay s letters to his constitu 
 ents " that the man who surrenders his vote to caresses or im 
 portunities forgets his duty as much as if he sold it for a bank 
 note." The people had been taught that a false vote, like 
 the crime of regicide in a monarchy, is the murder of the 
 sovereign, and that a still greater guilt attaches to the rich 
 rascal who buys the vote of the poor man, who may sell it un 
 der the pressure of want, or, perhaps, to relieve the pangs 01 
 hunger. And yet the chief priests and rulers of latter-day 
 Republicanism hold a jubilee in honor 6f the political repro 
 bate who, as secretary of the Republican national committee, 
 smothered the voice of a great commonwealth with the money 
 committed to his charge for the purposes of the campaign. 
 
 The story of reform in the Republican party since the 
 inauguration of General Garfield is soon told. His assassin 
 ation connected itself with a wrangle in the party over an 
 appointment which was an open violation of the principle of 
 civil service reform as it had been proclaimed in successive 
 national conventions. He had not committed himself to 
 those principles in his letter of acceptance, and under Presi 
 dent Arthur the condition of affairs became so sickening and 
 intolerable, that in 1882 Grover Cleveland carried the state 
 of New York by a majority of nearly 200,000 votes. This 
 phenomenal triumph was followed or preceded by Demo 
 cratic victories in Ohio, California, Colorado, Nevada, Kan 
 sas, Michigan, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsyl 
 vania. 
 
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND REFORM. 221 
 
 It was a political revolution, and 1882 sent greeting to 
 1872 that the Liberal Republicans of that year were at last 
 vindicated. The New York Independents, who had so long 
 hoped against hope, now confessed that "reform within the 
 party" was "as a tale that is told," and that the complete 
 overthrow of the party itself was the only remedy. It was 
 almost enough to make Sumner and Greeley turn over in 
 their graves. The Republican leaders saw the handwriting 
 on the wall. They had been suddenly and unexpectedly 
 brought to their reckoning, and finally compelled to go to 
 trial on the sincerity of their professions ; and for the first 
 time set about the work of reform by practical methods and 
 with apparent earnestness. But it was a death-bed repent 
 ance. They foresaw the approaching end of their power, 
 and quite naturally favored such regulations affecting ap 
 pointments to office as would leave them a share of the spoils 
 under a Democratic succession. I take great pleasure in 
 according to them due credit for what they then did and 
 have since done under compulsion, and with the voluntary 
 co-operation of Democrats, but as the final -upshot and sum 
 total of twenty odd years of uncontrolled power it constitutes 
 an exceedingly slender capital on which to set up business in 
 the work of reform. 
 
 Such, rapidly sketched, is the record of the Republican 
 party for the past sixteen years. But it now reappears as 
 the champion of reform. With an effrontery which has been 
 the natural product of prosperous imposture, it struts before 
 the country on a platform of promises which completely out 
 strip all its past performances. It pledges itself to " correct 
 the inequalities of the tariff; " but why has it not made this 
 correction long years ago? Has anybody hindered it? It 
 favors "a re-adjustment of the tariff on wool ; " but why has 
 not this re-adjustment been made? It has played fast and 
 loose with the question, and confesses its inability to deal with 
 it. It undertakes to say precisely what sort of a tariff* sys 
 tem the country needs ; but whose fault is it that such a sys 
 tem has not been [provided? It renews its demand for the 
 
222 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 reform of the civil service ; but how does it happen that this 
 reform has not long since been accomplished? For sixteen 
 years the party has been prating about the civil service, with 
 the power all the while in its own hands to reform it. Why 
 are we still fed on promises, and the law against political as 
 sessment set at defiance in this campaign? It says the pub 
 lic lands " should be reserved for small holdings by actual 
 settlers," and condemns " the acquisition of large tracts by 
 corporations or individuals ;" but the irony of these declara 
 tions is transparent, for the Republican party is responsible for 
 the grant of more than 200,000,000 acres of the public domain 
 to railway corporations, being an area equal to that of the thir 
 teen original states, and making impossible hundreds of thou 
 sands of " small holdings by actual settlers." It " demands 
 of Congress the speedy forfeiture of all land grants which 
 have lapsed by reason of non-compliance with the acts of in 
 corporation ;" but Congress, during long years of Republi 
 can ascendency, has neglected and refused to perform this 
 duty, and to-day at least 100,000,000 acres of the public lands 
 are held back from settlement and tillage by the landless 
 poor by corporations that have not complied with the condi 
 tions prescribed by Congress. It calls upon Congress to 
 " remove the burdens on American shipping ;" but it imposed 
 these burdens and continues them, and has nobody to blame 
 but itself. It demands the enforcement of the eight-hour 
 law. This amazing declaration will certainly attract the at 
 tention of the workingmen ; but they will remember that the 
 party has never enforced the law, and so confesses by its de 
 mand. It declares that " the perpetuity of our institutions 
 rests upon the maintenance of a free ballot, and an honest 
 count, and correct returns." It is sufficient to say of this 
 declaration that it comes from the party whose returning 
 board performances in 1876, and charming exploits under 
 Dorsey in 1880, have done so much to make rascality sub 
 lime. In short, this last creed of the part} constitutes the 
 record of its failures and a catalogue of its transgressions, 
 
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND REFORM. 223 
 
 while as a burlesque upon the men who framed it, it is a 
 masterpiece. 
 
 But in reply to such considerations as these, we are fre 
 quently reminded that the Democratic party is as bad as the 
 Republican, if not very much worse, and the question is 
 asked, " How can you hope for reform by a change of ad 
 ministration? Granting the faults of Republicanism, what is 
 to be gained by going over to the enemy?" To this I reply 
 that the Republican party, like the plaintiff in an action of 
 ejectment, must succeed on the strength of its own title, and 
 not on the alleged weakness of that of his adversary. The 
 argument of "You re another" is not legitimate. I am not 
 now talking about the question of slavery and the war, which 
 received ample attention when they were in order, but the 
 administration of affairs since those questions were set 
 tled. During nearly the whole of this period the Republican 
 party has been in power, and it must be judged by its acts, 
 while the Democratic party has had no such opportunity to 
 make its record, and can not be condemned on the principle 
 of imputed guilt. But no party, I repeat, has a right to suc 
 ceed on a platform made up merely of the wickedness of its 
 rival, and no reform is possible through any such perversion 
 of moral principles. The Republican party, pluming itself 
 on its early record, and growing more and more hungry for 
 power with each victory, has at last assumed its own ex 
 istence as of divine appointment. It is no longer a party 
 merely, but an institution. Its own misdeeds are to be con 
 doned on the ground that the country will be ruined if the 
 Democratic party should succeed, and therefore no bolting 
 must be allowed under any circumstances. If Republicans 
 should go over to the other side, or become the nucleus of a 
 new party, it would be fatal to discipline, and thus threaten 
 the ruin of the country by opening the way for a Democratic 
 victory. I had occasion, four years ago, to refer to this con 
 cubinage of politics and theology, through which the Repub 
 lican party has so long ruled the country, and which still 
 blocks the way of reform. We should remember that conse- 
 
224 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 quences are often the scarecrows of fools and the arguments 
 of knaves. The very first step toward reform is to drive from 
 power the party that has completely demonstrated its unfit- 
 ness to rule, and thus to make possible the renovation of our 
 politics under new leaders and healthier conditions. With 
 out this starting point reform is as impossible as would be the 
 making of a journey without taking the first step. This is 
 the logic of politics, as illustrated by facts. Mr. Calkins, 
 the Republicon candidate for governor of Indiana, tells us 
 that his party must continue to govern the country till a bet 
 ter one shall make its appearance. Of course he and his as 
 sociates will claim the right to decide when a better party 
 has appeared, so that the worse may get out of the way ; but 
 as bad parties never confess their sins, and never yield up 
 power until they are compelled to do so, his theory of politics 
 would keep the Republican party in power forever. 
 
 The first and indispensable condition to the creation of a 
 better party is the disruption of old ones, through which their 
 better elements may be set free and recombined. I was a 
 member of the old Whig party when the Free-soil bolt of 
 1848 occurred, and I well remember how the leaders of that 
 party remonstrated with their bolters. We were told that 
 the Whig party was certainly better than the Democratic, 
 and that our desertion from the old banner would only 
 strengthen the hands of the enemy and defeat the end we 
 had in view. But the bolt proceeded, and the result was the 
 formation of the Republican party. It was a bolt. It never 
 could have existed if the philosophy of Mr. Calkins had been 
 accepted, and the two old parties would have continued their 
 race, neck and neck, in a nominal strife over dead issues and 
 a real struggle for the spoils. My old Republican friends 
 are simply repeating the folly of the Whigs of 1848, while 
 the Independent Republicans in this canvass are following 
 in the footsteps of the bolters of that time. I rejoice in the 
 spectacle of this new revolt against party despotism, and 
 only regret that it did not come sooner. But it will accom 
 plish its mission, as did its predecessor of 1848. The old 
 
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND REFORM. 225 
 
 Whig party perished, not merely because the issues on which 
 it was organized had been settled, but because its conscience 
 left it, and drew after it an element without which the organ 
 ization was doomed to wither and rot. These Independents 
 have adopted the true method. They have simply followed 
 the example of Fox and Wesley in a different field of reform ; 
 for these grand men did not commit the folly of trying to 
 purify the corrupt hierarchies of their time by remaining 
 within them, but waged their war from without, and thus 
 laid the foundation for great historic movements by rallying 
 to their standards the true men of all denominations and 
 creeds. 
 
 Let me now refer briefly to the Republican candidates. 
 In doing so, I shall but follow a step further in the line of 
 argument already adopted ; for the character of a party is to 
 be gauged by that of its deliberately chosen representatives. 
 I freely admit that Mr. Elaine is the choice of a very large 
 majority of his party. His nomination was not the work of 
 its leaders, but its rank and file. He was chosen by the 
 party whose record of violated promises and shameless mis- 
 government should make every honest man in it blush ; and 
 the same judgment must pass upon both candidate and party. 
 Its masses knew him well through his public record of twenty 
 3 ears in the House and Senate, and as President Garfield s 
 Secretary of State. They knew him well in 1876, when he 
 only escaped a Presidential nomination by an accident, and 
 his stock-jobbing record had just been made familiar to the 
 American people. They knew him as a popular favorite in 
 his party in 1880, and they nominated him this year with 
 their eyes wide open, and can not plead ignorance of his 
 character. If, therefore, we can ascertain what that charac 
 ter is, it may afford another illustration of the claims of the 
 party as the champion of political reform. 
 
 From the year 1863 to 1871, I served with Mr. Elaine in 
 the House of Representatives. I have occasionally met him 
 since, and have never received anything but courtesy and 
 15 
 
226 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 kindness at his hands. In discussing his fitness for the Pres 
 idency I am therefore without even the shadow of a motive 
 to do him the slightest personal or political injustice. He is 
 lauded by his friends as a great statesman, and frequently 
 compared to Gladstone. The New York Tribune speaks of 
 him as "the foremost man of the time," and as having 
 "reached and passed the high-water mark of American 
 statesmanship." But when a bill of particulars is demanded, 
 setting forth the several achievements which would justify 
 this estimate, his champions find themselves exceedingly em 
 barrassed. What famous act of statesmanship has he ever 
 espoused and accomplished? None of his friends can spec 
 ify it. His name recalls no great principle and no great 
 measure of policy. He is a famous party leader, but only in 
 the sense of inspiring his followers and drilling and deploy 
 ing them in effective party work. He has neither originated 
 any important bill nor shown himself the conspicuous advo 
 cate of any important measure. He has taken the lead in 
 none of the great questions that have agitated the country 
 during his long term of public service in the House and Sen 
 ate, and covering the most memorable epoch in our history. 
 The finances, the public lands, the civil service, the war pol 
 icy of the government, the slavery question, reconstruction, 
 negro suffrage, the several constitutional amendments, and 
 other vital questions were all debated, and some of them 
 should have called forth the marvelous resources of this 
 "foremost man of the time;" but, although he made some 
 respectable speeches, and almost invariably voted with his 
 party friends, he said nothing and did nothing to establish 
 the extravagant claim now set up in his behalf. As an anti- 
 slavery leader, although now the great champion of the ne 
 gro, his record is not remarkable, and is not sound according 
 to Republican tests. 
 
 In looking over his recently published volume I find that 
 he whitewashes the Dred Scott decision, which played so 
 large a part in the early days of his party. He defends the 
 
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND REFORM. 227 
 
 famous 7th of March speech of Daniel Webster. He eulo 
 gizes the Missouri compromise of 1820, which all earnest 
 anti-slavery men have so unitedly deplored. He belittles 
 the significance and moral purpose of the anti-slavery move 
 ment of the Northern States, and represents the South as 
 struggling for an equilibrium in the Senate, through which it 
 might secure the spoils of office. Coming down to later 
 times, his position was not defensible on Republican grounds 
 on the questions of reconstruction and negro suffrage. In 
 an article published a few years since in the North American 
 Review he says: " The Southern States could have been 
 readily readmitted to all their powers and privileges in the 
 Union by accepting the Fourteenth Amendment, and negro 
 suffrage would not have been forced upon them." This was 
 Mr. Blaine s idea of Republicanism. It simply meant that 
 his party was willing to hand over the negroes of the rebel 
 lious states to the codes enacted by their old masters, with 
 out any voice in the government, on condition that they 
 should not be counted in the basis of representation. This 
 proposition was fortunately rejected, and what was called the 
 Military Bill was introduced ; but this, also, as first reported, 
 left the negro without the ballot. It provided that the rebel 
 lious states should only be restored to the Union on condition 
 that negro suffrage should be secured ; but their restoration 
 was left entirely at their option, and so long as they chose to 
 reject the condition specified the negroes were completely at 
 their mercy. 
 
 What was wanted to give complete validity and force to 
 this plan was an amendment making it merely provisional, 
 and providing that pending the decision of the question the 
 negroes should have the ballot. Without this amendment 
 they were turned adrift and helpless ; but when it was pro 
 posed Mr. Blaine voted against it, and did everything in his 
 power to defeat it. It was adopted in spite of his opposition, 
 as the Congressional Record will show ; but I refer to it as an 
 illustration of his statesmanship and of his fidelity to the negro 
 in the day of his great peril. I do not lose sight of Mr. 
 
228 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 Blaine s magnetism, which is so often dwelt upon by his 
 friends. I admit that he is magnetic. There must be some 
 explanation of his hold upon his party, and in the absence of 
 other assignable reasons I accept this. He draws people to 
 him surprisingly, including honest men and rogues, saints 
 and sinners, native and adopted citizens. But the govern 
 ment of the United States is not carried on by magnetism. 
 The fathers of the republic never dreamed of an idea so per 
 fectly original and refreshing. What the country needs in a 
 President is statesmanship, solid sense and an honest pur 
 pose. I admit, too, that he is a brilliant man ; but brilliancy 
 is no more needed in the conduct of public affairs than mag 
 netism. It might render Mr. Elaine very picturesque and 
 spectacular, as we have seen him through the dissolving 
 views of his career in the state department ; but the American 
 people are not in love with such pageantries. They would 
 much prefer an honest man without brilliancy to a brilliant 
 man without honesty. Kindred observations apply to the 
 efforts of Mr. Blaine s friends to have him pose before the 
 country as a Plumed Knight." This may tickle the imag 
 ination of certain classes, but the days of knight errantry are 
 ended, and neither the knight nor his plume is needed in the 
 sober and unsentimental work of American politics. 
 
 What is his record as a reformer? Has he ever been 
 heard of as an advocate of civil service reform prior to the 
 date of his letter of acceptance? He was silent during the 
 jubilee of roguery which signalized the two administrations 
 of General Grant, and has remained so ever since, but he is 
 not wholly without a record. In 1875, while Speaker of the 
 House, he so organized the Committee on Civil Service Re 
 form that nine of its eleven members were uncompromising 
 foes of the policy, and two lukewarm friends. Under the lead 
 of this committee the House refused any appropriation to pay 
 the expenses of the civil service commission , through which the 
 reform was at that time abandoned. The subject has been 
 before the country over sixteen years, during which it has 
 found its way into our party platforms and received the at- 
 
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND REFORM. 229 
 
 tention of our foremost public men. Politicians have tried to 
 get rid of it, but they have been compelled to face it, while 
 its settlement on just principles has become inevitable. But 
 if, during all these years, Mr. Elaine has at any time favored 
 the reform, he has admirably succeeded in keeping it a secret. 
 Let me add that in his frequent references to the spoils sys 
 tem, in the volume referred to, he nowhere condemns it, but 
 evidently regards it as the natural and unavoidable incident 
 of practical politics in the United States, while among his 
 most active and zealous supporters are to be found Robeson, 
 Elkins, Clayton, Dorsey, Brady, and the very worst elements 
 in American political life. 
 
 Has Mr. Blaine at any time shown his hand in opposition 
 to the growing power of our great railways over the govern 
 ment, through which so many millions of acres of the peo 
 ple s patrimony have been withheld from settlement and till 
 age, and so many of our public men debauched? On the 
 contrary, he has been the steadfast friend and ally of these 
 corporations in every time of need. While in the Senate he 
 opposed the Edmunds-Thurman bill requiring the Pacific 
 Railroads to establish sinking funds for the payment of their 
 debts to the government, and dishonestly filled his pockets 
 while in the House with money received from one of these 
 corporations for services voluntarily rendered while speaker, 
 as I shall presently show. If there is any public man in the 
 Union who is well understood to be the right hand man of 
 Jay Gould and the great railway corporations of the country, 
 and their unflinching friend under all circumstances, that 
 man is James G. Blaine. There has never been the faintest 
 suspicion as to his perfect loyalty to their interests, and the 
 conduct of his friends in now parading him as the champion 
 of " actual settlers" and the foe of these land-grabbing mo 
 nopolies, supplies us with as fine a mosaic of knavery and 
 impudence as we can ever hope to see. 
 
 He is a man of genius, and has long been a great power 
 in his party. He has seen corruption and greed grasping all 
 the natural agencies of society for their own baleful pur- 
 
230 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 poses. He has had great and multiplied opportunities for 
 thwarting the enemies of the people and serving the poor in 
 their hard fight with corporate rapacity ; but he has lifted 
 neither hand nor voice in their behalf, while always playing 
 his part as a shifty ally of organized cupidity and pelf. 
 
 And here the way is naturally opened for considering the 
 character of Mr. Elaine as illustrated by his jobbery in Con 
 gress. I know that in dealing with this topic we are warned 
 by leading Republican politicians and newspapers to beware. 
 They remind us of what they call the " campaign of mud " 
 against General Garfield in 1880, and of his triumph at the 
 polls, while they hope thus to divert attention from the 
 charges now urged against Mr. Elaine. As to the campaign 
 of 1880, I answer, as I did at the time, that if any " mud 
 was flung at General Garfield, it had previously been carted 
 by the Republicans themselves and dumped upon his door 
 steps. All the charges were of Republican parentage and 
 supported by Republican proof; and they were not ineffect 
 ual. I believe it entirely safe to say that but for Dorsey s 
 money in Indiana and kindred illustrations of the Republican 
 gospel of " a free ballot" the Democratic ticket would have 
 triumphed. 
 
 I do not deem it necessary to discuss Mr. Elaine s rail 
 road transactions at any length. The detailed history of hi s 
 performances is rapidly finding its way to the public, and I 
 shall only refer briefly to the essential facts, and the evidence 
 by which they are supported. The main charge is that in 
 the spring of 1869, when a bill was pending before the House 
 of Representatives which sought to renew a land grant to the 
 Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad in Arkansas, an at 
 tempt was made to defeat it by an amendment ; that Mr. 
 Elaine, being the Speaker of the House, sent a message to 
 General Logan, who was opposed to the amendment, that it 
 was not germain to the bill, which point of order was accord 
 ingly raised, and sustained by the Speaker, and the bill thus 
 saved : and that Mr. Elaine soon afterward wrote to the pro- 
 
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND REFORM. 231 
 
 moters of the enterprise calling attention to the service he 
 had rendered them, and after some negotiations received 
 from them his appointment as selling agent of the bonds of 
 the road on commission, for which service he received a 
 number of such bonds as his percentage. 
 
 Now, what is the answer of Mr. Blaine and his friends to 
 this statement? They say that Caldwell and Fisher, who 
 were the friends of Blaine and the promoters of the railroad 
 enterprise, were not connected with it at the date of the pass 
 age of the bill ; but this can not help Mr. Blaine. His rul 
 ing saved the land-grant, which was the controlling induce 
 ment of his friends to undertake the building of the road ; 
 and as an honorable man he had no right to compensation 
 for his decision, and his acceptance of it is as dishonorable 
 as it w r ould have been if his friends had been connected with 
 the road and lobbying for the passage of the bill when the 
 ruling of the Speaker was made. 
 
 A further defense is set up by Mr. Blaine in his speech in 
 the House of Representatives of April 25, 1876, that the 
 lands were granted to the state of Arkansas, and that the 
 company derived its life, franchise and value wholly from 
 the state, and not from Congress. This remarkable state 
 ment was for a good while accepted by the public as satis 
 factory ; but it was not true, and Mr. Blaine certainly knew 
 it. The land-grant of the Little Rock and Fort Smith Rail 
 road was about to lapse, and in that event the franchise and 
 securities of the road would have had no value. No man at 
 that time was more familiar with the legislation of Congress 
 than Mr. Blaine, and he must have known that Warren 
 Fisher took the contract because the land-grant had been 
 revived. The attempt of Mr. Blaine to secure an interest in 
 the road founded on his official services in saving the grant 
 is conclusive evidence of the falsehood now set up as a de 
 fense. In his letters to Warren Fisher of October 4, 1869, 
 Mr. Blaine carefully sets forth his services in securing the 
 revival of the land-grant, and the value of those services to 
 
232 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 his friends Fisher and Caldwell ; but if the road derived its 
 life, franchise and value wholly from the state, why should 
 he parade his parliamentary ruling to these promoters of the 
 enterprise, and remind them of " what a narrow escape your 
 bill made on that last night of the session?" Out of his own 
 mouth he is condemned as a willful falsifier of the truth, and 
 the speech in the House in which he sets up his pretended 
 defense, is made a part of his testimony before the House 
 Judiciary Committee, and thus involves his veracity under 
 oath. 
 
 Mr. Elaine, in the speech referred to, attempts a further 
 defense by saying that the securities he acquired from the 
 Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad were obtained by " pur 
 chase, on the same terms as they were sold on the Boston 
 market to all applicants." If this is true, why should he in 
 his letter to Warren Fisher, of June 29, 1869, s P ea k f ^ s 
 offer as " generous," and in his letter of July 2, as a "most 
 liberal proposition," with which he (Elaine) was "more than 
 satisfied? " And why should he promise, in the letter just 
 cited, that he would not be " a dead-head in the enterprise?" 
 All this is utterly inexplicable on the theory that he ob 
 tained his securities on the same terms as "all applicants" 
 purchased them on the Boston market. But all doubt on 
 this question is absolutely foreclosed by positive proof. War 
 ren Fisher testified before the judiciary committee that he 
 never " sold to James G. Blaine any bonds of the Little 
 Rock and Fort Smith Railroad ;" that the bonds he gave 
 him were for other parties, and the sale of them was nego 
 tiated through him. Mr. Fisher s account with Blaine, pro 
 duced by Mulligan, who was Fisher s confidential book 
 keeper, shows that Blaine, for his services, was to have 
 $130,000 of land-grant bonds, and $32,500 of first mortgage 
 bonds. Of course, then, he did not buy his securities on the 
 same terms as other purchasers, and his statement to that 
 effect is another deliberate and willful falsehood. The sim 
 ple truth is that for his parliamentary ruling which secured 
 the revival of the land grant he was made the agent for the 
 
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND REFORM. 233 
 
 sale of its securities, and thus allowed to fill his pockets. 
 These are the facts, overwhelmingly established by the evi 
 dence, including his own, and their impeachment of Mr. 
 Elaine s veracity is conclusive. 
 
 In prosecuting this inquiry concerning Mr. Elaine s rail 
 road transactions and his personal and political integrity, it 
 becomes necessary to refer to the sworn statement of Mr. 
 Mulligan, and his trustworthiness as a witness. He was for 
 many years the confidential bookkeeper of Jacob Stanwood, a 
 brother-in-law of Mr. Elaine. He was also for several years 
 the confidential clerk of Mr. Elaine s friend, Warren Fisher, 
 and Warren Fisher, Sr., a wealthy retired merchant, made 
 him one of his trustees before his death, and he still manages 
 the estate. Mr. Elaine, in his testimony, makes no attempt 
 to impeach Mr. Mulligan s veracity. Warren Fisher testi 
 fied : "I have known Mr. Mulligan intimately sixteen or 
 twenty years. His character is the best. I would say it is 
 as good as, or perhaps better than, that of any man I ever 
 knew." Elisha Atkins, an eminent merchant of Boston, cor 
 roborates Fisher s testimony. As a witness he is unim- 
 peached and unimpeachable. What does he tell us? I have 
 already referred to a portion of his testimony directly contra 
 dicting the statements of Mr. Elaine in his letters, his speech 
 in Congress in his defense, and his testimony before the 
 House Judiciary Committee. He says that when Mr. Elaine 
 asked him to deliver up his letters to Warren Fisher he al 
 most got down on his knees and pleaded for the letters, say 
 ing they would ruin him for life ; and when Mr. Mulligan 
 still declined, Mr. Elaine asked him to think of his wife and 
 six children. He further says Mr. Elaine offered to get him 
 a consulship in return for the letters, and that he finally gave 
 them to him under a pledge of honor that he would return 
 them, which he never did. He also says that Elaine did not 
 read the letters verbatim in the House, and that some of them 
 were not read at all. These are the statements of an intelli 
 gent and perfectly trustworthy witness and an old-time per 
 sonal friend of Mr. Elaine, who had no motive whatever to 
 
234 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 fabricate what he asserts. They are nearly all denied by 
 Mr. Elaine under oath. Whom shall we believe? As I 
 have already shown, Mr. Elaine is conclusively discredited 
 as a man and a witness by his own letters and declarations 
 and by the testimony of disinterested parties. We are there 
 fore forced to believe that he, conscious of his guilt and 
 dreading exposure, played the dramatic part described by 
 Mr. Mulligan, and by his entreaties and " magnetism" se 
 cured the evidence of his guilt, used such parts of it as suited 
 his purpose, and violated his pledge of honor by refusing to 
 return it. It should be remembered, too, that he declined to 
 hand over these letters to the reporters after he had used 
 them, and thus corroborated the statement of Mr. Mulligan 
 that only parts of them were read. 
 
 But I need not further pursue the inquiry into Mr. Elaine s 
 integrity or his veracity as a witness. Let me add, however, 
 that he testified before the Credit Mobilier committee that he 
 had never owned a share of stock in the Union Pacific Rail 
 road Company, either by gift, purchase, or in any way what 
 ever, nor received, either directly or indirectly, a single cent 
 from said company ; while in one of the Mulligan letters to 
 Warren Fisher, dated April 13, 1872, he confesses that he 
 was a part owner of $6,000 of the land-grant bonds of said 
 railroad company. Furthermore, Mr. Elaine had the con 
 trol of a considerable interest in the stock of the Northern 
 Pacific Railway Company, as shown by his letter to Warren 
 Fisher of November 25, 1870, while the stock was dependent 
 for its value on legislation in which he had taken part, which 
 connection with the business of said company he at first de 
 nied, afterward vainly endeavored to explain, and still leaves 
 in the fog. . 
 
 Such is the moral picture of the Republican candidate for 
 President, painted with a pencil dipped in his own turpitude. 
 The facts I have presented have never been controverted, 
 and never will be. His champions now make no attempt to 
 do so, but rely upon party traditions and the party machinery 
 for their triumph. His guilt is conclusively established by 
 
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND REFORM. 235 
 
 his own letters, his declarations in Congress, and his state 
 ment under oath. The pettifogging attempts of William 
 Walter Phelps and others to defend him have been com 
 pletely riddled and demolished, and he stands before the 
 country self-convicted of the disgraceful charges with which 
 leading Republican newspapers eight years ago and four 
 years ago branded him. General Harrison, in his recent 
 speech in this city, tells us that Mr. Elaine "has been slan 
 dered," but that " no slanderer has ever been able to get him 
 on the run," But the General knows that the charges I 
 have been considering are the veritable truth, and that Mr. 
 Blaine has been "on the run" ever since they were made. 
 As the friend and champion of the Plumed Knight, why does 
 he not face them? Why do we find him, also, "on the run?" 
 Can he glance at the revolt of leading Republicans and news 
 papers and feel safe in relying upon the game of bluff? 
 
 But, as I have said before, the fight of the Democrats and 
 their allies is not with Mr. Blaine, but the party he represents. 
 He is himself a mere symptom. He is but the leaf and flower 
 of long years of organized corruption and greed. The polit 
 ical chemistry of his party has simply obeyed its own laws, 
 and the qualities which it held in solution have been precipi 
 tated in Mr. Blaine. He is its expression and breath, and 
 the work we have in hand is to defeat and destroy the unhal 
 lowed dynasty behind him. Some of our Independent Re 
 publicans declare their purpose to vote the Republican ticket 
 this year in state and congressional elections, and to return 
 to the old party after casting their votes for Cleveland. This 
 seems to me a despicable game of fast and loose, an in- 
 inexcusable trifling with the crisis. If they succeed in their 
 purpose to elect Governor Cleveland, I think there will be no 
 Republican party to return to. When it loses its power and 
 the spoils, the source of its life will be withdrawn, and the 
 breath will go out of its body. But in any event, the work 
 in hand is to strike at the root of the political demoralization 
 which now overshadows the land, instead of merely lopping 
 off its branches and leaving the tree to flourish. If further 
 
236 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 proof of this is wanting, we have it in a recent speech of Sen 
 ator Hoar, in which he says the men who nominated Mr. 
 Elaine "are the very flower of America," and that it is " the 
 nomination of what is best in our American life," and " best 
 in human society the round world over." Mr. Hoar sees 
 men as trees walking. He calls evil good, and good evil. 
 Unmindful of his own terrific arraignment of his party ten or 
 eleven years ago, he now sees it as the haunt of beauty and 
 blessedness, and the only hope of the nation. And he is a 
 fair example of his brethren. They are so besotted with 
 party madness that they seem unconscious of the dreadful 
 infatuation which enthralls them. They are the product of 
 their party, and their party is fatally afflicted with the dry 
 rot of self-righteousness and the paralysis of its conscience. 
 What a blessing it would be if the hundreds of thousands of 
 men in the Republican party could be emancipated from 
 their political devil-worship, which is far more pernicious 
 than the idolatry which our missionaries to heathen lands are 
 laboring to abolish ! 
 
 Of the Republican candidate for Vice-President I need 
 say but little. To me, as an old anti-slavery man, his cham 
 pionship of the Black Code of Illinois seems atrocious; but 
 this happened a good while ago, and he has the right to 
 plead the statute of limitations, and to avail himself of any 
 benefit it may afford him. 
 
 In fairness, too, this objection should be considered in 
 connection with his military services in the war for the Union. 
 As a reformer his character is exceedingly bad. He was a 
 violent opponent of civil service reform as long ago as 1869, 
 and among the foremost of General Grant s political body 
 guard during his two administrations. He has practically 
 exemplified all the worst evils of the spoils system and politi 
 cal nepotism, and is a fit companion piece for Mr. Blaine. 
 His political brethren in years past have criticised his lack 
 of education and his slaughter of the English language ; but 
 everybody will now be rejoiced to learn from the New York 
 Tribune that he is quite a scholarly gentleman, the master of 
 
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND REFORM. 237 
 
 several languages beside his own, and able to criticise and 
 correct a Harvard professor. He is probably versed in Greek 
 and Hebrew literature and a doctor of divinity, but the 
 Tribune did not happen to mention the facts. 
 
 It can not be necessary to speak at any length of the 
 Democratic candidates. Governor Cleveland is known to 
 the whole country by his successful administration of the 
 government of New York. He signed and helped execute 
 the civil service law of that state, and the act prohibiting 
 political assessments. He has shown himself a man of cour 
 age, independence and rare executive ability, while the 
 charge of political corruption has never been breathed against 
 him. His public acts prove that he holds office as a trust for 
 the people, and that he is a Democrat in the best sense of the 
 term. His proved ability to resist political pressure, and his 
 undoubted personal integrity, amply fit him for the great 
 work of reform which a very protracted maladministration 
 of the government has made an imperative necessity. 
 
 Governor Hendricks has long been known as a statesman 
 of national reputation and large experience in public affairs ; 
 and the issue now pending between personal honor and po 
 litical integrity on the one side, and private jobbery and offi 
 cial prostitution on the ether, makes his nomination eminently 
 appropriate and fortunate. With such standard-bearers, the 
 true men of all parties can join hands with a good con 
 science in the emancipation of the nation from its long and 
 grievous bondage to evil task-masters. The paramount issue 
 in this canvass is political morality. It involves the question 
 of fidelity to trusts, of truth and falsehood, right and wrong, 
 honesty and dishonesty in the conduct of public affairs. Po 
 litical corruption has become a great national canker. If 
 the misdeeds of a public man are to go unrebuked, it weak 
 ens the standard of integrity in private life. One public 
 rascal, it has been well observed, becomes the father of a 
 multitude of private ones. Breaking out in high places, cor 
 ruption finds its level, overflowing and poisoning the moral 
 as well as the political life of the people. No reform is pos- 
 
238 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 sible in any direction if we are not able to stern the black 
 tide which threatens to lay waste the republic. We shall 
 fail hopelessly if we can not inspire in the people, and espe 
 cially in the coming generation, the love of rectitude, and 
 restore the maxims of common honesty to their rightful 
 sway. No theories of politics, no soundness of political doc 
 trines, can save us, if the integrity of our public men loses its 
 attraction for the people ; for democracy is " not born out of 
 the sky nor wrought in dreams," but demands a ceaseless 
 conflict of the people with ever-recurring moral dangers. 
 
THE AUGURIES OF VICTORY. 
 
 READ BEFORE THE HENDRICKS CLUB, ON THE l8TH OF SEP 
 TEMBER, l888. 
 
 [The " auguries of victory " set forth in this speech were not verified, al 
 though fairly warranted by the political outlook at the time ; and they were 
 only falsified by the unexpected revival of the sectional issue towards the close 
 of the canvass, and by the stupendous outlay of money in controlling the float 
 ing vote in the doubtful states.] 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Citizens: The supporters of 
 Cleveland and Thurman are to be congratulated on the au 
 spicious opening of the campaign of 1888. The Democratic 
 situation is as animating as it is novel, and I see in it the sure 
 auguries of victory. We have fairly reached that parting of 
 the ways between the old and the new which constitutes an 
 epoch, and every man can see this who is able to discern the 
 signs of the times. We are on the eve of one of those radi 
 cal changes in party issues and party machinery which have 
 diversified the course of American politics from the begin 
 ning, and created well-defined historic periods ; and my 
 judgment is greatly at fault if the Republican party in No 
 vember next shall not be as completely swept out of existence 
 as was the old Whig party in the campaign of 1852. Allow 
 me to state my reasons for this opinion. 
 
 In the first place, the Democratic party is no longer hand 
 icapped by the Republican theory of its hopeless depravity. 
 From the final reconstruction of the government to the can 
 vass of 1884 it was the helpless victim of a foregone conclu 
 sion. The entire stock in trade of the Republican leaders 
 was the alleged wickedness of the Democrats. It was, in 
 
240 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 fact, the platform on which the party made its fight in every 
 national canvass since that of 1868. This Democratic wick 
 edness was not actual, but only constructive. It was im 
 puted diabolism, and was depicted in startling prophecies of 
 what the Democratic party -would do should it be restored to 
 power. The election of a Democratic President would pros 
 trate our manufactures and derange the finances. It would 
 debase the currency and destroy the public credit. It would 
 lead to the admission of Utah, with her polygamy, and give 
 the Democrats two United States senators. It would open 
 the way for the creation of a new state to be carved out of 
 the Indian territory, and thus add two more United States 
 senators to the side of Democracy and the South. It would 
 lead to the division of Texas into five states, and thus 
 strengthen the ascendency of the South by eight additional 
 United States senators. It would reconstruct the Supreme 
 Court of the United States by duplicating the number of 
 judges, three-fourths of whom would be selected from the 
 South, and then the reconstruction acts and constitutional 
 amendments would be pronounced unconstitutional and void. 
 The country would be saddled with the Confederate debt 
 and the Confederate pensions, while the bounties and pen 
 sions of our Union soldiers and sailors would be repudiated. 
 The doctrine of secession would be reasserted and slavery 
 would be re-established throughout the South ; and the 
 finishing touch was frequently given to this catalogue of 
 Democratic crimes and calamities by declaring that the old 
 slaveholders were preparing inventories of their lost slaves 
 to be presented to Congress with their petitions for compen 
 sation when the Democratic party should regain the control 
 of the government. 
 
 Gentlemen, I reproduce these stunning prophecies for the 
 special edification of the public in this campaign. They are 
 too picturesque and fascinating to be forgotten, and will form 
 a permanent chapter in the curiosities of politics. Of course 
 the prophets themselves did not believe a word of their pre 
 dictions, but all the same these predictions were made to 
 
THE AUGURIES OF VICTORY. 24! 
 
 play a very decisive part in defeating the Democrats in the 
 campaigns of 1872, 1876 and 1880. During the past twenty 
 years there has been a constantly growing spirit of discon 
 tent in the ranks of Republicanism, and hundreds and thou 
 sands would have enlisted under the banner of temperance, 
 or as members of our various labor organizations, but they 
 were made to believe that their independent action, by weak 
 ening the Republican ranks, would restore "the rebels" to 
 power. They were so thoroughly indoctrinated with the 
 theory that one-half the people of the United States were 
 inherently disloyal to the old flag and incurably vicious that 
 they felt constrained to remain quietly in the party traces in 
 order to save the country from impending damnation and 
 ruin. They did not see that a theory of American politics 
 which makes one party totally base and unworthy and the 
 other perfectly virtuous and patriotic, would, in practice, 
 prove utterly fatal to democratic institutions, and that the 
 adoption of such a theory by the Republican party would so 
 afflict it with the gangrene of its own self-righteousness that 
 death would inevitably follow. But it worked admirably for 
 years. No delusion ever had a more marvelous success, or 
 more unscrupulous managers. No political superstition was 
 ever more skillfully manipulated by its chief priests. It held 
 the Republican party solidly together, and thus completely 
 disabled the Democrats. They could not silence the clamor 
 of their enemies and refute their railing accusations un 
 less they could regain power, and with it the opportunity to 
 act ; and they could not regain power because these railing 
 accusations were accepted as gospel truth. It was a state of 
 things perfectly calculated to perpetuate Republican rule in 
 definitely, and suppress all criticism of its misdeeds ; and it 
 now seems a marvel that this party devil-worship was so 
 soon brought to an end. 
 
 But four years ago the Democratic party, aided by dis 
 gusted Republicans and the providential interposition of Dr. 
 Burchard, was commissioned to take charge of the national 
 government by a majority of the American people. And 
 16 
 
242 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 what has been the result ? We are now well along in the 
 fourth year of a Democratic administration, and the malevo 
 lent and malignant power that was to overthrow our institu 
 tions and blast the nation s life has had the amplest opportu 
 nity to enter upon its baleful work and display its infernal 
 genius. But the republic still lives. It has always seemed 
 to me probable that if the heavens should {?&, the devil would 
 be to pay ; but the direful catastrophe has not happened as 
 foretold by the prophets. The same sky overarches the land 
 which looked down upon it under Republican administra 
 tions, and the same solid earth is under our feet. The na 
 tion was never more prosperous than since the 4th day of 
 March, 1885. Our manufactures have not been prostrated, 
 nor has the currency been debased, nor the public credit de 
 stroyed. Democratic states have not been carved out of 
 Utah, Texas, and the Indian territory. The Supreme Court 
 of the United States has not been reconstructed in the interest 
 of secession, nor have the acts of reconstruction and constitu 
 tional amendments been pronounced unconstitutional and 
 void ; but, on the contrary, that great tribunal, although 
 overwhelmingly Republican, has recently pronounced a se 
 ries of opinions, touching the matter of centralization and 
 the proper autonomy of the states, which have been re 
 ceived with great satisfaction by the states-rights Democrats 
 of Virginia and the entire South. The nation has not been 
 saddled with the Confederate debt and pensions, nor have 
 the bounties and pensions of our Union soldiers and sailors 
 been repudiated. The doctrine of secession has not been re 
 asserted, nor have the freedmen of the South been put back 
 into bondage, while no compensation has been made or de 
 manded for the slaves made free by the rebellion. Let me 
 add, that the prosperity of the South within the past three or 
 four years is altogether unprecedented, and that, in the words 
 of Mr. Curtis, in his late address at Gettysburg, the free 
 labor of that section " pays taxes on property of its own val 
 ued at nearly a hundred millions of dollars, while for the chil 
 dren of former slaves there are nearly twenty thousand 
 
THE AUGURIES OF VICTORY. 
 
 schools, of every degree, with an enrollment of more than a 
 million pupils." 
 
 I am not indulging in sentiment or any phase of emo 
 tional politics, but dealing in the impregnable logic of facts. 
 Time, it has been well said, makes more converts than rea 
 son ; and all I ask of any reasonable man is that he shall 
 look at the South to-day, as it appears under a Democratic 
 administration, and contrast its condition with the spectacle 
 of " hell broke loose," which for a series of years scourged 
 its territory under successive Republican administrations, 
 which had at their command the whole power of the national 
 government. Gentleman, can not every thinking man see 
 that what the South needs is not sectional strife and a pro 
 longed antagonism of races, but cultivated patience and 
 good-will in dealing with the inevitable conditions of prog 
 ress? No other policy, unless aided by miraculous interven 
 tion, can work out the regeneration of that section of the 
 Union, and at the same time insure the development of its 
 wonderful natural resources. Strife and disorder still pre 
 vail in some localities, and for some time to come may dis 
 turb the peace of society ; but these evils can not be cured by 
 Federal action. The panacea of politics has been thoroughly 
 tried, and has only hindered that process of healthy growth 
 without which no cure is possible. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, I think I have thus made clear one of the 
 reasons, and a very strong one, for my faith in Democratic 
 success in this campaign. The false prophets of Republican 
 ism have been brought to shame, and the Democratic party 
 completely vindicated by living down their calumnies. This 
 is now so palpably true that one of the recognized leaders of 
 the Republican party, Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, has recently 
 declared that " any man who says that the institutions of this 
 country are in danger from the election of any candidate, or 
 the success of any party, is talking pernicious nonsense." 
 Every intelligent Republican knows that this "pernicious 
 nonsense " has done its work, and that eveYy one of its evil 
 prophecies has been belied. Cleveland and Thurman not 
 
244 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 only enter the race unshackeled, but on the inside track, 
 while the Republican candidates are saddled with the huge 
 grist of falsehoods so long and so potently employed in the 
 service of their party in the past. 
 
 I pass to my second reason for believing in a Democratic 
 victory. The Democrats are making their fight on a per 
 fectly defined and strong issue. I allude to the tariff. I am 
 sorry to say that both political parties have trifled with this 
 question for twenty years. It was evaded as a party issue in 
 the canvass of 1868. In 1872 the Democratic platform re 
 manded it to the congressional districts for settlement, and it 
 was not debated by either party. In 1876 the party platforms 
 on the question were substantially identical, differing only in 
 their phraseology, as they did in 1880. This was true again 
 in 1884. Neither party was prepared to confront the other 
 in a square and manly treatment of the question as one of 
 principle. The better men on both sides would have ordered 
 things otherwise, but they allowed themselves to be overruled 
 by the champions of expediency, whose policy should long 
 since have been subordinated to the demands of honesty and 
 courage. Herbert Spencer mentions a class of people who 
 hate anything in the shape of exact conclusions, and are con 
 tinually trying to reconcile yes and no. He says they would 
 scarcely believe an oracle, if it uttered a full length princi 
 ple, and that if vou were to inquire of them whether the earth 
 turns on its axis from east to west, or from west to east, 
 you might almost expect the reply: k A little of both," or 
 not exactly either." All parties are afflicted with a halt 
 ing and unbelieving element, which throws itself across the 
 path of progress, and is always ready to sacrifice principle to 
 party success. A writer of fiction, whose books abound in 
 sermons, tells us that "the hell that a lie will keep a man 
 from is doubtless the best place that he can go to." This is 
 as true in politics as in morals. If the Democratic party is 
 to be made the mere annex of Republicanism and the instru 
 ment of monopoly and plunder, it ought to die, and the 
 sooner the better. A struggle between two great national 
 
THE AUGURIES OF VICTORY. 245 
 
 parties, in which principle is discarded, is a shameful prosti 
 tution of the essential decency and dignity of politics. 
 
 But, at last, thanks to President Cleveland, the old-fash 
 ioned method of dealing with the tariff question has been 
 disowned, and both parties have faced the issue without the 
 slightest equivocation. The Democratic platform demands a 
 reduction of the surplus by reducing taxes. The Republican 
 platform demands the reduction of the surplus by increasing 
 taxes. The Democratic platform insists that the taxes on 
 clothing, blankets, tools, machinery, lumber, the necessaries 
 of life, and the raw materials and implements of production 
 shall be reduced, in the interest of the whole body of the 
 people. The Republican platform squarely opposes any 
 such reduction as inimical to manufacturers, who receive the 
 sole benefit of such taxes as a privileged class. The Demo 
 cratic platform demands the highest duties on luxuries, in 
 cluding whisky and tobacco, which in all civilized countries 
 are dealt with as prime sources of revenue. The Republi 
 can platform demands the exemption of the luxuries named 
 from taxation, which would thus open the flood-gates of 
 drunkenness and crime in order that the great manufactur 
 ing monopolies of the country may grow rich through the 
 burdens heaped upon the masses of the people. Such is the 
 contention between these parties in the present campaign. 
 The question is so simple, and its economical and moral 
 bearings are so readily seen, that he who runs may read. 
 Herein is my faith in Democratic success. The question is 
 sure to be understood by the people. It has not been sprung 
 too late in the canvass for a thorough discussion of it on its 
 merits. That discussion has already been going on for 
 months, and it will continue to the end. It is in the air. 
 The campaign is affording the people a rare opportunity for 
 finding out the truth on a long-pending and momentous ques 
 tion, and should they deliberately embrace the mischievous 
 folly embodied in the Republican party creed as now revised, 
 they will deserve to grind in the prison-house of their own 
 madness till their sufferings shall teach them the way of de- 
 
246 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 liverance. I have not the slightest apprehension that any 
 such calamity is in store for the country. 
 
 Indeed, the Republican party seems to be vigorously em 
 ployed in the work of self-destruction. Its early and great 
 est leader, Abraham Lincoln, believed in a government " of 
 the people, by the people, and for the people ;" but the party 
 to-day believes in a government dominated by corporations, 
 monopolies, and class legislation. In its early life the Re 
 publican party espoused the old Whig policy of a tariff for 
 revenue, with incidental protection. In later years it practi 
 cally reversed this policy by favoring a tariff for protection, 
 with incidental revenue. It now turns another somersault, 
 and repudiates the teachings of all the oracles of protection 
 in the past by demanding a tariff for protection, with no rev 
 enue. The party has hitherto had the reputation of being 
 more favorable to temperance than the Democratic party ; 
 but it now openly declares that in order to prevent the reduc 
 tion of existing duties on the necessaries of life, should it be 
 come necessary, it will favor the total repeal of our internal 
 revenue laws, which would probably reduce the price of 
 whisky to twenty cents per gallon, and reproduce the horrid 
 saturnalia of drunkenness, lawlessness, and domestic suffer 
 ing which swept over the nation in the early part of this cen 
 tury. It thus commits the double offense of mocking the cry 
 of the people for relief from the burdens imposed by the ex 
 isting war tariff, and making itself the powerful and remorse 
 less ally of intemperance and the saloons. Goaded onward 
 by party blindness, and yet smarting under the conscious 
 ness of its shameless inconsistency and recreancy to princi 
 ple, it seeks to wiggle out of its dilemma by comparing its 
 platform to that of the Prohibitionists. But the Prohibition 
 ists demand the total banishment of whisky from the country 
 by law, while the Republicans welcome its desolating flood 
 and leave the people wholly unprotected against its ravages. 
 The Prohibitionists demand the removal of duties on * food, 
 clothing, and other comforts and necessaries of life." The 
 Republicans, as I have shown, avow their purpose to repeal 
 
THE AUGURIES OF VICTORY. 247 
 
 the internal revenue taxes entirely rather than submit to the 
 slightest reduction of such duties. In fact, the attempt to 
 show any likeness between the attitude of these parties on 
 the tariff question is simply laughable. 
 
 The further attempt is made to silence the cry of free 
 whisky by raising the idiotic howl of free trade ; but the Re 
 publican leaders know that the message of the President, 
 which embodies the Democratic gospel on the tariff, ex 
 pressly disowns the policy of free trade, and that the reduc 
 tion of duties proposed by the Mills bill would leave them 
 higher than those of the famous protective tariff of 1842, 
 while it is entirely in accord with the avowed policy of Ar 
 thur, Garfield, Grant, and other high Republican authorities. 
 The party managers, however, are not satisfied with their 
 scare-crow of free trade. They denounce the Democratic 
 party as the champion of British free trade. Relying upon 
 the ignorance of the people and the potency of demagogism, 
 they charge the President with entering into a secret alliance 
 with England for the ruin of American manufacturers and 
 the starvation of American laborers. But they forget that 
 the high protective policy of their party makes it the natural 
 ally of the English tories, while the reduction of duties, now 
 urged by the Democratic party, commends it to the friend 
 ship of the English liberals and the English common people, 
 who have uniformly been found on the side of the United 
 States. What is the meaning of this strange sensitiveness 
 to the welware of American manufacturers, and this morbid 
 jealousy of their rights? Why should Congress tax the 
 whole people for their special advantage? Are they any 
 more deserving than our farmers, or any other class of hon 
 est producers? Is there any valid reason for singling them 
 out as pets and favorites under a government of equal laws? 
 The champions of our great manufacturing monopolies 
 should remember that the lowering of our tariffs has never 
 injured the workingman or the people, and that our lowest 
 tariffs in the last fifty years have been the most popular, al 
 though ruin was predicted as the sure result of reduction. 
 
248 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 It is urged that high duties enhance the wages of labor ; but 
 every intelligent manufacturer knows that the rate of wages 
 is determined by the law of supply and demand, and not by 
 the rate of duties. Manufacturers are no more inclined to 
 divide their profits among the poor than other men. Protec 
 tion enables them to amass great wealth ; but they hoard it, 
 or lavish it in ambitious projects, instead of dividing it among 
 their employes. When Andrew Carnegie made his million 
 and a half in a single year, he did not dispense any part of 
 it in largesses among his toiling operatives, but reduced their 
 wages. That was his method of protecting them. In the 
 light of such facts the people are rapidly finding out the 
 truth, and the hollowness and selfishness of Republicanism 
 as it writes down its character and aims in its latest confes 
 sion of faith. 
 
 I come now to my third ground of confidence in Demo 
 cratic success, namely, the character of our standard-bear 
 ers. Four years ago Grover Cleveland appeared as a com 
 paratively new star in the political firmament ; but he had so 
 displayed the qualities of courage, independence, integrity 
 and real leadership while Governor of New York as to give 
 him at once a national reputation, and a high place among 
 the foremost men of his party. The people caught his spirit 
 and rallied to his support with such ardor and spontaneity 
 that all rival candidates were sent to the rear, and his nomi 
 nation became inevitable. His later career has been still 
 more remarkable. He has heen far more thoroughly tried 
 in the great office of President, and under the remorseless 
 fire of his political enemies ; but since the day of his inaugu 
 ration he has been steadily winning the admiration and love 
 of his party and tre respect of good men. His nomina 
 tion for a second term became a foregone conclusion so early 
 in his administration, and his qualities as a great leader of 
 men revealed themselves so unmistakably from time to time, 
 that the claims of no other candidate have been debated, or 
 even seriously thought of. Not one of the famous men of 
 the republic in its early days was ever more completely the 
 
THE AUGURIES OF VICTORY. 249 
 
 idol of his party. His renomination at St. Louis by the 
 unanimous vote of its picked men from every section of the 
 Union was no surprise to the country, but I believe was uni 
 versally anticipated by men of all parties. But this unani 
 mous nomination only faintly indicated the unexampled and 
 resistless enthusiasm of the convention. It carried every 
 thing before it like the tides of the sea, and the delegates be 
 came the mere instruments of a power which had enthralled 
 them, and given them one heart and one will. Their sense 
 of duty was an illumination ; and yet their enthusiasm was 
 not ephemeral, but the final outburst of a deliberate and in 
 telligent estimate of the man in the light of his public acts 
 through a series of years. What other explanation is possi 
 ble? It will not do to hold, with Senator Ingalls, that Gro- 
 ver Cleveland is a near relative of the great family of idiots, 
 and that the Democratic party is " a heap of compost." Nor 
 will it help the matter to brand the Democrats as rebels, who 
 have found their likeness and fit instrument in the President. 
 These interesting specimens of post-mortem politics and po 
 litical lunacy have served their turn and gone to their place. 
 Mr. Chairman, in the canvass of 1876 I referred to the ex 
 ceptional power of one strong man, thoroughly in earnest, 
 and thoroughly armed with the strength of his convictions. 
 k With a fertile brain, perfect courage, absolute devotion to 
 duty, and a genius for the work of reform, he may scatter 
 renovating ideas, redeem a state from misrule, and radically 
 change the face of society. * * * A really great man, 
 with rare force of character, passionately wedded to his work, 
 and desperately resolved to submit to no defeat, might so in 
 spire the people with his own spirit of courage and faith that 
 a revolution in the administration of public affairs would be 
 the result." These words were spoken of Samuel J. Tilden 
 twelve years ago, and I have no doubt would have been per 
 fectly justified in the administration of that eminent states 
 man if he had been permitted by the party in power to take 
 the office to which he had been fairly elected. But in thus 
 sketching the Democratic candidate of 1876 I anticipated the 
 
250 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 character and career of Grover Cleveland. Let me illustrate 
 the truth of what I say by facts. His annual message on the 
 subject of the tariff awakened alarm in the ranks of a very 
 formidable body of Democrats and general rejoicing among 
 Republicans. It was regarded as a daring and perilous ven 
 ture. The rugged issue he presented had been evaded and 
 shunned by the cautious and prudent politicians of both par 
 ties since the close of the late war, while a surplus had been 
 accumulating in the treasury which had threatened the utter 
 demoralization of our politics, and had been unnecessarily 
 drawn from the pockets of the people in the form of taxes 
 upon the necessaries of life. The President fully realized 
 the situation and the necessity of prompt action, and without 
 taking the counsel of timid leaders he launched his message. 
 He was a candidate for renomination ; but in determining 
 the question of public duty he took no thought for the mor 
 row, and was perfectly ready to face the consequences of his 
 course. The people, however, love courage, and he has so 
 multiplied himself in the ranks of his party, and has been so 
 completely vindicated in the congressional debates upon the 
 question, that at the end of eight months the transformation 
 of his party was accomplished, as was shown in the nearly 
 unanimous Democratic vote upon the Mills bill in the House 
 of Representatives. 
 
 Let me refer to the matter of pensioning our soldiers. 
 The most cherished memories of the war for the Union clus 
 ter around the men whose valor saved it, and the widows and 
 orphans of those who were slain. No subject of greater diffi 
 culty and delicacy could have been presented to the Presi 
 dent than that of passing upon the numerous acts of Congress 
 providing for pensions which he has been called upon to con 
 sider. He could not be unmindful of the strong sense of 
 gratitude to the nation s defenders which exists in every sec 
 tion of the Union, nor forget the natural impulse of every pa 
 triotic man to favor the most liberal and beneficent legislation 
 in their behalf. To the average public man it would have 
 been far easier to approve of indefensible legislation under 
 
THE AUGURIES OF VICTORY. 251 
 
 the pressure of a strong public opinion than to hazard the 
 damaging misconstruction of his action in guarding the pub 
 lic treasury by the disapproval of fraudulent claims. But 
 the President has been inflexibly true to the principle that 
 public office is a public trust, and not an outfit for the per 
 sonal advantage of the incumbent, or a machine to be used 
 for his political ambition. He had the courage to veto the 
 dependent pension bill, which would have raided the treas 
 ury, dishonored our soldiers and demoralized our legislation ; 
 and here again the people showed their love of courage by 
 approving his act, while many of the leading Republican 
 newspapers applauded it. He has sho\vn the same courage 
 and love of justice in his vetoes of numerous private pension 
 bills, while it should be remembered to his honor that under 
 his administration more money has been paid out in the form 
 of pensions and bounties to our soldiers and sailors than was 
 ever before expended in their behalf during an equal period. 
 The character of the President invites further illustration 
 in his action touching the reform of the civil service. There 
 is no reason to doubt his perfect good faith in espousing this 
 reform, and there is just as little doubt that he underrated 
 the character and potency of the opposition he would have 
 to encounter. What we call the spoils system is rooted in 
 the policy and traditions of all parties for more than fifty 
 years. It may almost be called an institution, and its over 
 throw must necessarily be the work of time and courageous 
 endeavor. But the President bravely undertook it. Early 
 in his administration he set about the work of taking the New 
 York postoffice out of party politics, so that its affairs might 
 be managed on business principles, and in the interest of the 
 people. He has done very much to redeem the New York 
 custom-house from the great and crying evils which have 
 disgraced its management during previous administrations. 
 He has postponed the removal of the great body of Repub 
 lican office-holders till the end of their term of service. He 
 has repeatedly favored the extension of the civil service rules 
 in furtherance of the great ends contemplated by the reform, 
 
252 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 and as a rule his appointments have been remarkably mer 
 itorious ; while he has set his face against political corrup 
 tion, and kept the executive mansion free from the scandals 
 that have disgraced so many previous administrations. He 
 has, it is true, disappointed the hopes of some of the zealous 
 friends of this reform, and has evidently not accomplished 
 all that was desired and expected ; but he has done far more 
 than any of his predecessors since the introduction of the 
 spoils system, and placed the movement on such a footing 
 that no retreat is now possible. He is bitterly assailed by 
 the Republican leaders for not fully living up to his promises ; 
 but the public wall not fail to notice that it is not the violation 
 of the President s promises that offends these leaders, but 
 the fact that he made them. Leading Republican senators 
 have openly declared that if he had made a "clean sweep 1 
 of the offices, they would have had no quarrel with his pol 
 icy. In this they but echo the general sense of the partv, 
 which four years ago nominated a man for the Presidency 
 whose political life had belied every principle of civil service 
 reform, and whose renomination this year was the fervent wish 
 of an overwhelming majority of its members. When we re 
 member, that, with the slight exception of President Arthur s 
 action touching federal appointments, the record of the Re 
 publican party on this question for twenty years has been a 
 shameless exhibition of official corruption and political pros 
 titution, the hypocrisy of its present leaders in assailing the 
 President is readily seen. They despise him in the exact 
 measure of their unfaithfulness. I ought to add thai many 
 of these assaults emanate from Republican office holders 
 who owe their retention in their places to the impartial en 
 forcement of the civil service rules, while they lack the de 
 cency to keep silent. The President, in the meantime, holds 
 on along the path of his pledges. He takes no step back 
 ward, but commends the good w r ork of the faithful commis 
 sioners chosen by himself for its prosecution, and shows his 
 determination to stand by them. He can not work miracles, 
 but he will not betray the cause to its enemies, nor withhold 
 
THE AUGURIES OF VICTORY. 253 
 
 from it his continued and earnest support to the end. His 
 enemies know this, and their malignant warfare against him 
 would instantly cease if he should really turn his back upon 
 his professions. 
 
 I need not multiply these illustrations of the President s 
 strong personality, which has so impressed the country, and 
 so naturally suggests the contrast between him and his com 
 petitor. General Harrison is certainly a respectable candi 
 date. His private life is without a stain, and, I believe, his 
 personal and political integrity is undoubted. I am quite 
 sure he has written no letters which he has any occasion to 
 call on his friends to k burn." He is a very good lawyer and 
 an intense partisan who is not wanting in pugnacity. His 
 military career bears witness to his patriotism and courage, 
 but it offers no striking situations. His service in the Senate 
 for six years supplies no satisfactory proof of his statesman 
 ship, and leaves him at a disadvantage when compared with 
 rival leaders who have had the experience and training of an 
 extended public career. While in the Senate he vigorously 
 assailed the President on the score of his inconsistency in 
 dealing with the civil service, but his attack fairly implied 
 that he had no fault to find with the spoils system, while he 
 was exceedingly active in his endeavor to secure his full share 
 of federal appointments. He voted for the Blair educational 
 bill, which a number of the better men in his party wisely op 
 posed as a measure unduly favoring the centralization of fed 
 eral power. He voted for the dependent pension bill, which 
 the President vetoed with the general approval of the people, 
 while he introduced several private pension bills which could 
 not be defended. He voted for the Hennepin canal scheme, 
 which some of the leading Republican papers justly de 
 nounced at the time as a most gigantic and unqualified piece 
 of jobbery. He has avowed himself in favor of steamship 
 subsidies, and he is, of course, the representative of the atro 
 cious tariff policy of his party, which is now the vital issue of 
 the canvass, and has suddenly become the great test of Re 
 publican orthodoxy. 
 
254 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 Gentlemen, can such a man be trusted as a leader in the 
 reformation of great and hoary abuses ? Is he strong enough 
 to lift his party out of the mire of general demoralization in 
 which it has landed, and restore it to the integrity of its 
 earlier days? Is he able to work out the regeneration and 
 purification of a party already dead in its trespasses and sins? 
 To ask these questions is to answer them. General Har 
 rison, if elected, will faithfully carry out the principles of his 
 party as defined in its platform. He will countenance no re 
 volt, or even protest, against its supreme authority. He will 
 do nothing to check the current of evil which has completely 
 carried it away from its traditions, and made it the servant of 
 corporations, monopolies and special interests. He lacks 
 both the power and the will to rise above it, while his politi 
 cal career has revealed no sign of discontent with the evil 
 tendencies and growing abuses which have made it what it 
 is. Of all the prominent leaders of his party he is probably 
 least inclined to listen to the cry of reform. 
 
 Of the candidates for Vice-President I need say but little. 
 Judge Thurman is known to the whole country as a man of 
 great ability and large experience in public affairs. His 
 fidelity to the people has been splendidly illustrated in his 
 successful fight against the domination of great railway cor 
 porations, and his name is the synonym of integrity, courage 
 and devotion to his country. Of the republican candidate it 
 is only necessary to say that he is a wealthy New York 
 banker, whose statesmanship is an unknown quantity, and 
 who never would have been dreamed of for the second office 
 in the gift of the people but for the money he is able to 
 control. 
 
 Gentlemen, in approaching the conclusion of what I have 
 to say, I must refer to a still further ground of encourage 
 ment. I find it in the action and attitude of the Democratic 
 and Republican parties touching the land question, and I am 
 drawn to this topic by the fact that I am somewhat familiar 
 with it, while my official work in New Mexico for the past 
 three years seems to make it appropriate. 
 
THE AUGURIES OF VICTORY. 255 
 
 The Republican party prides itself upon its early espousal 
 of the homestead policy, which it borrowed, as it did its other 
 principles, from the old Free-soil party of 1848. It also 
 claims the glory of having enacted the homestead law of 
 1862. Let it be duly honored for its good work; but. the 
 country will not forget that, simultaneously with the enact 
 ment of this law, and as if intending to nullify its operations, 
 this same Republican party set on foot a system of extrava 
 gant and unguarded land grants to railroad corporations, 
 which surrendered to their purposes an aggregate area of the 
 public domain about equal to the entire territory of the thir 
 teen original colonies of the Union. I admit that there was 
 some excuse for this legislation, and that it should have the 
 benefit of extenuating facts. We were grappling with the 
 difficult problems of a great war, and this naturally opened 
 the way for hasty legislation on other questions. The de 
 mand for great highways to the Pacific was deemed impera 
 tive, while their construction was believed to be unattainable 
 without the help of the public lands. Moreover, the value 
 of the lands granted was not then understood as it is to-day, 
 nor did any one then foresee the rapid settlement and devel 
 opment of our western states and territories through which 
 the building of these roads would become a work of practical 
 accomplishment without the aid of the government. I add, 
 that I believe it was universally understood that the lands 
 would be promptly restored to the public domain on the fail 
 ure of the companies to comply with the conditions of the 
 grants. If this had been done, the mischief inflicted upon 
 the country would have been comparatively trifling. The 
 recreancy of the Republican party was not so much in mak 
 ing the grants as in declining to enforce their forfeiture and 
 succumbing to corporate dictation. If Congress had done 
 its duty, the great body of lands given away would long since 
 have been restored to the public domain ; but the roads were 
 allowed to proceed in their laggard way, and hold back from 
 settlement and tillage during many years vast areas of land 
 which had never been earned, while it is well known to every 
 lawyer who practices in the federal courts, that their rulings 
 
256 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 in controversies arising under these grants have sometimes 
 been colored by railway influence. Attempts were made in 
 Congress at various times to declare these grants forfeited, so 
 that the lands might be restored to the people, but they were 
 baffled by Republican opposition. This happened year after 
 year, while the railway lobby played its strong game in 
 Washington, and Congress became the servant of the corpo 
 rations it had created and richly endowed. More than one 
 hundred millions of acres of the public domain were thus 
 illegally held in the clutches of these corporations, while an 
 additional area almost as large was withheld from the people 
 under executive orders, covering the even-numbered sections 
 withdrawn pending the survey of the odd-numbered ones, 
 and indemnity lands unwarrantably reserved. The truth is, 
 that for more than twenty years prior to the inauguration of 
 Grover Cleveland the general land office, to a fearful extent, 
 was a mere bureau in the service of the railwavs, as I have 
 demonstrated in a carefully prepared magazine article pub 
 lished a few years ago. 
 
 But Congress, at last, under the pressure of public opin 
 ion, was constrained to act. Bills were passed in the Forty- 
 eighth Congress declaring forfeited 19,610,880 acres, and in 
 the Forty-ninth Congress 30,811,360 acres, making a total of 
 50,482,247 acres. These measures were initiated by Demo 
 crats, and the opposition to them came from Republicans. 
 Since Cleveland s inauguration 52,437,373 acres improperly 
 reserved have been restored to the public domain by executive 
 action, while the present House of Representatives has passed 
 ;i bill declaring forfeited 53,735,562 acres, which bill, it is 
 generally understood, will fail in the Republican Senate. If 
 to these sums we add 10,794,542 acres already recommended 
 for recovery, in cases now under consideration in the gen 
 eral land office and the department of justice, we shall have 
 an aggregate of 167,459,717 acres. This Democratic record 
 is not complete without the further statement that the House 
 of Representatives has passed a bill repealing the preemp 
 tion law, and so revising our land laws generally as to set 
 
THE AUGURIES OF VICTORY. 257 
 
 apart for actual settlement .the whole of our remaining public 
 domain which is fit for cultivation. This measure, it is much 
 to be regretted, will in all probability be defeated in the 
 Senate, which has repeatedly refused to concur in its essen 
 tial provisions. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, I think I am justified in saying that this 
 wholesale restitution to the people of these millions of stolen 
 lands under past legislation is as honorable to the Democratic 
 party as it is damaging to its opponent. It certainly fur 
 nishes no reason for turning out the present administration 
 and restoring the cast-off dispensation of public plunder 
 which has so long scourged the country. 
 
 Allow me to refer to a more particular and localized illus 
 tration of Republican devotion to the rights of settlers. 
 Naturalists tell us that with the aid of a single joint of an 
 animal they can determine its entire structure. Let me see 
 if I can not give you a pretty clear apprehension of the na 
 ture and make-up of latter-day Republicanism by examining 
 the joint of it which is supplied by New Mexico. 
 
 When the United States acquired this territory it was in- 
 cumbered by old Spanish and Mexican land grants cover 
 ing a claimed area of about fifteen million acres. The gov 
 ernment bound itself by treaty to respect the title to these 
 grants, so far as found valid under the laws of Spain and 
 Mexico ; and, by act of Congress of July 22, 1854, tne office 
 of Surveyor-General for the territory was created, and it be 
 came his duty to ascertain " the origin, nature, character and 
 extent" of these claims, and make full report of his opinion 
 thereon for the final action of Congress. This armed him 
 with very large and responsible powers, for no court in the 
 Union had any authority to review his opinions, which were 
 final and absolute, subject only to the ultimate supervision of 
 Congress. The matter to which I wish to direct your spe 
 cial attention is the action of the government under this leg 
 islation, and I shall speak from personal and official knowl 
 edge. By far the greater part of this action occurred under 
 Republican rule, and the aggregate of the public lands lost 
 17 
 
258 SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 to the government by its recognition of fraudulent titles and 
 unwarranted surveys exceeds ten million acres. The Sur 
 veyors-General were the mere instruments of grant claim 
 ants, who had purchased their claims at a low rate for specu 
 lative purposes ; and having secured favorable reports upon 
 them and surveys enormously stretched, they lobbied the 
 cases through Congress, while they also made the general 
 land office their servant. Their influence over New Mexico 
 has been absolutely disastrous, and I believe it would be no 
 extravagance to say that the evil they have wrought in the 
 territory could scarcely have been exceeded by the three 
 fold scourge of war, pestilence and famine. 
 
 Their most shocking performances occurred under the 
 administrations of Grant and Hayes ; and, by way of exam 
 ple, I refer you to the case of the Una de Gato grant, which 
 was claimed by Stephen W. Dorsey. Its area was six hun 
 dred thousand acres, a very large part of which is the finest 
 land in New Mexico. Under a favorable opinion of the 
 Surveyor-General as to its validity it was reserved from set 
 tlement under the act of Congress of 1854, and remains so 
 reserved to-day. In the year 1877 investigations were set 
 on foot respecting the validity of this grant, which were ex 
 ceedingly offensive to Mr. Dorsey, and resulted in completely 
 demonstrating its forgery early in the year 1879. He there- 
 upon determined to appropriate the lands under the home 
 stead and preemption laws. But this he could not legally do. 
 One Survey or- General had declared the grant valid, and 
 another had pronounced it a forgery, while Congress alone 
 could determine the question, and the land was absolutely 
 reserved in the meantime. In this dilemma the Commis 
 sioner of the General Land Office, who was touched by Mr. 
 Dorsey s misfortune, ordered the land to be surveyed and 
 opened to settlement, although he knew he had no power to 
 do so. Mr. Dorsey, who was already in possession of many 
 thousands of acres of the choicest lands in the tract, at once 
 sent out his squads of henchmen, who, by perjury and sub 
 ornation of perjury, availed themselves of the forms of the 
 
THE AUGURIES OF VICTORY. 259 
 
 preemption and homestead laws in acquiring pretended titles, 
 which were conveyed to him in pursuance of arrangements 
 previously agreed upon. No record of this unauthorized 
 action of the Commissioner is now to be found in the land 
 office. What was done was done sneakingly and in the 
 dark, and nothing is known of the transaction but the fact 
 of its occurrence, and the intimate relations then existing 
 between Mr. Dorsey and the Commissioner and his chief of 
 surveys. Of course, he and his associates in this business 
 have no title to the lands thus acquired, and their entries 
 should be canceled, not only because the land was reserved 
 from sale by act of Congress, but because the entries were 
 fraudulently made, as has been already shown in many cases 
 by investigations not yet completed. 
 
 These are remarkable facts, but there is no mystery about 
 them. Mr. Dorsey was then a power in Republican politics. 
 He had neared the summit of his remarkable ascendency. It 
 was in the following year, 1880, that his genius, as secretary 
 of the Republican national committee, lighted the way to a 
 national victory for his party, for which he was subsequently 
 banqueted and lionized as "the Napoleon who carried Indi 
 ana." When such a man wanted the Republican officials of 
 the land department to violate the law and their oath of office 
 to enable him to appropriate a large body of public lands in 
 furtherance of his rapacity, they did not dare say no, and the 
 robbery was accomplished. He well knew, and so did the 
 Commissioner of the General Land Office and the Secretary of 
 the Interior, that this action was totally unauthorized, and 
 that the lands thus acquired by him and his allies, under an 
 illegal order, rightfully belonged to the United States. In 
 these statements I am supported by the records of the gov- 
 ernment, and no lawyer will attempt to controvert them. 
 
 This is but one case, among many, of land stealing in 
 New Mexico under Republican rule. If that rule had con 
 tinued four years longer, the fortunes of the territory would 
 have been still more completely handed over to the tender 
 mercies of Dorsey, Elkins and their confederates, and the 
 
2OO SELECTED SPEECHES. 
 
 work of reform would have been postponed to a day far in 
 the distance, or made absolutely impossible. But a good be 
 ginning has been made under this administration. Of the 
 10,000,000 acres already stolen, probably one-half can be re 
 claimed as the result of disclosures brought to light, and 
 measures already instituted through Democratic officials, and 
 nothing could more completely demonstrate the necessity of 
 continuing the present administration in power than the facts 
 I have presented. 
 
 Gentleman, I take no pleasure in depicting the recreancy 
 of a great historic party in the day of its decline. I was 
 present at its birth, and saw it grow up to the full stature of 
 manhood ; and I was with it and of it in the grand part it 
 played in suppressing the slave-holders rebellion and estab 
 lishing liberty throughout the land by irrepealable law. In 
 the beginning it espoused the rights of the states, as well as 
 the union of the states. It resolved to rescue our national 
 territories from the polluting tread of slavery, and it demand 
 ed the freedom of the public lands for actual settlers in lim 
 ited homesteads. It made the Declaration of Independence 
 the basis of its policy, and in the best sense of the word it 
 was the party of the people. In its first successful battle 
 Abraham Lincoln was its great captain, who fell under the 
 hand of his assassin before his party had sinned away its 
 moral heritage. Its founders and fathers were Seward, 
 Chase and Sumner, who were the real heroes of its princi 
 ples, and they walked out of it when it yielded to a demoral 
 ized leadership and turned away from the rectitude of its 
 youth. These great men never returned to its fold, and 
 thenceforward till the meeting of its late national convention 
 at Chicago it has steadily drifted, step by step and year by 
 year, from its early moorings, and lost the inspiration and 
 heroism that made its beginning so glorious. That conven 
 tion was largely controlled by gamblers in public office, mo 
 nopolists who had grown rich by the legalized robberies of 
 our tariff system, and the agents of great railway corpora 
 tions. It was called to order by a great manufacturer whose 
 
THE AUGURIES OF VICTORY. 26l 
 
 interests are largely involved in protective duties, and its 
 temporary chairman was an attorney for a great Pacific rail 
 way. One of the Presidential candidates was a millionaire, 
 who has grown rich by the tariff on lumber, and another was 
 the attorney and representative of the Vanderbilts and their 
 system of railways. Perhaps the most active and conspicu 
 ous, if not the most influential, leader in the convention was 
 Stephen B. Elkins, who was formidably reenforced by such 
 moral auxiliaries as Mahone of Virginia, Flannagan of Texas, 
 and Chalmers of Mississippi. 
 
 If anything was wanting to show the complete apostacy 
 of the party and its absolute surrender to the domination of 
 special interests and personal greed, it was supplied by its 
 declaration in favor of cursing the land with free whisky as 
 a means of perpetuating high taxes on the necessaries of life. 
 This is its epitaph, fitly written by itself; and the honest men 
 in its ranks who still vainly hope to redeem it from dishonor 
 will be obliged to take their places in another organization, 
 and under leaders more worthy to be followed. 
 
CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS, 
 
REPLY TO SENATOR HOWE. 
 
 To the Editor of the " World: " 
 
 SIR Perhaps I ought briefly to notice the article of Sen 
 ator Howe, of Wisconsin, in the last number of the North 
 American Review, entitled "Is the Republican Party in its 
 Death Struggle ? " This is the text he chooses, but, strangely 
 enough, the sermon which follows it fails to answer the ques 
 tion. He probably remembered that in his late speech in the 
 Senate he had answered it in the affirmative, but now, in ar 
 raigning me as an assassin of his party, he should have re 
 membered, also, that in that same speech he charged its ruin 
 upon its own trusted leaders. 
 
 The senator, for some unaccountable reason, deals with 
 my article as a studied defense of the Democratic party. I 
 entered upon no such task. My subject neither involved nor 
 required it. My purpose was to show the readiness of the 
 Republican leaders, after the late war, to condone the vices 
 and profligacies which began to assume the name of Republi 
 canism on the plea that the Democrats could not be trusted, 
 and that the country would perish in their hands. I insisted 
 that " the philosophy which regards a particular party as of 
 divine appointment and necessary to salvation would place 
 the administration of the government in its hands forever," 
 and that " while the corrupt and venal elements of society 
 would certainly gravitate into it through its prolonged hold 
 on power, the good men in its ranks, instead of joining the 
 other side or becoming the nucleus of a new party, would be 
 obliged to keep their places and quietly submit to the un 
 hindered rule of roguery and plunder, lest the opposite party 
 should gain power and ruin the country." This was my 
 position ; but instead of meeting the logic by which I sup 
 ported it and exposed this party devil-worship, the senator 
 
266 CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS. 
 
 wastes his time and strength in assailing the Democrats. In 
 declining to meet the issue I tendered him, he confesses his 
 inability to do so. 
 
 The senator surprises the public by denying that the Re 
 publican party favored the abolition of slavery upon compul 
 sion. Every man who is even superficially acquainted with 
 the history of the first two years of the war knows that I am 
 right. I do not speak of the abolition element in the party, 
 but of the great body of its members, when I say that it tried 
 with all its might to save the Union and save slavery with it. 
 The very letter the senator quotes from Mr. Lincoln to Hor 
 ace Greeley proves the truth of the statement he controverts, 
 while the proclamation of emancipation furnishes official evi 
 dence that the great act was done " as a military necessity." 
 What the senator means by denying a statement which is as 
 notoriously true as any fact connected with the war, I am at 
 a loss to divine ; but I rather think he needs a liberal diet 
 of fish. 
 
 The senator is equally entertaining and picturesque in his 
 attempted defense of his party. From my arraignment for 
 its startling misdeeds and crimes during the past eight or 
 nine years, covering some ten pages, and embodying undis 
 puted or well authenticated facts, he picks out some half- 
 dozen items and pours himself forth upon them in all the 
 force of his senatorial feebleness. He says Mr. Flannegan 
 was not at the head of the Committee on Education and La 
 bor, and that Sumner was not placed on it. The senator 
 ought to know, having been in the Senate at the time, but he 
 does not. The congressional directory, to which he invites 
 my attention, flatly contradicts him. I think he should have 
 been more "painstaking." In my article I mentioned 
 Sharpe, a brother-in-law of the President, as having been 
 Surveyor of the Port of New York, in violation of the civil 
 service rules. The senator, instead of meeting my accusa 
 tion, denies that this particular Sharpe is the President s 
 brother-in-law. I believe he is right, and that the Sharpe 
 who was a brother-in-law was Marshal of the District of Co- 
 
REPLY TO SENATOR HOWE. 267 
 
 lumbia ; but the point is wholly immaterial, and my charge 
 stands uncontradicted. I also mentioned that one Cramer, 
 another brother-in-law, disgraced our diplomatic service dur 
 ing General Grant s first administration, and was afterwards 
 made naval officer at New Orleans. The senator says he 
 was not made a naval officer, but is still in the foreign service 
 at Copenhagen. If so, he is thus disgracing the government 
 abroad instead of at home, and the senator seems to think 
 this defense complete. Does he think his readers are all 
 fools, or is he mentally afflicted himself? 
 
 The senator denies that Sumner was driven from the 
 chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations on ac 
 count of his opposition to the Santo Domingo job ; and then, 
 in effect, admits it by saying that " if a representative body 
 really favors the adoption of a public measure it is difficult 
 to say why it should place at the head of a committee any 
 man whose employment there would endanger the success 
 of the measure." He then makes another wriggle by ridi 
 culing the idea that the Senate which rejected the treaty 
 would have deposed Sumner for opposing it sneakingly 
 keeping back the fact that Sumner s magnificent fight against 
 it compelled a recreant Senate to abandon it. If the senator 
 knows any fact connected with American politics he knows, 
 as does the public, that my statement as to the cause of Mr. 
 Sumner s removal is true ; but he seems so charmingly inno 
 cent of a conscience that he finds a real pleasure in denying 
 it, although he must know the public will not believe him. 
 
 Equally remarkable are the senator s statements and de 
 nials respecting the New York custom-house investigations in 
 1872, his wholesale defense of political corruption in that in 
 stitution, and the transparent pettifogging by which he seeks 
 to defend General Grant s administration in dealing with the 
 Chorpenning claim and the misdeeds of General Babcock. 
 I need not dwell upon these performances ; nor can it be nec 
 essary to notice his statement that I deserted the Republican 
 party on account of my retirement from Congress. Any pol 
 itician in Indiana of moderate intelligence could have told 
 
268 CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS. 
 
 him he was bearing false witness, and that the prizes of poli 
 tics were within my reach when my connection with the 
 party was severed. 
 
 I fear the senator is unhappy. Notwithstanding his un 
 christian temper towards the Greeley Republicans, he has 
 himself become a factionest and a disorganize!* in his party. 
 He brands the President he helped elect as an usurper, or 
 else the accomplice of one in the person of Governor 
 Nicholls. He lavishes upon Secretary Schurz his sincerest 
 and most heart-felt abuse and defamation. He deals with 
 such men as Sumner, Chase, Seward and Greeley as apos 
 tates and traitors, while defending the worst of the thieves 
 who held office under General Grant ; and yet he declares 
 in the close of his article, with a sanctimonious whine, that 
 " criticism and calumny are two very different agents/ and 
 that " the example is evil and the effort only pernicious when 
 innocent men are pilloried in the permanent literature of the 
 country as if they were guilty." His party servitude of eigh 
 teen years in the Senate has so palsied his intellect and 
 pauperized his soul that he coolly refers to the administration 
 of Grant in proof of the honesty of his party. And in the 
 travail of his spirit the senator complains that I talk too 
 much. He is not singular in this opinion. It was enter 
 tained by all the leaders ofGrantismin 1872, and they were fully 
 confirmed in it in 1876. It is not very common for criminals 
 to enjoy the exposure of their crimes. I did not expect the 
 men I impaled in the pages of the North American would be 
 delighted by the entertainment. It is probable that Benedict 
 Arnold, to whom the senator politely compares me, and the 
 more " sensitive " class of criminals to whom he alludes, who 
 " laid hold upon their own lives/ found as little comfort in 
 the contemporary criticism of their exploits as the senator 
 now finds in my limning of the rogues and mercenaries whose 
 cause he champions, and who, unlike the "sensitive" 
 characters referred to, have lacked the decency to rid the 
 world of their presence. The senator must excuse me. I 
 can not cease talking while he and his party friends furnish 
 
REPLY TO SENATOR HOWE. 269 
 
 me with so fruitful a text. With all his delinquencies, I find 
 he ** has sensibility left, or the memory of sensibilities ; that 
 he remembers, and perhaps regrets, the time when he had gen 
 erous impulses, and gave loose to them ; when he had moral 
 perceptions, and trusted them." I must, therefore, continue to 
 labor for him in hope, not, as he imagines, for the pleasure 
 of witnessing the " contortions " of my "victim," but for his 
 good. GEORGE W. JULIAN. 
 
REPLIES TO HON. CARL SCHURZ. 
 
 NEW YORK WORLD AND NEW YORK SUN, IN THE SPRING 
 
 OF 1883. 
 
 [New York World.] 
 
 Sir : A copy of the Evening- Post containing your reply 
 to my recent article in the North American Review is before 
 me. The angry tone of your letter is quite as remarkable as 
 its substance. The burden of my article was to show the 
 shameful subservience of the land department of the govern 
 ment to railway management during the past thirty years, 
 and in performing this task it naturally fell in my way to re 
 fer to your official conduct while Secretery of the Interior. 
 This reference, forming only a small part of my general in 
 dictment, was purely incidental, and for the simple purpose 
 of illustrating my subject. It was not prompted by the slight 
 est personal unkindness, and yet you lose your temper and 
 bandy epithets as if I had singled you out for special and 
 elaborate animadversion and pursued you with personal mal 
 ice. Your wincing is significant. Conscious innocence is 
 not apt to pour itself forth in uncomely rhetoric and inexcus 
 able passion. 
 
 But I proceed at once to notice your defense. Your first 
 complaint is founded on the following extract, which you 
 quote from my article : 
 
 "Another advantage gained by the railroads had its ori 
 gin in an opinion given by Attorney-General Black, in 1857, 
 when the railroad companies were anxious to obtain certified 
 lists of their lands before they had been earned. Mr. Black 
 held that these lists were simply in the nature of information 
 
REPLIES TO HON. CARL SCHURZ. 271 
 
 from the records of the department, and that he could see no 
 objection to issuing them to any person who desired to make 
 a proper use of them, just as any other information would be 
 furnished from the records, and that they could have no in 
 fluence on the title to the lands. Under this opinion the de 
 partment issued the certified lists as required ; but in May, 
 1880, the Secretary of the Interior decided that where any of 
 his predecessors have certified lands under railroad grants 
 their acts are final and conclusive, and binding upon him as 
 their successor. He further held that a complete legal title 
 was conveved by such certified lists, and that the latter were 
 in all respects equivalent to patents." 
 
 You say " this can have but one meaning, and it has been 
 so understood by all the newspapers which have commented 
 upon it that certified lists of lands, issued without the lands 
 having been earned by the railroad companies, merely in the 
 nature of information, without any intentien of conveying 
 title thereby, were decided by me, as Secretary of the Inte 
 rior, to have conveyed to the railroad companies complete 
 legal title to the lands so listed." 
 
 This is exactly what I charge, and there is nothing in it 
 which can give you the slightest trouble but its absolute truth. 
 Let me now follow you in your attempt to wriggle out of your 
 dilemma by cunning evasions, and to break the force of 
 what I say by perfectly reckless and unwarranted asser 
 tions. 
 
 In your decision respecting the lands involved in the case 
 of Brown v. The Chicago , Rock Island and Pacific Railroad 
 Company, to which I referred, you declare, first, "that these 
 lands were certified to the state by my predecessors, and 
 their acts are final and conclusive, and binding upon me as 
 their successor in office;" and, second, that "the certifica 
 tion of these lands invested the state with a complete legal 
 title to the same, which was in all respects equivalent to a 
 patent." In this decision, you say further, that the merits of 
 the case had already been passed upon by your predecessor, 
 in August, 1876 (in the case of Bell v. The Chicago, Rock 
 
272 CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS. 
 
 Island and Pacific Railroad Company), and that they had also 
 been covered by a decision of the United States Circuit Court 
 for the Eighth Circuit, which you quote as follows, in the case 
 of Drury v. Hollenbeck: 
 
 "The title to the tract of land in controversy in this suit 
 was by the act of 1856 vested in the state of Iowa. The tract 
 in question was within the terms of the act of 1856, and when 
 it was selected and the selection approved and certified by 
 the Commissioner of the General Land Office, the title became 
 perfect in the state. Every act had then been performed 
 necessary to make the title of the state complete." 
 
 There is thus no controversy whatever about your action 
 in recognizing as valid the certified lists referred to, and your 
 defense is that " in the original granting act (the act of May 
 15, 1856), as well as the act amendatory thereof (June 2, 1874), 
 it was expressly and specifically provided that complete legal 
 title should be conveyed to the state and the company by 
 certified lists, and in no other way." But, most unfortunately 
 for yourself, no such provision as you here cite is contained 
 in the act of 1856. There is not a word in it providing for 
 the conveyance of title in that way ; but, on the contrary, 
 the grant is in presentt, and the title passed to all the lands 
 embraced in it by the granting clause itself. The lands in 
 volved in the case of Brown v. The Chicago, Rock Island 
 and Pacific Road, in the case of Andrew L. Bellv. The Same 
 Company, and in the case of Drury v. Hollenbeck, decided 
 by Judge Dillon, were all claimed under the act of May 15, 
 1856, and the certified lists referred to were made under that 
 grant in December, 1858, more than five years before the 
 amendatory act was passed. That the title in these cases 
 was conveyed by the grant itself is stated by the very author 
 ities on which you rely, including Judge Dillon and Secre 
 tary Chandler; and you yourself, in the case you decided, 
 quote from an opinion of Attorney-General Cushing, of Feb 
 ruary, 1857, in which he expressly states that the Iowa grant 
 of May 15, 1856, was a grant in -presenti, and that the title 
 to the lands passed by the statute as soon as they became 
 
REPLIES TO HON. CARL SCHURZ. 273 
 
 identified by the definite location of the road. It is true that 
 the grant provides for the selection of indemnity lands by an 
 agent of the state, subject to the approval of the Secretary 
 of the Interior, as in other railroad grants ; but the approval 
 of the Secretary is simply to prevent the agent from making 
 unauthorized selections. It is not his approval, but the stat 
 ute, which passes the title. What Judge Dillon obviously 
 meant was that the selection and approval were necessary to 
 identify the lands covered by the grant. And yet, in the 
 face of the act of Congress of 1856, and of the plain lan 
 guage of the very authorities on which you rely, you declare 
 that complete legal title to the lands involved was to be con 
 veyed to the state and the company by certified lists, "and 
 in no other way." You write with the air of one having 
 knowledge, but the display you make of your ignorance is 
 picturesque, and is only matched by the heroic audacity of 
 your assertions. 
 
 But you make a further and equally futile attempt to de 
 fend yourself by appealing to the act of Congress of August 
 3, 1854, which you quote as follows : 
 
 "Where lands have been, or may hereafter be, granted 
 by any law of Congress to any one of the several states or 
 territories, and where such law does not convey the fee-sim 
 ple title of the land, or require patents to be issued therefor, 
 the lists of such lands which have been or may hereafter be 
 certified by the Commissioner of the General Land Office un 
 der the seal of his office, whether as originals or copies of the 
 originals, or records, shall be regarded as conveying the fee- 
 simple of all the lands embraced in such lists, or that are of 
 the character contemplated by such act of Congress, and in 
 tended to be granted thereby ; but where lands embraced in 
 such lists are not of the character embraced in such acts of 
 Congress, and are not intended to be granted thereby, the 
 lists, so far as these lands are concerned, shall be perfectly 
 null and void, and no right, title, claim or interest shall be 
 conveyed thereby." 
 
 You say "this statute would have covered the case com- 
 18 
 
274 CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS. 
 
 pletely, and made it my clear duty to recognize the certified 
 lists as conveying title, even had the granting act not spe 
 cifically provided for this and no other mode of convey 
 ance." 
 
 But I have just shown, and by your own authorities, that 
 the act of 1856 does convey the fee-simple title of the land in 
 dispute, and therefore that the lists which pretend to convey 
 them are " perfectly null and void," according to the statute 
 you quote in your own defense. You seem to have a genius 
 for blundering. The point I am considering was directly be 
 fore Attorney-General Black in 1857, when he rendered his 
 opinion already quoted, and he there expressly stated that 
 the act of August 3, 1854, does not apply in any manner 
 whatever to the grant made to Missouri and Arkansas by the 
 act of February 9, 1853, because a Legislative grant made 
 by Congress does, of itself, -profria vigori, pass to the gran 
 tee all the estate which the United States had in the subject- 
 matter of it, except what is expressly excepted. This act of 
 Congress, be it remembered, is of the same character as that 
 of May 15, 1856, and has always been so regarded. Mr. 
 Black further declared that the act of 1854 prescribed the 
 duty of the Commissioner of the General Land Office in 
 regard to Legislative grants when the law does not convey 
 the title nor require patents to be issued, and yet you strange 
 ly quote this act in defense of your lawless conduct. 
 
 But even if the case were otherwise, your defense would 
 fail. The certification of lands under the act of 1854, ^ n a 
 case to which it properly applies, could only convey the title 
 through a compliance with the terms and conditions of the 
 granting act. In the case under consideration the grant, as 
 you say, is to the state ; but the state is merely a trustee. It 
 acts under the statute as its power of attorney, and its right 
 depends upon a compliance with its requirements. A certi 
 fication of lands that were never earned could not be a valid 
 conveyance of the title, nor could lands be conveyed in this 
 way as indemnity for lands never granted and consequently 
 never lost under the grant. Your attempt, therefore, to le- 
 
REPLIES TO HON. CARL SCHURZ. 275 
 
 galize the certification of lands procured by false pretences 
 in 1857, under an opinion of Attorney-General Black, before 
 the lands had been earned, could not be defended, even if 
 the act of 1854 na( ^ been applicable, for the simple reason 
 that an executive officer is absolutely bound by the act of 
 Congress from which alone he derives his authority. 
 
 In thus exposing the sophistry and nonsense of your pre 
 tended defense, I have anticipated your next subterfuge, 
 namely, that you were concluded by the decisions of your 
 predecessors, and I have shown that no such decisions have 
 been made. Let me demonstrate this more perfectly. You 
 have not denied your ruling that the certified lists of 1858 
 conveyed the title the same as a patent, and you are the first 
 and only Secretary of the Interior who ever so held. As I 
 have already said, neither Chandler nor Dillon ever so de 
 cided. Chandler expressly decided to the contrary , as De 
 lano had done before him. In the case of Brown v. The 
 Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company, which 
 you decided in May, 1880, the certified lists were precisely 
 of the same kind as those issued in 1857, under the opinion 
 of Judge Black. They were issued to the state of Iowa upon 
 the theory of that opinion, and, of course, conveyed no title. 
 The road was not completed until the year 1869, being eleven 
 years after the lists were issued. Little or nothing had been 
 done, even as to the commencement of the road, in Decem 
 ber, 1858, when the lists were issued, and of course they were 
 issued for unearned lands. Judge Black, in his opinion, held 
 that the lands within granted limits became identified by the 
 definite location of the road, and those within indemnity 
 limits by approved selection. The act of 1856 expressly pro 
 vides that the indemnity lands shall be selected after the defi 
 nite location of the line of the road, and in the case cited by 
 you, Judge Dillon said that the line was definitely fixed in 
 November, 1856. You ought to have known that the only 
 indemnity selections ever made under the grant of 18^6 were 
 made September 4, of that year, more than two months prior 
 to the definite location. You ought to have known that this 
 
276 CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS. 
 
 was no selection at all in point of law, and that the lands 
 could only have been certified on the theory of Judge Black s 
 opinion that the act of August 3, 1854, nac ^ no application at 
 all to such grants. I believe the lists under all the early 
 grants prior to 1862 were issued in pursuance of Judge Black s 
 opinion, and a gentleman fit for the position of Secretary of 
 the Interior would have seen that this certification was no 
 adjudication whatever of the rights of settlers. He would 
 have known that in all cases settlements under the preemp 
 tion law were allowed within the granted and indemnity 
 limits up to the date of the definite location of the road or the 
 withdrawal of the lands from settlement. This was the earlv 
 practice of the department, and recognized by circular letter 
 of April 5, 1854. Settlers were not required to file declara 
 tory statements or notices of their claims in the local land 
 offices, but were permitted, after the lapse of years, to prove 
 up their claims, notwithstanding the previous certification of 
 the lands granted. 
 
 This was done in cases that were never brought to the 
 attention of the department till about the time the road was 
 completed in 1869, and I am reliably assured that even as 
 late as 1873 and 1874 settlers within the limits of Iowa 
 grants were allowed to enter lands that had been certified to 
 the state in December, 1858, under the grant of 1856, while 
 no one dreamed that the previous certification of the land 
 would preclude them from so doing. Can you not see that 
 the department, in December, 1858, could not adjudicate 
 upon facts that came before it ten or twelve years afterwards? 
 Ought not this to be clear even to a man " not a lawyer," 
 but "only a journalist?" The truth is, that for at least a 
 dozen years after the certified lists of December, 1858, were 
 issued, the General Land Office continued cancelling tract 
 after tract on the lists, as settlement claims made prior to the 
 withdrawal of the lands were from time to time proved up. 
 The department always regarded the lists as subject to final 
 correction according to ascertained facts. This was the 
 practice under all similar railroad grants. It is clear, there- 
 
REPLIES TO HON. CARL SCHURZ. 277 
 
 fore, that your attempt to take refuge under previous rulings 
 of the Interior Department can not shield you from the charge 
 of recreancy to your official duty, and that, in your own lan 
 guage, you did make " a law of your own for the benefit of 
 railroad corporations, by which unearned lands could be sur 
 reptitiously put into their possession." 
 
 I ought to add, however, as I desire to meet every phase 
 of your defense, that if your predecessor had given such a 
 decision as you pretend, it could not justify your action. I 
 admit that, as a rule, the adjudications of a secretary are 
 binding upon his successor, but this rule has its exceptions. 
 In one of the authorities cited by you on this question 
 (i3th Opinions of Attorney-General, 358), Attorney-General 
 Stanbury declared that the rule does not apply "where there 
 has been a palpable error of calculation, or where new facts 
 are subsequently brought forward which show that the for 
 mer decision was erroneous and would probably not have 
 been made if the} had been known at the time of the decis 
 ion." 
 
 If your predecessor had decided in 1876 that certified 
 lists issued by the land department as mere information and 
 not as conveying any title whatever, did, nevertheless, con 
 vey a complete legal title, which was in all respects equiva 
 lent to a patent, and the fact was brought to your knowledge 
 in 1880 that these lists had been obtained by a trick through 
 the misuse of the opinion of Attorney-General Black, you 
 were not bound in law or conscience to aid in consummating 
 this fraud upon the government. But the rule upon which 
 you rely is by no means uniformly observed in practice, even 
 in the absence of any special exception. You are probably 
 aware of the well-known case in which an opinion of Secre 
 tary Harlan was overruled by Secretary Browning, and that 
 this latter ruling was afterwards overruled by Secretary De 
 lano. You overruled the ruling of your predecessors in your 
 decision in the case of Kniskern v. The Hastings and Dakota 
 Railroad Company in April, 1879, anc ^ your successor has 
 since overruled vour decision. You changed the ruling of 
 
278 CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS. 
 
 your predecessors in December, 1878, in the case of Gates v 
 The California and Oregon Railroad Company, and Secre 
 tary Teller has since overruled your decision. You over 
 ruled your redecessor in the case of Serrano v. The South 
 ern Pacific Railroad Company, in July, 1874 ^ u ^ y ur ru l- 
 ing has since been overruled by Secretary Kirkwood. In 
 view of these facts your pretense that, under the ruling of 
 your predecessors, you were powerless to protect the United 
 States against the wholesale spoliation of the public domain 
 by railway companies, bears a striking resemblance to a 
 transparent fraud and an impudent fabrication. There was 
 one potent reason, and only one, why you gave your de 
 cision in 1880, and that was that you were the servant of the 
 railways, and, of necessity, the enemy of the settler. 
 
 I now come to your conduct in asking the advice of the 
 
 J O 
 
 Attorney-General on the question whether land-grant rail 
 roads are entitled to indemnity for lands disposed of by the 
 United States within the granted limits prior to the passage 
 of the granting act, or only for those disposed of between its 
 passage and the definite location of the line of the road. 
 You attempt to defend your action on the plea that the 
 point involved was a disputed one among lawyers, and 
 that it was your duty, as the head of your department, to ask 
 advice. But the point was not a disputed one when you 
 referred it to the Attorney-General. It had been settled by 
 three or four successive decisions of the Supreme Court of 
 the United States. These decisions were your guide, and 
 there was no occasion whatever to call for advice. In the 
 case of The United States v. The Leavenworth, Lawrence 
 and Galveston Railroad Company, Justice Davis, who pro 
 nounced the opinion, had made the case so perfectly clear 
 and irresistibly conclusive as to remove all doubt. He 
 shows that Congress could not grant lands that had al 
 ready been disposed of, and therefore that no indemnity 
 for such lands could be allowed. The court declares in 
 so many words, in this case and in that of The United States 
 v. The Burlington and Missouri River Railroad Company, 
 
REPLIES TO HON. CARL SCHURZ. 279 
 
 that indemnity could only be allowed for lands "lost by the 
 action of the government in keeping the land offices open 
 between the date of the granting act and the location of the 
 line of the road." There could be no mistake about the 
 meaning of this language. A child could understand it, and 
 you make it your boast that you accepted this opinion as 
 your guide, and followed it till the closing months of your 
 administration, when you referred the matter to the Attorney - 
 General, " in consequence of the protest of parties interested, 
 and the arguments urged by respectable attorneys." But all 
 this could not justify your perfectly gratuitous act. You say : 
 " There is one reason imaginable, and only one, why, under 
 such circumstances, the head of the department, and not a 
 lawyer, might hesitate to ask the Attorney-General for ad 
 vice. It is that he might consider the Attorney-General 
 incompetent as a jurist or corrupt as an officer." This is a 
 remarkable statement. If your common sense had not taken 
 its flight you could readily have imagined another and equally 
 conclusive reason. 
 
 The character of the Attorney-General for integrity and 
 capacity was not necessarily involved. It was enough for 
 you to know that the question had been settled, and that there 
 was, therefore, no occasion whatever for reference, and when 
 the railroad lobby asked you to refer it you had reasonable 
 ground to suspect a design to use you for base purposes and 
 to make the Attorney-General your ally. You say the At 
 torney-General is "the soul of honor." This may be true, 
 but it does not alter the fact that he gave you an opinion di 
 rectly in conflict with the decisions of the Supreme Court, 
 and attempted to justify it by quoting the "mere dictum" of 
 an inferior tribunal, which does not appear in its printed 
 opinion, and in a case which was to be appealed to the Su 
 preme Court of the United States for final decision. You 
 refer to the important official positions which the Attorney- 
 General has occupied. I make no denial, and I add, also, 
 that you have been Secretary of the Interior. You at first 
 adopted the judgment of the Supreme Court as your guide, 
 
28O CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS. 
 
 but excuse yourself by saying that "the interior department 
 had to yield to legal authority, which it did very reluctantly." 
 But there was no compulsion whatever, and you had no right 
 to accept any "legal authority" in opposition to that of the 
 Supreme Court. In the opinion of Attorney-General Crit- 
 tenden of the 3<Dth of June, 1851, addressed to the Secretary 
 of the Interior, as to the binding character of a previous 
 opinion of Attorney-General Johnson, he says : "The opin 
 ions of an Attorney-General are merely advisory. No law 
 gives them any technical, specific or official consequence or 
 effect. To whatever respect the high character of Mr. John 
 son may justly entitle his opinion, I may very confidently 
 say that no law has made it binding or obligatory upon you. 
 The weight that you should give it can be determined by no 
 other standard than your own judgment." You were, there 
 fore, left perfectly free to exercise "your own judgment," 
 and to testify your decent respect for the paramount authority 
 of the Supreme Court of the United States. You did not 
 yield " reluctantly," but willingly. The question involved 
 the title to millions of acres of the public domain which had 
 illegally fallen into the clutches of our land-grant railways, 
 and it was sacredly incumbent upon you as an officer and an 
 honest man to stand by the rights of the United States, and 
 guard your own personal honor against the suspicion of 
 having sacrificed those rights in the service of great mon 
 opolies. 
 
 You further seek to excuse your conduct by referring to 
 an opinion of Justice Miller, in the case of Barney v. The 
 Winona and St. Peter Railroad Company, given since that 
 of Attorney-General Devens, and reported in 2d McCrary s 
 Reports, 421, in which he concurs with Justice Harlan in the 
 case cited by Attorney-General Devens. My perfectly suffi 
 cient answer to this is that Justice Miller was on the Supreme 
 Bench when the contrary principle was settled and gave no 
 dissenting opinion. He was thus committed to the principle 
 that indemnity can not be allowed for lands disposed of prior 
 to the grant, but only for those lost by the action of the gov- 
 
REPLIES TO HON. CARL SCHURZ. 28 1 
 
 ernment between the date of the grant and the definite loca 
 tion of the line of the road. If he had given a dissenting 
 opinion it could not have changed the law as settled by the 
 court, and by which he was completely bound, both as a judge 
 and a citizen. And yet you parade him before the country 
 as attempting to nullify the decisions of the Supreme Court 
 of the United States and stultifying himself, and quote him as 
 telling you that the Attorney General was right in the advis 
 ory opinion he gave you. I think he will not thank you for 
 inviting public attention to such performances, while they 
 can furnish no shadow of justification for your action. 
 
 You next proceed to notice my statement respecting the 
 award of indemnity lands under the grant made to the At- 
 chison, Topeka and Santa Fe road. This statement, as Iny 
 language shows, was made on the information of others, and 
 not as a fact within my own knowledge. My authority was 
 an exceedingly well-informed official in the land office, who 
 inadvertently confounded indemnity with granted lands. To 
 this extent he was inaccurate, and you seem to take great 
 comfort in the fact. This is quite natural, considering the 
 serious tribulations of your situation ; but let us see how 
 much solid ground for comfort the actual facts of the case 
 will afford you. You do not deny that you awarded lands 
 to that railway in 1880, and the land office reports show 
 that while you were Secretary 280,717 acres were certified 
 and approved to the road. There had been previously cer 
 tified 2,465,221 acres, making an aggregate of 2,745,938 
 acres. According to ex-Governor Crawford, of Kansas, 
 now employed by the state to assert her rights against said 
 railway, the greatest amount the company could possibly 
 receive under the grant would be 2,361,600 acres. He esti 
 mates the amount disposed of to settlers prior to the date of 
 the grant at 150,000 acres, thus reducing the legal claim of 
 the company to 2,211,600 acres, or about 253,621 acres less 
 than the road had received before your approval of 1880 ; so 
 that even under the ruling of Attorney-General Devens the 
 road had received an excess of 384,338 acres prior to that 
 
282 CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS. 
 
 date, which was increased by you to 665,055 acres. If these 
 were not indemnity lands the fact is equally material and 
 equally damaging to you that the company had no right to 
 them, and I thus demonstrate the power of railway influence 
 over the land department, and over you, especially, as its 
 official head. 
 
 You take great credit to yourself for having adopted a 
 rule requiring railroad companies, in selecting indemnity, to 
 specify the particular tracts within the granted limits for the 
 loss of which indemnity is claimed. But of what service 
 could this be unless accompanied by the further requirement 
 that the companies should also specify the particular tracts in 
 lieu of which indemnity already received has been selected? 
 Ha d you made this requirement of the Atchison, Topeka and 
 Santa Fe Company which had already received, prior to 
 1880, more lands within the indemnity limits than it had lost 
 within the granted limits, even under the Devens opinion it 
 would then have been your duty to call upon the company 
 for the surrender of the illegal excess, instead of certifying 
 an additional quantity. But no such requirement was made 
 of this or any other company ; and the rule of which you 
 make boast has been so administered that they have been 
 permitted to designate as a basis of indemnity the same land 
 lost in place which formed the basis of previous selections 
 without being designated. By this practice the same tract 
 within the granted limits has twice become the basis of an 
 indemnity selection first without being designated as such, 
 and afterwards by being so designated under your rule as 
 a second crop of indemnity for the same land. You say you 
 are sure the bearing of this rule was appreciated by the land- 
 grant railroads if not by me. I agree with you, and have 
 pointed out the reason why they appreciate it, and the man 
 ner in which they made you the instrument of their plunder. 
 If they do not thank you t^ey are strangely wanting in grat 
 itude. 
 
 I come now to some minor matters to which you refer in 
 connection with your defense. You quote the testimony of 
 
REPLIES TO HON. CARL SCHURZ. 283 
 
 the chief of the railroad division of the general land office, 
 given before a Senate committee, covering the year ending 
 December, 1881, showing that of 824 cases in which final 
 action was taken between settlers and railroad companies, 
 635 were decided in favor of the former. In parading this 
 fact your deliberate purpose is to deceive. The evidence to 
 which you refer shows that all cases considered by the de 
 partment which involve land in railroad limits are treated as 
 contested cases. This is their status, whether the railroads 
 make any actual contest or not. There are, of course, many 
 tracts within railroad limits so clearly excepted from the 
 grant that the companies themselves concede the rights of 
 settlers, and these cases, as you well know, are always more 
 numerous than those of a doubtful character which lead to 
 litigation, because settlers, as a rule, have not the means to 
 carry on contests, and rarely, if ever, undertake to do so if 
 the rulings of the department are against them in the begin 
 ning. As there is nothing in the evidence to which you 
 refer to show that any actual contests were made in any of 
 the 635 cases referred to, the fact you present is wholly irrel 
 evant, and could only have been stated to mislead. But even 
 if these cases had been actual contests it could not affect the 
 showing made in my article, which related to the general 
 administration of the land department for a long series of 
 years. What I said is fully supported by the sworn testi 
 mony of capable and experienced land office officials, as 
 given before the Senate Committee on Public Lands of the 
 last Congress, and printed with the report of that committee, 
 which is numbered 362. One of these witnesses is now the 
 chief law clerk of the general land office, and knows ten 
 fold more about its practical affairs than yourself, and if you 
 had consulted his testimony you would have made no denial 
 of my statement. 
 
 You complain that in criticising your action I did not 
 mention some of your decisions adverse to the railroads. If 
 you made any such decisions I have nothing to do with them. 
 My task was to show that for nearly a third of a century the 
 
284 CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS. 
 
 land department, to a very great extent, has been the servant 
 of the railroads and not of the people. This I demonstrated, 
 and in doing so I necessarily involved you in my general in 
 dictment. 
 
 You refer to a noted case in which you decided, in 1878, 
 that where the act making a grant of land to a railroad com 
 pany provided that all the land so granted "which shall not 
 be sold or disposed of by said company within three years 
 after the entire road shall have been completed shall be sub 
 ject to settlement and preemption like other lands, at a price 
 not to exceed $"1.25 per acre, to be paid to the company," 
 the provision meant that all lands not actually sold by the 
 company three years after the completion of the road should 
 be thrown open to settlement under the preemption law. 
 You say this decision covered six land-grant roads, and that 
 it turned over to settlers many millions of acres, but that 
 "the railroad corporations" rushe d at you with urgent ap 
 plications for a reconsideration of your decision, which you 
 refused. You say the corporations then went before the 
 courts and finally obtained a decision that under the "loose 
 wording" of the granting acts the mortgage of the granted 
 lands was a disposition of them within the meaning of the 
 law, and that this decision was the "keenest disappoint 
 ment" you suffered while at the head of your department. 
 This sounds pretty well. It seems to indicate that at this 
 early period of your administration you really had a spasm 
 of virtue. I hope you had, but it was so momentary and 
 sporadic, and stands out in such strange contrast with the 
 whole current of your official action that I strongly suspect 
 you were playing a mere game of official clap-trap. Let me 
 analyze it for a moment, and let the reader judge. Notwith 
 standing the keenness of your disappointment when you 
 found that your attempt to rescue the settlers in the case 
 from the clutches of "six of the land-grant roads" had 
 failed, you promptly recalled your decision and excused the 
 court on the ground of the "loose wording" of the statute. You 
 meekly and lovingly conformed your action to a ruling which 
 
REPLIES TO HON. CARL SCHURZ. 285 
 
 handed over to the railways millions of acres, with the for 
 tunes of the men whose just right to them no one could dis 
 pute ; and although this decision at once gave rise to a de 
 cided difference of opinion and had to run the gauntlet of 
 legal criticism and popular condemnation, it never occurred 
 to you to call on the Attorney-General for his advice, or even 
 to hesitate a moment in your course. 
 
 But when this same court, in the case of the United 
 States v. The Leavenzuorth, Lawrence and Galveston Railroad 
 Company, gave a decision by which millions of acres of the 
 public domain could be snatched from the illegal control of 
 the railways and awarded to settlers, you repudiated its au 
 thority by following the advisory opinion of Attorney-Gen 
 eral Devens, which you now attempt to whitewash. In this 
 you simply repeat your action in January, 1879, * n tne case 
 of Beck et al. v. The Central Pacific Railroad Company, in 
 which you followed a shameful ruling of Secretary Delano 
 and disregarded the decision of the Supreme Court in the 
 case of Nezvhall v. Sanger, which would have saved the 
 homes of a multitude of settlers who have been turned adrift 
 at the bidding of railway corporations. Your reverence for 
 the Supreme Court is thus made to depend upon the party 
 who profits by its decision, while you sacrifice to the railways 
 both conscience and consistency. They have evidently 
 "rushed at" you, and you have succumbed; for with the 
 single exception of your apocryphal ruling in the Dudymott 
 case I have not been able to find a decision against railroad 
 companies, except such as were based upon decisions of your 
 predecessors which had become precedents in the depart 
 ment before you became secretary. I have found no case 
 in which you have attempted to modify the rulings of any of 
 your predecessors in the interest of settlers and against the 
 claims of railroad companies, while in several instances you 
 have modified previous rulings in their interest and against 
 the claims of settlers. 
 
 You did this in December. 1878, in your ruling in the 
 well-known case of Gates v. The California and Oregon 
 
286 CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS. 
 
 Railroad Company, under which a large number of settlers 
 lost their homes during the four years it was in force. But, 
 as I have before stated, the doctrine of that case was set 
 aside as unsound in December last by Secretary Teller, and 
 much to his credit. So in the case of Serrano v. The Union 
 Pacific Railroad Company, in July, 1879, y ou overruled your 
 predecessors in the interest of the railways, by which many 
 settlers lost their claims before your decision was set aside 
 in December, 1881, by Secretary Kirkwood. In April, 1879, 
 in the case of Kniskern v. The Hastings and Dakota Railroad 
 Company, involving the interpretation of the soldiers home 
 stead law, you overruled the decision of your predecessors, 
 thit a soldier s entry, while existing on the records, operates 
 to reserve the land from a railroad grant under the general 
 rule of law applicable to all homestead entries. Many sol 
 diers lost their claims under this ruling, which prevailed 
 until the I2th of February last, when Secretary Teller, in the 
 case of Julia D. Graham v. The Hastings and Dakota Rail 
 road Company, substantially overruled your decision and re 
 instated that of your predecessors. To these singular sam 
 ples of your loving kindness for settlers, and your hostility 
 to the railways I may add your decision in January, 1879, ^ n 
 the case of Beck et al. v. The Central Pacific Railroad Com 
 pany, under which the lands of a large number of settlers 
 on a reserved Mexican grant were awarded to railways 
 without any warrant of law, and as a part of the despicable 
 game of fast and loose played by the land department under 
 your management in behalf of these corporations, and already 
 exposed in my article in the North American Review. 
 
 As to your closing argument of "you re another," I have 
 very little to say. I was not a member of the Pacific Rail 
 road Committee which drafted the grants to which you refer, 
 and whose "loose wording" you think caused so much mis 
 chief. As a member of the House Committee on Public 
 Lands I did everything in my power to curb the recklessness 
 and extravagance of land grants and to guard the rights of 
 settlers by adequate provisions. When you attempt to make 
 
REPLIES TO HON. CARL SCHURZ. 287 
 
 me responsible, not only for the passage of the various grant 
 ing acts, but for the particular phraseology of every act and 
 every clause contained in it, your picture of my parliamen 
 tary omnipotence is so splendid that I confess myself a little 
 dazzled by it. You have a poetical turn of mind. But if 
 what you say were the exact truth it could not justify you in 
 abetting the theft of .millions of acres of the people s patri 
 mony which should be awarded to settlers at the minimum 
 rate, instead of being made the spoil of greedy corporations 
 and sold at rates to be fixed by themselves under the legal 
 ized system of blackmail sanctioned by your official acts. 
 
 I think I have now disposed of you entirely. In the light 
 of the facts I have stated, and supported by proof, it seems 
 utterly incredible that you presided over the great home de 
 partment of the government for four years ; and the fact that 
 the country has survived your administration is a fresh illus 
 tration of the power of republican institutions to withstand the 
 most deadly assaults. With due respect, 
 
 GEO. W. JULIAN. 
 HON. CARL SCHURZ. 
 
 [ New York Sun.] 
 
 HON. CARL SCHURZ Sir: Your first open letter to me 
 in reply to my article in the North American Review was the 
 product of a whole month s incubation, and in the labor of 
 bringing it forth you were assisted by Mr. Marble, your 
 legal adviser, and other official and personal friends in. the 
 Interior Department. That you were proud of your work 
 was made evident by the amusing strut of self-complacency 
 with which it was offered to the public, while it revealed your 
 perfect and child-like innocence of any knowledge of the 
 questions you had undertaken to discuss. It really seemed 
 a little cruel to unroof your charming little Paradise of shal- 
 lowness and self-conceit, and publicly impale you on your 
 ignorance ; but you invited me to the task and I performed 
 it thoroughly in my letter in the World. On every question 
 
288 CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS. 
 
 of fact and law involved in the controversy you were com 
 pletely driven to the wall, and every man who read your let 
 ter and my reply knows it. You, yourself, with all your le 
 gal thickheadedness, felt it, and what you would do in your 
 distressing dilemma became the conundrum alike of your 
 friends and your enemies. Silence on your part, however, 
 was death, and as nothing could be worse than that, you de 
 termined upon another public appearance, and through the 
 sweat and toil of another month you struggled to find your 
 way out of the ditch in which I had compelled you to meas 
 ure your length. We now have you posturing before the 
 country in act second of your interesting drama as ex-Secre 
 tary of the Interior, and my only hope as to your mental con 
 dition is inspired by the glimmer of light which seems to 
 have dawned upon you at the close of your letter, where you 
 say that this is your last attempt to defend your official con 
 duct. 
 
 I must, however, give you some credit as to this farewell 
 address. It is quite clear that you have found a new set of 
 advisers, and that your final effort is the only one which af 
 forded you the faintest shadow of deliverance. Believing 
 that by this time the unmanageable facts on which I brought 
 you to your disagreeable reckoning are forgotten, and pre 
 tending innocently to ignore them as if you had never wres 
 tled with them or even heard of them, you start out upon a 
 new line of defense ; and by putting into my mouth state 
 ments I never made, and then valorously bombarding your 
 man of straw, and drawing upon your imagination both for 
 your facts and embellishment, you seek to make your escape 
 through the fog thus created for the bewilderment of your 
 readers. In your extremity you play the game of the cuttle 
 fish, which, when pursued, throws out a blackish, dirty 
 liquid, that so darkens the water as to afford him the chance 
 to evade his pursuers. Let me see if I can drive you from 
 your castle of mud, and once more hold your nose to the 
 grindstone while I turn it. 
 
 You say I accuse you of "having devised some develish 
 
REPLIES TO HON. CARL SCHURZ. 289 
 
 machinery for conveying to railroad companies lands which 
 do not belong to them." You purposely misstate the case. 
 You simply perverted to base ends, in the interest of the 
 railways, machinery already in existence, and which had 
 been created for a totally different purpose. My charge was 
 that certified lists of lands, issued to railroad companies 
 merely in the nature of information, without any intention of 
 conveying title, and before the lands had been earned, were 
 decided by you to have conveyed a complete legal title, 
 which was in all respects equivalent to a patent. This, at 
 first, you indignantly denied ; but you proceeded at once to 
 admit it by pleading in confession and avoidance. You at 
 tempted to defend yourself on the ground that the act of May 
 15, 1856, specifically provided that complete legal title should 
 be conveyed to the state and the company by certified lists, 
 and "in no other way." But I totally demolished that de 
 fense by showing that that act contains no such provision, 
 and that the title passed to all the lands embraced in it by the 
 granting clause itself. You further sought to defend your 
 conduct by citing the act of Congress of August 3, 1854, 
 as your justification ; but I demonstrated by that act itself 
 and your own authorities that your decision was totally un 
 warranted, and that the lists which pretended to convey the 
 lands in question were "perfectly null and void." You next 
 cited in your defense the decision of Judge Dillon, in the case 
 of Drury v. Hollenbeck, and a decision of your predecessor 
 in the case of Andrew L. Bell v. The Chicago Rock Island 
 and Pacific Railroad Company; but I pinioned you on the 
 unfortunate fact that neither of these decisions warranted 
 your ruling, while both condemned it. You thus confessed 
 my charge to be true, while you utterly broke down in your 
 attempt to defend yourself. If you had been an honest man, 
 or even possessed of honest tendencies, you would have 
 frankly acknowleged these blunders when I exposed them. 
 You especially owed this duty to yourself, if the Assistant 
 Attorney-General, who wrote your opinion, misled you ; but 
 with the characteristic effrontery of a hired flunkey of the 
 
290 
 
 CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS. 
 
 railways, you now brazenly reaffirm your uncovered false 
 hoods. You incorporate into your code of morals the phi 
 losophy of Sam Patch, and hold that some things may be 
 said as well as others. Your tactics suggest the lines of the 
 poet : 
 
 How full of weight, how strong, how bold, 
 The big round lie with manly courage told. 
 
 But your gifts in the field of fiction are not more resplen 
 dent than your genius for wriggling. Referring to my posi 
 tion that the granting clause of the act of 1856 conveys the 
 fee-simple title to the lands in dispute, you ask, "Was not 
 the road entitled to the lands in question? " Let me remiud 
 you, my dear Mrs. Candor, that this is not the point on 
 which I arraigned you. Of course the road was entitled to 
 the lands covered by the grant, subject to its conditions and 
 the rights of settlers. What you decided was, that the lands 
 were conveyed by the certified lists, and could be conveyed 
 "in no other way ; " and under cover of this decision hun 
 dreds of thousands of acres of the public domain have been 
 illegally awarded to the railway companies before they were 
 earned, although the opinion of Attorney-General Black, 
 under which the lists were issued, declared that they could 
 convey no title, and were only issued as mere information. 
 You intentionally converted that opinion into the " devilish 
 machinery" for plundering the public domain. This is what 
 you did, and you are the only Secretary of the Interior who 
 ever so ruled. You did it without any warrant of law or 
 precedent, and in open defiance of both. You did it as the 
 minion of your masters ; and I now ask you to stand where 
 I have placed you long enough for a survey of your moral 
 lineaments. Don t wriggle, but stand up before the public 
 in the act of deliberately abetting the wholesale piracy of the 
 public lands through yonr official ruling in behalf of the rail 
 ways. 
 
 Let me scrutinize you a little further, while the light 
 shines on you. You at first denied ever making the decision 
 referred to, and compelled me to prove it, which I did by the 
 
REPLIES TO HON. CARL SCHURZ. 29 I 
 
 express words of the acts of Congress cited by you, and the 
 executive and judicial rulings on which you relied. In con 
 cluding and clinching this proof, I said : " There is thus no 
 controversy whatever about your action in recognizing as 
 valid the certified lists referred to ;" and you now quote this 
 language to show that you were right in a decision which you 
 deny making, and that I indorse it. You write yourself 
 down a moral pickpocket by pretending to do this innocently. 
 You seek to hide your shame under a juggle of words, and 
 blind the eyes of the public by your dissolving views." 
 You are not brainless, and therefore you knew that what I 
 meant and said was that there was no controversy about 
 your having decided the validity of these lists as a convey 
 ance. This was the very point I was debating with you, 
 while I proceeded, in the same connection, to demonstrate 
 the absolute invalidity of such lists as a conveyance of title. 
 You thus, in your own language, illustrate " the uncontrolla 
 ble propensity of hypocrites to overdo what they attempt." 
 You coolly pose as a victor in the field of your digraceful 
 defeat. Your impudence is phenomenal, while your tricki- 
 ness suggests a prospective place for you in the rogues gal 
 lery. Are you silly enough to believe you can save your 
 character by thus preaching the funeral of your own con 
 science? 
 
 Passing to your next item, you say that I charged you 
 with having "committed the crime of asking the Attorney- 
 General for legal advice in a case on which the Attorney- 
 General s opinion did not agree with your own." Why did 
 you make this statement, which not one of your readers will 
 accept as true? Could you not afford the luxury of telling 
 the truth once? What I charged was that, in the interest of 
 the railways, you gratuitously asked the opinion of the At 
 torney-General on a point which was settled. The Supreme 
 Court of the United States, in three several cases, had de 
 cided that lands already disposed of by the government can 
 not be granted to a railroad company, and so can not be the 
 basis of indemnity, for the simple reason that they have 
 
292 CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS. 
 
 never been lost by the company. The word indemnity means 
 remuneration for loss or damage incurred, and how could a 
 railroad be entitled to it if the lands for which it claims in 
 demnity were never granted? This question had been fully 
 discussed by the Supreme Court and settled. You might as 
 well have asked the Attorney-General whether two and three 
 make five. These decisions were not a mere dictum, but the 
 adjudication of a principle. You recognized this principle 
 for years, but finally succumbed to the railways by referring 
 the question, at their instance, as a doubtful one, to the At 
 torney-General, who gave you an opinion in direct conflict 
 with the ruling of the Supreme Court, and which he attempted 
 to justify by the dictum of Justice Harlan in an inferior 
 tribunal and in a case that was to be appealed to the Supreme 
 Court for final decision. Your reference to Justice Miller 
 can not help you and only harms him, while your pretence 
 that you were compelled to abide by the advice of the Attor 
 ney-General was a false one, as I proved by your own au 
 thorities in my reply to your first letter. You obeyed the 
 Attorney-General willingly and joyfully, as a part of your 
 engagement to serve the railways, and this you know quite 
 as well as well as any one else can. You even went beyond 
 the opinion of the Attorney-General by adding the words 
 "otherwise disposed of" to the specification of prior losses 
 for which indemnity might be allowed, thus greatly enlarg 
 ing the scope of the opinion, as I stated in my Review article, 
 and which statement you have admitted by failing to deny it. 
 You reiterate your pettifogging drivel about the question 
 of indemnity lands under the grant made to the Atchison, 
 Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. I fully disposed of this 
 whole matter in my former letter, showing the enormous 
 quantities of lands awarded to that road in excess of the 
 grant, through your action, and how cunningly but potently 
 you played into its hands through the machinery of a rule 
 adopted by you in the pretended interest of settlers, by 
 which large quantities of lands were made the subject of 
 their plunder. You take no notice of my exposure of these 
 
REPLIES TO HON. CARL SCHURZ. 293 
 
 facts, which leave you in far worse condition than did my 
 first charge in the North American Review. Why did you 
 skulk the whole matter? And why should I repeat what 
 you decline to notice, and thus confess to be true by your 
 default? 
 
 You repeat your twaddle about the decision of eight hun 
 dred and twenty-four cases in 1881, of which six hundred 
 and thirty-five were decided in favor of the settlers. This, 
 also, I have fully dealt with in my former letter, showing 
 that all cases in which railroads are concerned are recog 
 nized in the department as contested cases, whether any 
 actual contest is made or not, and that your figures are 
 wholly without significance in the absence of evidence show 
 ing what cases were really contested. In writing your fare 
 well letter, why did you not notice what I said? You pru 
 dently pass it all by, and yet talk about the "suppression of 
 the truth " and the " falsification of facts." As a pettifogger, 
 you make the average practitioner of that fine art exceedingly 
 respectable. 
 
 You impute to me the statement that five or six of your 
 decisions have been overruled by your successors, and say 
 there was but one. I did not say there were five or six, but 
 specified three, referring to their titles and dates ; and the 
 records of the land office sustain me. You say you have 
 inquired into the matter, and are informed by "very compe 
 tent authority" that there was but one such cnse. Why did 
 you not name your " authority? " I made my statement from 
 knowledge, and you can not gainsay it. 
 
 You again pour yourself forth on the subject of my votes 
 in Congress, and my infidelity to the poor settlers, upon 
 whom you have so lavished your love. Your return to this 
 subject after the knock-down I gave you in my first letter 
 shows how impossible it is for you to take a hint. You 
 would be glad, of course, to put me on the defensive, but I 
 am now trying you. If I should conclude at any time to de 
 fend my record it will be when some man possessing a de 
 cent character and clean hands shall make the attack. I 
 
294 
 
 CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS. 
 
 plead to your jurisdiction ; but to those of my readers who 
 belong to the present generation rather than the past, I may 
 be pardoned for the statement of a few facts. I championed 
 the policy of our homestead law years before you unloaded 
 the blessed cargo of your virtues upon our shores. In this 
 work no public man was before me. Millions of acres of the 
 public domain in the land states of the South were saved to 
 actual settlers by the southern homestead law of 1866, which 
 I reported from the House Committee on Public Lands. 
 Other millions were snatched from monopolists and thieves, 
 and turned over to settlers by efforts in which I was an ac 
 tive participant, resulting in the reform of our Indian treaty 
 system, under which lands when relinquished by a tribe had 
 long been made the spoil of railway corporations and In 
 dian rings. I took the lead in defeating monstrous schemes 
 of land bounty which threatened the complete overthrow of 
 the policy of our preemption and homestead laws. Before I 
 left Congress I secured the legislative forfeiture of a large 
 land grant in Louisiana for non-compliance with the con 
 ditions on which it was made, and did my best to se 
 cure several similar enactments, which the railway lobby 
 defeated. I am sure I was instrumental in saving large 
 areas of the public land from the clutches of monopo 
 lists through an amendment to several important land grants 
 requiring the lands to be sold to actual settlers only, 
 in quantities not greater than a quarter section to one person, 
 and for a price not exceeding $2.50 per acre. It is true that 
 during the war, and what we call "the development period," 
 I united with men of all parties in voting for most of the rail 
 road grants. The value of the lands given away was not 
 then known as it is now, while we were in the midst of a 
 struggle for national existence or grappling with the difficult 
 problems it involved. Hasty legislation was the result. The 
 need of highways to the Pacific was deemed imperative, and 
 unattainable without very large grants of land. No one then 
 dreamed of the mismanagement of these great trusts which 
 we have since witnessed, while the universal expectation was 
 
REPLIES TO HON. CARL SCHURZ. 295 
 
 that the lands would be restored to the public domain on fail 
 ure to comply with the conditions of the grants, nor did any one 
 then foresee the rapid settlement and development of our west 
 ern states and territories, through which the building of rail 
 ways would become a work of practical accomplishment with 
 out the aid of the government. I did not, however, vote for the 
 grant to the Northern Pacific Company, nor for its revival 
 after forfeiture, while I nail another of your falsehoods to the 
 counter when I tell you I voted and spoke against the Texas 
 Pacific grant, which occupies the front rank as a railway con 
 spiracy to cheat the people of the United States. 
 
 The truth is, that Congress has been far more recreant in 
 dealing with forfeited lands than in granting them in the first 
 place, while the power of these railways over our legislation 
 for years past has only been matched by their power over the 
 executive and judicial departments of the government. The 
 resulting mischiefs to the country have proceeded less from 
 the land-grant system than from its shameful mal-adminis- 
 tration by such officials as yourself since I went out of Con 
 gress in 1871. All this will be sufficiently disagreeable to 
 you by the contrast it will suggest with your own record, but 
 it will not, I hope, be offensive to the general reader. 
 
 The closing part of your letter, in which you absurdly 
 impute my long-standing hostility to railway domination to 
 the failure of the railroad kings to purchase my services, is 
 very characteristic. You judge me by yourself; but I can 
 not return the compliment thus unwittingly bestowed, for I 
 have shown that they did purchase your services, and found 
 them an exceedingly profitable investment. To their inter 
 ests you have been preeminently faithful. When I made my 
 passing allusion to you in the North American Review I did 
 not dream that the administration of your department had 
 been so thoroughly bad. If at any moment you seem to have 
 swerved from your perfect loyalty to these corporations, you 
 atoned for it so promptly, and by such unequivocal acts of 
 fidelity, as to remove all possible ground of suspicion. Your 
 devotion to them has had the quality of a religion. It is true 
 
296 CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS. 
 
 you have never been wanting in professions of devotion to 
 purity and reform. You have always mustered in the robes 
 of dignity and decency. The moral felonies of your admin 
 istration have been pretty successfully sugar-coated. In the 
 externals of your position you have, in fact, appeared re 
 markably well as a member of the Hayes administration, 
 which you aided in inflicting upon the country ; but I am 
 confident that no Secretary of the Interior since the organiza 
 tion of the department, save Jacob Thompson, has been so 
 thoroughly recreant to his trust as yourself. He made the 
 department a bureau in the service of treason, while you only 
 made it a feeder to the railways. This you did splendidly ; 
 and for the facts which justify my statements the country is 
 indebted to you for attacking my article in the North Ameri 
 can Review, and thus prompting me to lay them before the 
 people. They form a part only of your record, but they are 
 amply sufficient to strip you of your disguises and cover you 
 with shame. GEORGE W. JULIAN. 
 
THE LIMNING OF STEPHEN W. DORSET. 
 
 PUBLISHED IN VARIOUS LEADING NEWSPAPERS IN JANU 
 ARY, 1888. 
 
 In the October number of the North American Review, 
 Stephen W. Dorsey makes what he calls a "rejoinder" to 
 my article on "Land Stealing in New Mexico." I find it a 
 palpable misnomer, for he does not even attempt a reply to 
 the mass of facts which constitute my indictment against the 
 rogues of this territory. A brief notice of his performance 
 may, however, be deemed proper. In some respects Mr. 
 Dorsey is a formidable antagonist. He once held a seat in 
 the National Senate from the state of Arkansas, where he will 
 long be remembered as the genius who happily blended in 
 himself the traits both of the carpet-bagger and the scalawag. 
 He has held high places and wielded large powers as a party 
 leader. He has shown uncommon ability in exploiting the 
 mail service of the United States and eluding the hand of 
 justice. Probably no man in the Union is so thoroughly 
 acquainted with the whole business of "land stealing." In 
 this interesting field of activity I believe he has a national 
 reputation as an expert. His selection as the apologist and 
 defender of the tribe of which he is the acknowledged chief, 
 is therefore altogether appropriate, and their cause will have 
 to be abandoned as utterly hopeless if he is not able to de 
 fend it. 
 
 Mr. Dorsey damages his case in the outset by his bad 
 temper. It is not a symptom of innocence. His personal 
 abuse is too fervent and emotional. He should have remem 
 bered that the spaniel under the lash only yelps when it is 
 touchingly applied. The article to Jwhich he pretends to 
 
298 CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS. 
 
 reply was dispassionately written. I only referred to indi 
 viduals where my task made it necessary, dealing entirely 
 in facts ; and if Mr. Dorsey had kept cool, and applied him 
 self honestly to the work of answering them, he might have 
 had the sympathy, if not the respect, of the public. 
 
 He also weakens his cause by dragging party politics 
 into the discussion. He has done this without any provoca 
 tion whatever. His effort to show that Democrats, as well 
 as Republicans, are involved in the exposures I have made, 
 is not a response to anything I said. I have no dispute with 
 him on that point. My article is thoroughly non-partisan. 
 In overhauling the frauds connected with Spanish and Mex 
 ican grants in New Mexico, I struck right and left, pursuing 
 every ugly fact into its hiding-place, without the least con 
 cern as to whether it would damage this party or that. I 
 think the purpose of Mr. Dorsey in thus wandering away 
 from the real issue is perfectly transparent. He has become 
 tired of hanging on the outer-wall of politics, and hopes to 
 regain his lost place of power in the Republican party. I 
 sympathize with him in his distress, but he will find himself 
 utterly disappointed. The days of his political glory are 
 past, because, as I am convinced, the leaders and masses of 
 all parties regard him as hopelessly pilloried before the na 
 tion as a star route thief. He smells of the penitentiary, and 
 no fumigation is possible. To every honest man in the re 
 public the mention of his name suggests the striped costume 
 of the crew whose fellowship he escaped through the miscar 
 riage of public justice. 
 
 Mr. Dorsey damages his cause still more fatally by his 
 absolute recklessness in dealing with matters of fact. In 
 attacking me personally he succeeds in missing the truth in 
 every statement he makes. In pretending to give my pedi 
 gree, tor instance, he says that nearly fifty years ago I was 
 elected to office as a pro-slavery Democrat, and that, de 
 feated for re-election, I left my party. He also says that 
 after I had posed as a Free-soiler I became a conservative 
 Whig. These ridiculous statements will only provoke the 
 
THE LIMNING OF STEPHEN W. DORSEY. 299 
 
 laughter of my old friends. He knows that after beginning 
 my political life as a Whig I became a member and a leader 
 of the Free-soil party in 1848, and so continued till it was 
 merged in the Republican party in 1856 ; and that I remained 
 in that party till the Greeley campaign of 1872, when I 
 joined its fathers and founders in walking out of it on ac 
 count of its shameless misdeeds, in which Mr. Dorsey was 
 disgracefully conspicuous. He says that in my eye "there 
 was no public crime of which Ulysses S. Grant was not 
 guilty," and that to his personal knowledge I denounced 
 General Garfield at every cross-road in Indiana as a "thief," 
 a "bribe-taker," a "bribe-giver" and a "perjurer." The 
 extravagance of these statements destroys them, and Mr. 
 Dorsey knew them to be base fabrications when he penned 
 them. I have, in past years, criticised the administration of 
 General Grant and some of the acts of General Garfield, but 
 in doing so I did not appear in the role of a blackguard, in 
 which Mr. Dorsey is always a very shining figure. I refer 
 to these and kindred fabrications about myself solely as illus 
 trations of the marvelous bent of his mind towards the habit 
 of lying, and not by any means in self-defense. In this case 
 Mr. Dorsey is the defendant and culprit, and I frankly con 
 fess myself hopelessly lost if I need to be defended against 
 any conceivable charges emanating from such a source. 
 They can only tend to enthrone me in the hearts of all hon 
 est men. 
 
 He asserts that mainly through my exertions nearly four 
 hundred citizens of New Mexico have been indicted for land 
 frauds, and that every man tried has been acquitted. He 
 says, " there is not a grain or shadow of truth that there have 
 been, or are now, frauds committed to any extent in New 
 Mexico under the homestead and preemption laws." Mr. 
 Dorsey makes Gulliver respectable. As to his " four hun 
 dred citizens of New Mexico" (if there were so many), he 
 knows that I had nothing whatever to do with their indict 
 ment, and that this was the work of the grand juries, aided 
 by the district attorney and the special agents of the govern- 
 
3OO CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS. 
 
 ment. He knows, also, that quite a number of these men 
 were convicted, and that the great body of them escaped 
 solely through the saving grace of the statute of limitations, 
 which innocent men would not have pleaded. The proof of 
 their guilt was ample, and no man knows this better than 
 Mr. Dorsey, who is exceedingly familiar with the work of 
 acquiring title to the public lands through the perjury and 
 subornation of perjury of scullions and dummies employed 
 for this service. In this prostitution of our land laws to the 
 base uses of theft and plunder, I do not speak at random, 
 but on the authority of ascertained facts. I shall only refer 
 to the proceedings of a single term of the United States 
 Court, held in Santa Fe, last spring. 
 
 On the trial of numerous parties for perjury and suborna 
 tion of perjury in procuring land titles, and conspiracy to de 
 fraud the government through the corrupt use of our land 
 laws, eighty-eight persons availed themselves of the statute 
 of limitations, and thus confessed their guilt. The testimony 
 developed the fact that many of these men had been paid 
 from five to ten dollars each to sign certain title papers, and 
 that they never saw the land and never attempted to occupy 
 or improve it, while the men who hired them to swear falsely 
 sold the tracts to an Iowa cattle company. All this is well 
 known to Mr. Dorsey, and that these men would not have 
 escaped the penitentiary if the Republican officials of the ter 
 ritory had done their duty in securing indictments in season. 
 But Mr. Dorsey says "there is not a grain or shadow 01 
 truth" in the charge that land frauds have been committed 
 in New Mexico to "any extent." In speaking of an accom 
 plished scoundrel of the last century, Thomas Carlyle says 
 " there was not truth enough in him to make a real lie of." 
 I suspect that Mr. Dorsey is his lineal descendant. 
 
 But hear him further. In speaking of the right of the 
 citizen to take 160 acres of land, and pay for it as designated 
 by law, at the rate of $1.25 per acre, he says : " The person 
 entering this land must swear that he is doing it for his own 
 use and benefit, and not with the view of selling it," This 
 
THE LIMNING OF STEPHEN W. DORSEY. 30! 
 
 is true ; but in the cases just cited, which are mere samples 
 of New Mexican frauds, the men who pretended to enter 
 their tracts swore falsely, and the lands passed at once into 
 the clutches of a cattle company, just as Mr. Dorsey is well 
 understood to have secured the title to his lands on the Una 
 de Gato grant, and he defends this disgraceful perversion of 
 the preemption law. He says : "Before the title passes to 
 the preemptor he pays the government the price of the land," 
 and that "the government is not defrauded." It is true the 
 government does not lose the price of the land, and, there 
 fore, according to this logic, if Mr. Dorsey can hire one 
 hundred middle-men for a few dollars each to acquire that 
 many quarter sections of land by perjury, and convey them 
 to him, it is a legitimate business. The preemption law, it 
 is true, only permits one person to acquire 160 acres of land, 
 but on the Dorsey plan he can acquire 100,000, and that law 
 thus becomes the instrument through which the great curse 
 of monopoly, which it was designed to prevent, is fascened 
 upon the country. Everybody knows that the preemption 
 law subordinates the question of revenue to the policy of ac 
 tual settlement and tillage in small homesteads. When it 
 was passed, in 1841, the treasury was full to overflowing 
 from the proceeds of sales of the public lands in large bodies 
 for speculative purposes, thus fatally hindering the settlement 
 and development of the country. After a long wrangle in 
 Congress, our ugly " surplus" was divided among the states, 
 and we entered upon a new dispensation, inspired by the 
 purpose thereafter to dedicate the public lands to the use of 
 landless men who would personally appropriate them in 
 in limited allotments. Not revenue, but the settlement of the 
 lands was the dominating idea ; and this was afterwards still 
 more strongly emphasized in the passage of the homestead 
 law. But the moral vision of Mr. Dorsey sees nothing wrong 
 in nullifying both these laws, and making them the engines 
 of monopoly and robbery, through the detestable agencies 
 of bribery and perjury. As I have shown, he denies, abso 
 lutely, that any frauds have been committed under them in 
 
3O2 CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS. 
 
 New Mexico, and then brazenly defends the very villainies 
 I have charged upon him and his kind. Such is the gospel 
 of "land stealing," according to St. Stephen. It is Dorsey- 
 ism, pure and simple, in its unveiled ghastliness ; and I turn 
 away irom it, and mercifully draw the curtain over it, while 
 I proceed with my task. 
 
 He asserts that I have charged the Supreme Court of the 
 United States with joining hands with the plunderers of the 
 public domain. There is not a sentence or word in my arti 
 cle which can be tortured into any such meaning, and Mr. 
 Dorsey, who carefully read it for the purpose of reply, knows 
 this to be true. 
 
 He says that my article implies that all the Secretaries 
 of the Interior, from 1861 to 1885, a ^ tne Commissioners of the 
 General Land Office, and all my predecessors in office, were 
 dishonest and corrupt men. This statement is a gross ex 
 aggeration, and it is, moreover, a mere begging of the ques 
 tion. Quite a number of the officials referred to are involved 
 in my exposure, and the records of the government will iden 
 tify them. Are my facts authentic? Mr. Dorsey makes no 
 attempt to controvert them, which he certainly would have 
 done if he had been able, but with uplifted hands and the 
 whine of a convict, begs that the officials whom I have ar 
 raigned as his accomplices shall be shielded from the right 
 of search ! 
 
 Mr. Doi sey says the Committee on Public Lands of the 
 House of Representatives, during the time I was its chairman, 
 reported favorably bills granting land to railroad corpora 
 tions covering more than half of all the land granted to rail 
 roads in the United States, which bills passed Congress as a 
 result of such report. In these statements he does not refer 
 to the vast areas granted to our great trans-continental rail 
 ways, respecting which he makes no charges against me. 
 He speaks only of the fertile lands granted in Illinois, Iowa, 
 and other Western states, which were not granted to railroad 
 corporations at all, but to the states themselves. The entire 
 aggregate of these lands was a small fraction only of the 
 
THE LIMNING OF STEPHEN W. DORSEY. 303 
 
 many millions granted to our Pacific railways by bills re 
 ported from the Committee on Pacific Railroads, and not by 
 the Committee on Public Lands. Mr. Dorsey should also 
 have remembered that, even as to these moderate grants for 
 which he holds me responsible, I had only one vote as a 
 member of the committee, a majority of which made the re 
 port, and that I could not, of course, be made responsible for 
 the action of the two houses of Congress on the passage of 
 the bills reported. Moreover, Mr. Dorsey, himself, says the 
 land grants in these cases " were for the best interests of the 
 whole country," and thus defends my action. But, let me 
 admit, for the sake of the argument, that some of my votes 
 are indefensible. Does that prove that he is not a land- 
 stealer? 
 
 Mr. Dorsey further holds me responsible for the provision 
 in all our railroad grants, compelling the settlers on the re 
 served sections to pay $2.50 per acre for their lands instead 
 of the ordinary price, $1.25 per acre. He says I "thus 
 added more than two hundred millions of dollars to the bur 
 den of the settlers who sought homes along the proposed 
 lines of the railway," while I put an additional "two hundred 
 millions of dollars into the pockets of the railroad lobby." I 
 think I am safe in saying that this example of parliamentary 
 almightiness has no parallel in the annals of the civilized 
 world. Both houses of Congress and the President of the 
 United States were my playthings, and my dialbolism had 
 full sweep from 1850, when the first land grant was made, 
 till I left Congress in 1871 ! Such flashes of imbecility are 
 really somewhat dazzling and spectacular, but life is too 
 short to be wasted in a fight with dissolving views. 
 
 I must not conclude these illustrations of the ethical side 
 of Mr. Dorsey s character without noticing the display he 
 makes of himself in connection with the Una de Gato grant, 
 in which he is personally involved. This is what I said on 
 that subject in my article : 
 
 "The area of this grant, according to Mr. Dorsey^its 
 claimant, was nearly 600,000 acres. It was reserved from 
 
304 CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS. 
 
 settlement, and is so reserved to-day by the act of 1854 > 
 when the forgery of the grant was demonstrated in 1879, 
 he thought it unsafe to rely upon that title, he determined to 
 avail himself of the homestead and preemption laws. This 
 he could not legally do, because the land was reserved ; but 
 the Commissioner of the General Land Office was touched 
 by his misfortune, and in defiance of law ordered the land to 
 be surveyed and opened to settlement. Mr. Dorsey, who 
 was already in possession of thousands of acres of the choic 
 est lands in the tract, at once sent out his squads of hench 
 men, who availed themselves of the forms of the preemption 
 and homestead laws in acquiring pretended titles, which were 
 conveyed to him according to arrangements previously agreed 
 upon. No record of this unauthorized action of the Com 
 missioner is to be found in the land office. What was done 
 was done verbally, and in the dark, and nothing is now 
 known of the transaction but the fact of its occurrence, and 
 the intimate relations then existing between Mr. Dorsey and 
 the Commissioner and his chief of surveys. Of course, he and 
 his associates in this business have no title to the lands thus 
 acquired, and their entries should be cancelled, not only be 
 cause the land was reserved from sale by act of Congress, 
 but because the entries were fraudulently made, as will be 
 shown by investigations now in progress." 
 
 These are exactly the facts as shown by official docu 
 ments. Now, how does Mr. Dorsey answer me? Upon in 
 vestigating the title of this grant he says he become satisfied 
 that it was fraudulent. When did he make this investiga 
 tion, and reach this conclusion? The records of my office 
 and of the interior department give no answer to the ques 
 tion. They do not show that he ever made an investigation, 
 but the contrary. He says he wrote to the Hon. Carl Schurz, 
 then Secretary of the Interior, stating substantially all the 
 facts in his possession respecting the grant, and asked him to 
 send a special agent to make a careful investigation, and 
 turned over to the Secretary all the papers in his possession. 
 Unfortunately for Mr. Dorsey, these statements are unsup- 
 
THE LIMNING OF STEPHEN W. DORSEY. 305 
 
 ported by the records of the land department, and contra 
 dicted by them. They show that he persisted in his claim 
 for years following the first agitation of the validity of his 
 title, and up to January, 1879, when the forgery of the grant 
 was demonstrated. He did nothing whatever in instigat 
 ing the inquiry which led to this demonstration, which in 
 quiry was set on foot by Lewis Kingman and Henry W. 
 Arms in the year 1877. The papers show that he was dis 
 pleased with their intermeddling with his title, and that it 
 was solely at the instance of these men that the land office 
 directed an investigation to be made. In the light of these 
 facts the reader can judge for himself as to Mr. Dorsey s 
 reverence for the truth when he says: "I exposed the 
 fraudulent nature of the grant with which Mr. Julian at 
 tempted to link my name unfavorably!" The audacity of 
 this statement is fascinating. It is charmingly satanic, and it 
 settles the fact that Mr. Dorsey, in his way, is a genius. 
 
 But he says he applied to the Secretary of the Interior to 
 have the land within the bounds of this fraudulent grant 
 thrown open for settlement, and that it was done according 
 ly. This is what I said in my article ; but I stated, further, 
 that the land department had no power to do this. One Sur 
 veyor-General had pronounced the grant valid, and another 
 had declared it to be a forgery. Congress alone could de 
 termine the question, and the land was absolutely reserved 
 by law in the meantime. Secretary Schurz and Commis 
 sioner Williamson knew this perfectly, and for this reason, 
 doubtless, no written order for the survey and sale of these 
 lands was made, and the business was done " in the dark." 
 
 Nor is there any mystery about this action. Mr. Dorsey 
 was then a power in politics. He had neared the summit of 
 his remarkable ascendency. It was in the following year 
 (1880) that his genius lighted the way to a national victory 
 for the Republicans, for which he was banqueted and lion 
 ized as " the Napoleon who carried Indiana." When such 
 a man wanted the Republican officials of the land department 
 to violate the law to enable him to appropriate a large body of 
 20 
 
306 CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS. 
 
 public lands in furtherance of his rapacity, they did not dare 
 say no, and the robbery "was done." Mr. Dorsey knows 
 all this, but makes no defense. He admits the action of the 
 land department, in response to his request, but stands mute 
 as to its illegality. He knows, and so do Carl Schurz and 
 J. A. Williamson, that that action was totally unauthorized 
 and sneakingly performed, and that the lands acquired by 
 him and his allies under an illegal order now rightfully be 
 long to the United States. In these statements I am sup 
 ported by the records of the government, and no lawyer will 
 attempt to controvert them. In such a dilemma as this, Mr. 
 Dorsey should have remained silent, both on his own account 
 and in the interest of parties claiming title under him. 
 
 Mr. Dorsey concludes his paper with a digression upon 
 the water supply of New Mexico, and its "physical phenom 
 ena of climate and topography ; " and he insists that with 
 very slight exceptions the land is fit only for grazing and 
 mining. This is not the conclusion of a disinterested ex 
 plorer and devotee of science, after patient investigation, but 
 the plea of a land stealer, seeking to make the physical pe 
 culiarities of the country the scape-goat of his sins. The 
 wayfaring man, though a fool, can see this. If he could 
 make the public believe that New Mexico is worthless for 
 agriculture, it would go far to exonerate him from the charge 
 of robbing the government and plundering poor settlers 
 through the machinery of the homestead and preemption 
 laws. It would also tend to smooth his way to still more for 
 midable schemes of robbery as a great cattle king, through 
 which he and his confederates could trample down and crush 
 out both the stock-grower of small means and the home 
 steader, and thus bring the people of the territory more com 
 pletely under the yoke of a grand Brotherhood of Thieves. 
 The trouble with Mr. Dorsey is that he believes the people 
 too stupid to see through the game he is playing. It does 
 not occur to him that owing to his unfortunate survival of his 
 own conscience nobody will accept either his theories or his 
 facts. Although his reputation for successful and brilliant 
 
THE LIMNING OF STEPHEN W. DORSEY. 307 
 
 rascality is continental, he impudently takes the witness 
 stand as if he expected the public would believe him. He is, 
 perhaps, the most picturesque political reprobate now on pub 
 lic exhibition ; but he seems wholly unconscious of the fact 
 that the interest felt in him is purely historic and -post-mortem, 
 and that the people only desire to get some idea of his moral 
 physiognomy, and what may be called the scenery of his ca 
 reer. I trust I have done them some service in this direc 
 tion ; but it has been the chief purpose of this paper to pene 
 trate the dry-rot of his self-complacency, and by a little 
 wholesome vivisection to help him catch at least a glimpse of 
 his real lineaments as others see them, and as indelibly 
 painted by himself in the somber pigment of his evil deeds. 
 If I have failed in these friendly offices it will be Mr. Dor- 
 sey s misfortune, and not my fault. 
 
 GEORGE W. JULIAN. 
 
WEBSTER AND ELAINE : HISTORIC JUSTICE. 
 
 [From the Magazine of Western History.] 
 
 Mr. Elaine s Twenty Years of Congress" can not fail 
 to interest men of all parties and opinions. For more than a 
 dozen years he has been the most conspicuous and idolized 
 leader of his party, as well as the most picturesque figure in 
 American politics ; and what he writes is sure to command 
 attention, whether men love him or hate him. His style is 
 always marked by clearness, vigor and animation, and some 
 times by felicitous expression. Indeed, his literary quality 
 is very remarkable for one whose life has been completely 
 absorbed in the dismal strife and turmoil of practical politics. 
 The personalities of his history are particularly attractive, 
 and the vengeance he occasionally takes upon his enemies is 
 made the more galling by the fine flavor of judicial fairness 
 with which he cunningly seeks to disguise the real animus of 
 his statements. His two bulky volumes will undoubtedly 
 play their part in the making of history and the molding of 
 men s opinions ; and to this extent it becomes a duty to ex 
 pose the more serious errors of his work. 
 
 In speaking of the course of Daniel Webster in 1850, in 
 Mr. Elaine s first volume, on pages 270-271, he uses this 
 language : 
 
 "When the Missouri Compromise was repealed and the 
 territories of the United States north of the line of thirty-six 
 degrees thirty minutes were left without slavery inhibition or 
 restriction, the agitation began which ended in the over 
 throw of the Democratic party and the election of Mr. Lin 
 coln to the Presidency of the United States. It will, there 
 fore, always remain as one of the singular contradictions in 
 the political history of the country that, after seven years of 
 almost exclusive agitation on this one question, the Republi- 
 
WEBSTER AND BLAINE I HISTORIC JUSTICE. 309 
 
 cans, the first time they had the power, as a distinctive po 
 litical organization, to enforce the cardinal article of their 
 political creeds quietly and unanimously abandoned it. 
 And they abandoned it without a word of explanation. Mr. 
 Sumner and Mr. Wade and Mr. Chandler, the most radical 
 men in the Senate on the Republican side, sat still and 
 allowed the bill to be passed precisely as reported by James 
 S. Green, of Missouri, who had been the ablest defender of 
 the Breckinridge Democracy in that body. In the House 
 Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, Mr. Owen Lovejoy, the Washburns 
 and all the other radical Republicans vouchsafed no word 
 explanatory of their extraordinary change of position. * * * 
 "If, indeed, it be fairly and frankly admitted, as was tKe 
 fact, that receding from the anti-slavery position was part 
 of the conciliation policy of the hour, and that the Republi 
 cans di4 it the more readily because they had full faith that 
 slavery would never secure a foothold in any of the territories 
 named, it must likewise be admitted that the Republican 
 party took precisely the same ground held by Mr. Webster 
 in 1850, and acted from precisely the same motives that in 
 spired the seventh of March speech. Mr. Webster main 
 tained for New Mexico only what Mr. Sumner now admitted 
 for Colorado and Nevada. Mr. Webster acted from the 
 same considerations that now influenced and controlled the 
 judgment of Mr. Seward. As matter of historic justice, the 
 Republicans who waived the anti-slavery restriction should, 
 at least, have offered and recorded their apology for any 
 animadversions they had made upon the course of Mr. Web 
 ster ten years before. Every prominent Republican senator 
 who agreed in 1861 to abandon the principle of the Wilmot 
 proviso in organizing the territories of Colorado and Nevada 
 had, in 1850, heaped reproach upon Mr. Webster for not in 
 sisting upon the same principle for the same territory. Be 
 tween the words of Mr. Seward and Mr. Sumner in the one 
 crisis, and their votes in the other, there is a discrepancy for 
 which it would have been well to leave on record an ade 
 quate explanation. The danger to the Union, in which they 
 
3IO CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS. 
 
 found a good reason for receding from the anti-slavery re 
 striction on the territories, had been cruelly denied to Mr. 
 Webster as a justifying motive. They found in him only a 
 guilty recreancy to sacred principle for the same act which in 
 themselves was inspired by devotion to the Union." 
 
 Mr. Elaine, in his second volume, returns to the subject, 
 and while skillfully using his brush in whitewashing Mr. 
 Webster, speaks with passionate emphasis of the injustice 
 done him by Republican leaders who "literally followed in 
 his footsteps" in 1861, and "should have recorded their 
 apology ; " and he declares that " it is seldom that history so 
 exactly repeats itself." 
 
 This unqualified defense of Mr. Webster s action in 1850, 
 by the great leader of the Republican party, is as remarkable 
 as his assault upon the foremost representatives of that party 
 in 1861. Let me refer to both epochs in our history and 
 point out the strange confusion of facts and confounding of 
 moral distinctions which disfigure the passages I have quoted. 
 
 The war with Mexico, which gave us California, Utah 
 and New Mexico, was instigated by the South for the pur 
 pose of extending the area of slavery ; and the question in 
 volved in the memorable crisis of 1850 was whether the an 
 cient policy of congressional restriction should be applied to 
 these territories, or surrendered at the bidding of the slave 
 interest. The domination of that interest over all the depart 
 ments of the government had been unchecked for thirty 
 years, and it was now resolutely bent upon the accomplish 
 ment of this new scheme of propagandism. The southern 
 leaders confidently believed that slavery would be established 
 in New Mexico and Utah, if not prohibited by law, and they 
 had on their side the whole power of the Federal govern 
 ment. It was of vital moment that they should be confronted 
 with absolute courage. The Northern states should have 
 been united and immovable in their purpose to secure these 
 territories for freedom and free labor. The threat of dis 
 union at that time created no alarm among the great body of 
 the people, and afforded no justification for the surrender of 
 
WEBSTER AND ELAINE : HISTORIC JUSTICE. 3! I 
 
 a fundamental principle to which all parties in the free states 
 had been solemnly committed. Mr. Elaine, in his second 
 volume, attempts to excuse Mr. Webster s conduct by saying 
 that " neither he nor any other person at that time imagined 
 the possibility of repealing the Missouri Compromise ; " but 
 the abandonment of the Wilmot proviso naturally led to that 
 event. It belonged to the logic of slavery, which made ev 
 ery concession to its demands the occasion for further exac 
 tions. It did not require Mr. Webster s grasp of mind to 
 foresee that if freedom and slavery were to have equal rights 
 in New Mexico and Utah, the same principle of non-inter 
 vention by Congress would be asserted for the territories 
 north of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes, and the Missouri 
 restriction regarded as a rock of offense which should be re 
 moved. This idea was very forcibly illustrated by the famous 
 bill of Mr. Douglas, providing governments for the territories 
 of Kansas and Nebraska. In one of its sections, the Missouri 
 Compromise of 1820 was declared to be inoperative and void, 
 because " inconsistent with the principle of non-intervention 
 by Congress with slavery in the states and territories as recog 
 nized by the compromise measures of 1850." This provision 
 was not an accident, but the obvious effect of the cause which 
 preceded and produced it. The anti-slavery leaders of that 
 day saw this clearly, and events have justified the assertion 
 that "the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was a sprout 
 from Daniel Webster s political grave;" while the absolute 
 necessity of the Wilmot proviso was demonstrated by the raid 
 into Kansas which followed its abandonment and led to the 
 tragedy of civil war. 
 
 The simple truth is that Mr. Webster s sin against the 
 clear dictates of his conscience was as undeniable as it was 
 shocking to the anti-slavery opinion of the Northern states. 
 The transparent fallacy of his new-born theory that "the law 
 of nature, the law of the formation of the earth " and " the 
 will of God " made slavery impossible in New Mexico, could 
 deceive no man having the power to think. He had himself 
 voted for the Wilmot proviso, and claimed it as his " thun- 
 
312 CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS. 
 
 der," when " the law of the formation of the earth " was just 
 as potent as on the seventh of March, 1850. He knew that 
 slavery, without much regard to soil or climate, had estab 
 lished itself wherever it had not been interdicted by positive 
 legislation, and then suborned the law into its support. He 
 could not forget that for a long time it existed in his own 
 New England, and that our fathers wisely thought it neces 
 sary to prohibit it in the Northwest territory, extending from 
 the Ohio river to the forty-ninth parallel of latitude. He 
 knew that slavery did exist in New Mexico till it was abol 
 ished by law, and that leading men of the South, quite as 
 familiar with " the law of physical geography" as himself, 
 believed it to be peculiarly adapted to slave labor. He knew 
 that able lawyers were divided in opinion on the question 
 whether the law of Mexico, abolishing slavery in that coun 
 try, would operate in the regions acquired by our conquest, 
 and that assurance should be made doubly sure by a positive 
 prohibition. He knew that of the territories acquired from 
 Mexico, 204,355 square miles were south of the line of thirty- 
 six degrees thirty minutes, and in the latitude of Virginia and 
 the Carolinas. It does not help the case in the least to say 
 that slavery, in fact, did not secure a footing in New Mexico, 
 because this fortunate circumstance was not the result of any 
 law of the formation of the earth," but of resistless moral 
 forces and the strange drift of subsequent events which no 
 man in 1850 could possibly foresee. That this famous speech 
 was Mr. Webster s bid for southern support for the Presi 
 dency was still more conclusively demonstrated during the 
 two following years, in his contemptuous flings at the higher 
 law, his unstinted abuse of " the rub-a-dub Abolitionists," 
 and his desperate and pitiable struggle in the campaign of 
 1852, in which the ingratitude of the South and his insuffer 
 able disappointment and humiliation sent him home to die of 
 a broken heart. Goaded forward by his devouring political 
 ambition in this trial hour of the republic, he deliberately 
 prostituted his matchless powers, a noble nature and the pres 
 tige of his great name to the service of slavery and the be 
 trayal of a holy cause. 
 
WEBSTER AND ELAINE : HISTORIC JUSTICE. 313 
 
 I turn now to the closing days of Congress in the spring 
 of 1861, when Sumner, Wade, and other Republican leaders 
 allowed bills to be reported for the government of Colorado 
 and Nevada without the Wilmot proviso. The fight for free 
 dom in the territories had then been won in the Kansas strug 
 gle, which proved the Armageddon of the great conflict. 
 Lincoln had been elected, and the administration could no 
 longer be used as the handmaid of slavery. New Mexico 
 and the other territories involved had been secured to free 
 dom by the logic of events and the madness of the south, 
 while slavery itself was fatally threatened by the great trade- 
 winds of humanity and civilization. The repeal of the Mis 
 souri restriction had proved a deadly boomerang to the slave 
 power by rousing and combining the people of the northern 
 states against it. The diabolism of the Dred Scott decision 
 strangled it in its birth, and multiplied anti-slavery men in 
 every section of the non-slaveholding states. The appeal of 
 the south from political aciion to the bayonet was itself a con 
 fession that slavery had been baffled and finally overborne, 
 and that having sown the wind it must now reap the whirl 
 wind in the desperate refuge of secession as its only hope. 
 The danger of disunion, moreover, was now no longer a 
 distant and debatable question, as in 1850, but was imminent. 
 The dispensation of "southern bluster" was ended, and the 
 work of dismemberment had actually begun. The Repub 
 lican leaders were brought face to face with the catastrophe 
 of civil war ; and the policy of passing territorial bills with 
 out the inhibition of slavery, which could serve no practical 
 purpose whatever, was favored as one of the final efforts 
 then made to conciliate the south and avert the awful calam 
 ities of civil strife. It was a palpably futile endeavor, and I 
 so regarded it at the time ; but it did not surrender a foot of 
 land to the ravages of slavery. It was a mistake, because 
 the day of conciliation had long since passed ; but it bore 
 witness to the humanity of the men who recoiled from the 
 alternative of war, and who yet clung to the hope, though 
 vainly, that it might be averted. The honesty and purity of 
 
314 CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS. 
 
 their motives were never called in question, and Mr. Elaine 
 himself admits that congressional restriction was then un 
 necessary, and that their action was altogether patriotic." 
 In the light of these plain facts of history, the untenable- 
 ness of Mr. Elaine s statements will be clearly seen. He 
 speaks of the abandonment of the " cardinal article" of the 
 Republican creed by Sumner, Wade, Stevens, Lovejoy and 
 others, without a word of explanation. But no explanation 
 was needed, because the "cardinal article" was not aban 
 doned. He speaks of the "extraordinary change of posi 
 tion" of these distinguished leaders : but there was no change 
 in their "position," but only in the state of the country 
 since the year 1850, and the altered attitude of the slavery 
 question which it produced. He says: "The Republican 
 party took precisely the same ground held by Mr. Webster 
 in 1850, and acted from precisely the same motives that in 
 spired the 7th of March speech ; " but the facts in the case 
 show that the Republican leaders of 1861 were perfectlv 
 justified in regarding the Wilmot proviso as then unnecessary, 
 and that their motives in what they did were unquestionably 
 patriotic ; while it is also shown that the Wilmot proviso in 
 1850 was necessary, and that Mr. Webster s motives in sur 
 rendering it were as unpatriotic and sinister as the result of 
 his act was calamitous. Mr. Elaine says that, "as a matter 
 of historic justice, the Republicans who waived the anti- 
 slavery restriction should, at least, have offered and recorded 
 their apology for any animadversions they had made upon 
 the course of Mr. Webster ten years before." But I have 
 shown that no apology was called for, because no wrong had 
 been done him, and I submit that, "as matter of historic 
 justice," Mr. Elaine should apologize for his inexcusable 
 assault upon the bravest and best men among the founders 
 of his party, and his despicable defense of Mr. Webster at 
 their expense. He says, "Between the words of Mr. Sew- 
 ard and Mr. Sumner in the one crisis, and their votes in the 
 other, there is a discrepany for which it would have been 
 well to leave on record an adequate explanation." But the 
 
WEBSTER AND ELAINE : HISTORIC JUSTICE. 315 
 
 facts clearly show that no such discrepancy exists. He says 
 the Republican leaders in 1861 " literally followed in Mr. 
 Webster s footsteps" in 1850, and that "it is seldom that 
 history so exactly repeats itself;" but I have shown the utter 
 fallacy of these statements by the actual situation of the 
 country at the two periods, so far as the question of slavery 
 is concerned, and the contrasted action thereon of Mr. Web 
 ster on the one hand and the Republican leaders on the 
 other. 
 
 My task would be incomplete if I did not add that this 
 defense of Daniel Webster destroys itself by proving too 
 much. It dishonors Mr. Elaine s political ancestry, and 
 places him in an exceedingly awkward predicament as a 
 leader of the Republican party. The formation of that party 
 was not an accident, nor was it the work of a day. It was a 
 development, and has a very discoverable genesis. Its pri 
 mal beginning was in the old Liberty party, and a " cardinal 
 article" of the creed of that party was the prohibition of 
 slavery in our national territories. It was a gallant little 
 band of sappers and miners who blazed the way for the 
 armies that were to follow ; but if Mr. Webster was right in 
 1850, these men were pestilent fanatics and disturbers of the 
 peace, who fairly invited the dicipline of the mob or the po 
 lice. Next came the old Free-soil party of 1848, avowing 
 the same fundamental principle. It was led by such men as 
 Adams, Sumner, Chase, Hale, Giddings, Wilson and many 
 others, whose names are now held in honorable remembrance 
 by all Republicans. According to Mr. Webster and Mr. 
 Elaine, however, they were all engaged in "a quarrel about 
 goats wool," since "the law of physical geography" and 
 "the will of God" had consecrated our national territories to 
 freedom. This party, with its honorable place in history, 
 would never have been organized but for the antecedent work 
 of the Liberty party, which was the John the Baptist of po 
 litical action against slavery ; but having fulfilled its mission 
 by preparing the way for a larger movement, better fitted to 
 accomplish its work, it was merged in the Republican 
 
3l6 CONTROVERSIAL PAPERS. 
 
 party, whose " cardinal article" of faith was that of its pre 
 decessors. But if Mr. Elaine is right in his defense of Mr. 
 Webster, the "grand old party" had no excuse for its crea 
 tion, except the work to which it was summoned in the 
 struggle to make Kansas a free state ; and it never would 
 have existed but for the proceeding organizations which pre 
 pared the way for it and made it possible, while the Kansas 
 struggle itself could never have occurred but for the aban 
 donment of the Wilmot proviso in 1850, in which the leader 
 ship of Mr. Webster was so potent a factor. I do not believe 
 that other prominent leaders of his party will be found ready 
 to join Mr. Elaine in disowning its pedigree and seeking to 
 cut the thread of history from behind it ; but if I am mis 
 taken, I can only say that they have outlived the spirit 
 which gave it birth, and are the "degenerate sons of noble 
 sires." 
 
 I need scarcely add that the defense of Mr. Webster 
 necessarily involves another fact of which Mr. Elaine seems 
 totally unconscious. It is a confession. If Mr. Webster was 
 right in 1850, Mr. Elaine would have stood by his side and 
 confronted Seward, Chase and Hale in the Senate, and their 
 allies in the House, whose labors, though they failed at the 
 time, paved the way for more comprehensive and effective* 
 action in the future. He would, of course, have opposed the 
 anti-slavery revolt of 1848. Still more would he have op 
 posed the organization of the Liberty party and the earlier 
 and more historic movement of the American Anti-Slavery 
 Society, which began its heroic work in the face of a fiercely 
 hostile public opinion, the proscription and wrath of the old 
 political parties, the equally hostile power of the American 
 Church and the mob. No man, I am sure, whose soul was 
 so moved by the wrongs of slavery as to ally himself with a 
 small and despised party in resisting such fearful odds, could 
 ever defend the seventh of March speech. It would not be 
 morally possible. He might admire Mr. Webster s "God 
 like " gifts, but he could not even dream of making him a 
 hero, still less an anti-slavery apostle. As an active and 
 
WEBSTER AND ELAINE I HISTORIC JUSTICE. 317 
 
 very zealous member of the Republican party in the days of 
 its glory, and a preacher of its doctrines long years before it 
 received the gift of life, I can not suffer the pioneers of free 
 dom and the founders of that party to he assailed without re 
 buke. In lauding the act of Mr. Webster in throwing him 
 self into the arms of the South in a great national crisis, 
 while arraigning the tried and true men who condemned his 
 recreancy, Mr. Blaine renounces his kinship with the anti- 
 slavery movement in all its historic phases. He defines his 
 position as a prudent politician and a thrifty statesman, but 
 not a reformer in any sense. He is the brilliant leader of 
 Republicanism in its modified and latter-day life, but not the 
 representative and exemplar of its fundamental principles. 
 In his account of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, he 
 breathes no word of censure against this pregnant and historic 
 surrender of freedom to the demands of slavery, but defends 
 it as "wise and patriotic." There is no conclusive evidence 
 that his devotion to the colored race rests upon any in 
 wrought principle or real sympathy, while his attitude in 
 Congress on the question of reconstruction is open to criti 
 cism, as I have heretofore shown.* As the negro has grad 
 ually made his escape from the thraldom of party politics 
 and shown his ability to take care of himself, Mr. Elaine s 
 solicitude for his welfare seems to have steadily increased. 
 Unquestionably he possesses "magnetism," great ability and 
 shining gifts ; but he is unfit to hold the scales of historic 
 justice in dealing with the anti-slavery conflict and its leaders. 
 
 GEORGE W. JULIAN. 
 
 * International Review, for August, 1879. 
 
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