Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1880 — HENDRICKS ON GARFIELD. [ARTICLE]

HENDRICKS ON GARFIELD.

The Vice President De Jure Dissects Gen. Garfield as a Visiting Statesman. Out of His Own Month the Republican Candidate Convicted of Manipulating Election Returns. Text of Gov. Hendricks’ Great Speech at Indianapolis. My Fellow-Citizens : When I ate my breakfast this morning I had no thought of addressing my fellow-Demoerats and other citizens of the city ol Indianapolis this evening. But on reading the Indianapolis Journal I found that the proprietor of that paper had Called my personal voracity in question. I have nothing to say to the subordinate writer of that paper ; I choose to hold the proprietor ot that paper responsible for what appears in it. What I shall say to-night will be mainly in reply to that article. I shall expect the owner of that paper, with whom I am on personally good terms, to be the gentleman to-morrow morning to see to it that this reply is as fully reported in that paper for his readers as his calumny of this morning was. I shall see that a copy of my remarks which I submit to you is presented to that paper for publication. I now challenge, before the citizens of this great city who support that paper, that it shall appear. A month nearly ago I made a speech at Marion, in this State, and in the course of that speech I spoke of the very questionable connection that James A. Garfinld, the candidate of the Republican party, had with the great Presidential fraud of 1878-7. I spoke of his connection as one double in its character, and worse than that of any other man now living. I spoke of him in connection with the preparation of the case at Now Orleans for his party, and in connection with the fraudulent examination of it at Washington ; anl in that double respect I considered him more responsible for tho great outrage upon the American ballot than any other living man. May I call vour attention very brielly to the article as it appeared in the Journal:

“ Mr. Hendricks, in his opening speech of the campaign at Marion, used the following language referring to his nomination.” Then follows an abstivct of my speech that I made : “This is a specific charge of corruption against Gen. Garfield. Assuming, to begin with, that the election of Hayes was fraudulent, an assumption which, as a lawyer, Mr. Hendricks must know is not only unwarrantable but false, he asserts that Gen. Garfield ‘had more to do with it than any other man.’ Proceeding to specify, Mr. Hendricks asserts tint Gen. G irfield went to New Orleans as a partisan, ‘ without authority of law,’ as if any law were necessary to authorize a m: u to go to New Orleans, and that while there lu took charge of the returns from West Feliciana parish, and, ‘in one of the inner roonißof Packard’s Custom House,’ manipulated the returns, and prepared affidavits and interrogatories to make out a case. If this could be- substantiated, Gen. Garfield would be disgraced. Unless Mr. Hendricks can substantiate the charge he is disgraced. He offered no proof of the charge in his Marion speech, and lias offered none since. He cannot produce any. Tho charge; is unsupported by any evidence worthy of belief. On this point we call attention to the following letter, which we have just received from D. J. M. A. Jewett, formerly of New Orleans, now of White Oaks, N. M.:”

If I don’t this evening substantiate every material charge, I will nHk no man to vote against James A. Garfield. Every single charge, the substance of every charge, I will make good to the intelligence of this great audienco to-night, and you shall be the jury ; and, if I do, then the Journal has said in advance that Garfield is disgraced. What did I say, gentlemen? I said that Garfield went to New Orleans immediately after the election four years ago ; that he participated in manipulating the evidence and preparing the case for the Returning Board, and that, upon the evidence which he and others thus prepared, the Returning Board made a return against the men that were elected for the men that were not elected—that is the charge. I wish to dispose of one witness that tho Journal introduces first, and I will not occupy much of your time in that task. His name is D. J. M. A. Jewett. Ho writes a letter from New Mexico. My speech was made here in the central pait of Indiana a good while ago, and no response is-made upon any of these questions by tbe Journal until now, and it is suggested upon this letter of Jewett's, written from some place in New Mexico. Isn’t it remarkable that Jewett in New Mexico is the only man that can throw light upon this transaction, which took place in the presence of the nation of 45,000,000 of the people? Where are the other visitors of the Republican party that went down and helped Garfield to do that terrible work of iniquity at New Orleans ? A dozen of them went down, and they were closely united in all their business. Tno Journal says that I produced no evidence to support the charge. Oh ! you had better read the speech again. In that speech I gave the document and the page of the document where Garfield’s own oath convicted him of every charge I made against him. Fir.-t, a little while about this witness. I beg your pardon, he is not heard of for the first time; lie was down in New Orleans, and it seems that was the place where Republicans of bis sort did congregate. This witness says that “Gen. Garfield and his associates conducted themselves with rare discretion. For example, Gen. Garfield and myself never met in Louisiana. It is manifest that had he desired to exert any influence in the preparation of ttio Republican case lie would have sought, necessarily, first of ali, my own private office.” I don’t know about that. I don’t know whether he would have sought him or not; but in that letter von will observe t hat Jewett undertakes to say, in sentiment and substance, that Garfield did not call upon him while down there ; therefore, he observed great discretion while down there. That I would not question, but I will read you, gentlemen, from this man’s own t'-s'miony beiore the committee of Congress. This same man ihat the Journal cites as authority in this case gave his evidence before the committee, composed of Democrats and It - publicans, and in that testimony he gives the reason why he did not see Garfield and the other visiting statesmen. I will read it to you : “ Question —About that time were the visiting statesmen down there ? Answer—Yes. “ Q. Did you have anything to do with them? A. No, sir ; nothing whatever. “Q. Why not? A. I did not care to.

“ Q. They were members high in the Republican party, and high in the councils of the nation, and you were Secretary of the Republican Election Committee, and were cognizant of all the facts—what was there in the character of this or any circumstances which made a repulsion and kept you and these visiting statesmen apart ? A. Nothing that I know of, but my duties did not bring mo in contact with tlieso gentlemen. As we always had a Coroner’s inquest held over us after every election, I oared to know as little as possible. “Q. Mr. Butler You purposely avoided meeting with the visiting statesmen lest you might know too much of what was going on. Is that it? A. Without casting any reflections upon them, yes.” The witness swears that he avoided knowing a nvt bing t hat those visiting statesmen were doing because he did not want to know what was going on there, as he would probably have to answer under investigation afterward. So I will spend no more time upon that witness. Now for Mr. Garfield himself, and he gave his testimony before this same committee under oath : “ Q. Did you visit New Orleans in the month of November,'lß76? A. I did. “Q. What time in the month did yon go? A. I think it was about the 14th day of November that we arrived at New Orleans.” The 14th day of November was immediately afttr the Presidential election of 1876, and he was there with John Sherman, he was there with Kelley, of Pennsylvania, and many others whose names I will not delay you to repeat, and from the one in his testimony he says that they left New Orleans to return to Washington city on the Ist day of December. So you will observe that James A. Garfield was” at New Orleans, reaching there about a week after the Presidential election, and staying there eighteen days. What did he do while there ? I charge —and the Journal says, if it is supported, he is a disgraced man—l charge that he occupied an inner room of the Custom House, assigned to him, and him alone, and in that room he saw witnesses, black and white, of Louisiana, and he conversed with them alone, and, when their testimony was not made out satisfactorily to him, he suggested interrogatories that should

be put to them, and those Interrogatories went to the Returning Board* and that Returning Board made a report against the men that were elected-. That is what I charge; I say to you t will makb it to vbu tonight by his Own evidence; What does the Journal say td ine ? That 1 have furnished no respectable evidence-, when I have referred by page and document to the sword testimony of Garfield himself. What did he do ? First, gentlemen, I said that they distributed parishes among these visiting statesmen, and that in the distribution of the parishes for investigation and manipulation, the parish of West Feliciana fell to James A. Garfield. I will read what he swore to, and after to-night it shall not be before the intelligence of Indiana what Hendricks said, but the question now shall be what Garfield said. In his answer to a question, he says : “ Thereupon, in order to make our work of examination and our knowledge of the case as full as possible, the suggestion was-adopted that all tbe testimony relating to one parish be given to one man, and the testimony relating to another parish should be given to another man. Among the parishes that were contested were the parishes of Feliciana, and I believe that Mr. Sherman assigned these parishes to Mr. Parker and myself, saying that we could divide them between us as we chose. I suggested to Mr. Parker to take his choice. He took East Feliciana ; I took West Feliciana.” “Q. What did you take it for ? ” I will give the answer of that pregnant question, -and, when it is answered, the Journal says that the man that the Republicans have upon their.banner for candidate is a disgraced man. “A. I mean by that to say that I took the copies of all the official papers which were delivered to the Returning Board, touching the election in West Feliciana and for convenience of examining these papers, as I did not reside at the St. Charles Hotel, I occupied a room at the Custom Houso in the corner of the building.” This is coming close up to Garfield and closer to the Journal. “ I don’t know now whose room it was ; it was a room not very much used ; I think it was one of the private offices, perhaps of the Collector himself.’’

You recollect who was Collector, don't you ? It was Packard that was running for Governor, and that could not hold liis office, although lie got 1,000 more votes than Haves, who got the vote of Louisiana. Gentlemen, what do you say to the proposition which I made in my speech a month ago—that Garfield -went to Louisiana as a partisan ; that he occupied one of the rooms of tlio Custom House for the purpose of making up the evidence for the Returning Board ; but we will go a good deal further than that. This question that I make to-night is not to a subordinate writer on the Journal. I repeat, it is to John C. New, owner of the paper, and the Chairman of the Republican Central Committee of Indiana. It is John C. New that 1 shall brand if he does not place my answer as prominently in his paper to-morrow morning as the article in the Journal this morning. Where was this room in the Custom House ? I said this was an inner room, and propose to prove that by Garfield himself. “ Q. Where did you converse with her, that is a negro woman, Emily Mitchell ? A. In a private office in the Custom House. “Q. One of Gov. Kellogg’s rooms ? A. No, sir ; in one of Mr. Packard’s rooms in the Custom House. “Q. Who was thero besides you two? A. I don’t think there was anybody else present when she was there. “Q. Who brought her to tho room ? A. I can’t say; somebody brought her there. I think she had a little child in her arms. She sat down, &r.V asked her to toll me the story of her husbmd’s death, with all the particulars, and told her that all I wanted to know was the exact truth about it. “Q. Was there a-door-keeper to the room? A. I think there was nobody by at all. “Q. But was there any door-keeper outside the door? A. That I don’t know. “Q. Do you remember that there was a door-keeper for that room ? A. That door communicated with another room ; there was no door into the hall; I think that door communicated with the next room, which communicated with the hall.” Was it an inner room or not, gentlemen? That is what Garfield swears to. The Journal says it ii not true. That is between Garfield and the Journal, and between them I would not know which to believe. “Q. So she did go from a hall into that other room before she would get into the room where you were? A. Yes.” I take it that the question of tho inner room is a settled question. ... “Q. Was that door, leading from tho outer door into this, open or shut? A. I don’t know. “Q. Who occupied the outer room at the time? A. There were several Custom House clerks who had desks behind a sort of railing.” A very little more, gentlemen, about these rooms: “Q. In that inner room was there anybody beside yourself ? A. Nobody.” He was asked whether there was anybody in that inner room but himself, and he says no. Not that there was no inner room, hut there was nobody in tbe inner room but himself. Some of the men who were getting up statements about other parishes came in there, but the room was assigned to him. There you have it --an inner room reached only by passing through another room from the public hall, and that inner room was assigned to lames A. Garfield, and lie occupied it and received the witnesses there, as I will proceed to prove. So the question, What did he do in the inner room ? and that question was asked him under oath. “Q. What did you do? A. I took all those papers, commencing with the protest, and then read them carefully and made a careful brief of their contents, giving the summarapf each witness in my own way, as I would if * were a lawyer in the case.”

There is Garfield at New Orleans—the man that asks to preside in the chief office of this great nation. There is Garfield sitting in the inner room in the Custom House, where the light of day and the judgment of the American people was cut off, and receiving tiie evidence that turned the parish of West Eeliciana, and examining them as though he were a lawyer in the case, and so lie swears, “ When I had”completed that I felt a great deal of anxiety to see the men who had testified if I could.”' It was not enough to read the evidence as it liad been fixed up for the negroes and the whites, but it was more than that. “ I confess i felt a good deal of surprise and astonishment at the revelations contained in these documents. That I went there with not a little apprehension that there must be a good deal of lying in tee papers of both sides connected with the election. I made inquiry and found that a considerable f! number of these witnesses were in the city. I made out a list of perhaps one-half or three-fourths of the names of tho witnesses whose testimony I had examined, and inquired for them and procured interviews with them. I sat down with them and asked them to tell me in their own way the stories of their relation to the election. I cannot name all these witnesses with whom I conversed, but some of them I remember distinctly. Mrs. Amy Mitchell (I shall have something to say about her directly), the young woman whose husband had been killed during the progress of the registry or election. I also remember Judge Duall, a parish Judge whom I examined in the same way. “As to the result of tho examination.” Mark this. “As to the result of the examination, of course, it was entirely unofficial; it was conversation of my own with these witnesses. I draughted some interrogatories to draw out more fully from some of the witnesses the testimony which they had given rather in brief, and some of the interrogatories which subsequently were appended to the testimony of these witnesses.” • Now, notice what he lias sworn to : That he occupied that room, and that when the testimony was all handed to him relating to the parish of West Eeliciana, he examined it and the testimony, and he made out a list of onehalf or two-tliirds of tho witnesses, and he sent for them one by one. He examined them, and when their testimony was not as full as he desired, he prepared additional interrogatories, which went, in some cases at least, before the Returning Board. This comes really very close around the Journal and Garfield. ”“ The summary in the testimony in the case of West Feliciana was prepared by me.” A little further about what he did : “ Some of these affidavits I notice in the West Feliciana case were made after you arrived in New Orleans. Did you have anything to do with them yourself—in taking them ? A. Nothing, except that in some instances, as I have already related, I prepared interrogatories.” The next witness was Geo. Swayzee. „ “ Q. Do you remember talking with him ? A. Yt s, sir ; I do remember talking with Swayzee. I think interrogatories were prepared for him after my conversation with him. I d m’t think I prepared them, but there was a Ir e ' affidavit in the case that I read. I talked with him, and then after that these interrogatories were filed. In the printing, they were printed instead of

the original, I talked with Swayzee. I saw his testimony was hot very full, add, after ihy conversation with him, interrogatories were pro= pounded to him necessarily to bring out his evidence in full, and that evidence, in answering the interrogatories, was the evidence of Swayzee that was printed. “The next man, Napalus, I remember well, for j he had a very striking story of haviiig been j partly hung, and having been dragged with a I rope around his neck. He was one of those to ; whom interrogatories were propounded after j the filing of the first affidavit.” Now, gentlemen, I lie mentions as tlie most remarkable case in which lie prepared the questions for the witnesses, the case of Amy Mitchell, so I will read what Garfield swore to in regard to that case. “Q. As regards the casa of Amy Mitchell, which made an impression on you, can you tell whether it was before or after you were furnished with a copy of her affidavit that you had this conversation with her ? A. It was afterward. It was the reading of the affidavit that impressed me, and I asked to have her sent to me. “ Q. I see that the affidavit appears to have been sworn to the 30th of November V A. I advised them to take a fuller statement by interrogatories from Amy Mitchell, and 1 think I propounded a portion of the interrogatories. The preliminary statement, the simple affidavit, was earlier.” Now, gentlemen, I will turn over a page and see what the case of Amy Mitchell was. [Turning the leaves of a book.] She first made an affidavit in the Custom House, where she was examined privately by James A. Garfield. That affidavit was not full enough. He prepared additional interrogations to be propounded to her. and she answered those interrogatories, and, in her testimony before this same committee, she afterward swore that there was no truth in the statement given In response to Garfield’s interrogatories, In answer to a question propounded by Gov. Cox, of Ohio, who Is a Republican, Amy Mitchell said—she repeated her direct testimony —that every statement contained in the affidavit was false; that she did not say anything because she kne n it, but said what they told her to say. Her testimony also showed that she had been trained in the Custom House to testify before the committee. I don’t say that Garfield was J present when she swore to the answers to inter- ' rogatories, but he prepared the interrogatori s j that were answered, and he prepared the interj rogatories after he had an interview with that I colored woman, when there was no person besides themselves present; and the same woman comes before the committee of Congress, not ! in an inner room, not when the light of God's i day is shut off, but she comes before the comI mittee of Democrats and Republicans, and in ; that testimony, given under’oath and under the i test of a cross-examination by the Republican members of the committee, she says there was not a word of truth in the testimony which she gave in answer to Garfield’s questions. The next purpose, gentlemen, I have in mind is to ask why did Garfield spend eighteen days in the i:mer room of the Custom House? Why did he have private interviews with the colored and white people whoso testimony was to be taken to be used before tlie Returning Board? and ; why did he prepare interrogatories for witi nesses ? I will answer in his own words : j “Q. But don’t you understand that in the I cases where you suggested that interrogatories ! should he prepared instead of the evidence, | they were to go before the Returning Board ? ; A. Yes, sir.” And when his work of taking the testimony ! was completed ho turned his attention to the preparation of a brief, A brief, as you all know, is a lawyer’s argument in writing. I will j show you what he says upon that subject on ! page 797 of the report: “Q. Was that brief furnished to the Returmng Board ? A. No, sir. That brief was never furnish d to anybody but the President of the United States. In fact, a considerable ! portion of the brief was written on the cars on : my way to Washington. “Q. Written after you left New Orleans ? A. i A considerable portion of it. I had written a i summary of the evidence before that, but a considerable portion of the brief was written in pencil on the cars after I left New Orleans on my way home.” , You see lie completes the evidence. He is the only man that prepares it for West Feliciana ; after the evidence iiad been turned over to him, | and when he has done that work on his way from New Orleans to Washington he prepares an argument in the case. I wish to connect directly this transaction with the duties of the man who takes the solemn oath to deal fairly. ; Jt is your duty as a member of the commission to deal fairly. The next question is, what did Garfield do in regard to Louisiana? That wo find on page 803. I say he knew that Louisiana was Democratic by 8,000 majority when he sat in that inner room and had private conversation with the witnesses, and prepared interi rogatories to guide and control their testimony; | when he was at that work, and when he was I writing a brief to make it appear the other ! wav, lie knew that Louisiana had cast a Dcmo- ! cratic majority of 8,000, and here is his sworn : testimony on that subject: “Q. Did you get any idea how the vote of i Louisiana stood Irom the returns? A. Iliad 1 all those ideas that could be got from the 1 newspapers and the leaders of the different parties. Wo had had, of course, very full information of thatsoi t. “Q. Presuming that there were not some | parishes to bo thrown out by the Returning I Board, it was very clear that the State had gone j for Nicholls and Tilden, was it not? A. It was j very well understood by the time I got there ! that, if nothing but ihe face of the returns was to he considered, and if every vote sent up was to he considered a legal vote, Mr. Tilden was ahead. ' Q. If evjry vote sent up was a legal vote, and time more Republican votes were not foui d, it was very clear that the State had gone lor Nicholls and Tilden ? A. Yes.” There is your mail, Republicans, that you j propose to place in the chair that Washington occupied. It will never be done. No man with a record like that ever took that chair, and in the -kind providence of an eternal God it wiil never occur. He knew by the returns that Tilden for President and Nicholls for Governor were elected in the State of Louisiana, and yet, when he knew that, ho says when he got to New Orleans he staid there eighteen days, and ah that he did \ war, to sit in that inner room, where no one could find him except they passed from the public hall through another room, and there, alone with poor, ignorant witnesses, he prepared interrogatories, and talked with them, and that those interrogatories and that talk went to the Returning Board and furnished the scoundrels of that board the pretext to return against the truth that Tilden was beaten in Louisiana. Do you suppose that this man was to return to Washington and become a juror and decide whether Tilden or Hayes was elected, and to decide between man mid man whether Hendricks or Wheeler was elected Vice | President. He says, on page 798 ; “.I heard of nothing of the kind—that is, of a decisiQn then made. I don’t think any of our party had heard of it, for we left in great anxiety as to what the result would be.” Then a little further down he says : “We went away from that meeting, and within perhaps three hours from that time, at least by the first train after that, we left New Orleans. I know there was great anxiety among us all as to what the result would" be, and we had no word or hint of it until we had passed Bellaire on Tuesday morning, when a dispatch was received addressed to some of our number, perhaps to Senator Sherman, giving us the first intimation of the conclusion of the Returning Board.” And what do you, fair-minded men that have from time to time taken your seats upon the jurors’ box, what do you think of the man that is to come on to Washington to try the cause?

Being anxious in his mind as he leaves New Orleans, and all the way from that city until he reaches Bellaire, until he reaches Ohio, he is in a great t-tate of anxiety, and then a dispatch comes at hghtning speed, “ The work is done,” “The work is done,” and there is no anxiety thence on forever! Jhe perjury and the forgery is committed. The people of the United States have been beaten in their might and majesty and in their glorious sovereignty at the ballot-box. They have been beaten like the old lion who had his paws entangled in the meshes of the net. The great people of the United States are beaten, and a part of the work was done in that room, and forever from this time infamous room in the Custom House, and this is the evidence, gentlemen. John C. New, you that stand high as a citizen of Indiana polls, this is the evidence that I quoted in my speech at Marion. And I gave page and document so full that if you wanted the truth you cannot fall into error, and here is what I said iu that original speech : “ Garfield’s testimony commences at page 789,” and here it is ; you can come and look for yourselves (referring to the book), e ‘ Document 31, Accompanying Ite port No. 140, House of Representatives, third session, Forty-iifth Congress.” If tnat is not in detail, why it is more specific than the conveyancer describes a piece of laud in a deed or will. Now, to-morrow morning, let him who wrote the article this morning come down upon his knees and pray God’s pardon, and go to the Journal oflice and do

justice to a neighbor; aye, more than that —do justice to himself ; aye, more than that—do justice to the intelligent sentiment, and judgment of the people of Indianapolis, that he addresses every morning. He knows now where tho evidence is, and will he now repeat what he said this mornitig V A little further ; [looks at a book) I can’t find it—(here it is) ; if you are on to a thing you will always find it if it is there, and we Democrats ate "going to stick to this man until he is sorry he was ever nominated. He may understand that there is now encircling him a popular judgment and a public conscience that is more terrible than the fate that awaits the wicked. Here is what the Journal says: “If this can be substantiated, then Garfield would be disgraced.” How stands lie now? How is he between you and me—between your intelligence and your consciences and minds ? Aye, more than that: How is it between you and yourselves? Is he disgraced ? “ Unless Mr. Hendricks can substantiate the charge he is disgraced.” I have accepted the issue without fear, and I stand here in the presence of my neighbors. I thank God and your intelligence, I am not disgraced. “ Mr. Hendricks offered no proof of the charges in the Marion speech, and has none, since he cannot produce any. The charge is unsupported by any evidence worthy of belief,” and the evidence is Garfield himself, This is harder on Garfield than anything I ever said. Now, gentlemen, this man, that thus came and conducted himself at the city of New Orleans, and bellied to prepare the case, and helped to get a false return from a false and perjured Returning Board ; and he came on his way North as far as Bellaire, and was overtaken by the lightning informing him and his co-con-spivators, as he sat in the palace car, of the decision that they had procured in the city of New Orleans. I know how a lawyer feels when his case has been submitted. I know the anxiety which drives sleep and quiet away when life or property may depend upon the result made by the jury. But surely I never expressed myself in regard to that anxiety, as Garfield did when he said they left New Orleans very anxious about the result, and when the result came all anxiety disappeared. His work was com-* pleted, and an honest return was defeated, He came on to Washington, and then what do you think he did when there was a bill proposed in Congress—the bill that did finally pass—to appoint a commission composed of five mem hers of the House and five members of the Senate and five members of the Supreme Court to hold a conference upon tins great issue? When that bill was pending, Garfield got up and said, “No, it must not bo;” and here are the reasons that he gave. Let me give you, in his own words, if I can. It is in very fine print and difficult to read. Speaking of the bill then pending in Congress,, he says—this was on the 25th of January ; he got back to Washington by the 2d-of December, and the bill came up lor consideration in the House whether this commission should be appointed to pass upon tlie right of President-and Vice President, and Garfield, opposing this bili, uses this language! “It assumes the right of Congress to go down into the colleges and inquire into all the- acts and facts connected with their work. It assumes the right of Congress to go down into the States to review the act of every officer, to open every ballot-box, and to examine every ballot cast by 7,000,000 of Americans.” That was Garfield’s objection to the biil—that if it did pass, and these fifteen men were appointed under the law, it would be their duty to go back of all technicalities and returns, and to pass upon the real fact of tho case ; to go into the ballot box and see how the votes were, and to decide the case upon the real truth. And after that, when tlie bill passed and he became one of tho fifteen, he voted every time that they should not. open the door to investigate, but that the law closed the door, and said that Kellogg's certificate and the certificate of the Returning Board was stronger than law and the constitution and the judgment of Congress. And his vote was the eighth vote against seven that decided that they should not go behind the Returning Board. Wliat would you think of me as a lawyer if you would hear nie express my opinion upon a question of law ? I have no doubt about it, and address the honored court and say it was the law, well fixed and decided, and the next day I came to be a member of the tribunal to pass upon individual and public right according to law, and that next day I say what I said before is not the law, and I decide against you upon tho statement of the law different from that I had made the day before. As Mr. Julian said, when he stood in the House it was Garfield speaking, but when he was upon the commission it was the party demanding power, money and office. Let me read you this oath he took. I take it from Mr. Julian’s speech : “I, James A. Garfield, do solemnly swear that I will impartially examine and consider all questions submitted to the commission of which I am a member, and a true judgment render thereon agreeable to the constitution and the laws, so help me God.” They say be is a preacher. I don’t pretend to anything but a wicked lawyer—that’s all ; but there is not wealth enough in tlie State of Indiana to get me, in my place in the House or in the Senate of the United States, to say: If you pass this law I hold that it opens the door to investigation, and we can go down to New Orleans and ascertain how the vote was in fact, and then after I go upon tlie commission to turn around and say that the Returning Board and its findings is conclusive upon ua, anti we cannot investigate at all. I would not do it for a thousand years of tenure in the great office for which he is a candidate. I state to you that whatever tho truth might be about the De Gollver pavement, whither he did take a fee against the interest of the Government when he was a Representative receiving a salary, whatever the facts might be al out the Credit Mobilier, whether it was a terrible fraud or not, I will not stop to speak of that until this great question is settled : Whether as a representative of the people, as a juror sitting between myself and Wheeler and Tilden and Hayes, he was a true man or a false man. And, if I have a case in your court, and von are called upon as a juror, and no questions are asked you at all, and you have a bitter prejudice against me, and that there is no verdict at all except against me, would you go and take your seat ? Would not it come up to you? My oath would not allow mo to do it, and I know that yours would not. Y'et Garfield, after he had helped to make up the case down in New Orleans, comes to Washington, and, without protest or apology or excuse, ho takes his seat and he votes day after day contrary to what he said in (ho House was tlie law. No, gentlemen, he will never be President of the United States. He is a man of ability, and the more ability such a man possesses the worse it is for the office. I don’t want him, becauso when I have a President in Washington, whatever his politics may l*e, I want to feel that he is as much mv President as yours, and as much yours as he is" mine, and that as President he is free from those prejudices and passions which pervert the judgment and destroy opinion. Now, gentlemen, I have occupied your attention longer to-night than I expected to. Now I will repeat that when I took my breakfast this morning I had no thought of addressing you. It was not a part of the programme of the business of the day at all. When I saw that the Journal said that if I did not make this good I was disgraced, and if I did, then Garfield was disf raced, then, gentlemen, as soon as I saw that longed to see you and sneak to you with more earnestness and feeling than ever I longed to before. If I have failed in any one of the questions presented by the Journal, I know it not. I have appealed to no witnesses except Garfield himself, and by Gen. Garfield is Garfield this night disgraced. You fair-minded Republicans and gentlemen that love your country better than you do the Journal, better than you love Garfield, better than you love combinations of party, 1 appeal to you now by this test. Publicly I have said that if the short-hand reporter is not here for tho Journal, I have a report of my speech to-night, and I will furnish it to the Journal and ask that it appear, and if it does not appear tomorrow morning, then it is admitted as though it was written in the broadest and brightest capitals, “We can’t stand upon the issues we made yesterday morning.” If they don’t publish what I have" said to you to-night, not in an inner room, but in this .temple, then you may know that they admit that Thomas A. Hendricks is not disgraced, but that James A. Garfield is disgraced.