On the other hand, the Republican party has always been the real,
practical and helpful friend of the poor man. Before it had been in
power a year it had opened the public domain to the people, by the
passage of the homestead law, giving land to the landless and free homes
to the homeless. It has changed 4,000,000 of slaves into freemen and
paid laborers, thus relieving every workingman and woman, North and
South, from the ruinous competition of slave labor. It has steadily
insisted on protecting American enterprise and industry against foreign
competition and the poorly-paid labor of Europe. It has insisted, at all
times and under all circumstances, that the real, pressing need of the
country was not cheap manufactured goods of any kind, but prosperous and
contented mechanics. It destroyed the great landed aristocracy that was
built upon the ownership of labor, and has raised another and humbler
class of men to power. Its candidates have been taken from the people.
Its first President was a flat-boatman, a rail-splitter, a poor country
lawyer, who was the architect of his own fortunes. Its second was a poor
tailor whose wife had taught him to read. Its third President, the son
of a poor tanner, lived for years in obscurity, and knew the bitterness
of poverty and friendlessness. He filled the world with the glory of his
achievements, but preserved to the end the simple manhood of a modest
citizen. Its fourth President was also a man of the people. After him
came a man who had been a carpenter and a schoolmaster; and then
followed the son of a poor Irish minister. Its last candidate was
another self-made man of the people, who had been in turn, schoolmaster,
reporter, editor, Congressman, Senator, and Secretary. Not one of the
Republican candidates for President was born to the purple. One and all,
they came up, by their own exertions, from the humblest walks of life.
Working-people themselves, they have understood and sympathized with the
aspirations, the interests, the well-being of the real working-people.