1876
Delivered to the Veteran Soldiers of the Rebellion.
LADIES and Gentlemen, Fellow Citizens and Citizen Soldiers:--I am
opposed to the Democratic party, and I will tell you why. Every State
that seceded from the United States was a Democratic State. Every
ordinance of secession that was drawn was drawn by a Democrat. Every man
that endeavored to tear the old flag from the heaven that it enriches
was a Democrat. Every man that tried to destroy this nation was a
Democrat. Every enemy this great Republic has had for twenty years has
been a Democrat. Every man that shot Union soldiers was a Democrat.
Every man that denied to the Union prisoners even the worm-eaten crust
of famine, and when some poor, emaciated Union patriot, driven to
insanity by famine, saw in an insane dream the face of his mother, and
she beckoned him and he followed, hoping to press her lips once again
against his fevered face, and when he stepped one step beyond the dead
line the wretch that put the bullet through his loving, throbbing heart
was and is a Democrat.
Every man that loved slavery better than liberty was a Democrat. The
man that assassinated Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat. Every man that
sympathized with the assassin--every man glad that the noblest President
ever elected was assassinated, was a Democrat. Every man that wanted the
privilege of whipping another man to make him work for him for nothing
and pay him with lashes on his naked back, was a Democrat. Every man
that raised bloodhounds to pursue human beings was a Democrat. Every man
that clutched from shrieking, shuddering, crouching mothers, babes from
their breasts, and sold them into slavery, was a Democrat. Every man
that impaired the credit of the United States, every man that swore we
would never pay the bonds, every man that swore we would never
redeem the greenbacks, every maligner of his country's credit, every
calumniator of his country's honor, was a Democrat. Every man that
resisted the draft, every man that hid in the bushes and shot at Union
men simply because they were endeavoring to enforce the laws of their
country, was a Democrat. Every man that wept over the corpse of slavery
was a Democrat. Every man that cursed Abraham Lincoln because he
issued the Proclamation of Emancipation--the grandest paper since the
Declaration of Independence--every one of them was a Democrat. Every man
that denounced the soldiers that bared their breasts to the storms of
shot and shell for the honor of America and for the sacred rights of
man; was a Democrat. Every man that wanted an uprising in the North,
that wanted to release the rebel prisoners that they might burn down
the homes of Union soldiers above the heads of their wives and children,
while the brave husbands, the heroic fathers, were in the front fighting
for the honor of the old flag, every one of them was a Democrat. I am
not through yet. Every man that believed this glorious nation of ours
is a confederacy, every man that believed the old banner carried by our
fathers over the fields of the Revolution; the old flag carried by our
fathers over the fields of 1812; the glorious old banner carried by our
brothers over the plains of Mexico; the sacred banner carried by
our brothers over the cruel fields of the South, simply stood for a
contract, simply stood for an agreement, was a Democrat. Every man who
believed that any State could go out of the Union at its pleasure, every
man that believed the grand fabric of the American Government could
be made to crumble instantly into dust at the touch of treason, was a
Democrat. Every man that helped to burn orphan asylums in New York, was
a Democrat; every man that tried to fire the city of New York, although
he knew that thousands would perish, and knew that the great serpent of
flame leaping from buildings would clutch children from their mothers'
arms--every wretch that did it was a Democrat. Recollect it! Every man
that tried to spread smallpox and yellow fever in the North, as the
instrumentalities of civilized war, was a Democrat. Soldiers, every scar
you have on your heroic bodies was given you by a Democrat. Every scar,
every arm that is lacking, every limb that is gone, is a souvenir of a
Democrat. I want you to recollect it. Every man that was the enemy of
human liberty in this country was a Democrat. Every man that wanted
the fruit of all the heroism of all the ages to turn to ashes upon the
lips--every one was a Democrat.
I am a Republican. I will tell you why: This is the only free Government
in the world. The Republican party made it so. The Republican party took
the chains from four millions of people. The Republican party, with the
wand of progress, touched the auction-block and it became a schoolhouse.
The Republican party put down the Rebellion, saved the nation, kept the
old banner afloat in the air, and declared that slavery of every kind
should be extirpated from the face of this continent. What more? I am a
Republican because it is the only free party that ever existed. It is a
party that has a platform as broad as humanity, a platform as broad as
the human race, a party that says you shall have all the fruit of the
labor of your hands, a party that says you may think for yourself, a
party that says, no chains for the hands, no fetters for the soul.*
* At this point the rain began to descend, and it looked as
if a heavy shower was impending. Several umbrellas were put
up. Gov. Noyes--"God bless you! What is rain to soldiers"
Voice--"Go ahead; we don't mind the rain." It was proposed
to adjourn the meeting to Masonic Hall, but the motion was
voted down by an overwhelming majority, and Mr. Ingersoll
proceeded.
I am a Republican because the Republican party says this country is a
Nation, and not a confederacy. I am here in Indiana to speak, and I
have as good a right to speak here as though I had been born on this
stand--not because the State flag of Indiana waves over me--I would
not know it if I should see it. You have the same right to speak in
Illinois, not because the State flag of Illinois waves over you, but
because that banner, rendered sacred by the blood of all the heroes,
waves over you and me. I am in favor of this being a Nation. Think of a
man gratifying his entire ambition in the State of Rhode Island. We want
this to be a Nation, and you cannot have a great, grand, splendid people
without a great, grand, splendid country. The great plains, the sublime
mountains, the great rushing, roaring rivers, shores lashed by two
oceans, and the grand anthem of Niagara, mingle and enter, into the
character of every American citizen, and make him or tend to make him a
great and grand character. I am for the Republican party because it says
the Government has as much right, as much power, to protect its citizens
at home as abroad. The Republican party does not say that you have to go
away from home to get the protection of the Government. The Democratic
party says the Government cannot march its troops into the South to
protect the rights of the citizens. It is a lie. The Government claims
the right, and it is conceded that the Government has the right, to go
to your house, while you are sitting by your fireside with your wife and
children about you, and the old lady knitting, and the cat playing with
the yarn, and everybody happy and serene--the Government claims the
right to go to your fireside and take you by force and put you into the
army; take you down to the valley of the shadow of hell, put you by the
ruddy, roaring guns, and make you fight for your flag. Now, that being
so, when the war is over and your country is victorious, and you go back
to your home, and a lot of Democrats want to trample upon your rights, I
want to know if the Government that took you from your fireside and made
you fight for it, I want to know if it is not bound to fight for you.
The flag that will not protect its protectors is a dirty rag that
contaminates the air in which it waves. The government that will not
defend its defenders is a disgrace to the nations of the world. I am
a Republican because the Republican party says, "We will protect the
rights of American citizens at home, and if necessary we will march
an army into any State to protect the rights of the humblest American
citizen in that State." I am a Republican because that party allows
me to be free--allows me to do my own thinking in my own way. I am a
Republican because it is a party grand enough and splendid enough and
sublime enough to invite every human being in favor of liberty and
progress to fight shoulder to shoulder for the advancement of mankind.
It invites the Methodist, it invites the Catholic, it invites the
Presbyterian and every kind of sectarian; it invites the Freethinker;
it invites the infidel, provided he is in favor of giving to every other
human being every chance and every right that he claims for himself.
I am a Republican, I tell you. There is room in the Republican air
for every wing; there is room on the Republican sea for every sail.
Republicanism says to every man: "Let your soul be like an eagle; fly
out in the great dome of thought, and question the stars for yourself."
But the Democratic party says; "Be blind owls, sit on the dry limb of a
dead tree, and hoot only when that party says hoot."
In the Republican party there are no followers. We are all leaders.
There is not a party chain. There is not a party lash. Any man that does
not love this country, any man that does not love liberty, any man that
is not in favor of human progress, that is not in favor of giving
to others all he claims for himself; we do not ask him to vote the
Republican ticket. You can vote it if you please, and if there is any
Democrat within hearing who expects to die before another election,
we are willing that he should vote one Republican ticket, simply as a
consolation upon his death-bed. What more? I am a Republican because
that party believes in free labor. It believes that free labor will give
us wealth. It believes in free thought, because it believes that free
thought will give us truth. You do not know what a grand party you
belong to. I never want any holier or grander title of nobility than
that I belong to the Republican party, and have fought for the liberty
of man. The Republican party, I say, believes in free labor. The
Republican party also believes in slavery. What kind of slavery? In
enslaving the forces of nature.
We believe that free labor, that free thought, have enslaved the
forces of nature, and made them work for man. We make old attraction of
gravitation work for us; we make the lightning do our errands; we make
steam hammer and fashion what we need. The forces of nature are the
slaves of the Republican party. They have no backs to be whipped,
they have no hearts to be torn--no hearts to be broken; they cannot be
separated from their wives; they cannot be dragged from the bosoms of
their husbands; they work night and day and they never tire. You cannot
whip them, you cannot starve them, and a Democrat even can be trusted
with one of them. I tell you I am a Republican. I believe, as I told
you, that free labor will give us these slaves. Free labor will produce
all these things, and everything you have to-day has been produced by
free labor, nothing by slave labor.
Slavery never invented but one machine, and that was a threshing machine
in the shape of a whip. Free labor has invented all the machines. We
want to come down to the philosophy of these things. The problem of free
labor, when a man works for the wife he loves, when he works for the
little children he adores--the problem is to do the most work in the
shortest space of time. The problem of slavery is to do the least work
in the longest space of time. That is the difference. Free labor, love,
affection--they have invented everything of use in this world. I am a
Republican.
I tell you, my friends, this world is getting better every day, and the
Democratic party is getting smaller every day. See the advancement we
have made in a few years, see what we have done. We have covered this
nation with wealth, with glory and with liberty. This is the first free
Government in the world. The Republican party is the first party that
was not founded on some compromise with the devil. It is the first party
of pure, square, honest principle; the first one. And we have the first
free country that ever existed.
And right here I want to thank every soldier that fought to make it
free, every one living and dead. I thank you again and again and again.
You made the first free Government in the world, and we must not forget
the dead heroes. If they were here they would vote the Republican
ticket, every one of them. I tell you we must not forget them.
* The past rises before me like a dream. Again we are in the great
struggle for national life. We hear the sounds of preparation--the
music of boisterous drums--the silver voices of heroic bugles. We see
thousands of assemblages, and hear the appeals of orators. We see
the pale cheeks of women, and the flushed faces of men; and in those
assemblages we see all the dead whose dust we have covered with flowers.
We lose sight of them no more. We are with them when they enlist in the
great army of freedom. We see them part with those they love. Some are
walking for the last time in quiet, woody places, with the maidens they
adore. We hear the whisperings and the sweet vows of eternal love as
they lingeringly part forever. Others are bending over cradles, kissing
babes that are asleep. Some are receiving the blessings of old men. Some
are parting with mothers who hold them and press them to their
hearts again and again, and say nothing. Kisses and tears, tears and
kisses--divine mingling of agony and love! And some are talking with
wives, and endeavoring with brave words, spoken in the old tones, to
drive from their hearts the awful fear. We see them part. We see the
wife standing in the door with the babe in her arms--standing in the
sunlight sobbing. At the turn of the road a hand waves--she answers by
holding high in her loving arms the child. He is gone, and forever.
We see them all as they march proudly away under the flaunting flags,
keeping time to the grand, wild music of war--marching down the streets
of the great cities--through the towns and across the prairies--down to
the fields of glory, to do and to die for the eternal right.
We go with them, one and all. We are by their side on all the gory
fields--in all the hospitals of pain--on all the weary marches. We stand
guard with them in the wild storm and under the quiet stars. We are with
them in ravines running with blood--in the furrows of old fields. We are
with them between contending hosts, unable to move, wild with thirst,
the life ebbing slowly away among the withered leaves. We see them
pierced by balls and torn with shells, in the trenches, by forts, and
in the whirlwind of the charge, where men become iron, with nerves of
steel.
We are with them in the prisons of hatred and famine; but human speech
can never tell what they endured.
We are at home when the news comes that they are dead. We see the maiden
in the shadow of her first sorrow. We see the silvered head of the old
man bowed with the last grief.
The past rises before us, and we see four millions of human beings
governed by the lash--we see them bound hand and foot--we hear the
strokes of cruel whips--we see the hounds tracking women through
tangled swamps. We see babes sold from the breasts of mothers. Cruelty
unspeakable! Outrage infinite!
Four million bodies in chains--four million souls in fetters. All the
sacred relations of wife, mother, father and child trampled beneath
the brutal feet of might. And all this was done under our own beautiful
banner of the free.
The past rises before us. We hear the roar and shriek of the bursting
shell. The broken fetters fall. These heroes died. We look. Instead of
slaves we see men and women and children. The wand of progress touches
the auction-block, the slave-pen, the whipping-post, and we see homes
and firesides and schoolhouses and books, and where all was want and
crime and cruelty and fear, we see the faces of the free.
These heroes are dead. They died for liberty--they died for us. They
are at rest. They sleep in the land they made free, under the flag
they rendered stainless, under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks,
the tearful willows, and the embracing vines. They, sleep beneath the
shadows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or of storm, each in
the windowless Palace of Rest. Earth may run red with other wars--they
are at peace. In the midst of battle, in the roar of conflict, they
found the serenity of death. I have one sentiment for soldiers living
and dead: cheers for the living; tears for the dead.
* This poetic flight of oratory has since become universally
known as "A. Vision of War."
Now, my friends, I have given you a few reasons why I am a Republican. I
have given you a few reasons why I am not a Democrat. Let me say another
thing. The Democratic party opposed every forward movement of the
army of the Republic, every one. Do not be fooled. Imagine the meanest
resolution that you can think of--that is the resolution the Democratic
party passed. Imagine the meanest thing you can think of--that is what
they did; and I want you to recollect that the Democratic party did
these devilish things when the fate of this nation was trembling in the
balance of war. I want you to recollect another thing; when they tell
you about hard times, that the Democratic party made the hard times;
that every dollar we owe to-day was made by the Southern and Northern
Democracy.
When we commenced to put down the Rebellion we had to borrow money, and
the Democratic party went into the markets of the world and impaired the
credit of the United States. They slandered, they lied, they maligned
the credit of the United States, and to such an extent did they do this,
that at one time during the war paper was only worth about thirty-four
cents on the dollar. Gold went up to $2.90. What did that mean? It meant
that greenbacks were worth thirty-four cents on the dollar. What became
of the other sixty-six cents? They were lied out of the greenback,
they were slandered out of the greenback, they were maligned out of the
greenback, they were calumniated out of the greenback, by the Democratic
party of the North. Two-thirds of the debt, two-thirds of the burden
now upon the shoulders of American industry, were placed there by the
slanders of the Democratic party of the North, and the other third by
the Democratic party of the South. And when you pay your taxes keep an
account and charge two-thirds to the Northern Democracy and one-third to
the Southern Democracy, and whenever you have to earn the money to pay
the taxes, when you have to blister your hands to earn that money, pull
off the blisters, and under each one, as the foundation, you will find a
Democratic lie.
Recollect that the Democratic party did all the things of which I have
told you, when the fate of our nation was submitted to the arbitrament
of the sword. Recollect that the Democratic party did these things when
your brothers, your fathers, and your chivalric sons were fighting,
bleeding, suffering, and dying upon the battle-fields of the South; when
shot and shell were crashing through their sacred flesh. Recollect that
this Democratic party was false to the Union when your husbands, your
fathers, and your brothers, and your chivalric sons were lying in the
hospitals of pain, dreaming broken dreams of home, and seeing fever
pictures of the ones they loved; recollect that the Democratic party was
false to the nation when your husbands, your fathers, and your brothers
were lying alone upon the field of battle at night, the life-blood
slowly oozing from the mangled and pallid lips of death; recollect that
the Democratic party was false to your country when your husbands, your
brothers, your fathers, and your sons were lying in the prison pens of
the South, with no covering but the clouds, with no bed but the frozen
earth, with no food except such as worms had re-p fused to eat, and with
no friends except Insanity and Death. Recollect it, and spurn that party
forever.
I have sometimes wished that there were words of pure hatred out of
which I might construct sentences like snakes; out of which I might
construct sentences that had fanged mouths, and that had forked tongues;
out of which I might construct sentences that would writhe and hiss;
and then I could give my opinion of the Northern allies of the Southern
rebels during the great struggle for the preservation of the country.
There are three questions now submitted to the American people. The
first is, Shall the people that saved this country rule it? Shall the
men who saved the old flag hold it? Shall the men who saved the ship
of State sail it, or shall the rebels walk her quarter-deck, give the
orders and sink it? That is the question. Shall a solid South, a united
South, united by assassination and murder, a South solidified by the
shot-gun; shall a united South, with the aid of a divided North, shall
they control this great and splendid country? We are right back where we
were in 1861. This is simply a prolongation of the war. This is the war
of the idea, the other was the war of the musket. The other was the war
of cannon, this is the war of thought; and we have to beat them in
this war of thought, recollect that. The question is, Shall the men who
endeavored to destroy this country rule it? Shall the men that said,
This is not a Nation, have charge of the Nation?
The next question is, Shall we pay our debts? We had to borrow some
money to pay for shot and shell to shoot Democrats with. We found that
we could get along with a few less Democrats, but not with any less
country, and so we borrowed the money, and the question now is, will we
pay it? And which party is the more apt to pay it, the Republican party
that made the debt--the party that swore it was constitutional, or the
party that said it was unconstitutional?
Every time a Democrat sees a greenback, it says to him, "I vanquished
you." Every time a Republican sees a greenback, it says, "You and I put
down the Rebellion and saved the country."
Now, my friends, you have heard a great deal about finance. Nearly
everybody that talks about it gets as dry--as dry as if they had been in
the final home of the Democratic party for forty years.
I will now give you my ideas about finance. In the first place
the Government does not support the people, the people support the
Government.
The Government is a perpetual pauper. It passes round the hat, and
solicits contributions; but then you must remember that the Government
has a musket behind the hat. The Government produces nothing. It does
not plow the land, it does not sow corn, it does not grow trees. The
Government is a perpetual consumer. We support the Government. Now, the
idea that the Government can make money for you and me to live on--why,
it is the same as though my hired man should issue certificates of my
indebtedness to him for me to live on.
Some people tell me that the Government can impress its sovereignty on
a piece of paper, and that is money. Well, if it is, what's the use of
wasting it making one dollar bills? It takes no more ink and no more
paper--why not make one thousand dollar bills? Why not make a hundred
million dollar bills and all be billionaires?
If the Government can make money, what on earth does it collect taxes
from you and me for? Why does it not make what money it wants, take
the taxes out, and give the balance to us? Mr. Greenbacker, suppose the
Government issued a billion dollars to-morrow, how would you get any
of it? [A voice, "Steal it."] I was not speaking to the Democrats. You
would not get any of it unless you had something to exchange for it. The
Government would not go around and give you your aver-: age. You have to
have some corn, or wheat, or pork to give for it.
How do you get your money? By work. Where from? You have to dig it out
of the ground. That is where it comes from. Men have always had a kind
of hope that something could be made out of nothing. The old alchemists
sought, with dim eyes, for something that could change the baser metals
to gold. With tottering steps, they searched for the spring of Eternal
Youth. Holding in trembling hands retort and crucible, they dreamed of
the Elixir of Life. The baser metals are not gold. No human ear has ever
heard the silver gurgle of the spring of Immortal Youth. The wrinkles
upon the brow of Age are still waiting for the Elixir of Life.
Inspired by the same idea, mechanics have endeavored, by curious
combinations of levers and inclined planes, of wheels and cranks and
shifting weights, to produce perpetual motion; but the wheels and levers
wait for force. And, in the financial world, there are thousands now
trying to find some way for promises to take the place of performance;
for some way to make the word dollar as good as the dollar itself; for
some way to make the promise to pay a dollar take the dollar's place.
This financial alchemy, this pecuniary perpetual motion, this fountain
of eternal wealth, are the same old failures with new names. Something
cannot be made out of nothing. Nothing is a poor capital to, carry on
business with, and makes a very unsatisfactory balance at your bankers.
Let me tell you another thing. The Democrats seem to think that you can
fail to keep a promise so long that it is as good as though you had kept
it. They say you can stamp the sovereignty of the Government upon paper.
I saw not long ago a piece of gold bearing the stamp of the Roman
Empire. That Empire is dust, and over it has been thrown the mantle of
oblivion, but that piece of gold is as good as though Julius Cæsar were
still riding at the head of the Roman Legions.
Was it his sovereignty that made it valuable? Suppose he had put it upon
a piece of paper--it would have been of no more value than a Democratic
promise.
Another thing, my friends: this debt will be paid; you need not worry
about that. The Democrats ought to pay it. They lost the suit, and they
ought to pay the costs. But we in our patriotism are willing to pay our
share.
Every man that has a bond, every man that has a greenback dollar has
a mortgage upon the best continent of land on earth. Every one has a
mortgage on the honor of the Republican party, and it is on record.
Every spear of grass; every bearded head of golden wheat that grows upon
this continent is a guarantee that the debt will be paid; every field of
bannered corn in the great, glorious West is a guarantee that the debt
will be paid; every particle of coal laid away by that old miser the
sun, millions-of years ago, is a guarantee that every dollar will be
paid; all the iron ore, all the gold and silver under the snow-capped
Sierra Nevadas, waiting for the miners pick to give back the flash of
the sun, every ounce is a guarantee that this debt will be paid; and all
the cattle on the prairies, pastures and plains which adorn our broad
land are guarantees that this debt will be paid; every pine standing
in the sombre forests of the North, waiting for the woodman's axe, is a
guarantee that this debt will be paid; every locomotive with its muscles
of iron and breath of flame, and all the boys and girls bending over
their books at school, every dimpled babe in the cradle, every honest
man, every noble woman, and every man that votes the Republican ticket
is a guarantee that the debt will be paid--these, all these, each and
all, are the guarantees that every promise of the United States will be
sacredly fulfilled.
What is the next question? The next question is, will we protect the
Union men in the South? I tell you the white Union men have suffered
enough. It is a crime in the Southern States to be a Republican. It is
a crime in every Southern State to love this country, to believe in the
sacred rights of men.
The colored people have suffered enough. For more than two hundred years
they have suffered the fabled torments of the damned; for more than two
hundred years they worked and toiled without reward, bending, in the
burning sun, their bleeding backs; for more than two hundred years,
babes were torn from the breasts of mothers, wives from husbands, and
every human tie broken by the cruel hand of greed; for more than two
hundred years they were pursued by hounds, beaten with clubs, burned
with fire, bound with chains; two hundred years of toil, of agony, of
tears; two hundred years of hope deferred; two hundred years of
gloom and shadow and darkness and blackness; two hundred years of
supplication, of entreaty; two hundred years of infinite outrage,
without a moment of revenge.
The colored people have suffered enough. They were and are our friends.
They are the friends of this country, and, cost what it may, they must
be protected.
There was not during the whole Rebellion a single negro that was not our
friend. We are willing to be reconciled to our Southern brethren when
they will treat our friends as men. When they will be just to the
friends of this country; when they are in favor of allowing every
American citizen to have his rights--then we are their friends. We are
willing to trust them with the Nation when they are the friends of the
Nation. We are willing to trust them with liberty when they believe in
liberty. We are willing to trust them with the black man when they cease
riding in the darkness of night, (those masked wretches,) to the hut of
the freedman, and notwithstanding the prayers and supplications of his
family, shoot him down; when they cease to consider the massacre of
Hamburg as a Democratic triumph, then, I say, we will be their friends,
and not before.
Now, my friends, thousands of the Southern people and thousands of the
Northern Democrats are afraid that the negroes are going to pass them in
the race of life. And, Mr. Democrat, he will do it unless you attend
to your business. The simple fact that you are white cannot save you
always. You have to be industrious, honest, to cultivate a sense of
justice. If you do not the colored race will pass you, as sure as you
live. I am for giving every man a chance. Anybody that can pass me is
welcome.
I believe, my friends, that the intellectual domain of the future, as
the land used to be in the State of Illinois, is open to pre-emption.
The fellow that gets a fact first, that is his; that gets an idea
first, that is his. Every round in the ladder of fame, from the one that
touches the ground to the last one that leans against the shining summit
of human ambition, belongs to the foot that gets upon it first.
Mr. Democrat, (I point down because they are nearly all on the first
round of the ladder) if you can not climb, stand one side and let the
deserving negro pass.
I must tell you one thing. I have told it so much, and you have all
heard it fifty times, but I am going to tell it again because I like it.
Suppose there was a great horse race here to-day, free to every horse
in the world, and to all the mules, and all the scrubs* and all the
donkeys.
At the tap of the drum they come to the line, and the judges say "it is
a go." Let me ask you, what does the blooded horse, rushing ahead, with
nostrils distended, drinking in the breath of his own swiftness, with
his mane flying like a banner of victory, with his veins standing out
all over him, as if a network of life had been cast upon him--with his
thin neck, his high withers, his tremulous flanks--what does he care how
many mules and donkeys run on that track? But the Democratic scrub,
with his chuckle-head and lop-ears, with his tail full of cockle-burrs,
jumping high and short, and digging in the ground when he feels the
breath of the coming mule on his cockle-burr tail, he is the chap that
jumps the track and says, "I am down on mule equality."
I stood, a little while ago, in the city of Paris, where stood the
Bastile, where now stands the Column of July, surmounted by a figure of
liberty. In its right hand is a broken chain, in its left hand a
banner; upon its glorious forehead the glittering and shining star of
progress--and as I looked upon it I said: "Such is the Republican party
of my country."
The other day going along the road I came to a place where the road had
been changed, but the guide-board did not know it. It had stood there
for twenty years pointing deliberately and solemnly in the direction of
a desolate field; nobody ever went that way, but the guide-board thought
the next man would. Thousands passed, but nobody heeded the hand on the
guide-post, and through sunshine and storm it pointed diligently into
the old field and swore to it the road went that way; and I said to
myself: "Such is the Democratic party of the United States."
The other day I came to a river where there had been a mill; a part
of it was there still. An old sign said: "Cash for wheat." The old
water-wheel was broken; it had been warped by the sun, cracked and split
by many winds and storms. There had not been a grain of wheat ground
there for twenty years.
The door was gone, nobody had built a new dam, the mill was not worth a
dam; and I said to myself: "Such is the Democratic party."
I saw a little while ago a place on the road where there had once been
an hotel. But the hotel and barn had burned down and there was nothing
standing but two desolate chimneys, up the flues of which the fires of
hospitality had not roared for thirty years. The fence was gone, and the
post-holes even were obliterated, but in the road there was an old sign
upon which were these words: "Entertainment for man and beast." The old
sign swung and creaked in the winter wind, the snow fell upon it, the
sleet clung to it, and in the summer the birds sang and twittered and
made love upon it. Nobody ever stopped there, but the sign swore to it,
the sign certified to it! "Entertainment for man and beast," and I said
to myself: "Such is the Democratic party of the United States," and
I further said, "one chimney ought to be called Tilden and the other
Hendricks."
Now, my friends, I want you to vote the Republican ticket. I want you
to swear you will not vote for a man who opposed putting down the
Rebellion. I want you to swear that you will not vote for a man opposed
to the Proclamation of Emancipation. I want you to swear that you will
not vote for a man opposed to the utter abolition of slavery.
I want you to swear that you will not vote for a man who called the
soldiers in the field, Lincoln hirelings. I want you to swear that you
will not vote for a man who denounced Lincoln as a tyrant. I want you
to swear that you will not vote for any enemy of human progress. Go and
talk to every Democrat that you can see; get him by the coatcollar,
talk to him, and hold him like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, with your
glittering eye; hold him, tell him all the mean things his party ever
did; tell him kindly; tell him in a Christian spirit, as I do, but tell
him. Recollect, there never was a more important election than the
one you are going to hold in Indiana. I tell you we must stand by the
country. It is a glorious country. It permits you and me to be free.
It is the only country in the world where labor is respected. Let us
support it. It is the only country in the world where the useful man is
the only aristocrat. The man that works for a dollar a day, goes home
at night to his little ones, takes his little boy on his knee, and he
thinks that boy can achieve anything that the sons of the wealthy man
can achieve. The free schools are open to him; he may be the richest,
the greatest, and the grandest, and that thought sweetens every drop
of sweat that rolls down the honest face of toil. Vote to save that
country.
My friends, this country is getting better every day. Samuel J. Tilden
says we are a nation of thieves and rascals. If that is so he ought to
be the President. But I denounce him as a calumniator of my country;
a maligner of this nation. It is not so. This country is covered with
asylums for the aged, the helpless, the insane, the orphans and wounded
soldiers. Thieves and rascals do not build such things. In the cities
of the Atlantic coast this summer, they built floating hospitals, great
ships, and took the little children from the sub-cellars and narrow,
dirty streets of New York City, where the Democratic party is the
strongest--took these poor waifs and put them in these great hospitals
out at sea, and let the breezes of ocean kiss the roses of health back
to their pallid cheeks. Rascals and thieves do not so. When Chicago
burned, railroads were blocked with the charity of the American people.
Thieves and rascals do not so.
I am a Republican. The world is getting better. Husbands are treating
their wives better than they used to; wives are treating their husbands
better. Children are better treated than they used to be; the old whips
and clubs are out of the schools, and they are governing children by
love and by sense. The world is getting better; it is getting better in
Maine, in Vermont. It is getting better in every State of the North, and
I tell you we are going to elect Hayes and Wheeler and the world will
then be better still. I have a dream that this world is growing better
and better every day and every year; that there is more charity, more
justice, more love every day. I have a dream that prisons will not
always curse the land; that the shadow of the gallows will not always
fall upon the earth; that the withered hand of want will not always
be stretched out for charity; that finally wisdom will sit in the
legislatures, justice in the courts, charity will occupy all the
pulpits, and that finally the world will be governed by justice and
charity, and by the splendid light of liberty. That is my dream, and
if it does not come true, it shall not be my fault. I am going to do my
level best to give others the same chance I ask for myself. Free thought
will give us truth; Free labor will give us wealth.