"GREYSTONE, _October 26, 1880_.
"GENTLEMEN,--I have received your invitation to be present
and address a meeting of the Young Men's Democratic Club of the city
of New York at Chickering Hall this evening.
"My voice is not yet sufficiently restored to make it prudent for me
to address a large meeting. My cordial sympathy with your efforts to
elect General Hancock has already been conspicuously expressed.
"As the canvass advances every day renders more manifest the duty
to promote that result incumbent upon all who believe in the
traditions of free, constitutional, representative self-government
as illustrated in the better days of the Republic.
"One Presidential election, as made by the people, has been
subverted by a false count of the votes cast by the Presidential
electors founded on a substitution of votes known to be fraudulent
or forged.
"If the next Presidential election should be controlled by corrupt
influence exercised by the government upon the voters in particular
States, opening a vista of third terms, and an indefinite series of
terms, and the undisputed mastery of the office-holding class in the
successive elections, our government will be degenerated into a bad
copy of the worst governments of the worst ages."