Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1877 — SPEECH OF COV. TILDES. [ARTICLE]

SPEECH OF COV. TILDES.

Delivered at the Hendricks Reception in New York. Mu. PIIESIDENT AM) GENTLEMEN OF THE MANHATTAN Club : I accepted your invitation under the idea that this was to be a merely social meeting, the special occasion of which was the presence in this city of Mr. Hendricks and of Gov. Robinson and Lieut. Gov. Dorsheimar. One of your guests, Mr. Hendricks, embarks tomorrow on a foreign excursion for rest and recreation. He will carry with him our Rest wishes for a prosperous voyage, pleasant visit, and a safe return, and for the health and happinoss of himself and family. I have been availing myself, for similar purposes, of a brief interval, and find myself now, with sonic reluctance, drawn away from those private pursuits. But the occasion, and the apparent general seem to require that I should say a word in respect to public affairs, and especially that I should allude to the transaction which, in my judgment, is the most portentous event in our political liistory. Everybody knows that, after the recent election, the men who were elected by the people President and Vice President of the United States were “counted out,” and men who were not elected were “ counted in ” and seated. I disclaim any thought of the personal wrong involved in this transaction. Not one of the 4,250,000 of American citizens who gave us their votes but what experiences a wrong as great and as deep as I; not one of that minority who did not give us their votes but what in the resulting consequences of this act will share equally in the mischief if it is not redressed and punished. Evils in government grow by success and impunity. They do not restrain themselves voluntarily. They can never be limited except by external forces. It had been our pride and our congratulation that in this country wo had established a system of peaceful change in the governing power. In other countries in the Old World, changes in an administration —in a succession of government —have generally been worked out by frauds or by force. We ' felicitated ourselves that here, the skill and patriotism and philanthropy of our forefathers, we had established aV-"systein of peaceful change through the agency of the ballot-box. And this is the first time in American history that the right of the people has been impeached. It is the first time in American history that anybody has pretended that the Government of this great country was handed over to any set of men through fraud. It is an event novel, portentous. The example, if successful, will find imitators. The temptation is always present, and if a set of men being in possession of the Government can maintain that possession against the elective power of the people, and after they are condemned at the election, why should not such an event be imitated by their successors ? Devices will always be found to give the color of law, and false pretenses on which to found a fraudulent judgment will not be wanting. The question for the American people now is w hether or not the elective system of our forefathers, as it was established in this country and hasbeenrespccted and venerated for seventy-five years, shall he maintained, or whether we shall adopt the bad practices of the worst governments in the worst ages. This is the question of questions. Until it shall be settled no inferior administrative questions will have any significance in tho politics of this country. There will be no politics in this country but the question, “ Shall the people regain their rights and rule in this republic '?” If one instance of the successful assumption of the Government in this mode can be established, it will find plenty of imitators if it is condoned by the peopleaye, if it is once condoned. If my voice could reach throughput our country and be hear I in its remotest hamlet, I would say: “Be of good cheer. The republic will live. The institutions of our fathors are not to expire in shame. The sovereignty of the people shall be rescued from this peril and re-established.” The question involves the elective system; it involves the whole structure of free government, and the rights of the people through it again will he vindicated, reasserted and forever established. The people must condemn tho great and transcendent wrong that has been committed. They must condemn it with a voice and in a manner that shall prevent its imitation hereafter. They must strip from this example everything in it that attracts imitation. They must deny, they must refuse success and prosperous impunity to fraud. The people cannot trust those who are the authors or beneficiaries of this wrong to devise measures of redress. But when those who condemn this wrong shall attain the power, they, acting for the people, in their behalf, must devise measures of legislation, measures of constitutional change, if necessary, that shall make a recurrence of such an act as has stained our national history impossible. Successful wrong is never so apparently triumphant as when it is on the eve of its fall. Seven years ago a corrupt dynasty had established its ascendency over the millions of people who live in New York. It had obtained all the powers of government and of administration. It conquered or it bribed, or it persuaded, and won the almost universal acquiescence of our people. It even aspired to social recognition. It seemed to ho invincible. And yet a year or two after the members of it were either in the penitentiary or in exile. History is full of such examples. We must trust the people ; we must believe in the right; we must believe in the future of our country. A great and noble nation will never separate its political from ts moral life. Gov. Hendricks’ Remarks. Mr. President and Gentlemen : I thank you for the honor you do me. I appreciate it in part as an expression of personal respect and confidence, but more as an expression and assurance of your approval of those political principles of which, in honorable association with your distinguished fellow-citizen, I was made a representative during the late political contest. And I beg to assuro you that I appreciate the honor you do me, and the more because of the fact of your devotion to the principles which experience has shown are essential to the preservation of good and pure government and the prosperity of the people. Very recently the Democrats of this great city and State of Indiana, as of the other States, contended for and demanded the restoration of local self-government in all the States where it had been denied. They contended for economy in all the expenditures of government. They contended for the reduction of the vast army of oftice-holders and for the substitution of honest for dishonest administration. With such a cause to fight for—a grand one—the victory was a glorious one. I will not disturb the pleasure of this occasion by undertaking to recount the means adopted whereby the will and the judgment of the people were defeated. The result, as declared in Louisiana, in Florida and at Washington, is not acquiesced in, it cannot be acquiesced in, for the palpable reason that it was not true. A great and a sincere people can found their ultimate decision only upon the truth, and never upon fraud successful through technicality. Even should the President and his Cabinet adopt a part or all of the political policies and purposes for wfiich the Democratic party has been contending for so many years, even that will not bring about an acquiescence, will not quiet the public discontent; the Democrats will not consent that their most cherished principles shall be under the protecting case of a power which was acquired by fraudulent and corrupt means. Tho Democrats will make no factious opposition to the de facto administration at Washington. They will acquiesce in the fact that it is an administration, and will support it in that which is right because it is right and because it is for the public good, but not at all becase of any fealty to the party that stands defeated and condemned by the people. The people cannot allow that the selection of their chief magistrate shall become a thing of chance or of sharp practice. The fraud first triumphant in American history must bo assigned its proper place among the crimes against free and popular government, and be made so odious that no party in the future will dare to attempt its repetition. He who is elected President must be inaugurated ever hereafter. Until that is settled and made sure forever no Democrat can be persuaded or seduced from his devotion and allegiance to the party by the allurements of office, nor even by the stronger appeal of the abandonment by the administration of political principles that we dislike and the adoption of better doctrines and just measures. The Democrats will rather continue their faith in the right of the majority to rule according to constitutional provisions. iflAll Democrats rejoice with unbounded joy that free republican governments have been aljpwed in me States of South Carolina and Louisiana, They rejoice in the good fruits

that will follow. We all know that peace and order will prevail. We know that prosperity will return to those States, and that they will contume to give prosperity to our country. We all know that the burdens of bad government, the burdens of public corruption, will be taken from the shoulders of labor, that capital will be made more secure, and labor safer and contented and happy. We all know, too, that production will increase, and that as a consequence there will be prosperity in thoee States, which will be the prosperity of every part of the country. But Democrats know very well that this had become inevitable, as Gov. Morton said in his recent letter. Good government to the States was not a freewill offering upon the altar of our country. It had, I repeat, in the language of Gov. Morton, become inevitable. For many years the Democrats had contended in Congress and before the people in favor of the restoration of republican governments in all the States of the South. They had contended for that with such zeal and earnestness that it . could no longer be resisted, because truth and right wore too strong to be controlled in favor ot wrong any more. In this Democrats find a reason to stand the more firmly by their party. I hear every now and then the suggestion that tome Democrat, either North or South, will join some Hayes party. It will not occur. (Jilt of power, without patronage, and without money to distribute, the Democratic party during these last ten years have restored one State after another, until now the tread of soldiery is heard is no legislative hall, until now, in every State of oar Union, the people are governed by laws of their own enacting and officers of their own choosing. I have but one word more to say. The outrage upon the rights of tho people—not upon me and not upon Gov. Tilden, except that we are citizens of the country—the outrage upon the people in the act that denies to the people their own selection of the public officers according to the law and the constitution, that wrong will work its own reform. I have no fear of the future. Even if the administration that is now in power shall take Democratic principles and ideas and undertake to build prosperity upon them, it can never gain the confidence and the heart of the American people. And it will never do to say that when one man lias taken the land that belongs to another by a title that is not good, and holds it, that it is sufficient to say that that man who holds the land wrongfully will cultivate it better than tho time owner would have done. Before we reach that question we will settle bequestion, Who owns the, land ? It is not the canse Gov. Tilden has been wronged, but it is because the voice of the American people has been ignored when that voice was spoken according to the constitution of the United States. And I fear not the result, as I have already said. A great and a sincere people will base their judgment and final action upon the truth. Democratic principles will be carried out in the affairs of government by Democrats and by such fair-minded Republicans as will not make themselves a party to the wrong that was done last winter. This will be corrected in 1880 by a majority in the different States that will be surprising to all parties. I think I may say for 1880, as I said In 1876, that Indiana will again do her duty.