* The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher and Colonel Robert G.
Ingersoll spoke from the same platform last night, and the
great preacher introduced the great orator and free-thinker
to the grandest political audience that was ever assembled
in Brooklyn. The reverend gentleman presided over the
Republican mass meeting held in the Academy of Music. When
he introduced Ingersoll he did it with a warmth and
earnestness of compliment that brought the six thousand
lookers-on to their feet to applaud. When the expounder of
the Gospel of Christ took the famous atheist by the hand,
and shook it fervently, saying that while he respected and
honored him for the honesty of his convictions and his
splendid labors for patriotism and the country, the
enthusiasm knew no bounds, and the great building trembled
and vibrated with the storm of applause. With such a scene
to harmonize the multitude at the outstart it is not strange
that the meeting continued to the end such a one as has no
parallel even in these days of feverish political excitement
and turmoil. The orator spoke in his best vein and his
audience was responsive to the wonderful magical spell of
his eloquence. And when his last glowing utterance had lost
its echo in the wild storm of applause that rewarded him at
the close, Mr. Beecher again stepped forward and, as if to
emphasize the earnestness of his previous compliments,
proposed a vote of thanks to the distinguished speaker. The
vote was a roar of affirmation, whose voice was not stronger
when Mr. Ingersoll in turn called upon the audience to give
three cheers for the great preacher. They were given, and
repeated three times over. Men waved their ats and
umbrellas, ladies, of whom there were many hundreds present,
waved their handkerchiefs, and men, strangers to each other,
shook hands with the fervency of brotherhood. It was indeed
a strange scene, and the principal actors in it seemed not
less than the most wildly excited man there to appreciate
its peculiar import and significance. Standing at the front
of the stage, underneath a canopy of nags, at either side
great baskets of flowers, they clasped each other's hands,
and stood thus for several minutes, while the excited
thousands cheered themselves hoarse and applauded wildly.
As Mr. Beecher began to speak, however, the applause that
broke out was deafening.
In substance Mr. Beecher spoke as follows:--"I am not
accustomed to preside at meetings like this; only the
exigency of the times could induce me to do It. I am not
here either to make a speech, but more especially to
introduce the eminent orator of the evening. * * * I stand
not as a minister, but as a man among men, pleading the
cause of fellowship and equal rights. We are not here as
mechanics, as artists, merchants, or professional men, but
as fellow-citizens. The gentleman who will speak to-night is
in no Conventicle or Church. He is to speak to a great body
of citizens, and I take the liberty of saying that I respect
him as the man that for a full score and more of years has
worked for the right in the great, broad field of humanity,
and for the cause of human rights. I consider it an honor to
extend to him, as I do now, the warm, earnest, right hand of
fellowship." (As Mr. Beecher said this he turned to Mr.
Ingersoll and extended his hand. The palms of the two men
met with a clasp that was heard all over the house, and was
the signal for tumultuous cheering and applause, which
continued for several minutes.)
"I now introduce to you," continued Mr. Beecher, leading Mr.
Ingersoll forward, "a man who--and I say it not
flatteringly--is the most brilliant speaker of the English
tongue of all men on this globe. But as under the brilliancy
of the blaze or light we find the living coals of fire,
under the lambent flow of his wit and magnificent antithesis
we find the glorious flame of genius and honest thought.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Ingersoll."--New York Herald,
October 81st, 1880.
(Garfield Campaign.)
1880.
LADIES and Gentlemen: Years ago I made up my mind that there was no
particular argument in slander. I made up my mind that for parties, as
well as for individuals, honesty in the long-run is the best policy.
I made up my mind that the people were entitled to know a man's honest
thoughts, and I propose to-night to tell you exactly what I think. And
it may be well enough, in the first place, for me to say that no party
has a mortgage on me. I am the sole proprietor of myself. No party, no
organization, has any deed of trust on what little brains I have, and as
long as I can get my part of the common air I am going to tell my honest
thoughts. One man in the right will finally get to be a majority. I am
not going to say a word to-night that every Democrat here will not know
is true, and, whatever he may say, I will compel him in his heart to
give three cheers.
In the first place, I wish to admit that during the war there were
hundreds of thousands of patriotic Democrats. I wish to admit that if it
had not been for the War Democrats of the North, we never would have put
down the Rebellion. Let us be honest. I further admit that had it
not been for other than War Democrats there never would have been a
rebellion to put down. War Democrats!
Why did we call them War Democrats? Did you ever hear anybody talk about
a War Republican? We spoke of War Democrats to distinguish them from
those Democrats who were in favor of peace upon any terms.
I also wish to admit that the Republican party is not absolutely
perfect. While I believe that it is the best party that ever existed,
while I believe it has, within its organization, more heart, more brain,
more patriotism than any other organization that ever existed beneath
the sun, I still admit that it is not entirely perfect. I admit, in its
great things, in its splendid efforts to preserve this nation, in its
grand effort to keep our flag in heaven, in its magnificent effort to
free four millions of slaves, in its great and sublime effort to save
the financial honor of this Nation, I admit that it has made some
mistakes. In its great effort to do right it has sometimes by mistake
done wrong. And I also wish to admit that the great Democratic party,
in its effort to get office has sometimes by mistake done right. You see
that I am inclined to be perfectly fair.
I am going with the Republican party because it is going my way; but if
it ever turns to the right or left, I intend to go straight ahead.
In every government there is something that ought to be preserved, in
every government there are many things that ought to be destroyed.
Every good man, every patriot, every lover of the human race, wishes to
preserve the good and destroy the bad; and every one in this audience
who wishes to preserve the good will go with that section of our common
country--with that party in our country that he honestly believes will
preserve the good and destroy the bad. It takes a great deal of trouble
to raise a good Republican. It is a vast deal of labor. The Republican
party is the fruit of all ages--of self-sacrifice and devotion. The
Republican party is born of every good thing that was ever done in
this world. The Republican party is the result of all martyrdom, of
all heroic blood shed for the right. It is the blossom and fruit of the
great world's best endeavor. In order to make a Republican you have to
have schoolhouses. You have to have newspapers and magazines. A good
Republican is the best fruit of civilization, of all there is of
intelligence, of art, of music and of song. If you want to make
Democrats, let them alone. The Democratic party is the settlings of
this country. Nobody hoes weeds. Nobody takes especial pains to raise
dog-fennel, and yet it grows under the very hoof of travel, The seeds
are sown by accident and gathered by chance. But if you want to raise
wheat and corn you must plough the ground. You must defend and you must
harvest the crop with infinite patience and toil. It is precisely that
way--if you want to raise a good Republican you must work. If you wish
to raise a Democrat give him wholesome neglect. The Democratic party
flatters the vices of mankind. That party says to the ignorant man, "You
know enough." It says to the vicious man, "You are good enough."
The Republican party says, "You must be better next year than you are
this." A Republican takes a man by the collar and says, "You must do
your best, you must climb the infinite hill of human progress as long as
you live." Now and then one gets tired. He says, "I have climbed enough
and so much better than I expected to do that I do not wish to travel
any farther." Now and then one gets tired and lets go all hold, and he
rolls down to the very bottom, and as he strikes the mud he springs upon
his feet transfigured, and says: "Hurrah for Hancock!"
There are things in this Government that I wish to preserve, and there
are things that I wish to destroy; and in order to convince you that you
ought to go the way that I am going: it is only fair that I give to
you my reasons. This is a Republic founded upon intelligence and
the patriotism of the people, and in every Republic it is absolutely
necessary that there should be free speech. Free speech is the gem of
the human soul. Words are the bodies of thought, and liberty gives to
those words wings, and the whole intellectual heavens are filled with
light. In a Republic every individual tongue has a right to the general
ear. In a Republic every man has the right to give his reasons for the
course he pursues to all his fellow-citizens, and when you say that a
man shall not speak, you also say that others shall not hear. When
you say a man shall not express his honest thought you say his
fellow-citizens shall be deprived of honest thoughts; for of what use
is it to allow the attorney for the defendant to address the jury if the
jury has been bought? Of what use is it to allow the jury to bring in a
verdict of "not guilty," if the defendant is to be hung by a mob? I ask
you to-night, is not every solitary man here in favor of free speech? Is
there a solitary Democrat here who dares say he is not in favor of free
speech? In which part of this country are the lips of thought free--in
the South or in the North? Which section of our country can you trust
the inestimable gem of free speech with? Can you trust it to the
gentlemen of Mississippi or to the gentlemen of Massachusetts? Can you
trust it to Alabama or to New York? Can you trust it to the South or
can you trust it to the great and splendid North? Honor bright--honor
bright, is there any freedom of speech in the South? There never was and
there is none to-night--and let me tell you why.
They had the institution of human slavery in the South, which could
not be defended at the bar of public reason. It was an institution that
could not be defended in the high forum of human conscience. No man
could stand there and defend the right to rob the cradle--none to defend
the right to sell the babe from the breast of the agonized mother--none
to defend the claim that lashes on a bare back are a legal tender for
labor performed. Every man that lived upon the unpaid labor of another
knew in his heart that he was a thief. And for that reason he did not
wish to discuss that question. Thereupon the institution of slavery
said, "You shall not speak; you shall not reason," and the lips of free
thought were manacled. You know it. Every one of you. Every Democrat
knows it as well as every Republican. There never was free speech in the
South.
And what has been the result? And allow me to admit right here, because
I want to be fair, there are thousands and thousands of most excellent
people in the South--thousands of them. There are hundreds and hundreds
of thousands there who would like to vote the Republican ticket. And
whenever there is free speech there and whenever there is a free ballot
there, they will vote the Republican ticket. I say again, there are
hundreds of thousands of good people in the South; but the institution
of human slavery prevented free speech, and it is a splendid fact in
nature that you cannot put chains upon the limbs of others without
putting corresponding manacles upon your own brain. When the South
enslaved the negro, it also enslaved itself, and the result was an
intellectual desert. No book has been produced, with one exception, that
has added to the knowledge of mankind; no paper, no magazine, no poet,
no philosopher, no philanthropist, was ever raised in that desert. Now
and then some one protested against that infamous institution, and
he came as near being a philosopher as the society in which he lived
permitted. Why is it that New England, a rock-clad land, blossoms like a
rose? Why is it that New York is the Empire State of the great Union?
I will tell you. Because you have been permitted to trade in ideas.
Because the lips of speech have been absolutely free for twenty years.
We never had free speech in any State in this Union until the Republican
party was born. That party was rocked in the cradle of intellectual
liberty, and that is the reason I say it is the best party that ever
existed in the wide, wide world. I want to preserve free speech, and, as
an honest man, I look about me and I say, "How can I best preserve
it?" By giving it to the South or North; to the Democracy or to the
Republican party? And I am bound, as an honest man, to say free speech
is safest with its earliest defenders. Where is there such a thing as
a Republican mob to prevent the expression of an honest thought? Where?
The people of the South are allowed to come to the North; they are
allowed to express their sentiments upon every stump in the great East,
the great West, and in the great Middle States; they go to Maine, to
Vermont, and to all our States, and they are allowed to speak, and we
give them a respectful hearing, and the meanest thing we do is to answer
their arguments.
I say to-night that we ought to have the same liberty to discuss these
questions in the South that Southerners have in the North. And I say
more than that, the Democrats of the North ought to compel the Democrats
of the South to treat the Republicans of the South as well as the
Republicans of the North treat them. We treat the Democrats well in the
North; we treat them like gentlemen in the North; and yet they go into
partnership with the Democracy of the South, knowing that the Democracy
of the South will not treat Republicans in that section with fairness. A
Democrat ought to be ashamed of that.
If my friends will not treat other people as well as the friends of the
other people treat me, I'll swap friends.
First, then, I am in favor of free speech, and I am going with that
section of my country that believes in free speech; I am going with
that party that has always upheld that sacred right. When you stop
free speech, when you say that a thought shall die in the womb of the
brain,--why, it would have the same effect upon the intellectual world
that to stop springs at their sources would have upon the physical
world. Stop the springs at their sources and they cease to gurgle,
the streams cease to murmur, and the great rivers cease rushing to the
embrace of the sea. So you stop thought. Stop thought in the brain in
which it is born, and theory dies; and the great ocean of knowledge to
which all should be permitted to contribute, and from which all should
be allowed to draw, becomes a vast desert of ignorance.
I have always said, and I say again, that the more liberty there is
given away, the more you have. I endeavor to be consistent in my life
and action. I am a believer in intellectual liberty, and wherever the
torch of knowledge burns the whole horizon is filled with a glorious
halo. I am a free man. I would be less than a man if I did not wish
to hand this flame to my child with the flame increased rather than
diminished.
Whom will we trust to take care of free speech? Let us consider and be
honest with one another. The gem of the brain is the innocence of the
soul.
I am not only in favor of free speech, but I am also in favor of an
absolutely honest ballot. There is only one emperor in this country;
there is one czar; only one supreme crown and king, and that is the
will, the legally expressed will of the majority. Every American citizen
is a sovereign. The poorest and humblest may wear that crown, the beggar
holds in his hand that sceptre equally with the proudest and richest,
and so far as his sovereignty is concerned, the poorest American, he
who earns but one dollar a day, has the same voice in controlling the
destiny of the United States as the millionaire. The man who casts an
illegal vote, the man who refuses to count a legal vote, poisons the
fountain of power, poisons the springs of justice, and is a traitor
to the only king in this land. The Government is upon the edge of
Mexicanization through fraudulent voting. The ballot-box is the throne
of America; the ballot-box is the ark of the covenant. Unless we see to
it that every man who has a right to vote, votes, and unless we see
to it that every honest vote is counted, the days of this Republic are
numbered.
When you suspect that a Congressman is not elected; when you suspect
that a judge upon the bench holds his place by fraud, then the people
will hold the law in contempt and will laugh at the decisions of courts,
and then come revolution and chaos.
It is the duty of every good man to see to it that the ballot-box is
kept absolutely pure. It is the duty of every patriot, whether he is
a Democrat or Republican--and I want further to admit that I believe
a large majority of Democrats are honest in their opinions, and I know
that all Republicans _must_ be honest in their opinions. It is the duty,
then, of all honest men of both parties to see to it that only honest
votes are cast and counted. Now, honor bright, which section of this
Union can you trust the ballot-box with?
Do you wish to trust Louisiana, or do you wish to trust Alabama that
gave, in 1872, thirty-four thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight
Republican majority and now gives ninety-two thousand Democratic
majority? And of that ninety-two thousand majority, every one is a lie!
A contemptible, infamous lie! Because if every voter had been allowed
to vote, there would have been forty thousand Republican majority.
Honor bright, can you trust it with the masked murderers who rode in
the darkness of night to the hut of the freedman and shot him down,
notwithstanding the supplication of his wife and the tears of his babe?
Can you trust it to the men who since the close of our war have killed
more men, simply because those men wished to vote, simply because they
wished to exercise a right with which they had been clothed by the
sublime heroism of the North--who have killed more men than were killed
on both sides in the Revolutionary war; than were killed on both sides
during the War of 1812; than were killed on both sides in both wars?
Can you trust them? Can you trust the gentlemen who invented the
tissue ballot? Do you wish to put the ballot-box in the keeping of the
shot-gun, of the White-Liners, of the Ku Klux? Do you wish to put the
ballot-box in the keeping of men who openly swear that they will not be
ruled by a majority of American citizens if a portion of that majority
is made of black men? And I want to tell you right here, I like a black
man who loves this country better than I do a white man who hates it. I
think more of a black man who fought for our flag than for any white man
who endeavored to tear it out of heaven!
I say, can you trust the ballot-box to the Democratic party? Read the
history of the State of New York. Read the history of this great and
magnificent city--the Queen of the Atlantic--read her history and tell
us whether you can implicitly trust Democratic returns? Honor bright!
I am not only, then, for free speech, but I am for an honest ballot;
and in order that you may have no doubt left upon your minds as to which
party is in favor of an honest vote, I will call your attention to this
striking fact. Every law that has been passed in every State of this
Union for twenty long years, the object of which was to guard the
American ballot-box, has been passed by the Republican party, and in
every State where the Republican party has introduced such a bill for
the purpose of making it a law; in every State where such a bill has
been defeated, it has been defeated by the Democratic party. That ought
to satisfy any reasonable man to satiety.
I am not only in favor of free speech and an honest ballot, but I am in
favor of collecting and disbursing the revenues of the United States. I
want plenty of money to collect and pay the interest on our debt. I want
plenty of money to pay our debt and to preserve the financial honor of
the United States. I want money enough to be collected to pay pensions
to widows and orphans and to wounded soldiers. And the question is,
which section in this country can you trust to collect and disburse that
revenue? Let us be honest about it. Which section can you trust? In the
last four years we have collected four hundred and sixty-eight million
dollars of the internal revenue taxes. We have collected principally
from taxes upon high wines and tobacco, four hundred and sixty-eight
million dollars, and in those four years we have seized, libeled and
destroyed in the Southern States three thousand eight hundred and
seventy-four illicit distilleries. And during the same time the Southern
people have shot to death twenty-five revenue officers and wounded
fifty-five others, and the only offence that the wounded and dead
committed was an honest effort to collect the revenues of this country.
Recollect it--don't you forget it. And in several Southern States
to-day every revenue collector or officer connected with the revenue is
furnished by the Internal Revenue Department with a breech-loading
rifle and a pair of revolvers, simply for the purpose of collecting the
revenue.
I don't feel like trusting such people to collect the revenue of my
Government.
During the same four years we have arrested and have indicted seven
thousand and eighty-four Southern Democrats for endeavoring to defraud
the revenue of the United States. Recollect--three thousand eight
hundred and seventy-four distilleries seized. Twenty-five revenue
officers killed, fifty-five wounded, and seven thousand and eighty-four
Democrats arrested. Can we trust them?
The State of Alabama in its last Democratic convention passed a
resolution that no man should be tried in a Federal Court for a
violation of the revenue laws--that he should be tried in a State Court.
Think of it--he should be tried in a State Court! Let me tell you how it
will come out if we trust the Southern States to collect this revenue. A
couple of Methodist ministers had been holding a revival for a week, and
at the end of the week one said to the other that he thought it time to
take up a collection. When the hat was returned he found in it pieces of
slate-pencils and nails and buttons, but not a single solitary cent--not
one--and his brother minister got up and looked at the contribution, and
said, "Let us thank God!" And the owner of the hat said, "What for?" And
the brother replied, "Because you got your hat back." If we trust the
South we shan't get our hats back.
I am next in favor of honest money. I am in favor of gold and silver,
and paper with gold and silver behind it. I believe in silver, because
it is one of the greatest of American products, and I am in favor of
anything that will add to the value of an American product. But I want
a silver dollar worth a gold dollar, even if you make it or have to make
it four feet in diameter. No government can afford to be a clipper of
coin. A great Republic cannot afford to stamp a lie upon silver or gold.
Honest money, an honest people, an honest Nation. When our money is only
worth eighty cents on the dollar, we feel twenty per cent, below par.
When our money is good we feel good. When our money is at par, that is
where we are. I am a profound believer in the doctrine that for nations
as well as men, honesty is the best policy, always, everywhere, and
forever.
What section of this country, what party, will give us honest
money--honor bright--honor bright? I have been told that during the war,
we had plenty of money. I never saw it. I lived years without seeing a
dollar. I saw promises for dollars, but not dollars. And the greenback,
unless you have the gold behind it, is no more a dollar than a bill
of fare is a dinner. You cannot make a paper dollar without taking a
dollar's worth of paper. We must have paper that represents money. I
want it issued by the Government, and I want behind every one of these
dollars either a gold or silver dollar, so that every greenback under
the flag can lift up its hand and swear, "I know that my redeemer
liveth."
When we were running into debt, thousands of people mistook that for
prosperity, and when we began paying they regarded it as adversity. Of
course we had plenty when we bought on credit. No man has ever starved
when his credit was good, if there were no famine in that country. As
long as we buy on credit we shall have enough. The trouble commences
when the pay-day arrives. And I do not wonder that after the war
thousands of people said, "Let us have another inflation." Which party
said, "No, we must pay the promise made in war"? Honor bright! The
Democratic party had once been a hard money party, but it drifted from
its metallic moorings and floated off in the ocean of inflation, and you
know it. They said, "Give us more money;" and every man that had bought
on credit and owed a little something on what he had purchased, when the
property went down commenced crying, or many of them did, for inflation.
I understand it.
A man, say, bought a piece of land for six thousand dollars; paid five
thousand dollars on it; gave a mortgage for one thousand dollars, and
suddenly, in 1873, found that the land would not pay the other thousand.
The land had resumed, and then he said, looking lugubriously at his note
and mortgage, "I want another inflation." And I never heard a man call
for it that did not also say, "If it ever comes, and I don't unload, you
may shoot me."
It was very much as it is sometimes in playing poker, and I make this
comparison knowing that hardly a person here will understand it. I have
been told that along toward morning the man that is ahead suddenly
says, "I have got to go home. The fact is, my wife is not well." And the
fellow who is behind says, "Let us have another deal; I have my opinion
of the fellow that will jump a game." And so it was in the hard times
of 1873. They said: "Give us another deal; let us get our driftwood back
into the centre of the stream." And they cried out for more money.
But the Republican party said: "We do want more money, but not more
promises. We have got to pay this first, and if we start out again
upon that wide sea of promise we may never touch the shore." A thousand
theories were born of want; a thousand theories were born of the fertile
brain of trouble; and these people said, "After all, what is money? Why,
it is nothing but a measure of value, just the same as a half bushel or
yardstick." True; and consequently it makes no difference whether your
half bushel is of wood or gold or silver or paper; and it makes no
difference whether your yardstick is gold or paper. But the trouble
about that statement is this: A half bushel is not a measure of value;
it is a measure of quantity, and it measures rubies, diamonds and pearls
precisely the same as corn and wheat. The yardstick is not a measure of
value; it is a measure of length, and it measures lace worth one hundred
dollars a yard precisely as it does cent tape. And another reason why it
makes no difference to the purchaser whether the half bushel is gold or
silver, or whether the yardstick is gold or paper, you do not buy the
yardstick; you do not get the half bushel in the trade. And if it were
so with money--if the people that had the money at the start of the
trade, kept it after the consummation of the bargain--then it would not
make any difference what you made your money of. But the trouble is the
money changes hands. And let me say to-night, money is a thing--it is a
product of nature--and you can no more make a "fiat" dollar than you
can make a fiat star. I am in favor of honest money. Free speech is the
brain of the Republic; an honest ballot is the breath of its life, and
honest money is the blood that courses through its veins.
If I am fortunate enough to leave a dollar when I die, I want it to be
a good one. I do not wish to have it turn to ashes in the hands of
widowhood, or become a Democratic broken promise in the pocket of the
orphan; I want it money. I want money that will outlive the Democratic
party. They told us--and they were honest about it--they said, "When
we have plenty of money, we are prosperous." And I said, "When we are
prosperous, we have plenty of money." When we are prosperous, then we
have credit, and credit inflates the currency. Whenever a man buys a
pound of sugar and says, "Charge it," he inflates the currency; whenever
he gives his note, he inflates the currency; whenever his word takes the
place of money, he inflates the currency. The consequence is that when
we are prosperous, credit takes the place of money, and we have what we
call "plenty."
But you cannot increase prosperity simply by using promises to pay.
Suppose you should come to a river that was about dry, so dry that the
turtle had to help the catfish over the shoals, and there you would see
the ferryboat, and the gentleman who kept the ferry, up on the sand,
high and dry, and the cracks all opening in the sun, filled with
loose oakum, looking like an average Democratic mouth listening to a
constitutional argument, and you should say to him, "How is business?"
And he would say, "Dull." And then you would say to him, "Now, what you
want is more boat." He would probably answer, "If I had a little more
water I could get along with this one."
Suppose I next came to a man running a railroad, complaining of hard
times. "Why," said he, "I did a million dollars' worth of business the
first year and used five hundred thousand dollars' worth of grease. The
second year I did five hundred thousand dollars' worth of business and
used four hundred thousand dollars' worth of grease." "Well," said
I, "the reason your road fell off was because you did not use enough
grease."
But I want to be fair, and I wish to-night to return my thanks to the
Democratic party. You did a great and splendid work. You went all over
the United States and you said upon every stump that a greenback was
better than gold. You said, "We have at last found the money of the poor
man. Gold loves the rich; gold haunts banks and safes and vaults; but we
have money that will go around inquiring for a man that is dead broke.
We have finally found money that will stay in a pocket with holes in
it." But, after all, do you know that money is the most social thing
in this world? If a fellow has one dollar in his pocket, and he meets
another with two, do you know that dollar is absolutely homesick until
it gets where the other two are? And yet the Greenbackers told us that
they had finally invented money that would be the poor mans friend. They
said, "It is better than gold, better than silver," and they got so many
men to believe it that when we resumed and said, "Here is your gold for
your greenback," the fellows who had the greenback said, "We don't want
it. The greenbacks are good enough for us." Do you know, if they had
wanted it we could not have given it to them? And so I return my thanks
to the Greenback party. But allow me to say in this connection, the days
of their usefulness have passed forever.
Now, I am not foolish enough to claim that the Republican party resumed.
I am not silly enough to say that John Sherman resumed. But I will tell
you what I do say. I say that every man who raised a bushel of corn or a
bushel of wheat or a pound of beef or pork for sale helped to resume. I
say that the gentle rain and the loving dew helped to resume. The soil
of the United States impregnated by the loving sun helped to resume. The
men that dug the coal and the iron and the silver and the copper and the
gold helped to resume. And the men upon whose foreheads fell the light
of furnaces helped to resume. And the sailors who fought with the waves
of the seas helped to resume.
I admit to-night that the Democrats earned their share of the money
to resume with. All I claim is that the Republican party furnished the
honesty to pay it over. That is what I claim; and the Republican party
set the day, and the Republican party worked to the promise. That is
what I say. And had it not been for the Republican party this Nation
would have been financially dishonored. I am for honest money, and I am
for the payment of every dollar of our debt, and so is every Democrat
now, I take it. But what did you say a little while ago? Did you say we
could resume? No; you swore we could not, and you swore our bonds would
be worthless as the withered leaves of winter. And now when a Democrat
goes to England and sees an American four per cent, quoted at one
hundred and ten he kind of swells up, and says: "That's the kind of man
I am." In that country he pretends he was a Republican in this. And I do
not blame him. I do not begrudge him enjoying respectability when away
from home. The Republican party is entitled to the credit for keeping
this Nation grandly and splendidly honest. I say, the Republican party
is entitled to the credit of preserving the honor of this Nation.
In 1873 came the crash, and all the languages of the world cannot
describe the agonies suffered by the American people from 1873 to 1879.
A man who thought he was a millionaire came to poverty; he found
his stocks and bonds ashes in the paralytic hand of old age. Men who
expected to live all their lives in the sunshine of joy found themselves
beggars and paupers. The great factories were closed, the workmen were
demoralized, and the roads of the United States were filled with tramps.
In the hovel of the poor and the palace of the rich came the serpent
of temptation and whispered in the American ear the terrible word
"Repudiation." But the Republican party said, "No; we will pay every
dollar. No; we have started toward the shining goal of resumption and we
never will turn back." And the Republican party struggled until it had
the happiness of seeing upon the broad shining forehead of American
labor the words "Financial Honor."
The Republican party struggled until every paper promise was as good
as gold. And the moment we got back to gold then we commenced to rise
again. We could not jump until our feet touched something that they
could be pressed against. And from that moment to this we have been
going, going, going higher and higher, more prosperous every hour. And
now they say, "Let us have a change." When I am sick I want a change;
when I am poor I want a change; and if I were a Democrat I would have a
personal change. We are prosperous to-day, and must keep so. We are back
to gold and silver. Let us stay there; and let us stay with the party
that brought us there.
Now, I am not only in favor of free speech and an honest ballot-box and
an honest collection of the revenue of the United States, and an honest
money, but I am in favor of the idea, of the great and splendid
truth, that this is a Nation one and indivisible. I deny that we are a
confederacy bound together with ropes of cloud and chains of mist. This
is a Nation, and every man in it owes his first allegiance to the grand
old flag for which more brave blood was shed than for any other flag
that waves in the sight of heaven. There is another thing; we all want
to live in a land where the law is supreme. We desire to live beneath a
flag that will protect every citizen beneath its folds. We desire to be
citizens of a Government so great and so grand that it will command
the respect of the civilized world. Most of us are convinced that our
Government is the best upon this earth. It is the only Government
where manhood, and manhood alone, is not made simply a condition of
citizenship, but where manhood, and manhood alone, permits its possessor
to have his equal share in control of the Government. It is the only
Government in the world where poverty is upon an exact equality with
wealth, so far as controlling the destiny of the Republic is concerned.
It is the only Nation where the man clothed in rags stands upon an
equality with the one wearing purple. It is the only country in the
world where, politically, the hut is upon an equality with the palace.
For that reason every poor man should stand by this Government, and
every poor man who does not is a traitor to the best interests of his
children; every poor man who does not is willing his children should
bear the badge of political inferiority; and the only way to make this
Government a complete and perfect success is for the poorest man to
think as much of his manhood as the millionaire does of his wealth. A
man does not vote in this country simply because he is rich; he does
not vote in this country simply because he has an education; he does
not vote simply because he has talent or genius; we say that he votes
because he is a man, and that he has his manhood to support; and we
admit in this country that nothing can be more valuable to any human
being than his manhood, and for that reason we put poverty on an
equality with wealth. We say in this country manhood is worth more than
gold. We say in this country that without Liberty the Nation is not
worth preserving. Now, I appeal to-day to every poor man; I appeal
to-day to every laboring man, and I ask him, is there another country on
this globe where you can have equal rights with others? There is another
thing; do you want a Government of law or of brute force? In which part
of this country do you find law supreme? In which part of this country
can a man find justice in the courts; in the North or in the South?
Where is crime punished? Where is innocence protected, in the North or
in the South? Which section of this country will you trust?
You can tell what a man is by the way he treats persons in his power,
and the man that will sneak and crawl in the presence of greatness, will
trample the weak when he gets them in his power. What class of people
does the State have in its power? Criminals and creditors; and you
can judge of a State by the way it treats its criminals and creditors.
Georgia is the best State in the South. They have a penitentiary system
by which they hire out their convict labor. Only two years ago the whole
thing was examined by a friend of mine, Col. Allston. He had been in the
rebel army and was my good friend. He used to come to my house day after
day to see me. He got converted and had the grit to say so. Being
a member of the Legislature, he had a committee of investigation
appointed. Now, in order that you may understand the difference, you
must know that in the Northern penitentiaries the average annual death
rate is one per cent.; that is, of one thousand convicts, ten will
die in a year, on the average. That low death rate is because we are
civilized, because we do not kill; but in the Georgia penitentiary it
was as high as fifteen, twenty-seven and forty-seven per cent., at a
time when there was no typhoid or yellow fever, or epidemic of any kind.
They died for four months at a rate of ten per cent, per month. They
crowded the convicts in together, regardless of sex. They treated them
precisely as wild beasts, and many of them were shot down. Persons high
in authority, Senators of the United States, held interests in those
contracts, and Robert Allston denounced them. When on a visit he said,
"I believe when I get home I shall be killed." I told him not to go
back to Georgia, but to stay in the civilized North; but no, he would go
back, and on the very day of his arrival he was murdered in cold blood.
Do you want to trust such men? * * *
The Southern people say this is a Confederacy and they are honest in it.
They fought for it, they believed it. They believe in the doctrine of
State Sovereignty, and many Democrats of the North believe in the same
doctrine. No less a man than Horatio Seymour--standing it may be at the
head of Democratic statesmen--said, if he has been correctly reported,
only the other day, that he despised the word "Nation." I bless that
word. I owe my first allegiance to this Nation, and it owes its first
protection to me. I am talking here to-night, not because I am protected
by the flag of New York. I would not know that flag if I should see it.
I am talking here, and have the right to talk here, because the flag of
my country is above us. I have the same right as though I had been born
upon this very platform. I am proud of New York because it is a part of
my country. I am proud of my country because it has such a State as
New York in it, and I will be prouder of New York on a week from next
Tuesday than ever before in my life. I despise the doctrine of State
Sovereignty. I believe in the rights of the States, but not in the
sovereignty of the States. States are political conveniences. Rising
above States, as the Alps above valleys, are the rights of man. Rising
above the rights of the Government, even in this Nation, are the sublime
rights of the people. Governments are good only so long as they protect
human rights. But the rights of a man never should be sacrificed upon
the altar of the State, or upon the altar of the Nation.
Let me tell you a few objections that I have to State Sovereignty. That
doctrine has never been appealed to for any good. The first time it was
appealed to was when our Constitution was made. And the object then was
to keep the slave-trade open until the year 1808. The object then was
to make the sea the highway of piracy--the object then was to allow
American citizens to go into the business of selling men and women and
children, and feed their cargo to the sharks of the sea, and the sharks
of the sea were as merciful as they. That was the first time that the
appeal to the doctrine of State Sovereignty was made, and the next time
was for the purpose of keeping alive the interstate slave-trade, so that
a gentleman in Virginia could sell the slave who had nursed him, and rob
the cradles of their babes. Think of it! It was made so they could rob
the cradle in the name of law. Think of it! Think of it! And the next
time they appealed to the doctrine of State Sovereignty was in favor of
the Fugitive Slave Law--a law that made a bloodhound of every Northern
man; that made charity a crime; a law that made love a state-prison
offence; that branded the forehead of charity as if it were a felon.
Think of it!
It is a part of my honor to hate such principles. I have no respect
for any man who is so mean, cruel and wicked, as to allow himself to be
transformed into a bloodhound to bay upon the tracks of innocent human
prey. I will follow my logic, no matter where it goes, after it has
consulted with my heart. If you ever come to a conclusion without
calling the heart in, you will come to a bad conclusion.
A good man is pretty apt to be right; a perfectly honest man is like the
surface of the stainless mirror, that gives back by simply looking at
him, the image of the one who looks.
The next time they appealed to the doctrine of State Sovereignty was to
increase the area of human slavery, so that the bloodhound, with clots
of blood dropping from his loose and hanging jaws, might traverse the
billowy plains of Kansas. Think of it!
The Democratic party then said the Federal Government had a right to
cross the State line. And the next time they appealed to that infamous
doctrine was in defence of secession and treason; a doctrine that cost
us six thousand millions of dollars; a doctrine that cost four hundred
thousand lives; a doctrine that filled our country with widows, our
homes with orphans. And I tell you, the doctrine of State Sovereignty
is the viper in the bosom of this Republic, and if we do not kill that
viper it will kill us.
The Democrats tell us that in the olden time the Federal Government had
a right to cross a State line to put shackles upon the limbs of men. It
had the right to cross a State line to trample upon the rights of human
beings, but now it has no right to cross those lines upon an errand
of mercy or justice. We are told that now, when the Federal Government
wishes to protect a citizen, a State line rises like a Chinese wall,
and the sword of Federal power turns to air the moment it touches one of
those lines. I deny it and I despise, abhor and execrate the doctrine of
State Sovereignty. The Democrats tell us if we wish to be protected by
the Federal Government we must leave home. I wish they would try it for
about ten days. They say the Federal Government can defend a citizen
in England, France, Spain or Germany, but cannot defend a child of the
Republic sitting around the family hearth. I deny it. A Government that
cannot protect its citizens at home is unfit to be called a Government.
I want a Government with an ear so good that it can hear the faintest
cry of the oppressed wherever its flag floats. I want a Government with
an arm long enough and a sword sharp enough to cut down treason wherever
it may raise its serpent head. I want a Government that will protect
a freedman, standing by his little log hut, with the same alacrity and
with the same efficiency that it would protect Vanderbilt, living in a
palace of marble and gold. Humanity is a sacred thing, and manhood is a
thing to be preserved. Let us look at it. For instance, here is a war,
and the Federal Government says to a man, "We want you," and he says,
"No, I don't want to go," and then they put a lot of pieces of paper in
a wheel and on one of those pieces is his name, and another man turns
the crank, and then they pull it out and there is his name, and
they say, "Come," and so he goes. And they stand him in front of the
brazen-throated guns; they make him fight for his native land, and when
the war is over he goes home and he finds the war has been unpopular
in his neighborhood, and they trample on his rights, and he says to the
Federal Government, "Protect me." And he says to the Government, "I owe
my allegiance to you. You must protect me." What will you say of
that Government if it says to him, "You must look to your State for
protection"? "Ah, but," he says, "my State is the very power trampling
upon me," and, of course, the robber is not going to send for the
police, It is the duty of the Government to defend even its drafted
men; and if that is the duty of the Government, what shall I say of the
volunteer, who for one moment holds his wife in a tremulous and agonized
embrace, kisses his children, shoulders his musket, goes to the field
and says, "Here I am, ready to die for my native land"? A Nation that
will not defend its volunteer defenders is a disgrace to the map of this
world. This is a Nation. Free speech is the brain of the Republic; an
honest ballot is the breath of its life; honest money is the blood of
its veins; and the idea of nationality is its great, beating, throbbing
heart. I am for a Nation. And yet the Democrats tell me that it is
dangerous to have centralized power. How would you have it? I believe in
the localization of power; I believe in having enough of it localized in
one place to be effectively used; I believe in a localization of brain.
I suppose Democrats would like to have it spread all over your body, and
they act as though theirs was.
There is another thing in which I believe: I believe in the protection
of American labor. The hand that holds Aladdin's lamp must be the hand
of toil. This Nation rests upon the shoulders of its workers, and I want
the American laboring man to have enough to wear; I want him to have
enough to eat:
I want him to have something for the ordinary misfortunes of life; I
want him to have the pleasure of seeing his wife well-dressed; I want
him to see a few blue ribbons fluttering about his children; I want him
to see the flags of health flying in their beautiful cheeks; I want him
to feel that this is his country, and the shield of protection is above
his labor.
And I will tell you why I am for protection, too. If we were all farmers
we would be stupid. If we were all shoemakers we would be stupid. If
we all followed one business, no matter what it was, we would become
stupid. Protection to American labor diversifies American industry,
and to have it diversified touches and develops every part of the human
brain. Protection protects ingenuity; it protects intelligence; and
protection raises sense; and by protection we have greater men, better
looking women and healthier children. Free trade means that our laborer
is upon an equality with the poorest paid labor of this world. And allow
me to tell you that for an empty stomach, "Hurrah for Hancock!" is a
poor consolation. I do not think much of a Government where the people
do not have enough to eat. I am a materialist to that extent; I want
something to eat. I have been in countries where the laboring man had
meat once a year; sometimes twice--Christmas and Easter. And I have seen
women carrying upon their heads a burden that no man in this audience
could carry, and at the same time knitting busily with both hands,
and those women lived without meat; and when I thought of the American
laborer, I said to myself, "After all, my country is the best in the
world." And when I came back to the sea and saw the old flag flying, it
seemed to me as though the air from pure joy had burst into blossom.
Labor has more to eat and more to wear in the United States than in
any other land of this earth. I want America to produce everything that
Americans need. I want it so that if the whole world should declare war
against us, if we were surrounded by walls of cannon and bayonets and
swords, we could supply all our material wants in and of ourselves. I
want to live to see the American woman dressed in American silk; the
American man in everything, from hat to boots, produced in America by
the cunning hand of American toil. I want to see the workingman have
a good house, painted white, grass in the front yard, carpets on the
floor, pictures on the wall. I want to see him a man, feeling that he is
a king by the divine right of living in the Republic. And every man here
is just a little bit a king, you know. Every man here is a part of the
sovereign power. Every man wears a little of purple; every man has a
little of crown and a little of sceptre; and every man that will sell
his vote for money or be ruled by prejudice is unfit to be an American
citizen.
I believe in American labor, and I will tell you why. The other day a
man told me that we had produced in the United States of America one
million tons of steel rails. How much are they worth? Sixty dollars a
ton. In other words, the million tons are worth sixty million dollars.
How much is a ton of iron worth in the ground? Twenty-five cents.
American labor takes twenty-five cents worth of iron in the ground and
adds to it fifty-nine dollars and seventy-five cents. One million tons
of rails, and the raw material not worth twenty-four thousand dollars!
We build a ship in the United States worth five hundred thousand
dollars, and the value of the ore in the earth, of the trees in the
great forest, of all that enters into the composition of that ship
bringing five hundred thousand dollars in gold is only twenty thousand
dollars; four hundred and eighty thousand dollars by American labor,
American muscle, coined into gold; American brains made a legal tender
the world round.
I propose to stand by the Nation. I want the furnaces kept hot. I want
the sky to be filled with the smoke of American industry, and upon that
cloud of smoke will rest forever the bow of perpetual promise. That is
what I am for. Where did this doctrine of a tariff for revenue only come
from? From the South. The South would like to stab the prosperity of the
North. They would rather trade with Old England than with New England.
They would rather trade with the people who were willing to help them in
war than with those who conquered the Rebellion. They knew what gave us
our strength in war. They knew that all the brooks and creeks and rivers
of New England were putting down the Rebellion. They knew that every
wheel that turned, every spindle that revolved, was a soldier in the
army of human progress. It won't do! They were so lured by the greed of
office that they were willing to trade upon the misfortunes of a Nation.
It won't do! I do not wish to belong to a party that succeeds only when
my country fails. I do not wish to belong to a party whose banner went
up with the banner of rebellion. I do not wish to belong to a party that
was in partnership with defeat and disaster. I do not. And there is not
a Democrat here who does not know that a failure of the crops this year
would have helped his party. You know that an early frost would have
been a godsend to them. You know that the potato-bug could have done
them more good than all their speakers.
I wish to belong to that party which is prosperous when the country is
prosperous. I belong to that party which is not poor when the golden
billows are running over the seas of wheat. I belong to that party which
is prosperous when there are oceans of corn, and when the cattle are
upon the thousand hills. I belong to that party which is prosperous when
the furnaces are aflame, and when you dig coal and iron and silver; when
everybody has enough to eat; when everybody is happy; when the children
are all going to school, and when joy covers my Nation as with a
garment. That party which is prosperous then, is my party.
Now, then, I have been telling you what I am for. I am for free speech,
and so ought you to be. I am for an honest ballot, and if you are not
you ought to be. I am for the collection of the revenue. I am for honest
money. I am for the idea that this is a Nation forever. I believe in
protecting American labor. I want the shield of my country above every
anvil, above every furnace, above every cunning head and above every
deft hand of American labor.
Now, then, which section of this country will be the more apt to carry
these ideas into execution? Which party will be the more apt to achieve
these grand and splendid things? Honor bright? Now we have not only
to choose between sections of the country; we have to choose between
parties. Here is the Democratic party, and I admit there are thousands
of good Democrats who went to the war, and some of those that stayed at
home were good men; and I want to ask you, and I want you to tell me
in reply what that party did during the war when the War Democrats were
away from home. What did they do? That is the question. I say to you,
that every man who tried to tear our flag out of heaven was a Democrat.
The men who wrote the ordinances of secession, who fired upon Fort
Sumter; the men who starved our soldiers, who fed them with the crumbs
that the worms had devoured before, they were Democrats. The keepers
of Libby, the keepers of Andersonville, were Democrats--Libby and
Andersonville, the two mighty wings that will bear the memory of the
Confederacy to eternal infamy! The men who wished to scatter yellow
fever in the North and who tried to fire the great cities of the
North--they were all Democrats. He who said that the greenback would
never be paid and he who slandered sixty cents out of every dollar of
the Nation's promises were Democrats. Who were joyful when your brothers
and your sons and your fathers lay dead on a field of battle that the
country had lost? They were Democrats. The men who wept when the old
banner floated in triumph above the ramparts of rebellion--they were
Democrats. You know it. The men who wept when slavery was destroyed, who
believed slavery to be a divine institution, who regarded bloodhounds as
apostles and missionaries, and who wept at the funeral of that infernal
institution--they were Democrats. Bad company--bad company!
And let me implore all the young men here not to join that party. Do not
give new blood to that institution. The Democratic party has a yellow
passport. On one side it says "dangerous." They imagine they have not
changed, and that is because they have not intellectual growth. That
party was once the enemy of my country, was once the enemy of our flag,
and more than that, it was once the enemy of human liberty, and that
party to-night is not willing that the citizens of the Republic should
exercise all their rights irrespective of their color. And allow me to
say right here that I am opposed to that party.
We have not only to choose between parties, but to choose between
candidates. The Democracy have put forward as the bearers of their
standard General Hancock and William H. English. The Democrats have at
last nominated a Union soldier. They nominated George B. McClellan once,
because he failed to whip the South; they nominated Mr. Greeley, when
they despised him, and now they have nominated General Hancock. Do they
think the South loves him? At Gettysburg they say he fought against
them, and that is one great reason why he should be President--that he
shot rebels. Do the men that fought at Gettysburg still believe in
State Sovereignty? Wade Hampton says, "We must vote as Lee and Jackson
fought." They fought for State Sovereignty. Has the South changed?
Hancock went to kill them then; they want to vote for him now. Who
has changed? [A voice: "Hancock."] I think so. They are using him as a
figure-head. They have dressed him in the noble blue, with the patriotic
coat and Union buttons, and they do not like him any better than they
did at Gettysburg. It would be just as consistent for the Republicans
to have nominated Wade Hampton. Did General Hancock believe in State
Sovereignty when he was at Gettysburg? If he did, he was a murderer, and
not a Union soldier--he was killing men he believed to be in the right,
and a man cannot fight unless his conscience approves of what his sword
does, and if he was honest at that time, he did not believe in State
Sovereignty, and it seems to me he would hate to have the men who tried
to destroy this Government cheering him. All the glory he ever got was
in the service of the Republican party, and if he does not look out
he will lose it all in the service of the Democratic party. He had
a conversation with General Grant. It was a time when he had
been appointed at the head of the Department of the Gulf. In that
conversation he stated to General Grant that he was opposed to "nigger
domination." Grant said to him, "We must obey the laws of Congress.
We are soldiers." And that meant, the military is not above the civil
authority. And I tell you to-night, that the army and the navy are the
right and left hands of the civil power. Grant said to him: "Three or
four million ex-slaves, without property and without education, cannot
dominate over thirty or forty millions of white people, with education
and property." General Hancock replied to that: "I am opposed to 'nigger
domination.'" Allow me to say that I do not believe any man fit for
the presidency of the great Republic, who is capable of insulting a
down-trodden race. I never meet a negro that I do not feel like asking
his forgiveness for the wrongs that my race has inflicted on his. I
remember that from the white man he received for two hundred years agony
and tears; I remember that my race sold a child from the agonized breast
of a mother; I remember that my race trampled with the feet of greed
upon all the holy relations of life; and I do not feel like insulting
the colored man; I feel rather like asking the forgiveness of his race
for the crimes that my race have put upon him. "Nigger domination!" What
a fine scabbard that makes for the sword of Gettysburg! It won't do!
What is General Hancock for, besides the presidency? How does he stand
upon the great questions affecting American prosperity? He told us the
other day that the tariff is a local question. The tariff affects every
man and woman, live they in hut, hovel or palace; it affects every man
that has a back to be covered or a stomach to be filled, and yet he says
it is a local question. So is death. He also told us that he heard
that question discussed once, in Pennsylvania. He must have been
eavesdropping. And he tells us that his doctrine of the tariff will
continue as long as Nature lasts. Then Senator Randolph wrote him a
letter. I do not know whether Senator Randolph answered it or not; but
that answer was worse than the first interview; and I understand
now that another letter is going through a period of incubation at
Governor's Island, upon the great subject of the tariff. It won't do!
They say one thing they are sure of, he is opposed to paying Southern
pensions and Southern claims. He says that a man that fought against
this Government has no right to a pension. Good! I say a man that fought
against this Government has no right to office. If a man cannot earn
a pension by tearing our flag out of the sky, he cannot earn power. [A
Voice--"How about Longstreet?"] Longstreet has repented of what he did.
Longstreet admits that he was wrong. And there was no braver officer in
the Southern Confederacy. Every man of the South who will say, "I made a
mistake"--I do not want him to say that he knew he was wrong--all I
ask him to say is that he now thinks he was wrong; and every man of the
South to-day who says he was wrong, and who says from this day forward,
henceforth and forever, he is for this being a Nation.
I will take him by the hand. But while he is attempting to do at the
ballot-box what he failed to accomplish upon the field of battle, I am
against him; while he uses a Northern general to bait a Southern trap,
I won't bite. I will forgive men when they deserve to be forgiven; but
while they insist that they were right, while they insist that State
Sovereignty is the proper doctrine, I am opposed to their climbing into
power.
Hancock says that he will not pay these claims; he agrees to veto a
bill that his party may pass; he agrees in advance that he will defeat
a party that he expects will elect him; he, in effect, says to the
people, "You can not trust that party, but you can trust me." He says,
"Look at them; I admit they are a hungry lot; I admit that they haven't
had a bite in twenty years; I admit that an ordinary famine is satiety
compared to the hunger they feel. But between that vast appetite known
as the Democratic party, and the public treasury, I will throw the
shield of my veto." No man has a right to say in advance what he will
veto, any more than a judge has a right to say in advance how he
will decide a case. The veto power is a distinction with which the
Constitution has clothed the Executive, and no President has a right to
say that he will veto until he has heard both sides of the question. But
he agrees in advance.
I would rather trust a party than a man. Death may veto Hancock, and
Death has not been a successful politician in the United States.
Tyler, Fillmore, Andy Johnson--I do not wish Death to elect any more
Presidents; and if he does, and if Hancock is elected, William H.
English becomes President of the United States. No, no, no! All I need
to say about him is simply to pronounce his name; that is all. You do
not want him. Whether the many stories that have been told about him are
true or not I do not know, and I will not give currency to a solitary
word against the reputation of an American citizen unless I know it to
be true. What I have against him is what he has done in public life.
When Charles Sumner, that great and splendid publicist--Charles Sumner,
the philanthropist, one who spoke to the conscience of his time and to
the history of the future--when he stood up in the United States Senate
and made a great and glorious plea for human liberty, there crept into
the Senate a villain and struck him down as though he had been a wild
beast. That man was a member of Congress, and when a resolution was
introduced in the House, to expel that man, William H. English voted
"No." All the stories in the world could not add to the infamy of that
public act. That is enough for me, and whatever his private life may be,
let it be that of an angel, never, never, never would I vote for a man
that would defend the assassin of free speech. General Hancock, they
tell me, is a statesman; that what little time he has had to spare from
war he has given to the tariff, and what little time he could spare
from the tariff he has given to the Constitution of his country;
showing under what circumstances a Major-General can put at defiance the
Congress of the United States. It won't do!
But while I am upon that subject it may be well for me to state that he
never will be President of the United States. Now, I say that a man who
in time of peace prefers peace, and prefers the avocations of peace; a
man who in the time of peace would rather look at the corn in the air of
June, rather listen to the hum of bees, rather sit by his door with his
wife and children; the man who in time of peace loves peace, and yet
when the blast of war blows in his ears, shoulders a musket and goes to
the field of war to defend his country, and when the war is over goes
home and again pursues the avocations of peace--that man is just as
good, to say the least of it, as a man who in a time of profound peace
makes up his mind that he would like to make his living killing other
folks. To say the least of it, he is as good.
The Republicans have named as their standard bearers James A. Garfield
and Chester A. Arthur. James A. Garfield was a volunteer soldier, and
he took away from the field of Chickamauga as much glory as any one
man could carry. He is not only a soldier--7-he is a statesman. He has
studied and discussed all the great questions that affect the prosperity
and well-being of the American people. His opinions are well known, and
I say to you tonight that there is not in this Nation, there is not in
this Republic a man with greater brain and greater heart than James A.
Garfield. I know him and I like him. I know him as well as any other
public man, and I like him. The Democratic party say that he is not
honest. I have been reading some Democratic papers to-day, and you would
say that every one of their editors had a private sewer of his own into
which has been emptied for a hundred years the slops of hell. They tell
me that James A. Garfield is not honest. Are you a Democrat? Your
party tried to steal nearly half of this country. Your party stole the
armament of a nation. Your party was willing to live upon the unpaid
labor of four millions of people. You have no right to the floor for the
purpose of making a motion of honesty. James A. Garfield has been at the
head of the most important committees of Congress; he is a member of the
most important one of the whole House. He has no peer in the Congress of
the United States. And you know it. He is the leader of the House.
With one wave of his hand he can take millions from the pocket of one
industry and put it into the pocket of another; with a motion of his
hand he could have made himself a man of wealth, but he is to-night a
poor man. I know him and I like him. He is as genial as May and he is as
generous as Autumn. And the men for whom he has done unnumbered favors,
the men whom he had pity enough not to destroy with an argument, the men
who, with his great generosity, he has allowed, intellectually, to live,
are now throwing filth at the reputation of that great and splendid man.
Several ladies and gentlemen were passing a muddy place around which
were gathered ragged and wretched urchins. And these little wretches
began to throw mud at them; and one gentleman said, "If you don't stop
I will throw it back at you." And a little fellow said, "You can't do it
without dirtying your hands, and it doesn't hurt us anyway."
I never was more profoundly happy than on the night of that 12th day
of October when I found that between an honest and a kingly man and his
maligners, two great States had thrown their shining shields. When Ohio
said, "Garfield is my greatest son, and there never has been raised in
the cabins of Ohio a grander man"--and when Indiana held up her hands
and said, "Allow me to indorse that verdict," I was profoundly happy,
because that said to me, "Garfield will carry every Northern State;"
that said to me, "The Solid South will be confronted by a great and
splendid North."
I know Garfield--I like him. Some people have said, "How is it that you
support Garfield, when he was a minister?" "How is it that you support
Garfield when he is a Christian?" I will tell you. There are two
reasons. The first is I am not a bigot; and secondly, James A. Garfield
is not a bigot. He believes in giving to every other human being every
right he claims for himself. He believes in freedom of speech and
freedom of thought; untrammeled conscience and upright manhood. He
believes in an absolute divorce between church and state. He believes
that every religion should rest upon its morality, upon its reason,
upon its persuasion, upon its goodness, upon its charity, and that love
should never appeal to the sword of civil power. He disagrees with me in
many things; but in the one thing, that the air is free for all, we do
agree. I want to do equal and exact justice everywhere.
I want the world of thought to be without a chain, without a wall, and I
wish to say to you, [turning toward Mr. Beecher and directly addressing
him] that I thank you for what you have said to-night, and to
congratulate the people of this city and country that you have
intellectual horizon enough, intellectual sky enough to take the hand
of a man, howsoever much he may disagree in some things with you, on the
grand platform and broad principle of citizenship. James A. Garfield,
believing with me as he does, disagreeing with me as he does, is
perfectly satisfactory to me. I know him, and I like him.
Men are to-day blackening his reputation, who are not fit to blacken
his shoes. He is a man of brain. Since his nomination he must have made
forty or fifty speeches, and every one has been full of manhood and
genius. He has not said a word that has not strengthened him with the
American people. He is the first candidate who has been free to express
himself and who has never made a mistake. I will tell you why he does
not make a mistake; because he spoke from the inside out. Because he was
guided by the glittering Northern Star of principle. Lie after lie has
been told about him. Slander after slander has been hatched and put in
the air, with its little short wings, to fly its day, and the last lie
is a forgery.
I saw to-day the fac-simile of a letter that they pretend he wrote upon
the Chinese question. I know his writing; I know his signature; I am
well acquainted with his writing. I know handwriting, and I tell you
to-night, that letter and that signature are forgeries. A forgery
for the benefit of the Pacific States; a forgery for the purpose of
convincing the American workingman that Garfield is without heart. I
tell you, my fellow-citizens, that cannot take from him a vote. But Ohio
pierced their centre and Indiana rolled up both flanks and the rebel
line cannot re-form with a forgery for a standard. They are gone!
Now, some people say to me, "How long are you going to preach the
doctrine of hate?" I never did preach it. In many States of this Union
it is a crime to be a Republican. I am going to preach my doctrine until
every American citizen is permitted to express his opinion and vote
as he may desire in every State of this Union. I am going to preach my
doctrine until this is a civilized country. That is all.
I will treat the gentlemen of the South precisely as we do the gentlemen
of the North. I want to treat every section of the country precisely as
we do ours-. I want to improve their rivers and their harbors; I want
to fill their land with commerce; I want them to prosper; I want them to
build schoolhouses; I want them to open the lands to immigration to all
people who desire to settle upon their soil. I want to be friends with
them; I want to let the past be buried forever; I want to let bygones
be bygones, but only upon the basis that we are now in favor of absolute
liberty and eternal justice. I am not willing to bury nationality or
free speech in the grave for the purpose of being friends. Let us
stand by our colors; let the old Republican party that has made this a
Nation--the old Republican party that has saved the financial honor of
this country--let that party stand by its colors.
Let that party say, "Free speech forever!" Let that party say, "An
honest ballot forever!" Let that party say, "Honest money forever! the
Nation and the flag forever!" And let that party stand by the great men
carrying her banner, James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur. I
would rather trust a party than a man. If General Garfield dies, the
Republican party lives; if General Garfield dies, General Arthur will
take his place--a brave, honest, and intelligent gentleman, upon whom
every Republican can rely. And if he dies, the Republican party lives,
and as long as the Republican party does not die, the great Republic
will live. As long as the Republican party lives, this will be the
asylum of the world. Let me tell you, Mr. Irishman, this is the only
country on the earth where Irishmen have had enough to eat. Let me tell
you, Mr. German, that you have more liberty here than you had in the
Fatherland. Let me tell you, all men, that this is the land of humanity.
Oh! I love the old Republic, bounded by the seas, walled by the wide
air, domed by heaven's blue, and lit with the eternal stars. I love the
Republic; I love it because I love liberty. Liberty is my religion, and
at its altar I worship, and will worship.