Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 October 1880 — HOPE IN HATE. [ARTICLE]

HOPE IN HATE.

Col. Vilas Applies the Ax to- the Root of Republican Claims to Success. The Party Charged with Anchoring It# Hope to a Continuance of Sectional Hatred, And with a Willingness to Sacrifice the Happiness of a People for Political Plunder. Great Speech of Hon. W. F. Vila*, of WlNcotiNin, at McCormick. Hall, Chicago. V' lry 11. Smith, Jr., escorted Col. Vilas to tin front of the platform and introduced him ;ih follows : Ladies and Gentlemen, Fellow-Citizens and Demociiats oe Chicago : It is with great pleasure, as President of this Chicago Demoi (..tie ( lob. that I have the honor to announce that we shall he:.r to night one of the grandest i raters that ii within the coniines of our grand republic. Fellow-citizens, we have a most momentous duty to perform these next few weeks. It has been charged that respectability was all witli tlic Republican party. As I look about these gall< ries and see these fair women and these brave men I cannot but believe, my friends, that, in spite of the hireling press of the Republican party, the lie is sufficiently given to that charge to-night. My friends, not only is respectability with Democracy, but I tell yon that the cause of humanity, the cause of right as opposed to that which is wrong, the cause of truth, tlie cause of pun- administration and the cause of sound government is with Democracy and Gen. Hancock, of Peimsylvania. My friends, it is not my province to detain yon this evening. I am not upon the propr.inune for a speech, and I know that you will "illinglv let me go when I Introduce to you Col. W. F. Vilas, of Wisconsin. On rising to respond, Co). Vilas was greeted with three cheers and prolonged applause. He spoke aS follows : Mil. I‘IIESIIiENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CHICAGO Demociiatu: Club, and Fellow-Citizens of Chicago : I wish, in appearing before you to make the first political address to which I have hci n called this fall, that I might feel that I was better prepared to offer something worthy of your consideration ; that I might not rather feel bound to crave your indulgence than to excite your expectations. There are two modes in which a political speaker can address his audience : the one to appeal to sound judgment and good sense, the other to apj cal to the prejudices and passions of humanity. The latter is the more captivating. It gains the applause of the hour and brings quicker return. But that course does not lie open to me. There are two reasons why it should not be pursued —the one, because it is more profitable to pursue the other—and a more effective reason, because I .could not, if J would, pursue the latter.

It is our boast that we are a sovereign people, and it is true in a splendid sense. No King, no satrap, no family of rulers take with their blood the birthright of dominion over their American fellow-men. Every man is entitled to his equal rights underthe law. The great gymnasium of public trial is open to all. Any may enter, equip himself for the struggle, aiid secure the prize which he is competent to win. So, in our theory, every officer depends for his title to ins office upon a right which he has by the suffrages of his fellow-citizens. He can have no better right; he can have no other rigid. The President of the United States, equal in rank and in dignity with the Kings and throned powers of other lands, the members of our houses of Congress, who are not surpassed in the respectable position they occupy by any I’ariiament or Diet in the world, stand upon no better foundation for their title, their right to office, than the constable or the town and county boards. But although that be true, there is a great difference in the effective voice which the people can direct towards their servants in power. The voice of the people is immediate and potential in our lesser affairs. We may direct matters of town and neighborhood concern by an almost immediate appeal to the popular voice ; but ns to matters of State and national concern, the people cannot express their voice so directly upon them. They are limited ; they are obliged to choose, as in this election you are obliged to choose, between two parties and two men. You can not express your opinion upon all the multitudinous questions which agitate the public mind, and for which the public needs cry out a decision. You must consider where the balance, upon the whole, lies, what is the controlling important issue which above all others, as between the parties, demands your decision ,- and it is our duty carefully and painstakingly to scrutinize the claims of the two parties. It is our duty, also, to bring to bear upon the characters of the two candidates the full glare of public gaze that we may know their characters. [Applause. ]

It does not need a very discriminating cyclo see that there is no issue of administration or finance which is defined between the two great political parties. Both Uiake their claims to economy, both have made records upon that subject, and in the ranks of both parties there is a general feeling in favor of sound government, wise administration, and a proper and economical saving of public money, applying it only to those matters to which it ought rightfully to be applied. So as between both parties there is now quite * distinct line of demarkntion drawn as against the Greenback party, which is the third one that occupies any position before the public. Our Republican friends in the North are very free to assert that they escape the folly of Greenbackism, and within a few months, perhaps, they have claimed to cut loose from it in the North, yet for a long time they have sought their votes with as much assiduity as any others, and only recently we have perceived the spectacle of their going into almost every Southern State to demand the union of Greenbackism and Republicanism in the Southern States, in opposition to the Democratic party there. The great champion of the Greenback party, their candidate for President, only recently returned to fill Republican newspapers with his outcries of the same character of those who had employed him and sent him there. He only recently went to Maine to distract the councils of the opposition, and endeavor, as it would appear, so far as his action was concerned, to prevent that union of parties in opposition to this great enemy of the republic, the Republican party, which has but recently resulted in such a victory. We can draw no issue upon the financial question. So it is upon the tariff question. The candidate of the Republican party, who in an hour of honest conviction joined' the Cobden Club of free traders, finds it a matter of no difficulty to reconcile that foolishness with support of protective tariffs. And we in the West, who have so long been made the victims of unjust discriminations in the levy of our customs duties, find that we get no redress from any appeal that is put forward. The Republican party fastened upon us the tariff, and the Democratic party have not been able to relieve us of it, although I see that in his speech delivered last night in New York, Mr. Conkling says when they get into power they will.

So it is with the Chinese question with which both parties bait their hook on the Pacific coast, and with the labor question, in respect to which both are ready to promise enactments ■which no Legislature could possibly provide. All those questions of finance and business and administration are questions which must await decision, for, overshadowing them all, rising beyond them all in importance, dominating and controlling the political scene, is the great issue of sectionalism between the North and South. Until that question is disposed of, and disposed of forever, in the only way in which it can be—by the destruction of the Republican party—the business interests of the country must wait. Questions of administration and finance are of less importance; they are of temporary concern. This question goes to the existence and perpetuity of our republican institutions. And what is the aspect which that question to which I ask your attention more particularly to-night presents to the intelligent and honest citizen who desires to cast his vote in favor of the right ? They say that the South is solid, and they speak of it as an offense. Who is resiionsible for that offense? Who committed it, if it bo an offense? And, indeed, the continuance of .it will most certainly be so. What do Qwy they mean by it, in the first place ? We

shall better understand what it is if we first define it a little. What is the unification of the South ? It is only that unification which I trust but a few weeks will bring to nass in the North, the unification of a great majority of the people in opposition to the Republican partv. That is the solidity of the South. That is the offense of the South—that they oppose the Republican party; nothing more. How did it happen? What lirought it about ? It is now about fifteen years since the soldiers of our army laid captive at the feet of the Republican leaders the States of the South. Bound hand'and foot, they delivered them over to the Republican party for government and management. Theirs was the power and theirs was the opportunity I How have they used it? Almost immediately thereafter the soldiers of the Union disbanded and returned to their homes. They claimed no spoil of conquest who had secured the conquest. They asked no reward of victory but that reward which was due to them from the gratitude of their fellow-men —that consciousness of well-doing which Alls the heart with a greater reward than any which men can bestow. They retired to their homes. The lion had secured the quarry, and the jackals devoured it. They let loose upon the people of the South, what? Such a system of government as amounted to nothing more than plunder. The people of the South were in that attitude when every course that could be demanded by their hope was also demanded by the interests of the North—pacification, quiet, rest. Good government, cheap, frugal, economical government, they should have had. Then they might have turned to the arts of peace and have striven to build up their fortunes, their homes, and their industries. But how were they treated? The fieedmen were given a ballot, and then the freedmen and their ballots were delivered over to the carpetbaggers who went there from the North. They put themselves in dominion over the Southern people. And what was the effect? Were the Southern people in a condition where they could have received good government? Let me answer that first by reading the language of the great soldier who had led our army to victory. He ought to know, for he made a special and particular tour of observation with the view of finding out the condition and sentiments of the people of the South. I read but a word. Gen. Grant said, in December, 1865: “My observations lead me to the conclusion that the citizens of the Southern States are anxious to return to self-government within the Union as soon as possible ; that while reconstructing they want and require protection from the Government ; that they are in earnest in wishing to do what they think is required by the Government, not humiliating to them as citizens, and tiiat if such a course was pointed out they would pursue it in good faith. It is to be regretted that there cannot be a greater commingling at this time between the citizens of the two sections, and particularly of those intrusted with ths law-making power.” They were ready to pursue the course of obedient citizens in good faith, says Gen. Grant. How were they dealt with ? Such a course of government as [ think probably this civilized century has never seen outside the realms of the Turk was put upon that people. And I can portray that m authoritative language, too—language which my Republican friends must admit comes from a source that from them is entitled to respect. Gen. Carl Schurz said of the treatment which the Southern people received :

“ A system of robbery and rqinous government ensued which has haruly a parallel in history. Most of these Southern States were, with incredible rapidity, burdened with enormous debts without any equivalent. Scores of millions disappeared as if by magic in the capacious darkness of private pockets. Impoverished as those States were by war, they were now stripped naked, production diminished, and. incredible as it may seem, while the rest of the country was progressing prosperously, the value of real property in many of these States appeared in the census of 1870, after the five years of peace, far below the census of 1860. Such has been the effect of so-called carpet-bag government in the South. Who is responsible for this ? Those governments were and are carried on in the name and under the auspices of the Republican party.” Gentlemen, however the severity of justice may declare that the people bf the South brought upon themselves the calamities they suffered, I appeal to every human being if they wire not worthy of pity in their misfortunes. Their houses were half destroyed, and those that remained were desolate—desolate in the external and desolate in all the comforts of the hearth. Their young men had been killed in great numbers ; their land was full of graves ; then’ fields had been swept by the tread of armies ; they had been ravaged in the necessary support of those armies which had gone against them ; their industries were paralyzed, their business was utterly gone ; there was nothing left for them but toil and a disheartening prospect of toil. Who but would have said, however severe the dictates of justice might be, that they were not entitled to commiseration? Within five years that people, bowing their heads to the Govermuent which the North had sent upon them, found t heir States involved in over $200,000,000 of debt beyond what they had previously suffered to accrue. The money went for nothing. They had, too, a government of ignorance and vice put over them, redeemed by no intelligence but the cunning of crime. Was it not time that they should act? Was it not time, when they were given the ballot and told to take care of themselves, that they should use it? Would you accept them as worthy compeers of your own in a republican government if they would not attempt for themselves to redeem their land from such a rule? How could they redeem themselves from that misrule but by antagonizing the Republican party? To them the Republican party stood for ail manner of bad government, for all manner of vice, plunder, robbery and rapine, of every disruption m governmental affairs. There was no other course for them to take but to stand up against the Republican party. One by one those States have emerged from that rule, and it is the most significant comment, and it is the most significant condemnation of the government which had been put upon them, that one by one, as they have emerged from that rule, they have become peaceable, orderly, and respectable. In Georgia, where first there was an escape made, you have heard comparatively nothing of the complaints of Southern outrage ; you have heard nothing of the intimidation of voters or of “ bulldozing”—a new name introduced in our politics in the last few years. You have heard only as Republican rule continued those statements from our Republican adversaries. Louisiana and South Carolina, which have at last escaped from the clutches of these men who held them down, have been the last to be complained of. They have been the last to be the scenes of violence, and even there in those States we hear of nothing this year. We do not see our presses Allied with the cry of Southern outrage. It was the struggle of an intelligent and a good people to put down wicked and bad government over them.

Ah ! but they say all this means nothing and stands for nothing. They say the South is still disloyal and the Democratic party is disloyal. What do they mean by loyalty? What is it? The Democratic party outnumbers the Republican party, or it did four years ago—nobody can say how much now. Four years ago it outnumbered the Republican party a quarter of a. million of. votes. Who can tell now the deluge which is about to flow over our Republican friends ? But the Democratic party is the great majority of the people of this country. To whom are they disloyal? What is loyalty? What is fidelity ? Oh ! but they say the South is disloyal; and some of our Republican friends actually think that Hancock himself is pretty near a rebel. What is disloyalty? What is meant by it ? I will not weary von much further by reading the language of others, but I do desire to read you, right upon that question, the language of that great warrior who has given luster to our arms, such as no man has ever given before, and such as I trust no man will over have occasion to give again—language which he made use of after he had held the most exalted positions in his country, and after he had visited the entire world, comparing their Governments with ours. What does he say upon the loyalty of the people of the South? This very year, last April, at Bloomington, he said: “I passed from Philadelphia to Florida on my way to Havana, and on my return came via Texas from Mexico, thus passing through all the rebellious States, and it will be agreeable to all to know that hospitality was tendered me at every city through which I passed, and accepted in nearly all of them by me. In most of the cities, upon the reception committees, side by side, were men that wore the blue and men that wore the gray, and the reception addresses were made in part by those who wore the blue and those who wore the gray. We have no reason to doubt that those who wore the gray will fulfill all they have promised in loyalty to the flag of the nation.” Ah ! but they say they are only waiting to get control of this Government in order that they may accomplish the cause of the war on their part. Now, does that mean anything but nonsense? What is it that was the cause of the wax ou

their part ? They were divided from us by the institution of slavery in their midst, and they made that a cause of war, or a caus£ of seces- ‘ sion from üb. They had two purposes, if we can see anything of their purposes in their acts and declarations'; one was to’establish a separate [Government, and the other was to maintain the institution of slavery. Is there a man that now believes that the institution of slavery is to be restored in this land? Have we not a constitutional amendment, adopted through ail proper and requisite forms of action, accepted by everybody, declared accepted by the repeated platforms of the Democratic party, and by Gen. Hancock himself again in his letter of acceptance ? Who, who could be found bold enough to go into either house of Congress and introduce a proposition to amend the constitution of the United States so as to admit slavery? Does anybody believe that, if such an insane idiot were to make his appearance in that body, a party could be found that would pass it there ? And, if it should by any peradventure escape that body, that three-fourths of the Legislatures of the States of this Union would adopt it ? It is so with secession. Who can imagine a man bold enough to propose again, in the face of all that has passed, to secede again from the United States? The man whose nerves are affrighted by such an argument as that would find some calm and quiet in a good course of delirium tremens. Ah, but they say that the South will control Hancock. They tried rather ineffectually once. But that seems to make no difference to the minds of some of our people. They do not hesitate to say that they think the Democratic party of the North will be governed by the Democratic party of the South, or that segment of the party which lives in the South. Why, stop and think a moment. If you count all the sixteen States who upheld the institution of slavery as the South, although but eleven of them seceded from the Union—for West Virginia as a State never seceded, but, as a loyal portion of a seceding State, it immediately organized into a separate and Union-loving State, and ought not to be classed with those who did secede—but, if you count the sixteen States together, how many men in them all voted for Tilden and Hendricks? Why, 2,000,000 in round numbers. How many in the North voted for Tilden and Hendricks?—2,2B4,ooo. But treat it fairly. The States that are to be put under a ban are certainly not those which did not secede, and if you count up only the voters in the eleven States which did secede you have only 1,084,000 who voted for Tilden and Hendricks, against 3,200,000 in the other States who voted for Tilden and Hendricks. Will the tail waggle the dog? Ah I but they say you must consider that these men will be a majority in Congress ; that they have a greater proportion of the representatives in Congress, and that therefore they have a majority in the caucus. Well, that is a very poor argument for them to make, because they can relieve themselves on that subject in one moment in the best way in the world, by voting for Democratic nominees. In point of fact, the argument is only specious in appearance, and is unsound in reality. There has been no dictation and no control, and none need be feared by the Democrats of the North. They are not of the class to fear control. But let us sec how stands the elector 1 vote. They say that is solid against them.. You take the eleveii seceded States and th re are but ninety-five electoral votes. Yon take the other five States that did not secede, but which formerly had the institution of slavery in them, and they give 43 votes, New York 35, New Jersey 9, Indiana 13, ■Connecticut 6, and last, but by no means least, that State from which the sun rises over the land—Maine 7. Ninety-five to 121 stands the vote that is assured for Hancock.

Then they cry out that States rights will be revived, and that is a bugaboo that seems to alarm Republican children. States rights 1 What are States rights ? In the sense that States had a right to secede from the Union they need not fear the Democratic party, for, upon that subject, the Democratic party itself was rent in twain and divided in 1860, and the entire body of Northern Democrats stood asstraight upon that question as ever Republicans did anywhere—and, at the very time they were doing it, Republicans all through the land were insisting upon States rights. [A voice—“ And I staying at home.”] Yes, and staying at home. States rights was so dear to them then that they wanted to stay in the States to defend them'. Do they mean that disloyalty means favoring secession as a State right ? Why, over in the neighboring State of Indiana, it is said, to-day there are twentytwo Major Generals that fought in the Union army stumping for Hancock, and all over this land' the veterans of the army are forming in clubs for Hancock. Why, only here and there a few of the soldiers that remain Republicans can be gathered to make a company of the Boys in Blue, as they call them. It has been shown by figures—l won’t stop to repeat them—that a very large proportion, if not half, of all the soldiers in the army, who enlisted in support of the Union, were of Democratic antecedents. Gen. Butler said the other day, in a speech in Massachusetts, that five-sixths of those he led I out were Democrats. But what is this cry of States rights? What does it mean? States rights I There are no rights of the States which are not the rights of the people of the States. There is nothing that the people are entitled to here under the name of States rights but what they are entitled to here under the name of the people. There is no pretext on the part of anybody that the States can override justice and the. law of the Federal Union, the dignity, the majesty of the Federal constitution, the rights which the entire people have under it, except that protest which was set up by our Republican friends before the Electoral Commission, that the great seal of the State was conclusive. Never was such a use of State rights made—except when it was claimed that they could secede—as was made at that time when it was insisted that the great seal of the State was a protection and a shield for all sorts of rascality. After tiiat use of the old and exploded theory that the rights of the States or the rights of the people of a State could prevail against the rights of the Union, I think our Republican friends had better discontinue talking about the Democratic party using States rights in a dangerous way. .But, fellow-citizens, this question of sectionalism is not to be met by any of these cries. We are not to be frightened by the theory of Southern claims, either. That has been much used to alarm and terrify people. It is thoroughly and perfectly exploded by a very few considerations. Gen. Hancock* said it was enough that he accepted the constitutional amendments. They bar Southern claims ; and who is there to suppose in a serious moment that the 3,200,000 of Democratic voters in the North who voted for Tilden and Hendricks desire to put their hands in their pockets t:> pay men who represent nobody, ana who have no footing, no standing to make any claim? All the Confederate debts provided that they were contingent upon the issues of the war—they were not due and payable until six months after the recognition of the Confederate States. Will it be claimed that the Democratic party want to put their hands in their pockets and hasten the day of payment? And the cry that there are claims in Congress which the Democratic party are anxious to pay is best met by the record of the two parties on that subject. Gen. Garfield himself has said more in Congress in favor of these claims than any Democrat that ever spoke on that floor, and if any one wants a reference to the speech I will give it. Now what is meant by sectionalism? What is the aspect in which that presents itself ? I have only called attention to some of the less important features of it as it seems to me. What is it? It is this: We are expected to continue, under the Republican party, as I understand them, for so long a period as they can 1 maintain themselves in power by it—we are ex- | pected to continue in hostility to the people of I the South. The war is / not to be done so long I as it is necessary for the Republican party to ’ remain in power. The war is to continue without armies—a constant conflict of opinions, of sentiments, of feelings. The danger of this course is manifest; antagonism begets recrimination, recrimination increases irritation, irrii tation leads to enmity, and enmity to hatred, I and thus constantly the action and reaction of antagonizing sentiments increases the exasperation between the people. Such things lead to anarchy, to revolution, to war. It was long ago announced by the fathers of this republic that sectional parties could bring but one result. We need not searon the of the history of other lands. We' have seen in our own land the illustration of that danger. We have seen in our own land sectionalism lead, to war. Doubtless with the example of that conflict in the memory of men there is no danger in our day and generation of a renewed war. No man can fear that; but when we enter on such a course we are making a political mistake, a political mistake which becomes a crime when you look down the avenue of the future and consider the generations that are to come. The political views of one generation descend to the unhappy posterity of another, even to the fourth and fifth generation, as the crimes of ancestors. We run the risk of making ourselves criminal to our posterity if we

maintain the seeds of irritation, which may by and by flame out again. And then remember, too, it is sectionalism between two parties of the country which have been at war. It keeps alive, instead of suppressing, the bitter memories of past strife. But, worse than all to us in this day and generation, it is a constant injury to our business. We hold one portion of the people of this country in subjection— in dominion. That is the theory of the Republican party. They in the North must control these people in the South as well as in the North. And, while that is going on, how are the business interests of the country affected ? Do we not all know that we deal with our friends in business? Do we not all know that commerce and business are the greatest civilizers of the world, that it is absolutely necessary to commercial interests that there should be bonds of friendship, as far as possible, between the two contracting nations or parties? Can we expect to maintain with the people of the South those cordial business relations out of which we, in the North, will make money unless w« have them friendly to us—friendly in feeling and ready to with us ? And what is the nature of the South-“ ern people in respect to the business which they do ? They are agricultural people. They produce the great staples that bring the world to the market to buy. They fill New York with great bouies' of staple products for export. They supply the manufactories of the North with the products which they will manufacture. They deal with us, and if we but cultivate them they must do it. Agricultural communities must always spend their money in manufacturing and mercantile communities. They are not both as a rule. It is difficult for them to be agricultural and mercantile and commercial at the same time. Now the South is a purely agricultural region. Cotton, tobacco, hemp, rice, sugar, and all the fruits of the season they produce in great quantities. Do we not deny ourselves when we fail to stimulate them to the gi catest production, when we fail to press them to do all that they can do in the way of increasing the wealth of the country? Let the Republicans cry out that the Democratic party is an enemy to the best interests of the country. They say, and they turn their faces backward to say, that they are’ the authors of the business prosperity of the country. What effrontery ! The business prosperity of the country is just beginning as that party is sinking to decay. They have laid a great incubus upon the business of the country so long as they have maint iued this sectional irritation and animosity. Just in proportion as the Republican party is fading away from this land, in that proportion are business interests reviving. Is the Democratic party not safe to be trusted with the business interests of the country ? Who compose, who lead it ? Who are the great exemplars of Democratic faith and business sagacity? How shall we know better than bv looking around us in the community in which we live, and I make no invidious distinction when I point, in your own community, as men whom you would probably feel safe to trust your business with, to ‘Potter Palmer or Marshall Field, or Mr. Leiter or -Mr. Smith, and many others whom I might name. Can you not trust yourself with the hope that those men are willing to trust themselves and their all with ? How is it with such men as Alexander Mitchell in my own State ? Does he not know where his business interests lead him ? Where are the men of conspicuous business intelligence, conspicuous business sagacity and wisdom, in the Republican party, that will outnumber the great business men of the Democratic party? Where are the men tiiat will outweigh them either in money or intelligence ? In the desultory remarks which I am making to you I shall take the liberty to call your attention to something that was said by Mr. Conkling last night. I picked.up his speech in the papers after I left Harvard, on the ir. in t< - day, and I noticed a most ingenious and skilift 1 appeal, and I wish particularly to call y< ur attention to it. I noted that he put forth arguments, which I have alluded to to-night, that the South would control if the Democratic ] arty elected Hancock, and then he proceeded to intimate that the Southern States represented in. the payment of duties, or internal revenues, or receipts of the Postoffice Departmi nt, no such portion of the country as they would represent if in control. How ingeniously 1 e put that! Observe first that he count d as the South the entire sixteen States including Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri, which were not I ece led Si ates. He counted those in in order to mike up 106 possible members of Congress t) at they might elect. They are not all D.mociars, but he assumed they wou’d be. He might have carried his assumption a little further. He then said they make up 138 electoral votes. Now he said, what is Heir business relation to the country? And then ho very deftly drops the sixteen States which he put together when he computed th ir power, and proceeds to deal, in respect to the business situation, with the eleven States that had seceded. And how unfair that comparison! It is unfair all the way through. Those eleven seceded States were, as I have already said, trodden under foot by the armies of the North —stripped, impoverished, desolated. They have had these years, and they have all been necessary to regain their homes, to re-establish industries, to re-establish business. Ho .v could it be expected that in that time they should I compete with the great, prosperous North, which had made money even out of their very i calamities? Now just look at the manner in which he makes his computation. II ) says that the South imported last year only one forty-third of all the imports of the country. In that computation he counts twelve States. He could just as well count West Virginia, which does not imp< rt nt all. Why is there anything very dreadful al i ut that ? Let me count twelve States North. He says the Southern States paid $2,445,505 if duties on imports to the United States. Why. let us take Colorado, lowa, Kansas, Michigi pj Minmsota, Nebraska, Nevada, Wisconsin, Indian), Vermont; New Hampshire and Ohio—twelve States. They number 98 electoral votes, while the twelve States he named have but just 100. And probably they didn’t pay altegether—though Ohio may have paid some. Cincinnati and Cleveland, and possibly Toledo a very small amount—they probably didn’t pay altogether, in import duties to the United States, half as much as those twelve States South. I could not get the figures in the short time I had this evening. So with internal revenue. He says the South—and there again he is speaking only of the twelve States—the South has paid —now see how ingeniously he puts that —he does not give us any one year as he did before—the South has paid since the war one-sixth of all the internal revenue collected. Is that a theory that they are to be reproached with? Why didn’t he include Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland and Delaware, if he was going to draw a fair parallel between the internal revenue they pay and the political power which he says they exercised. The Chicago Times, with accustomed acuteness, struck at that in its editorial of to-day. Kentucky paid in one year $7,603,862 ; Wisconsin paid $5,000,000 ; Vermont paid $50,000, and even the glorious State which has but lately slipped from the grasp of Blaine paid $75,000. If you were to put together the States with which he was drawing the comparison I think it would appear that in the last year of the collection of internal revenue they paid their full proportion according to their political power. But it is a most unjust mode of inquiry. Why, are we to distribute political power—and there I am only repeating the argument in the newspaper—are we to distribute political power according to internal revenue ? If so, Illinois demands her share, for she paid $4,000,000 more internal revenue last year than even the State of New York. Then he talks about the exports of the South, and says that our exports in 1879 were $835,000.000 and some hundreds of thousands of dollars, of which the South exported, in round numbers, $188,000,000. This is 22% per cent. And now, observe, he is leaving out of the calculation those States which I named, but which he included when he made a computation of political power. He leaves out the port of Baltimore, one of the four great ports which sent exports from and received imports into the United States. He leaves it entirely out; and yet the South sent out, last year, nearly onequarter that this whole broad country raised. Then mark another thing : In making that estimate, I suppose he judges of the exports as indicated by the returns at the different ports. But don’t we all know that New York sends out not the products of the North alone, but the products of the South as well; that the cotton of the South is gathered in New York ; that beef from Texas even is shipped from New York ; that the immensity of the agricultural products of the South find their exit from this country through that port ? Now I may note one or two other things. He says that the Southern banks loan buts4o,ooo,ooo, which is but one-thirteenth of all the bank loans of a year. I was surprised that it was so much. That the Southern people could have accumulated such a loanable capital under all the misfortunes they have suffered, I was surprised to learn. It would take quite a number of the States of the North that I could name to make up as large a loanable capital as that Here in Chicago, and in New York, the great money

centers of this continent, there is no difficulty in finding bankable ’Capital, but when you go out among the agricultural States—and the Southern States are all agricultural States, pretty much, as I have said—when you go out among the agricultural States you do not find loanable bankable capital. Another thing—a most unjust discrimination. He says in 1879 it required 423,013 freight cars to move the freight of the United States upon its great lines of railroad, of which but 31,248 were in the late Confederate States. There again he excluded the other States, which he had included in his computation of political power, and we have the Baltimore and Ohio railroad and the numerous railroads that gather at St. Louis and run to Kansas City ana stretch across the State of Missouri, which he left out of the computation when he gathered up this taunt to fling at the South—the impoverished South—which had its railroads destroyed almost to the last mile by the armies of the Union in the necessary prosecution of the war. He complains of a disproportion in the deposits of the savings of the poor people—the workingmen. -He says but a small proportion is deposited in the South. I suppose that the freedmen of the country remember the history of the Freedmen’s Sav- • ings Bank. And then at last he arraigns the Almighty, for he contrasts the mineral products of the South with the mineral products of the West and North, and puts it as a fault upon the • Southern people that in palezoic ages the gold and silver of this country were not deposited there. Another thing: He says that in 1860 the foreign customs of New Orleans were 22 per cent, of the four ports which he has named— Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. He has to include Baltimore in the North to make his figures proportionate. In 1880 it is only 8 per cent., falling off from $160,000,000 in 1860 to $101,000,000 in 1880. Isn’t that the cruelest reproach which has ever been brought upon a people ! A year ago New Orleans lay desolate under the infliction of yellow fever, and it is to be put against their commerce that the Almighty held that heavy hand of pestilence upon the city. That year is selected, I suppose, without calling attention to the circumstances which made the deficit in their commercial interests. He forgot that with their imports they imported that disorder. Then another point. Observe the manner in which it is put; he speaks of cotton ; he says that in 1860 there were 3,812,000, in round numbers, bales of cotton exported ; in 1870 but 2,005,000 ; in 1880, 3,810,000, and then he says that cotton has stood still. Why, my friends, look at the manner in which that reinforces the argument—and I wish I could suggest to some convenient statistician to pursue that inquiry ; since 1870, since the Republican party in the States of the South was put down, it has almost doubled the exports of its cotton. According to his own showing, if in ten years, since 1870, it has almost doubled its exports, what may we not expect in the next ten years, when, under honest rule, it shall have a fab’ chance to develop that industry ? Now, suppose it were all true, what does it tend to prove ? Suppose these observations were right, and were fairly made, that the South is not discharging her proportionate financial duty to the United States, what does it prove? It seems to me that it proves just what I have been suggesting—that the business interests of the North demand that the Southern States shall be put under another Government that will enable them to do it. ’I will not, however, weary you by further recapitulation of these figures except to show one thing that illustrates the argument I have just made from his own figures. He says that the value of the exports at all the ports of South Carolina was in 1860 $21,103,000 ; in 1870, $10,818,000; in 1880, $21,860,000. And he adds, as ‘ the just deduction from these figures, “ Here is stagnation for twenty years.” Is that fan - ? Does it not show that within the last ten years—and most of it has occurred within the last three or four—within the last ten years South Carolina has doubled her exports? Pursue those figures with a proper inquiry into the details to which they could be drawn, and I think they will serve to show that the Republican party has had control long enough of that region of country. But I put this question upon higner grounds than business interests. I say that it is a crime against humanity to maintain this sectional irritation. On this continent of the West we have endeavored to set up a republican government, a government of liberty—and a government of liberty means a government of equal rights. The sun of liberty quickens man as the natural sun quickens a field of grain. The myriad shafts rise upon the even bed of earth, bathing in the common balm, sanctioned by the generous heat, and lifting to the God of light the abundant fruit on every head which His equal justice has given them all to bear. Republican institutions. as has been well said, the last hope for the redemption of man, must be maintained, and can only be maintained when a spirit of fraternity runs through and permeates the citizens of this country.

We cannot live as a republican government and maintain perpetual war. Even in the household and family, where the ties of blood are nearest, we must exercise charity and forbearance or there oftentimes will be discord. How much n orc se in a broad land where, tin interests are diverse and people are separated by many miles of territory, must we exercise forbearance, and charity, and human kindness. The appeal goes to the bettfer nature of men. It is an answer from the very heart of everv man who has a heart to the taunts and flings that have been hurled against the unhappy people struggling to lift themselves up again to peace and prosperity and fraternity. This appeal is not to the selfish, except it be but an enlightened selfishness which perceives your own good in the good of your fellowmen—the appeal is to a higher selfishness than that which is looking to the spoils of office, which is only considering political questions with the greed and avarice of power. The appeal is to our Christianity, to our humanity. I remember well, some years ago, when the great men who had formed the Republican party, who, while it was a party of principle, had led it forward from its earliest beginnings to its final crowning triumphs, broke from it and said, “ It is time the Union was restored and business was at hand.” I remember the men in this State of Illinois on whose shoulder the right arm of Lincoln was laid for support, one of whom was his bosom friend and the executor of his will, your Senator in Congress to-day, David Davis. Another vas a member of his’ Cabinet, Mr. Browning. Another was in the Senate of the United States, and is to-day your champion in this State, of humanity and liberty, Lyman Trumbull. I could name others. You remember those men. You have marked .their course. They dropped the Republican party when it abandoned the principles of liberty, of humanity, and of Christianity. And, if you turn from them and go beyond this State and in the East, who do you see? Sumner—do you remember him? Charles Sumner, who had in his own person suffered the crudest outrage that could be inflicted upon a man, and he live, at the hands of his enemies of the South, he stood up for them and appealed for them ; and in that time, when hate was still rife in this people, it was possible for an illustrated newspaper to feed the passions of the Republican party with a cartoon representing Charles Sumner strewing flowers on the grave of Preston Brooks, while the words issued from his mouth, “ Abolish hate.” That was put forward as a proper matter of ridicule I But the artist should have completed that picture. He should have had the heavens open wide above him, while a ray of divine light fell upon that aged head, and a voice was heard—the voice of Him who said: “Pray for them who despitefully use you and persecute you”—to give the final benediction: “ Well done, good and faithful servant.” But, fellow-citizens, it is not enough that we consider the great distinctive issue between the parties. When we come to consider such an election as that of President of the United States, it is our duty to regard the men also. No campaign slander ought to be uttered against any candidate; but when I reflect on that party which hurled their abuse at Horatio Seymour, sent down to a mart; r’s grave that martyr for liberty and fraternity, that great and good man whom they had so long been guided by, Horace Greeley, which gave him opprobrium and contumely, which broke his heart —when I reflect upon the manner in which the campaign of 1876 was conducted, I certainly can not be told that it is not right or fair to look into the record of a candidate. In the candidate which is presented by the Republican party we find a wonderful type of the pretentious part of that party itself. That class of men have always talked like God, but it is amusing how httle they have acted like Him. The poet says: Talents, ’tis true, quick, various, bright, Hath God to virtue oft’ denied, On vice bestowed; just as fond nature livelier colors brings To deck the Insect’* than the eagle’s wings.

And so it is to be admitted beyond any question that the candidate of the Republican party is conspicuous for talents, abilities. We can say of him pretty nearly everything that Mr. Conkling said in his speech. But we can hardly run to the edge of the precipice as he did and not step over, for he led that character right up to the very edge of the cliff, and that cliff is his recordi. But, before I speak of that, I wish to illustrate the idea that he is a fair type of the pretentious part of Republicanism. I may mention one name without offense. You will recollect that good old man from Kansas—Pomeroy. He was like the woman with whom her husband had had trouble, and of whom he said : “ She was too good for any man to live with ;” and that was what afflicted him. He was not the first, but he was a conspicuously-early example of what has lately developed in a marvelous degree—the finished, perfected result we have had in the Hayes administration. Look at the man. Take the administration of President Hayes as a niatter of pretense and performance. He was that he could not possibly take an office to which he should be counted in by fraud. He admitted that he was—said so. Then, when he went into office, that great reform in the civil service which Gen. Grant had beenunable to accomplish, Hayes immediately set about, and he accomplished it right off. He issued his executive order No. 1. and he required every Federal officeholder to abstain from politics. He prohibited any such thing as assessments for political purposes upon the poor, hard-worked, and poorly-paid clerks in Washington. How did he carry it out? How did he perform ? He hardly got into his office with this cry that he would not take anything that came by fraud, when he sent a few of the statesmen of this country to Louisiana, and they computed that curious arithmetical problem by which Packard, who had 1,600 more votes than Hayes’ electors, was defeated, while Hayes was elected ! Then, in order to further perfect the reform in the civil service, to make it pure in all its details and branches as it was at the fountain-head, he appointed to office every one, almost, from the engineer down to the lowest handicraftsman in that villainy by which he was put in, and he charged upon the people of this country for the payment of their salaries an expense, as was shown by one of the Senators in Congress, of over $230,000 a year. He did not hesitate to nominate these men for judicial positions. Next, for a grand specimen of results, he removed Mr. Arthur from the office of Collector of the Port of New York. Ho said that he removed him in order that that office might be honestly administered, but Mr. Sherman said, so it is reported, when asked at Cincinnati the other night to explain that, that he was not removed for dishonesty, but for incompetency; and so Mr. Sherman stood there on that platform advocating Mr. Hayes’ civil-service reform by contending that the man who was not competent to be Collector of the Port of New York was fit to be Vice President of the United States. And finally--and now lam making a pitiful appeal for bleeding humanity—look at those poor clerks in Washington, stripped—not with one, but with two or three assessments, so that only a day or two ago, when they came for thej'r monthly pay, they could not rejoice together over the new’s from Maine because they had to pay for it. And, when their pocket-books are fairly stamped, they are now informed that their bleeding carcasses are to be stretched again upon the altar of their country in order to carry Indiana I This is civilservice reform ! It is simply hypocrisy. It is the language of the gods in preaching about Government affairs ; but it is carrying into practice what that fellow called “the other chap” would do. Well, now for Mr. Garfield a word or two. I have already said that he is a man of unquestionable and conspicuous ability. There is no need to say that—everybody knows it. Mr. Garfield is unquestionably a man of great brains —the more he has, sometimes, the worse for him. He ha's manifested, how ever, this great defect of character : He has shown that with all his knowledge, with all his intelligence, with all his clear perceptions and splendid enunciations of what is right, he can not perceive the right course as against his party, or a great temptation ; he has manifested a want of stability and firmness of character, and of all the elements that are necessary to make a man great and safe in the Presidential chair, that is the first, in my judgment, or at least, if it be not the first, it is that which can not be dispensed with under any circumstances. We w : ant a man in the Presidential chair who can stand up as Jackson did, against his own party. And the first great evidence of that weakness of character has been manifested, and it has now been laid perfectly bare by the searching criticism of Mr. Hendricks upon Mr. Garfield’s own evidence. It was manifested in his action in repect to the Electoral Commission, and the frauds by which that commission was made necessary to preserve the peace of this country. He went to New Orleans and there he dabbled with those witnesses. Now, what he did, as has been established, was in an inner room. No person observed him but himself and those with whom he dealt: but one of those witnesses, whose testimony he admits he extracted and multiplied, as you might say, by his ingenious interrogatories, has come forward since io swear that every word she testified to was false. Whether it was or not who can tell; but that she was such a character as that must have been known to Homebody when they introduced her as a proper person to tell the story about the manner in which the votes were cast in the parish of West Feliciana. It is but an illustration. All the witnesses that concerned that district of country were guided, and their testimony extracted by Mr. Garfield. He had his hands in it as a lawyer, if a lawyer could possibly have anything to do with such a dirty business as that, and after he had participated in it m that way, he went upon the court that was to try the case. Now, I undertake to say that if a lawyer anywhere in the Northern or Southern States, any member of that honorable profession, should first be a party to a suit, or be engaged for one of the parties to a suit, should examine the witnesses, prepare their interrogatories, consult in regard to the manner of presenting the case, and afterward as a Judge sit upon the bench to try that case, he could and would be impeached an 1 punished.

But Mr. Hendricks showed another thing. He showed that Mr. Garfield, from his place in the House of Representatives, when debating the Electoral Commission bill, argued that the bill would require the Electoral Commission to go back of the seal of the State and inquire how the vote was cast; who was honestly elected ; where the fraud was, and what the right and wrong of it was. He argued that, and the Democrats, who thought he spoke like a statesman, took him at his word. They believed him. He went upon the commission and said : “We can not hear a word ; States rights prevent itand under that plea of States rights the vote of Florida, which had been certified by the three Tilden electors, who met on the proper day and performed their functions in a proper manner, who were certified to be Tilden electors by the Legislature of the State and by a decision of the Supreme Court, were all turned out, because at the same time three men who were not elected had a false certificate given them, and acted as de-facto electors, and therefore represented the State. That was the manner in which he adjudged the great cause of the American people before that tribunal. It illustrated, it seems to me, his action all the way through—illustrated the proposition which I have made—that he is too weak to resist the dictates of his party. Then look at it in another aspect. You have seen that he took the back pay and kept it some weeks, until the storm arose, when he dropped it, and it is not an unfair illustration to say, like a burglar when a policeman pursues him. He dropped it before the storm of public indignation. Now was it right to take it? Didn’t he know whether it was or not ? Was it right to be on the committee which reported the bill and supported it ? And, if it was right, why had he not the courage to say so and face the music, defending it? If it was wrong, what taught him that it was wrong after he had it in his pocket, and not before ? mow with reference to that other matter, the paving contract, let me say just a word to illustrate this same idea. Mr. Garfield accepted a fee of $5,000. For what? He spoke—that is all that he claims to have done, I believe, except to have examined into the merits of the pavement—he spoke to Mr. Shepherd on the street, or Mr. Shepherd says he spoke on the street with him, the only time he met him. Well, he secured the adoption of that pavement, and, according to the justice which was due between him and his employers, he earned the fee. But why did he secure it? Mr. Shepherd was the controlling man in Washington on that subject. His office gave him the control. He required immense appropriations to carry out the improvements which were being made in the city of Washington. He wanted to be solid with the Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, and it Was natural that he should yield a ready to a very slight wish from that source. But isn’t that to take money for official influence? Do any of us lawyers earn fees of $5,000 in that manner ? If it is legitimate, and light, and proper, I should like to oe intro-

duced to the class of clients who pay such fees for so little services. So in respect to that other matter about which so much has been said—and I do not propose to weary you by a repetition of the common arguments—the Credit Mobilier. He either accepted a curious loan or he agreed to take the stock. Now, in either case—and you don’t care which it is—he acted a hesitating, timid, shrinking part—the part of a man who seemed to be wanting to get something but didn’t dare face the storm which, taking it in that way, it would bring upon him. He manifested, m other words—not to put too severe a condemnation upon it, and I wul leave that for others to express—he manifested such a degree of moral weakness as renders him unsafe to trust in great positions with great responsibilities. I do not need to spend any time in regard to the other candidate. I wish to say one single word on that subject. Gen. Hancock has deserved well of the people of this country. No »ulogium upon his character is necessary. The highest lias recently been paid him. When the Campaign Committee of the Republicans issued their mandate to prohibit further attacks upon him, as injurious to their cause, they summed up all that was necessary for an American to know. I was not aware that I had detained you so long until I looked at mv watch. [Cries of “Go on,” “Goon.”] I thank you for your kind expressions. lam certainly unduly trespassing upon your time. I am gratified by the kind expressions which you manifest toward me, and I regret exceedingly that I have not had time, owing to illness and extreme business cares, to have more properly prepared an address to be delivered to such an intelligent audience. I will, however, not weary you longer. A word only in respect to the prospect, and that, perhaps, needs no word. We have already seen the shadows lengthen on the faces of our Republican friends. For the first time in a quarter of a century the sun, as he rose above the eastern horizon, did not pierce a bank of clouds. The political day is open with a broad and generous iliumin., tion, and the prospect of success comes cheering to every Democrat. Our duty is with the hour. Now, in the opened and full day of political labor, let us put our shoulders to the wheel. Let us strive to have in the Presidential chair a successor to Jefferson—to Jackson. Let us labor during the day, and when the shades of night gather round, and our toil is over, we may form that grand circle of happiness from which the American people will send up their rejoicing shouts of victory, and their hopes for peace and prosperity hereafter.