Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 August 1871 — Senator Morton at St. Louis. [ARTICLE]

Senator Morton at St. Louis .

Br.Locts, iUMMi 1 . Bmatou UoKToq, of Indiana, .poke j W« to-night to one of the largest au gfOW «wr congregated in Bu Louis. T. Wow presided, and the * 1 luttM *“ *** S^s!L* by Senator Sdtfin, Governor Brow*. mU suuiy other prominent and dtoUngulsfni dtisMAa i -, ** f * V ■*.' :wm ** Mr, Blow introduced the speaker with a few remarks la reference to the coming straggle tor Pteddent, giving a few of the meat prominent characteristics of the Republican and Democratic parties, and laving much strata upon the importance ; m tin approaching contest. -Mr. Morton opened by referring to his visit %o St Louis, to tho early part of the ■war, In behalf or some Indians regiments, mi then passed on to the subject of his address br saying.Isa a Its publican, and belong to thst •arty because I believe its principles are the uue principles of this government; be cause It is the party that taved this government and I believe that the bcstandjiighest interests -of this country now arc do pendent upon continuing that party in power for some years. The Republican party has some aifflcuUiss to encounter One is that it hss accomplished such great Bi within the last ten ycam that very things are consequently expected of I some of its members are not satisfied without the Republican pirty is entering on tome new and great reform every day, unless It has some great victory to register at the end of every week or month. If we shall succeed in accomplishing what we have undertaken ; if we •ball secure to this country, for all time, the true results of the ' war; if we shall establish peace in all the States; if we shall secure to the people of all the Stab s equal rights before the law, we shall have accomplished n grant work—more than, auy other party in this (Mr any other country has estab lfshed, Dor enemies are artfully whimpering to us that our mission has been perforated ; that our duty is done, and that we may rest upon our victorious arms. The mission of the Republican will not be performed—if it can be said to have a special mission—until, in a 1 parts of this country, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments shall be accepted, not only in letter, but in spirit; until it shall be conceded, not for the sake of political expediency, but because all parties agree that they are right and ought to be toe fundamental law of the land. New questions will spring up from time to time, and we should try to dispose of them ss they come, but we should not have too many irons in the fire at one tone. The Republican party is the great reform party of this country. It has consummated more and greater reforms in tbe course of ten yean than all the parties that have gone bjfore. But we have done one thing at a time, and when we have done one great work, we have taken up the next, and so we shall go on, and if there are reformers who think the Republican party is not traveling fast enough for them, let me ask them if there is any other party they can go to that promises any reform at all. The spirit of progress •ad reform is the essential spirit to Republicanism, and we shall enact the great reforms required for the country, from tone to time, as the people are ready for them, and as the condition of the country and reason shall demonstrate their ncces-

, **'{sierefore ) I sav to all reformers: Be not impatient. You have more to hope for in the why of reform from the Republican party than you have from any new party that can possibly be formed. New parties are not made to order. There is no man in this country that has got capacity enough to build up a new party', nor is there any set of meu that have that capacity. Great parties spring from great' public events, of the state of opinion. The Republican party was called into existence by the repeal or the Missouri Compromise—that great breach of faith that shook this nation to its very foundation. That was, in fact, the beginning of the war, and I tell you no other party can take its place until it has. proved fulse to its pledges, false to its principles, and until the public mind is satisfied that the reform of the nation cmnot be accomplished except by the formation of a new **T?ere are but two parties in this country now, and there will be but two parties for yean to come. What a decade may do. what twenty years may do, we cannot tell; but there is no probability of there being a third party formed with auy great national character during the next two, four, or even six years. It is, therefore, simply a choice between the Republican and Democratic parties. Every road that leads out of the Republican party leads into the Democratic party. It makes no difference whether it is intended in that way or not; that is the absolute and inevitable result of it. Whatever weakens toe Deaoocratic party strengthens the Republican party. The Senator then passed to, the subject of amnesty, and said but one disability now remains upon those engaged in rebellion, and that is that no man who had taken an oath to support tbe Constitution of the United Btates, and afterwards committed perjury by engaging in the rebellion, shall be eligible to pfflee. Jeff. Davis has as much right to vote in Mississippi as any man in the State, or any man in Missouri. The class of men who are covered by the Fourteenth Amendment is not very large, not more than 30,000 in all the United States. As a member of the Senate of the TJpited States, I have never refosed to vote to relieve the disabilities of any man who has asked for it, over his own signature, in good faith, and lam prepared to continue to vote in that way, with some exception*. I did refuse to vote for one man who applied, because in addition to being rebel, he had been a very bad guerilla. But, my blends, there is a class of men who engaged in that rebellion whom I will never vote to relieve. I do not refer to the masses of those who are under disability tty the Fifteenth Amentmept, but I refer more particularly to those men who were in the Congress of the United States and went out of it and organized the rebellion; those men who had been educated by the government as soldiers, and who left the army mid carried their over to the rebels. So far as that class of rebels are concerned, I, for one, will never vote to relieve them. As far as the general amnesty of others are concerned, I shall be extremely liberal, but to the authors and creators of the rebellion —such men as Davis, and Toombs, and Breckinridge —those men who made the great national btneral at which more than 400,000 men wem buried, who made more than 400,000 wives widows, more than 000,006 children orphans—those who atoned against light and knowledge, and, •a I believe, committed the neatest sin of this or iuyother century, and I will never TjXs.ty tEEP.foy them the last legal mark Of disapprobation of theircriine. Jhe amnesty of such men I denounce as morally; wfchfed, sodas cruelty to future nrananfedHWplty to the children that are aoW.growing up. Xam not willing to say JIoh waS no crime. lam nut X’ - V*° instruct posterity that this re x. \irei no crime—a. mere political Va mere question between paring to admit again to toe Con- * States—it maybe even 'Npy—the very men who )£. >1 and were the cause of iin Nd ocxww.'.jPaalfib-

meat has gone by. Nobody has been executed, nobody has been imprisoned, and now the last thing to mark treason as a crime, even as a misdemeanor, is the Fourteenth Amendment, making these men thst I spoke of ineligible to office, and I say if we were to turn Mound and admit to the Congress of the United States again—end I tell you they will come if you remove the disability—if we were to admit such men as Davis, Toombs, and Brackinbridge back, jjhcn wo should stultify ouivolvcs; we should say that after all there was nothing wrong in rebellion—we should say to future generations, there is no crime in trying to overthrow this government. I wart to he understood on the subject of amnesty. 1 will never vote for universal amnesty. I nny go in for a very general amnesty, but I well never sit mysilf, snd wilt not ink oth< r loyal inea to sit, imho Se nate of the United States by the aldo of Jeff. Davis, Breckinridge, Toombs. The Senator then dismissed civil service reform. Lie said: "President Grant had recommended reform in this direction, snd had, under the act of Congress, appointed Commissioners to examine the subject and report to him. Two of these gentlemen were prominent editors, who had written voluminously In favor of reform, and when they were put upon the Commission and asked to devise something practicable, they met with difficulties at the very threshold, even constitutional difficulties. He hoped they would present something practicable to Congress. Our civil service has many imperfections; many which arise out of tho imperfections of human nature. It had been suggested that government clerks and subordinates should hold office for life. We want no life tenures in this country. Ten thousand clerks and officials at Washington, that being about the number there holding office, for life, would constitute an aristocracy sufficient to revolutionize the government in twenty-five years.” He also referred to the suggested plan to give clerks and subordinates a term of eight or ten years, and removal only for crime or incapacity. That might be good, but be was not sure. He did not know, however, that had such a law been in force when the rebellion broke out the government would have been hurt, for a majority of the employes at Washington were to sympathy with the rebellion, and If they could not have been removed the government could not have been carried on. He believed our civil service, with all its imperfections, taken as a whole, was the best in tbe world. He would not exchange it for any European system. They are not adapted to it. “At the same time,” ho said," I belong to the great Republican reform party. We want to make every • reform in thst branch that we can, and wo will do it) and allow me to say, in justice to General Grant, that he appears to be the first man that has taken a practical ’ step in that direction. Of course I don’t l refer to bills that have been offered in , Congress, because there have been a num- , her of them; but 1 want to say to our ; Democratic friends, who now appear to be \ very much in favor of civil service reform • in their arguments before the people, that during the early period that this party was , in power, and when the civil service was carried on in much inferior manner to what it is now, such a suggestion as that of dvikservlce reform was never made. If refJftn in the civil service does come, it has to come through the Republican

party.” He then discussed questions of tariff reform and taxation at considerable length, but presented little beyond his well-known views on these subjects. Speaking of t.Be labor reform question the Senator said one of the fundamental ideas of the Republican party is the dignity ot labor, and the party planted itself upon the idea that labor should be free. Slavery degraded Labor, and that was one reason why we were for tearing slavery up by the roots. He draw attention to the prosperity of Missouri under free labor, saying the books of the State Auditor showed that, notwithstanding the misfortune of the war that had to be overcome, Missouri has, since 1806, nearly doubled the value of her taxable property. Her population has been vastly swelled, and she has never been so prosperous before; and this, took place under a Republican administration. Labor should not only be honorable and dignified, but should be paid iu good money. JN o class of men are so robbed and plundered by depreciating and lluctuating currency as the laboring men. A merchant may hoard up his merchandise for high prices, and a land owner his land for higher value; but yflKaunot hoard up labor for a rise in prices. When there came a fall, labor is the first to feel it, but when there is expansion, labor is the last thing to feel it. Labor should also be educational, and the cliildren of laboring men in this respect placed on an equal footing with those of the rich men. The republican patty is in favor of advocating everything that possesses the spirit ot the free school system of this land, while the body of the Democratic party are n.ot not now in favor of free schools; yet so far as I know, all the enemies of free schools are in the Democratic party. Ponder that well, and I tell you that when the assault upon free schools comes—and come it will some time—that the Democratic party, if then inexistence, will lead that assault. He discussed questions of tariff and free trade at considerable length, announcing himself in favor of every"reform, but desiring incidental protection to our home manufactures, and taking generally the same ground that he has occupied in speeches in the Senate iu regard to taxation. He said a Republican Congress, at the session before the last, repealed $57,000,000 of internal tax, and about $25,000,000 of tariff. Now our Democratic frienda are always clamoring about taxation; but when they came to the passage of that bill which relieved the nation of eightyfive millions at one blow, I believe it did not receive a single Democratic vote. They are always in favor of relieving the taxes on articles that are not included in the bill. They are in favor of the other articles; and when we put the other articles in the bill, then they are in favor of the other articles, and they never can be got to the point where they vote for the reduction of taxes. He predicted that the next session of Congress could further reduce taxation from $40,000,000 to $50,000,000. Speaking of the recent riot in New York, he said the leading Democratic papers of that city justified Mayor HaU’s order prohibiting the Orange procession, and such was the leaning of the Democratic party. He sketched the circumstances which brought the Ku-Klux bill into existence, and defended the bill in strong terms, saving it is one of the best measures that has ever passed Congress. The moral effect of it has already been wonderfoL The mere passage of that bill has already saved hundreds of lives, and thousands of men from torture and punishment. It is dangerous only to marauders, robbers, and that class of Democratic partisans who have been hoping to carry all the Southern States for toe Democratic ticket by means of this very Ku-Klux organisation. •> .■ A ■ .• He had very little faith in the new Democratic departure. He did not believe the party could scarcely change opinion in so short a time. Thereto not one man in a thousand among the Democrats in- tho Southern States that accepts the amendments. There is not a roan in fifty ami ng the Democrats in the Northern States that accepts the amendments. They cannot coma into power while the amend■meßls or reconstruction are is the issue i

They cannot carry the Northern Slates. They tay, therefore, that they mu*t take such a course as they may by which they can vet into power. What will the Democratic party do when it comes into power f Suppose they get the President and control of tho government; tho Kouth will dletato the policy just as they did before the war, ana now the question com's —ls the South gets control of the party, and they-are In power, will they tax themselves to piy the pensions of the Northern soldiers without their own aro provided for, and are upon the lime footing? 1 ask that question as a question of logic. Will tho Southern Democracy, if they come Into power, ever consent to tax themselves to pay pensions to tho Northern soldiers who took, part in their subjugation.'while their own are unprovided for? I tell you they will not, and the power which will Justify universal amnesty will justify pensioning rebel soldiers and putting them on the samo footing with the Union soldiers, and which would be a greater conciliation than general or universal amnesty. They would advance the same argument in regard to the payment of the national debt They probably would not insist on paying the rebel debt, but they would put it in another way and refuse to vote a dollar for the payment of the national dent, except on condition that the slaves be paid for. Reverting to the sflairs in Missouri, he said lie did not come here to take part in local troubles. He would bury them. " I want all Republicans, regardless of differences, to rally for the gre at principles of the Republican party. 1 believe the dominance of that imrty is nccqscary for the salvation of this country. Whatever may have been your opinions of lhat party, it is to-night simply a question between a Democratic and a Republican President There is no middle ground for yon to occupy. You arc on one side or the ether. If you tail to,vote for n Republican it is half a vote for the Democrat candidate. I ask you, in view of these considerations, to lay aside nil your past differences, and come together in the great contest now before you." . The audience listened to flic S nator with m. rk'-d attention, and frequently loudly applauded him. The great bulk of the assemblage seemed to .be in entire symwith the speaker.