1876.
I AM just on my way home from the grand old State of Maine, and there
has followed me a telegraphic dispatch which I will read to you. If it
were not good, you may swear I would not read it: "Every Congressional
district, every county in Maine, Republican by a large majority. The
victory is overwhelming, and the majority will exceed 15,000." That
dispatch is signed by that knight-errant of political chivalry, James G.
Blaine.
I suppose we are all stockholders in the great corporation known as the
United States of America, and as such stockholders we have a right to
vote the way we think will best subserve our own interests. Each one has
certain stock in this Government, whether he is rich, or whether he is
poor, and the poor man has the same interest in the United States of
America that the richest man in it has. It is our duty, conscientiously
and honestly, to hear the argument upon both sides of the political
question, and then go and vote conscientiously for the side that we
believe will best preserve our interest in the United States of America.
Two great parties are before you now asking your support--the Democratic
party and the Republican party. One wishes to be kept in power, the
other wishes to have a chance once more at the Treasury of the United
States. The Democratic party is probably the hungriest organization that
ever wandered over the desert of political disaster in the history of
the world. There never was, in all probability, a political stomach
so thoroughly empty, or an appetite so outrageously keen as the one
possessed by the Democratic party. The Democratic party has been howling
like a pack of wolves looking in with hungry and staring eyes at the
windows of the National Capitol, and scratching at the doors of the
White House. They have been engaged in these elegant pursuits for
sixteen long, weary years. Occasionally they have retired to some
convenient eminence and lugubriously howled about the Constitution.
The Democratic party comes and asks for your vote, not on account of
anything it has done, not on account of anything it has accomplished,
but on account of what it promises to do; the Democratic party can make
just as good a promise as any other party in the world, and it will
come farther from fulfilling it than any other party on this globe. The
Republican party having held this Government for sixteen years, proposes
to hold it for four years more. The Republican party comes to you with
its record open, and asks every man, woman and child in this broad
country to read its every word. And I say to you, that there is not a
line, a paragraph, or a page of that record that is not only an honor
to the Republican party, but to the human race. On every page of that
record is written some great and glorious action, done either for the
liberty of man, or the preservation of our common country. We ask every
body to read its every word. The Democratic party comes before you with
its record closed, recording every blot and blur, and stain and treason,
and slander and malignity, and asks you not to read a single word, but
to be kind enough to take its infamous promises for the future.
Now, my friends, I propose to tell you, to-night, something that has
been done by the Democratic party, and then allow you to judge for
yourselves. Now, if a man came to you, you owning a steamboat on the
Hudson River, and he wished to hire out to you as an engineer, and you
inquired about him, and found he had blown up and destroyed and wrecked
every steamboat he had ever been engineer on, and you should tell him:
"I can't hire you; you blew up such an engine, you wrecked such a ship,"
he would say to you, "My Lord! Mister, you must let bygones be bygones."
If a man came to your bank, or came to a solitary individual here to
borrow a hundred dollars, and you went and inquired about him and found
he never paid a note in his life, found he was a dead-beat, and you say
to him, "I cannot loan you money." "Why?" "Because, I have ascertained
you never pay your debts." "Ah, yes," he says, "you are no gentleman
going prying into a man's record," I tell you, my good friends, a good
character rests upon a record, and not upon a prospectus, a good record
rests upon a deed accomplished, and not upon a promise, a good character
rests upon something really done, and not upon a good resolution, and
you cannot make a good character in a day. If you could, Tilden would
have one to-morrow night.
I propose now to tell you, my friends, a little of the history of the
Republican party, also a little of the history of the Democratic party.
And first, the Republican party. The United States of America is a free
country, it is the only free country upon this earth; it is the only
republic that was ever established among men. We have read, we have
heard, of the republics of Greece, of Egypt, of Venice; we have heard of
the free cities of Europe. There never was a republic of Venice; there
never was a republic of Rome; there never was a republic of Athens;
there never was a free city in Europe; there never was a government not
cursed with caste; there never was a government not cursed with slavery;
there never was a country not cursed with almost every infamy, until the
Republican party of the United States made this a free country. It is
the first party in the world that contended that the respectable man was
the useful man; it is the first party in the world that said, without
regard to previous conditions, without regard to race, every human being
is entitled to life, to liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and it is
the only party in the world that has endeavored to carry those sublime
principles into actual effect. Every other party has been allied to
some piece of rascality; every other party has been patched up with some
thieving, larcenous, leprous compromise. The Republican party keeps
its forehead in the grand dawn of perpetual advancement; the Republican
party is the party of reason; it is the party of argument; it is
the party of education; it believes in free schools, it believes in
scientific schools; it believes that the schools are for the public and
all the public; it believes that science never should be interfered with
by any sectarian influence whatever.
The Republican party is in favor of science; the Republican party, as
I said before, is the party of reason; it argues; it does not mob; it
reasons; it does not murder; it persuades you, not with the shot gun,
not with tar and feathers, but with good sound reason, and argument.
In order for you to ascertain what the Republican party has done for us,
let us refresh ourselves a little; we all know it, but it is well enough
to hear it now and then. Let us then refresh our recollection a little,
in order to understand what the grand and great Republican party has
accomplished in the land.
We will consider, in the first place, the condition of the country when
the Republican party was born. When this Republican party was born there
was upon the statute books of the United States of America a law known
as the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, by which every man in the State of
New York was made by law a bloodhound, and could be set and hissed upon
a negro, who was simply attempting to obtain his birthright of freedom,
just as you would set a dog upon a wolf. That was the Fugitive Slave Law
of 1850. Around the neck of every man it put a collar as on a dog, but
it had not the decency to put the man's name on the collar. I said in
the State of Maine, and several other States, and expect to say it again
although I hurt the religious sentiment of the Democratic party, and
shocked the piety of that organization by saying it, but I did say then,
and now say, that the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 would have disgraced
hell in its palmiest days.
I tell you, my friends, you do not know how easy it is to shock the
religious sentiments of the Democratic party; there is a deep and pure
vein of piety running through that organization; it has been for years
spiritually inclined; there is probably no organization in the world
that really will stand by any thing of a spiritual character, at least
until it is gone, as that Democratic party will. Everywhere I have been
I have crushed their religious hopes. You have no idea how sorry I am
that I hurt their feelings so upon the subject of religion. Why, I did
not suppose that they cared anything about Christianity, but I have been
deceived. I now find that they do, and I have done what no other man in
the United States ever did--I have made the Democratic party come to the
defence of Christianity. I have made the Democratic party use what
time they could spare between drinks in quoting Scripture. But
notwithstanding the fact that I have shocked the religious sentiment
of that party, I do not want them to defend Christianity any more; they
will bring it into universal contempt if they do. Yes, yes, they will
make the words honesty and reform a stench in the nostrils of honest
men. They made the words of the Constitution stand almost for treason,
during the entire war, and every decent word that passes the ignorant,
leprous, malignant lips of the Democratic party, becomes dishonored from
that day forth.
At the same time, in 1850, when the Fugitive Slave Law was passed, in
nearly all of the Western States, there was a law by which the virtues
of pity and hospitality became indictable offences. There was a law by
which the virtue of charity became a crime, and the man who performed
a kindness could be indicted, imprisoned, and fined. It was the law of
Illinois--of my own State--that if one gave a drop of cold water, or a
crust of bread, to a fugitive from slavery, he could be indicted, fined
and imprisoned, under the infamous slave law of 1850, under the infamous
black laws of the Western States.
At the time the Republican party was born, (and I have told this many
times) if a woman ninety-nine one-hundredths white had escaped from
slavery, carrying her child on her bosom, having gone through morass and
brush and thorns and thickets, had crossed creeks and rivers, and had
finally got within one step of freedom, with the light of the North
star shining in her tear-filled eyes--with her child upon her withered
breast--it would have been an indictable offence to have given her a
drop of water or a crust of bread; not only that, but under the slave
law of 1850, it was the duty of every Northern citizen claiming to be a
free man, to clutch that woman and hand her back to the dominion of her
master and to the Democratic lash. The Democrats are sorry that those
laws have been repealed. The Republican party with the mailed hand
of war tore from the statute books of the United States, and from the
statute books of each State, every one of those infamous, hellish laws,
and trampled them beneath her glorious feet.
Such laws are infamous beyond expression; one would suppose they had
been passed by a Legislature, the lower house of which were hyenas, the
upper house snakes, and the executive a cannibal king. The institution
of slavery had polluted, had corrupted the church, not only in the
South, but a large proportion of the church in the North; so that
ministers stood up in their pulpits here in New York and defended the
very infamy that I have mentioned. Not only that, but the Presbyterians,
South, in 1863, met in General Synod, and passed two resolutions.
The first resolution read, "Resolved, that slavery is a divine
institution" (and as the boy said, "so is hell").
_Second_, "Resolved, that God raised up the Presbyterian Church, South,
to protect and perpetuate that institution."
Well, all I have to say is that, if God did this, he never chose a more
infamous instrument to carry out a more diabolical object. What more had
slavery done? At that time it had corrupted the very courts, so that in
nearly every State in this Union if a Democrat had gone to the hut of
a poor negro, and had shot down his wife and children before his very
eyes, had strangled the little dimpled babe in the cradle, there was no
court before which this negro could come to give testimony. He was not
allowed to go before a magistrate and indict the murderer; he was not
allowed to go before a grand jury and swear an indictment against the
wretch. Justice was not only blind, but deaf; and that was the idea
of justice in the South, when the Republican party was born. When the
Republican party was born the bay of the bloodhound was the music of the
Union; when this party was born the dome of our Capitol at Washington
cast its shadow upon slave-pens in which crouched and shuddered women
from whose breasts their babes had been torn by wretches who are now
crying for honesty and reform. When the Republican party was born,
a bloodhound was considered as one of the instrumentalities of
republicanism. When the Republican party was born, the church had made
the cross of Christ a whipping-post. When the Republican party was
born, courts of the United States had not the slightest idea of justice,
provided a black man was on the other side. When this party came into
existence, if a negro had a plot of ground and planted corn in it, and
the rain had fallen upon it, and the dew had lain lovingly upon it, and
the arrows of light shot from the exhaustless quiver of the sun, had
quickened the blade, and the leaves waved in the perfumed air of June,
and it finally ripened into the full ear in the golden air of autumn,
the courts of the United States did not know to whom the corn belonged,
and if a Democrat had driven the negro off and shucked the corn, and
that case had been left to the Supreme Court of many of the States in
this Union, they would have read all the authorities, they would have
heard all the arguments, they would have heard all the speeches, then
pushed their spectacles back on their bald and brainless heads and
decided, all things considered, the Democrat was entitled to that
corn. We pretended at that time to be a free country; it was a lie. We
pretended at that time to do justice in our courts; it was a lie, and
above all our pretence and hypocrisy rose the curse of slavery, like
Chimborazo above the clouds.
Now, my friends, what is there about this great Republican party? It is
the party of intellectual freedom. It is one thing to bind the hands of
men; it is one thing to steal the results of physical labor of men, but
it is a greater crime to forge fetters for the souls of men. I am a free
man; I will do my own thinking or die; I give a mortgage on my soul to
nobody; I give a deed of trust on my soul to nobody; no matter whether I
think well or I think ill; whatever thought I have shall be my thought,
and shall be a free thought, and I am going to give cheerfully, gladly,
the same right to thus think to every other human being.
I despise any man who does not own himself. I despise any man who does
not possess his own spirit. I would rather die a beggar, covered with
rags, with my soul erect, fearless and free, than to live a king in a
palace of gold, clothed with the purple of power, with my soul slimy
with hypocrisy, crawling in the dust of fear. I will do my own thinking,
and when I get it thought, I will say it. These are the splendid things,
my friends, about the Republican party; intellectual and physical
liberty for all.
Now, my friends, I have told you a little about the Republican party.
Now, I will tell you a little more about the Republican party. When that
party came into power it elected Abraham Lincoln President of the United
States. I live in the State that holds within its tender embrace the
sacred ashes of Abraham Lincoln, the best, the purest man that was
ever President of the United States. I except none. When he was elected
President of the United States, the Democratic party said: "We will not
stand it;" the Democratic party South said: "We will not bear it;" and
the Democratic party North said: "You ought not to bear it."
James Buchanan was then President. James Buchanan read the Constitution
of the United States, or a part of it, and read several platforms made
by the Democratic party, and gave it as his deliberate opinion that a
State had a right to go out of the Union. He gave it as his deliberate
opinion that this was a Confederacy and not a Nation, and when he said
that, there was another little, dried up, old bachelor sitting over in
the amen corner of the political meeting and he squeaked out: "That is
my opinion too," and the name of that man was Samuel J. Tilden.
The Democratic party then and now says that the Union is simply a
Confederacy; but I want this country to be a Nation. I want to live in
a great and splendid country. A great nation makes a great people. Your
surroundings have something to do with it. Great plains, magnificent
rivers, great ranges of mountains, a country washed by two oceans--all
these things make us great and grand as the continent on which we live.
The war commenced, and the moment the war commenced the whole country
was divided into two parties. No matter what they had been
before, whether Democrats, Freesoilers, Republicans, old Whigs, or
Abolitionists--the whole country divided into two parties--the friends
and enemies of the country--patriots and traitors, and they so continued
until the Rebellion was put down. I cheerfully admit that thousands
of Democrats went into the army, and that thousands of Democrats were
patriotic men. I cheerfully admit that thousands of them thought more of
their country than they did of the Democratic party, and they came with
us to fight for the country, and I honor every one of them from the
bottom of my heart, and nineteen out of twenty of them have voted the
Republican ticket from that day to this. Some of them came back and went
to the Democratic party again and are still in that party; I have not
a word to say against them, only this: They are swapping off
respectability for disgrace. They give to the Democratic party all the
respectability it has, and the Democratic party gives to them all the
disgrace they have.
Democratic soldier, come out of the Democratic party. There was a man in
my State got mad at the railroad and would not ship his hogs on it, so
he drove them to Chicago, and it took him so long to get them there that
the price had fallen; when he came back, they laughed at him, and said
to him, "You didn't make much, did you, driving your hogs to Chicago?"
"No," he said, "I didn't make anything except the company of the hogs on
the way." Soldier of the Republic, I say, with the Democratic party all
you can make is the company of the hogs on the way down. Come out, come
out and leave them alone in their putridity--in their rottenness. Leave
them alone. Do not try to put a new patch on an old garment. Leave them
alone. I tell you the Democratic party must be left alone; it must be
left to enjoy the primal curse, "On thy belly shalt thou crawl and dust
shalt thou eat all the days of thy life," O Democratic party.
Now, my friends, I need not tell you how we put down the Rebellion. You
all know. I need not describe to you the battles you fought. I need not
tell you of the men who sacrificed their lives. I need not tell you of
the old men who are still waiting for footsteps that never will return.
I need not tell you of the women who are waiting for the return of their
loved ones. I need not tell you of all these things. You know we put
down the Rebellion; we fought until the old flag triumphed over every
inch of American soil redeemed from the clutch of treason.
Now, my friends, what was the Democratic party doing when the Republican
party was doing these splendid things? When, the Republican party said
this was a nation; when the Republican party said we shall be free;
when the Republican party said slavery shall be extirpated from American
soil; when the Republican party said the negro shall be a citizen, and
the citizen shall have the ballot, and the citizen shall have the right
to cast that ballot for the government of his choice peaceably--what was
the Democratic party doing?
I will tell you a few things that the Democratic party has done within
the last sixteen years. In the first place, they were not willing that
this country should be saved unless slavery could be saved with it.
There never was a Democrat, North or South--and by Democrat I mean the
fellows who stuck to the party all during the war, the ones that stuck
to the party after it was a disgrace; the ones that stuck to the party
from simple, pure cussedness--there never was one who did not think
more of the institution of slavery than he did of the Government of the
United States; not one that I ever saw or read of. And so they said to
us for all those years: "If you can save the Union with slavery, and
without any help from us, we are willing you should do it; but we do not
propose that this shall be an abolition war." So the Democratic
party from the first said, "An effort to preserve this Union is
unconstitutional," and they made a breastwork of the Constitution for
rebels to get behind and shoot down loyal men, so that the first charge
I lay at the feet of the Democratic party, the first charge I make in
the indictment, is that they thought more of slavery than of liberty and
of this Union, and in my judgment they are in the same condition this
moment. The next thing they did was to discourage enlistments in the
North. They did all in their power to prevent any man's going into the
army to assist in putting down the Rebellion. And that grand reformer
and statesman, Samuel J. Tilden, gave it as his opinion that the South
could sue, and that every soldier who put his foot on sacred Southern
soil would be a trespasser, and could be sued before a Justice of the
Peace. The Democratic party met in their conventions in every State
North, and denounced the war as an abolition war, and Abraham Lincoln
as a tyrant. What more did they do? They went into partnership with
the rebels. They said to the rebels just as plainly as though they had
spoken it: "Hold on, hold out, hold hard, fight hard, until we get the
political possession of the North, and then you can go in peace."
What more? A man by the name of Jacob Thompson--a nice man and a good
Democrat, who thinks that of all the men to reform the Government Samuel
J. Tilden is the best man--Jacob Thompson had the misfortune to be
a very vigorous Democrat, and I will show you what I mean by that. A
Democrat during the war who had a musket--you understand, a musket--he
was a rebel, and during the war a rebel that did not have a musket was
a Democrat. I call Mr. Thompson a vigorous Democrat, because he had a
musket. Jacob Thompson was the rebel agent in Canada, and when he went
there he took between six and seven hundred thousand dollars for the
purpose of co-operating with the Northern Democracy. He got himself
acquainted with and in connection with the Democratic party in Ohio, in
Indiana, and in Illinois. The vigorous Democrats, the real Democrats,
in these States had organized themselves under the heads of "Sons of
Liberty," "Knights of the Golden Circle," "Order of the Star," and
various other beautiful names, and their object was to release rebel
prisoners from Camp Chase, Camp Douglass in Chicago, and from one camp
in Indianapolis and another camp at Rock Island. Their object was to
raise a fire in the rear, as they called it--in other words, to burn
down the homes of Union soldiers while they were in the front fighting
for the honor of their country. That was their object, and they put
themselves in connection with Jacob Thompson. They were to have an
uprising on the 16th of August, 1864. It was thought best to hold a few
public meetings for the purpose of arousing the public mind. They held
the first meeting in the city of Peoria, where I live. That was August
3rd, 1864. Here they came from every part of the State, and were
addressed by the principal Democratic politicians in Illinois.
To that meeting Fernando Wood addressed a letter, in which he said that
although absent in body he should be present in spirit. George Pendleton
of Ohio, George Pugh of the same State, Seymour of Connecticut, and
various other Democratic gentlemen, sent acknowledgments and expressions
of regret to this Democratic meeting that met at this time for the
purpose of organizing an uprising among the Democratic party. I saw that
meeting, and heard some of their speeches. They denounced the war as an
abolition nigger war. They denounced Abraham Lincoln as a tyrant. They
carried transparencies that said, "Is there money enough in the land to
pay this nigger debt? Arouse, brothers, and hurl the tyrant Lincoln from
the throne." And the men that promulgated that very thing are running
for the most important political offices in the country, on the ground
of honesty and reform. And Jacob Thompson says that he furnished the
money to pay the expenses of that Democratic meeting. They were all paid
by rebel gold, by Jacob Thompson. He has on file the voucher from these
Democratic gentlemen in favor of Tilden and Hendricks. The next meetings
were held in Springfield, Illinois, and Indianapolis, Indiana, the
expenses of which were paid in the same way. They shipped to one town
these weapons of our destruction in boxes labeled Sunday school books!
That same rebel agent, Jacob Thompson, hired a Democrat by the name
of Churchill to burn the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Thompson coolly
remarked: "I don't think he has had much luck, as I have only heard of a
_few_ fires."
In Indianapolis a man named Dodds was arrested--a sound Democrat--so
sound that the Government had to take him by the nape of the neck and
put him in Fort Lafayette. The convention of Democrats then met in the
city of Chicago, and declared the war a failure. There never was a more
infamous lie on this earth than when the Democratic convention declared
in 1864 that the war was a failure. It was but a few days afterward that
the roar of Grants cannon announced that a lie. Rise from your graves,
Union soldiers, one and all, that fell in support of your country--rise
from your graves, and lift your skeleton hands on high, and swear that
when the Democratic party resolved that the war for the preservation
of your country was a failure, that the Democratic party was a vast
aggregated liar. Well, we grew magnanimous, and let Dodds out of Fort
Lafayette; and where do you suppose Dodds is now? He is in Wisconsin.
What do you suppose Dodds is doing? Making speeches. Whom for? Tilden
and Hendricks--"Honesty and reform!" This same Jacob Thompson, Democrat,
hired men to burn New York, and they did set fire in some twenty places,
and they used Greek fire, as he said in his letter, and ingenuously
adds: "I shall never hereafter advise the use of Greek fire." They
knew that in the smoke and ruins would be found the charred remains of
mothers and children, and that the flames leaping like serpents would
take the child from the mothers arms, and they were ready to do it to
preserve the infamous institution of slavery; and the Democratic party
has never objected to it from that day to this. They burned steamboats,
and many men with them, and the hounds that did it are skulking in the
woods of Missouri. While these things were going on, Democrats in the
highest positions said: "Not one cent to prosecute the war."
The next question we have to consider is about paying the debt. This
is the first question. The second question is the protection of the
citizen, whether he is white or black. We owe a large debt. Two-thirds
of that debt was incurred in consequence of the action and the meanness
of the Democrats. There are some people who think that you can defer
the payment of a promise so long that the postponement of the debt will
serve in lieu of its liquidation--that you pay your debts by putting off
your creditors.
The people have to support the Government; the Government cannot support
the people. The Government has no money but what it received from the
people. It had therefore to borrow money to carry on the war. Every
greenback that it issued was a forced loan. My notes are not a legal
tender, though if I had the power I might possibly make them so. We
borrowed money and we have to pay the debt. That debt represents the
expenses of war. The horses and the gunpowder and the rifles and the
artillery are represented in that debt--it represents all the munitions
of war. Until we pay that debt we can never be a solvent nation. Until
our net profits amount to as much as we lost during the war we can never
be a solvent people. If a man cannot understand that, there is no use in
talking to him on the subject. The alchemists in olden times who fancied
that they could make gold out of nothing were not more absurd than the
American advocates of soft money. They resemble the early explorers of
our continent who lost years in searching for the fountain of eternal
youth, but the ear of age never caught the gurgle of that spring. We
all have heard of men who spent years of labor in endeavoring to produce
perpetual motion. They produced machines of the most ingenious character
with cogs and wheels, and pulleys without number, but these ingenious
machines had one fault, they would not go. You will never find a way to
make money out of nothing. It is as great nonsense as the fountain of
perpetual youth. You cannot do it.
Gold is the best material which labor has yet found as a measure of
value. That measure of value must be as valuable as the object it
measures.
The value of gold arises from the amount of labor expended in producing
it. A gold dollar will buy as much labor as produced that dollar.
[Here the speaker opened a telegram from Maine, which he
read to the audience amid a perfect tempest of applause. It
contained the following words:] "We have triumphed by an
immense majority, something we have not achieved since
1868." [The speaker resumed.] And this despatch is signed by
the man who clutched the throats of the Democrats and held
them until they grew black in the face, James G. Blaine. ***
Now, gentlemen, to pass from the financial part of this, and I will say
one word before I do it. The Republican party intends to pay its debts
in coin on the 1st of January, 1879. Paper money means probably the
payment of the Confederate debt; a metallic currency, the discharge of
honest obligations. We have touched hard-pan prices in this country, and
we want to do a hard-pan business with hard money.
We now come to the protection of our citizens. A government that cannot
protect its citizens, at home and abroad, ought to be swept from the map
of the world. The Democrats tell you that they will protect any citizen
if he is only away from home, but if he is in Louisiana or any other
State in the Union, the Government is powerless to protect him. I say
a government has a right to protect every citizen at home as well as
abroad, and the Government has the right to take its soldiers across
the State line, to take its soldiers into any State, for the purpose of
protecting even one man. That is my doctrine with regard to the power of
the Government. But here comes a Democrat to-day and tells me, (and
it is the old doctrine of secession in disguise), that the State of
Louisiana must protect its own citizens, and that if it does not, the
General Government has nothing to do unless the Governor of that State
asks assistance, no matter whether anarchy prevails or not. That is
infamous. The United States has the right to draft you and me into the
army and compel us to serve there, if its powers are being usurped. It
is the duty of this Government to see to it that every citizen has
all his rights in every State in this Union, and to protect him in the
enjoyment of those rights, peaceably if it can, forcibly if it must.
Democrats tell us that they treat the colored man very well. I have
frequently read stories relating how two white men were passing along
the road when suddenly they were set upon by ten or twelve negroes, who
sought their lives; but in the fight which ensued, the ten or twelve
negroes were killed, and not a white man hurt. I tell you it is
infamous, and the Democratic press of the North laughs at it, and Mr.
Samuel J. Tilden does not care. He knows that many of the Southern
States are to be carried by assassination and murder, and he knows that
if he is elected it will be by assassination and murder. It is infamous
beyond the expression of language. Now, I ask you which party will be
the most likely to preserve the liberty of the negro--the party who
fought for slavery, or the men who gave them freedom? These are the
two great questions--the payment of the debt, and the protection of our
citizens. My friends, we have to pay the debt, as I told you, but it is
of greater importance to make sacred American citizenship.
Now, these two parties have a couple of candidates. The Democratic
party has put forward Mr. Samuel J. Tilden. Mr. Tilden is a Democrat who
belongs to the Democratic party of the city of New York; the worst party
ever organized in any civilized country. I wish you could see it. The
pugilists, the prizefighters, the plug-uglies, the fellows that run with
the "masheen;" nearly every nose is mashed, about half the ears have
been chawed off; and of whatever complexion they are, their eyes are
nearly always black. They have fists like tea-kettles and heads like
bullets. I wish you could see them. I have been in New York every few
weeks for fifteen years; and whenever I am here I see the old banner of
Tammany Hall, "Tammany Hall and Reform;" "John Morrissey and Reform;"
"John Kelley and Reform;" "William M. Tweed and Reform;" and the
other day I saw the same old flag; "Samuel J. Tilden and Reform."
The Democratic party of the city of New York never had but two
objects--grand and petit larceny. Tammany Hall bears the same relation
to the penitentiary that the Sunday school does to the church.
I have heard that the Democratic party got control of the city when it
did not owe a dollar, and have stolen and stolen until it owes a hundred
and sixty millions, and I understand that every election they have had
was a fraud, every one. I understand that they stole everything they
could lay their hands on; and what hands! Grasped and grasped and
clutched, until they stole all it was possible for the people to pay,
and now they are all yelling for "Honesty and Reform."
I understand that Samuel J. Tilden was a pupil in that school, and that
now he is the head teacher. I understand that when the war commenced
he said he would never aid in the prosecution of that old outrage. I
understand that he said in 1860 and in 1861 that the Southern States
could snap the tie of confederation as a nation would break a treaty,
and that they could repel coercion as a nation would repel invasion. I
understand that during the entire war he was opposed to its prosecution,
and that he was opposed to the Proclamation of Emancipation, and
demanded that the document be taken back. I understand that he regretted
to see the chains fall from the limbs of the colored man. I understand
that he regretted when the Constitution of the United States was
elevated and purified, pure as the driven snow. I understand that he
regretted when the stain was wiped from our flag and we stood before the
world the only pure Republic that ever existed. This is enough for me
to say about him, and since the news from Maine you need not waste your
time in talking about him.
[A voice: "How about free schools?"]
I want every schoolhouse to be a temple of science in which shall be
taught the laws of nature, in which the children shall be taught actual
facts, and I do not want that schoolhouse touched, or that institution
of science touched, by any superstition whatever. Leave religion with
the church, with the family, and more than all, leave religion with each
individual heart and man.
Let every man be his own bishop, let every man be his own pope, let
every man do his own thinking, let every man have a brain of his own.
Let every man have a heart and conscience of his own.
We are growing better, and truer, and grander. And let me say, Mr.
Democrat, we are keeping the country for your children. We are keeping
education for your children. We are keeping the old flag floating for
your children; and let me say, as a prediction, there is only air enough
on this continent to float that one flag.
Note.--This address was not revised by the author for
publication.