Our free press reaching into almost every hamlet of the land; our colleges now reared in every section; our schools with open doors to all; our churches teaching every faith, with the protection of the law; our citizens endowed with the sacred right of freedom of speech and action; our railroads spanning the continent, climbing our mountains, and stretching into our valleys; our telegraphs making every community the centre of the world’s daily records—these are the agencies which are omnipotent in the expression of our national purposes and duties. Thus directed and maintained, our free government has braved foreign and domestic war, and been purified and strengthened in the crucible of conflict. It has grown from a few feeble States east of the Ohio wilderness, to a vast continent of commonwealths, and forty millions of population. It has made freedom as universal as its authority within its vast possessions. The laws of inequality and caste are blotted from its statutes. It reaches the golden slopes of the Pacific with its beneficence, and makes beauty and plenty in the valleys of the mountains on the sunset side of the Father of Waters. From the cool lakes of the north, to the sunny gulfs of the South, and from the eastern seas to the waters that wash the lands of the Pagan, a homogeneous people obey one constitution, and are devoted to one country. Nor have its agencies and influences been limited to our own boundaries. The whole accessible world has felt its power, and paid tribute to its excellence. Europe has been convulsed from centre to circumference by the resistless throbbings of oppressed peoples for the liberty they cannot know and could not maintain. The proud Briton has imitated his wayward but resolute child, and now rules his own throne. France has sung the Marseillaise, her anthem of freedom, and waded through blood in ill-directed struggles for her disenthralment. The scattered tribes of the Fatherland now worship at the altar of German unity, with a liberalized Empire. The sad song of the serf is no longer heard from the children of the Czar. Italy, dismembered and tempest tossed through centuries, again ordains her laws in the Eternal City, under a monarch of her choice. The throne of Ferdinand and Isabella has now no kingly ruler, and the inspiration of freedom has unsettled the title of despotism to the Spanish sceptre. The trained lightning flashes the lessons of our civilization to the home of the Pyramids; the land of the Heathen has our teachers in its desolate places, and the God of Day sets not upon the boundless triumphs of our government of the people.
“Massachusetts may be satisfied with the loyalty of Benjamin H. Bristow; so am I; but if any man nominated by this convention cannot carry the State of Massachusetts, I am not satisfied with the loyalty of that State. If the nominee of this convention cannot carry the grand old Commonwealth of Massachusetts by seventy-five thousand majority, I would advise them to sell out Faneuil Hall as a Democratic headquarters. I would advise them to take from Bunker Hill that old monument of glory.
“The Republicans of the United States demand as their leader in the great contest of 1876 a man of intelligence, a man of integrity, a man of well-known and approved political opinions. They demand a reformer after as well as before the election. They demand a politician in the highest, broadest and best sense—a man of superb moral courage. They demand a man acquainted with public affairs, with the wants of the people; with not only the requirements of the hour, but with the demands of the future. They demand a man broad enough to comprehend the relations of this government to the other nations of the earth. They demand a man well versed in the powers, duties, and prerogatives of each and every department of this Government. They demand a man who will sacredly preserve the financial honor of the United States; one who knows enough to know that the national debt must be paid through the prosperity of this people; one who knows enough to know that all the financial theories in the world cannot redeem a single dollar; one who knows enough to know that all the money must be made, not by law, but by labor; one who knows enough to know that the people of the United States have the industry to make the money and the honor to pay it over just as fast as they make it.
“The Republicans of the United States demand a man who knows that prosperity and resumption, when they come must come together; that when they come, they will come hand in hand through the golden harvest fields; hand in hand by the whirling spindles and the turning wheels; hand in hand past the open furnace doors; hand in hand by the flaming forges; hand in hand by the chimneys filled with eager fire—greeted and grasped by the countless sons of toil.
“This money has to be dug out of the earth. You cannot make it by passing resolutions in a political convention.
“The Republicans of the United States want a man who knows that this Government should protect every citizen, at home and abroad; who knows that any government that will not defend its defenders, and protect its protectors, is a disgrace to the map of the world. They demand a man who believes in the eternal separation and divorcement of Church and School. They demand a man whose political reputation is spotless as a star; but they do not demand that their candidate shall have a certificate of moral character signed by a Confederate Congress. The man who has, in full, heaped and rounded measure, all these splendid qualifications, is the present grand and gallant leader of the Republican party—James G. Blaine.
“Our country, crowned with the vast and marvelous achievements of its first century, asks for a man worthy of the past and prophetic of her future; asks for a man who has the audacity of genius; asks for a man who is the grandest combination of heart, conscience and brain beneath her flag. Such a man is James G. Blaine.
“For the Republican host, led by this intrepid man, there can be no defeat.
“This is a grand year—a year filled with the recollections of the Revolution; filled with proud and tender memories of the past; with the sacred legends of liberty; a year in which the sons of freedom will drink from the fountains of enthusiasm; a year in which the people call for a man who has preserved in Congress what our soldiers won upon the field; a year in which they call for the man who has torn from the throat of treason the tongue of slander; for the man who has snatched the mask of Democracy from the hideous face of rebellion; for the man who, like an intellectual athlete, has stood in the arena of debate and challenged all comers, and who is still a total stranger to defeat.
“Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blaine marched down the halls of the American Congress, and threw his shining lance full and fair against the brazen foreheads of the defamers of his country and the maligners of his honor.
“For the Republican party to desert this gallant leader now, is as though an army should desert their general upon the field of battle.
“James G. Blaine is now and has been for years the bearer of the sacred standard of the Republican party. I call it sacred, because no human being can stand beneath its folds without becoming and without remaining free.
“Gentlemen of the convention, in the name of the great Republic, the only Republic that ever existed upon this earth; in the name of all her defenders and of all her supporters; in the name of all her soldiers living; in the name of all her soldiers dead upon the field of battle, and in the name of those who perished in the skeleton clutch of famine at Andersonville and Libby, whose sufferings he so vividly remembers, Illinois—Illinois nominates for the next President of this country, that prince of parliamentarians—that leader of leaders—James G. Blaine.”
Obeying instructions I should never dare to disregard, I rise in behalf of the State of New York to propose a nomination with which the country and the Republican party can grandly win. The election before us will be the Austerlitz of American politics. It will decide whether for years to come the country will be ‘Republican or Cossack.’ The need of the hour is a candidate who can carry doubtful States, North and South; and believing that he more surely than any other can carry New York against any opponent, and carry not only the North, but several States of the South, New York is for Ulysses S. Grant. He alone of living Republicans has carried New York as a Presidential candidate. Once he carried it even according to a Democratic count, and twice he carried it by the people’s vote, and he is stronger now. The Republican party with its standard in his hand, is stronger now than in 1868 or 1872. Never defeated in war or in peace, his name is the most illustrious borne by any living man; his services attest his greatness, and the country knows them by heart. His fame was born not alone of things written and said, but of the arduous greatness of things done, and dangers and emergencies will search in vain in the future, as they have searched in vain in the past, for any other on whom the nation leans with such confidence and trust. Standing on the highest eminence of human distinction, and having filled all lands with his renown, modest, firm, simple and self-poised, he has seen not only the titled but the poor and the lowly in the utmost ends of the world rise and uncover before him. He has studied the needs and defects of many systems of government, and he comes back a better American than ever, with a wealth of knowledge and experience added to the hard common sense which so conspicuously distinguished him in all the fierce light that beat upon him throughout the most eventful, trying and perilous sixteen years of the nation’s history.
“Never having had ‘a policy to enforce against the will of the people,’ he never betrayed a cause or a friend, and the people will never betray or desert him. Vilified and reviled, truthlessly aspersed by numberless presses, not in other lands, but in his own, the assaults upon him have strengthened and seasoned his hold upon the public heart. The ammunition of calumny has all been exploded; the powder has all been burned once, its force is spent, and General Grant’s name will glitter as a bright and imperishable star in the diadem of the Republic when those who have tried to tarnish it will have mouldered in forgotten graves and their memories and epitaphs have vanished utterly.
“Never elated by success, never depressed by adversity, he has ever in peace, as in war, shown the very genius of common sense. The terms he prescribed for Lee’s surrender foreshadowed the wisest principles and prophecies of true reconstruction.
“Victor in the greatest of modern wars, he quickly signalized his aversion to war and his love of peace by an arbitration of international disputes which stands as the wisest and most majestic example of its kind in the world’s diplomacy. When inflation, at the height of its popularity and frenzy, had swept both houses of Congress, it was the veto of Grant which, single and alone, overthrew expansion and cleared the way for specie resumption. To him, immeasurably more than to any other man, is due the fact that every paper dollar is as good as gold. With him as our leader we shall have no defensive campaign, no apologies or explanations to make. The shafts and arrows have all been aimed at him and lie broken and harmless at his feet. Life, liberty and property will find safeguard in him. When he said of the black man in Florida, ‘Wherever I am they may come also,’ he meant that, had he the power to help it, the poor dwellers in the cabins of the South should not be driven in terror from the homes of their childhood and the graves of their murdered dead. When he refused to receive Denis Kearney he meant that lawlessness and communism, although it should dictate laws to a whole city, would everywhere meet a foe in him, and, popular or unpopular, he will hew to the line of right, let the chips fly where they may.
“His integrity, his common sense, his courage and his unequaled experience are the qualities offered to his country. The only argument against accepting them would amaze Solomon. He thought there could be nothing new under the sun. Having tried Grant twice and found him faithful, we are told we must not, even after an interval of years, trust him again. What stultification does not such a fallacy involve! The American people exclude Jefferson Davis from public trust. Why? Because he was the arch traitor and would be a destroyer. And now the same people are asked to ostracize Grant and not trust him. Why? Because he was the arch preserver of his country; because, not only in war, but afterward, twice as a civic magistrate, he gave his highest, noblest efforts to the Republic. Is such absurdity an electioneering jugglery or hypocrisy’s masquerade?
“There is no field of human activity, responsibility or reason in which rational beings object to Grant because he has been weighed in the balance and not found wanting, and because he has had unequaled experience, making him exceptionally competent and fit. From the man who shoes your horse to the lawyer who pleads your case, the officers who manage your railway, the doctor into whose hands you give your life, or the minister who seeks to save your souls, what now do you reject because you have tried him and by his works have known him? What makes the Presidential office an exception to all things else in the common sense to be applied to selecting its incumbent? Who dares to put fetters on the free choice and judgment which is the birthright of the American people? Can it be said that Grant has used official power to perpetuate his plan? He has no place. No official power has been used for him. Without patronage or power, without telegraph wires running from his house to the convention, without electioneering contrivances, without effort on his part, his name is on his country’s lips, and he is struck at by the whole Democratic party because his nomination will be the death-blow to Democratic success. He is struck at by others who find offense and disqualification in the very service he has rendered and in the very experience he has gained. Show me a better man. Name one and I am answered. But do not point, as a disqualification, to the very facts which make this man fit beyond all others. Let not experience disqualify or excellence impeach him. There is no third term in the case, and the pretense will die with the political dog-days which engendered it. Nobody is really worried about a third term except those hopelessly longing for a first term and the dupes they have made. Without bureaus, committees, officials or emissaries to manufacture sentiment in his favor, without intrigue or effort on his part, Grant is the candidate whose supporters have never threatened to bolt. As they say, he is a Republican who never wavers. He and his friends stood by the creed and the candidates of the Republican party, holding the right of a majority as the very essence of their faith, and meaning to uphold that faith against the common enemy and the charlatans and guerrillas who from time to time deploy between the lines and forage on one side or the other.
“The Democratic party is a standing protest against progress. Its purposes are spoils. Its hope and very existence is a solid South. Its success is a menace to prosperity and order.
“This convention is master of a supreme opportunity, can name the next President of the United States and make sure of his election and his peaceful inauguration. It can break the power which dominates and mildews the South. It can speed the nation in a career of grandeur eclipsing all past achievements. We have only to listen above the din and look beyond the dust of an hour to behold the Republican party advancing to victory, with its greatest marshal at its head.”
“I have witnessed the extraordinary scenes of this convention with deep solicitude. No emotion touches my heart more quickly than a sentiment in honor of a great and noble character. But as I sat on these seats and witnessed these demonstrations, it seemed to me you were a human ocean in a tempest. I have seen the sea lashed into a fury and tossed into a spray, and its grandeur moves the soul of the dullest man. But I remember that it is not the billows, but the calm level of the sea from which all heights and depths are measured. When the storm has passed and the hour of calm settles on the ocean, when sunlight bathes its smooth surface, then the astronomer and surveyor takes the level from which he measures all terrestrial heights and depths. Gentlemen of the convention, your present temper may not mark the healthful pulse of our people. When our enthusiasm has passed, when the emotions of this hour have subsided, we shall find the calm level of public opinion below the storm from which the thoughts of a mighty people are to be measured, and by which their final action will be determined. Not here, in this brilliant circle where fifteen thousand men and women are assembled, is the destiny of the Republic to be decreed; not here, where I see the enthusiastic faces of seven hundred and fifty-six delegates waiting to cast their votes into the urn and determine the choice of their party; but by four million Republican firesides, where the thoughtful fathers, with wives and children about them, with the calm thoughts inspired by love of home and love of country, with the history of the past, the hopes of the future, and the knowledge of the great men who have adorned and blessed our nation in days gone by—there God prepares the verdict that shall determine the wisdom of our work to-night. Not in Chicago in the heat of June, but in the sober quiet that comes between now and the melancholy days of November, in the silence of deliberate judgment will this great question be settled. Let us aid them to-night.
“But now, gentlemen of the convention, what do we want? Bear with me a moment. Hear me for this cause, and for a moment be silent, that you may hear. Twenty-five years ago this Republic was wearing a triple chain of bondage. Long familiarity with traffic in the bodies and souls of men had paralyzed the conscience of a majority of our people. The baleful doctrine of State Sovereignty had shocked and weakened the noblest and most beneficent powers of the National Government, and the grasping power of slavery was seizing the virgin territory of the West and dragging them into the den of eternal bondage. At that crisis the Republican party was born. It drew its first inspiration from that fire of liberty which God has lighted in every man’s heart, and which all the powers of ignorance and tyranny can never wholly extinguish. The Republican party came to deliver and save the Republic. It entered the arena when the beleaguered and assailed territories were struggling for freedom, and drew around them the sacred circle of liberty which the demon of slavery has never dared to cross. It made them free forever. Strengthened by its victory on the frontier, the young party, under the leadership of that great man who, on this spot, twenty years ago, was made its leader, entered the national capital and assumed the high duties of the Government. The light which shone from its banner dispelled the darkness in which slavery had enshrouded the capital, and melted the shackles of every slave, and consumed, in the fire of liberty, every slave-pen within the shadow of the Capitol. Our national industries, by an impoverishing policy, were themselves prostrated, and the streams of revenue flowed in such feeble currents that the Treasury itself was well nigh empty. The money of the people was the wretched notes of two thousand uncontrolled and irresponsible State banking corporations, which was filling the country with a circulation that poisoned rather than sustained the life of business. The Republican party changed all this. It abolished the babel of confusion, and gave the country a currency as national as its flag, based upon the sacred faith of the people. It threw its protecting arm around our great industries, and they stood erect as with new life. It filled with the spirit of true nationality all the great functions of the Government. It confronted a rebellion of unexampled magnitude, with slavery behind it, and, under God, fought the final battle of liberty until victory was won. Then, after the storms of battle, were heard the sweet, calm words of peace uttered by the conquering nation, and saying to the conquered foe that lay prostrate at its feet: ‘This is our only revenge, that you join us in lifting to the serene firmament of the Constitution, to shine like stars for ever and ever, the immortal principles of truth and justice, that all men, white or black, shall be free and stand equal before the law.’
“Then came the question of reconstruction, the public debt, and the public faith. In the settlement of the questions the Republican party has completed its twenty-five years of glorious existence, and it has sent us here to prepare it for another lustrum of duty and of victory. How shall we do this great work? We cannot do it, my friends, by assailing our Republican brethren. God forbid that I should say one word to cast a shadow upon any name on the roll of our heroes. This coming fight is our Thermopylæ. We are standing upon a narrow isthmus. If our Spartan hosts are united, we can withstand all the Persians that the Xerxes of Democracy can bring against us. Let us hold our ground this one year, for the stars in their courses fight for us in the future. The census taken this year will bring reinforcements and continued power. But in order to win this victory now, we want the vote of every Republican, of every Grant Republican and every anti-Grant Republican in America, of every Blaine man and every anti-Blaine man. The vote of every follower of every candidate is needed to make our success certain; therefore I say, gentlemen and brethren, we are here to take calm counsel together, and inquire what we shall do. We want a man whose life and opinions embody all the achievements of which I have spoken. We want a man who, standing on a mountain height, sees all the achievements of our past history, and carries in his heart the memory of all its glorious deeds, and who, looking forward, prepares to meet the labor and the dangers to come. We want one who will act in no spirit of unkindness toward those we lately met in battle. The Republican party offers to our brethren of the South the olive branch of peace, and wishes them to return to brotherhood, on this supreme condition, that it shall be admitted forever and forevermore, that, in the war for the Union, we were right and they were wrong. On that supreme condition we meet them as brethren, and on no other. We ask them to share with us the blessings and honors of this great Republic.
“Now, gentlemen, not to weary you, I am about to present a name for your consideration—the name of a man who was the comrade and associate and friend of nearly all those noble dead whose faces look down upon us from these walls to-night; a man who began his career of public service twenty-five years ago, whose first duty was courageously done in the days of peril on the plains of Kansas, when the first red drops of that bloody shower began to fall which finally swelled into the deluge of war. He bravely stood by young Kansas then, and, returning to his duty in the National Legislature, through all subsequent time, his pathway has been marked by labors performed in every department of legislation. You ask for his monuments. I point you to twenty-five years of national statutes. Not one great beneficent statute has been placed in our statute books without his intelligent and powerful aid. He aided these men to formulate the laws that raised our great armies and carried us through the war. His hand was seen in the workmanship of those statutes that restored and brought back the unity and married calm of the States. His hand was in all that great legislation that created the war currency, and in a still greater work that redeemed the promises of the Government, and made the currency equal to gold. And when at last called from the halls of legislation into a high executive office he displayed that experience, intelligence, firmness and poise of character which has carried us through a stormy period of three years. With one-half the public press crying ‘crucify him,’ and a hostile Congress seeking to prevent success, in all this he remained unmoved until victory crowned him. The great fiscal affairs of the nation, and the great business interests of the country, he has guarded and preserved, while executing the law of resumption and effecting its object without a jar and against the false prophecies of one-half of the press and all the Democracy of this continent. He has shown himself able to meet with calmness the great emergencies of the Government for twenty-five years. He has trodden the perilous heights of public duty, and against all the shafts of malice has borne his breast unharmed. He has stood in the blaze of ‘that fierce light that beats against the throne,’ but its fiercest ray has found no flaw in his armor, no stain on his shield. I do not present him as a better Republican or as a better man than thousands of others we honor, but I present him for your deliberate consideration. I nominate John Sherman, of Ohio.”
“I propose to present to the thoughtful consideration of the convention the name of one who, on the field of battle, was styled ‘The Superb,’ yet won the still nobler renown as a military governor whose first act when in command of Louisiana and Texas was to salute the Constitution by proclaiming that the military rule shall ever be subservient to the civil power. The plighted word of a soldier was proved by the acts of a statesman. I nominate one whose name will suppress all factions, will be alike acceptable to the North and to the South—a name that will thrill the Republic, a name, if nominated, of a man that will crush the last embers of sectional strife, and whose name will be hailed as the dawning of the day of perpetual brotherhood. With him we can fling away our shields and wage an aggressive war. We can appeal to the supreme tribunal of the American people against the corruption of the Republican party and their untold violations of constitutional liberty. With him as our chieftain the bloody banner of the Republicans will fall from their palsied grasp. Oh, my countrymen, in this supreme moment the destinies of the Republic are at stake, and the liberties of the people are imperiled. The people hang breathless on your deliberation. Take heed! Make no mis-step! I nominate one who can carry every Southern State, and who can carry Pennsylvania, Indiana, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York—the soldier-statesman, with a record as stainless as his sword—Winfield Scott Hancock, of Pennsylvania. If elected, he will take his seat.”
“I am instructed by the Delaware delegation to make in their behalf a nomination for the Presidency of the United States. Small in territory and population, Delaware is proud of her history and of her position in the sisterhood of States. Always devoted to the principles of that great party which maintains the equality and rights of the States, as well as of the individual citizen, she is here to-day in grand council to do all that in her lies for the advancement of our common cause. Who will best lead the Democratic hosts in the impending struggle for the restoration of honest government and the constitutional rights of the States and of their people, is the important question that we must decide. Delaware is not blinded by her affections when she presents to this convention, as a candidate for this great trust, the name of her gallant son, Thomas Francis Bayard. He is no carpet knight rashly put forth to flash a maiden sword in this great contest. He is a veteran covered with the scars of many hard-fought battles, when the principles of constitutional liberty have been at stake in an arena where the giants of radicalism were his foes, and his bruised arms, not ‘hung up,’ but still burnished brightly, are monuments of his prowess. Thomas F. Bayard is a statesman who will need no introduction to the American people. His name and his record are known wherever our flag floats—aye, wherever the English tongue is spoken. His is no sectional fame. With sympathies as broad as the continent, a private character as spotless as the snow from heaven, a judgment as clear as the sunlight, an intellect keen and bright as a flashing sabre, a courage that none dare question, honest in thought and deed, the people all know him by heart, and, as I said before, they need not be told who and what he is. But you, gentlemen of the convention, who must keep in view the success so important to be achieved in November, pray consider the elements of his strength. Who more than he will as a candidate appeal to the best traditions of our party and our country? In whom more than he will the business interests of the country, now re-awakening to new life and hope, confide for that economy and repose which shall send capital and labor forth like twin brothers hand in hand to the great work of building up the country’s prosperity and advancing its civilization? Who better than he will represent the heart and intellect of our great party, or give expression to its noblest inspirations? Who will draw so largely upon the honest and reflecting independent voters as he, whose very name is a synonym for honest and fearless opposition to corruption every where and in every form, and who has dared to follow in what he thought the path of duty with a chivalrous devotion that never counted personal gains or losses? Who has contributed more than Thomas Francis Bayard to the commanding strength that the Democratic party possesses to-day? Blot out him and his influence, and who would not feel and mourn his loss? Pardon Delaware if she says too much; she speaks in no disparagement of the distinguished Democrats whose names sparkle like stars in the political firmament. She honors them all. But she knows her son, and her heart will speak. Nominate him and success is assured. His very name will be a platform. It will fire every Democratic heart with a new zeal and put a sword in the hand of every honest man with which to drive from place and power the reckless men who have for four years held both against the expressed will of the American people. Don’t tell us that you admire and love him, but that he is unavailable. Tell the country that the sneer of our Republican enemies is a lie, and that such a man as Thomas F. Bayard is not too good a man to receive the nomination of the Democratic party. Take the whole people into your confidence, and tell them that an honest and patriotic party is to be led by as honest and pure a man as God ever made; that a brave party is to be led by a brave man whose courage will never falter, be the danger or emergency what it may. Tell them that our party has the courage of its convictions, and that statesmanship, ability and honesty are to be realized once more in the government of these United States, and the nomination of Thomas F. Bayard will fall like a benediction on the land, and will be the presage of a victory that will sweep like a whirlwind from the lakes to the Gulf and from ocean to ocean.”
“I once saw a storm at sea in the nighttime; an old ship battling for its life with the fury of the tempest; darkness everywhere; the winds raging and howling; the huge waves beating on the sides of the ship, and making her shiver from stem to stern. The lightning was flashing, the thunders rolling; there was danger everywhere. I saw at the helm, a bold, courageous, immovable, commanding man. In the tempest, calm; in the commotion, quiet; in the danger, hopeful. I saw him take that old ship and bring her into her harbor, into still waters, into safety. That man was a hero. [Applause.] I saw the good old ship of State, the State of Maine, within the last year, fighting her way through the same waves, against the dangers. She was freighted with all that is precious in the principles of our republic; with the rights of the American citizenship, with all that is guaranteed to the American citizen by our Constitution. The eyes of the whole nation were on her, and intense anxiety filled every American heart lest the grand old ship, the “State of Maine,” might go down beneath the waves forever, carrying her precious freight with her. But there was a man at the helm, calm, deliberate, commanding, sagacious; he made even the foolish man wise; courageous, he inspired the timid with courage; hopeful, he gave heart to the dismayed, and he brought that good old ship safely into harbor, into safety; and she floats to-day greater, purer, stronger for her baptism of danger. That man too, was heroic, and his name was James G. Blaine. [Loud cheers.]
“Maine sent us to this magnificent Convention with a memory of her own salvation from impending peril fresh upon her. To you representatives of 50,000,000 of the American people, who have met here to counsel how the Republic can be saved, she says, “Representatives of the people, take the man, the true man, the staunch man, for your leader, who has just saved me, and he will bring you to safety and certain victory.””
Very well; the records of the country must settle that with the Senator. The Senator will say who was elected as a republican from any of the States to which I allude. I say what the whole world knows, that there are thirty-eight men on this floor elected as democrats, declaring themselves to be democrats, who supported Hancock, and who have supported the democratic ticket in every election that has occurred, and who were elected, moreover, by democratic Legislatures, elected by Legislatures which were largely democratic; and the Senator from New York will not deny it. One other Senator who was elected, not as a democrat, but as an independent, has announced his purpose to vote with us on this question. That makes thirty-nine, unless some man of the thirty-eight who was elected by a democratic Legislature proves false to his trust. Now, the Senator from New York does not say that somebody has been bought. No; I have not said that. He does not say somebody has been taken and carried away. No; I have not said that. But the Senator has said, and here is his language, and I hope he will not find it necessary to correct it:
It may be said, very likely I shall be found to say despite some criticism that I may make upon so saying in advance, that notwithstanding the words “during the present session,” day after to-morrow or the day after that, if the majority then present in the Chamber changes, that majority may overthrow all this proceeding, obliterate it, and set up an organization of the Senate in conformity with and not in contradiction of the edict of the election.
The presidential election he was referring to—
If an apology is needed for the objection which I feel to that, it will be found I think in the circumstance that a majority, a constitutional majority of the Senate, is against that resolution, is against the formation of committees democratic in inspiration and persuasion, to which are to go for this session all executive matters.
The Senator has announced to-day that the majority on this side of the Chamber was only temporary. He has announced over and over that it was to be a temporary majority. I meet him on the fact. I say there are thirty-eight members sitting in this Hall to-day who were elected by democratic Legislatures, and as democrats, and one distinguished Senator who was not elected as a democrat, but by democratic votes, the distinguished Senator from Illinois, [Mr. Davis,] has announced his purpose to vote with these thirty-eight democrats. Where, then, have I misrepresented? If that be true, and if those who were elected as democrats are not faithless to the constituency that elected them, you will not have the majority when the Senate is full.
Again, so far from charging the Senator from New York with being a personal party to this arrangement, I acquitted him boldly and fearlessly, for I undertake to say what I stated before, and I repeat it, to his credit, he is no party to an arrangement by which any man chosen by a democratic Legislature and as a democrat is not going to vote for the party that sent him here. Sir, I know too well what frowns would gather with lightning fierceness upon the brow of the Senator from New York if I were to intimate or any other man were to intimate that he, elected as a republican, because he happened to have a controlling vote was going to vote with the democrats on the organization. What would be insulting to him he cannot, he will not respect in another.
Now, sir, I say the Senator has been unjust in the conclusion which he has drawn, because it necessarily makes somebody who was chosen as a democrat ally himself with the republicans, not on great questions of policy, but on a question of organization, on a question of mere political organization. I assume that that has not been done. No man can charge that I have come forward and assumed that his fidelity was in question. I have assumed that the Senator from New York was wrong in his statement. Why? Because if any gentleman who was chosen to this body as a democrat has concluded not to vote with the democrats on the organization, he has not given us notice, and I take it for granted that when a gentleman changes his opinions, as every Senator has a right to change his opinions, his first duty is to give notice of that change to those with whom he has been associated. He has not given that notice; no democrat of the thirty-eight has given that notice to this side of the House. I therefore assume that no such change has occurred.
But there is another obligation. While I concede the right of any gentleman to change his opinions and change his party affiliations, yet I say that when he has arrived at the conclusion that duty requires him to make that change he must give notice to the constituency that sent him here. I have heard of no such notice. If the people of any of these democratic States, who through democratic Legislatures have sent thirty-eight democrats to this body and one more by democratic votes, have received notice of a change of party opinion or a change of party affiliations by any of those they sent here, I have not heard of it; the evidence of it has not been produced.
Sir, I concede the right of every man to change his opinions; I concede the right of every man to change his party affiliations; I concede the right of any man who was elected to the high place of a seat in this Senate as a democrat to change and become a republican; but I deny in the presence of this Senate, I deny in the hearing of this people, that any man has a right to accept a commission from one party and execute the trust confided to him in the interest of another party. Demoralized as this country has become, though every wind bears to us charges of fraud and bargain and corruption; though the highest positions in the land, we fear, have been degraded by being occupied by persons who procured them otherwise than by the popular will, yet I deny that the people of either party in this country have yet given any man a right to be faithless to a trust. They have given no man a right to accept a commission as a democrat and hold that commission and act with the republicans. Manhood, bravery, courage, fidelity, morality, respect for the opinions of mankind requires that whenever a man has arrived at the conclusion that he cannot carry out the trust which was confided to him, he should return the commission and tell his constituents, “I have changed my mind and therefore return you the commission you gave me.” Sir, I do not believe that a single one of the thirty-eight gentlemen who were elected as democrats and whose names are before me here, will hold in his pocket a commission conferred by democrats, conferred on him as a democrat, and without giving notice to his constituency, without giving notice to his associates, will execute that commission in the interest of the adversary party and go and communicate his conclusion, first of all, and only, to the members of the adversary party.
Sir, who is it that has changed? Whom of these thirty-eight does the Senator rely upon to vote with the republicans? That one has not notified us; he has not notified his constituency. Therefore I say it is not true, and I cannot sit here quietly and allow a gentleman on the other side of the Chamber, however distinguished, to get up here and assume and asseverate over and over that somebody elected as a democrat is faithless to his trust, and not repel it. No, gentlemen, you are deceived; you will be disappointed. I vindicate the character of American citizenship, I vindicate the honor of human nature when I say you will be disappointed, and no man elected as a democrat is going to help you organize the committees of this Senate. I do not say so because I know. No, I have no personal information, but I will stand here and affirm that no man who has been deemed by any constituency in this country to be worthy of a place in this body will be guilty of that treachery. And how is the Senator’s majority to come? How many are there? He has not told us. The papers said this morning that there were two or three, and they named my good friend from Tennessee, [Mr. Harris.] When I saw that I knew the whole thing was absurd. The idea that anybody in this world would ever believe that my friend from Tennessee could possibly be guilty of such a thing, and my colleague [Mr. Brown] also was named—gentlemen who were born and reared in the school of fidelity to their party. How many? Have you one? If you have but one that was elected as a democrat and who has concluded to go with the republicans, then you have only half, you have 38 to 38, and I suppose you count upon the vote of the Vice-President. Has that been arranged? Sir, I will not blame you if you vote for voting according to the sentiment that elected you, for voting according to the professions of your principles which you avowed when you were elected. I deny myself the right of the Vice-President to take part in the constitution and organization of this Senate; but I shall not make the question. If you have got one, the vote will be 38 to 38. Who is the one? Who is ambitious to do what no man in the history of this country has ever done, to be the first man to stand up in this high presence, after this country has reached fifty million people, and proclaim from this proud eminence that he disgraces the commission he holds. [Applause in the galleries.]
The Vice-President rapped to order.
Mr. Hill, of Georgia. Who is it? Who can he be? Do you receive him with affection? Do you receive him with respect? Is such a man worthy of your association? Such a man is not worthy to be a democrat. Is he worthy to be a republican? If my friend from Illinois, my friend from Kansas, or my friend from New York, were to come to me holding a republican commission in his pocket, sent here by a republican Legislature, and whisper to me “I will vote with the democrats on organization,” I would tell him that if he so came he would be expelled with ignominy from the ranks of the party.
And why do you beg us to wait? If all who were elected as democrats are to remain democrats, what good will waiting do you? You will still be in a minority of two, the same minority you are in this morning.
Mr. President, I affirm that no man elected and sent here by a democratic Legislature as a democrat, whatever may have been local issues, whatever may have been the divisions of factions, and above all no man who professed to be a democrat when he was elected and who procured his election by professing to be a democrat, in the name of democracy and republicanism as well, in the name of American nature, I charge that no such man will prove false to his trust; and therefore why wait? Why delay the business of the country? Why should the nominations lie on the table unacted on? Why should we spend days and days here with the parties on the other side filibustering for time to get delay, to get a few days? Why should we do that when upon the assumption that the Senate is not to blush at an exhibition of treachery the result will be the same one week, two weeks, six months, two years from now that it is now?
Sir, I know that there is a great deal in this question. The American people have had much to humiliate them; all peoples have much to humiliate them. I know that the patronage of this Government has become very great. I know that the distinguished gentleman who presides at the other end of the Avenue holds in his hand millions and hundreds of millions of patronage. To our shame be it said it has been whispered a hundred times all through the country by the presses of both parties until it has become absolutely familiar to American ears that the patronage of the Federal Government has been used to buy votes and control elections to keep one party in power. It is a question that confronts every honest statesman whether something shall not be done to lessen that patronage. I respond to the sentiment of the President in his inaugural when I say there ought to be a rule in even the civil service by which this patronage shall be placed where it cannot be used for such purposes. If it is not done, I do not know what humiliations are in store for us all.
But, Mr. President, here are facts that no man can escape. Gentlemen of the republican party of this Senate, you cannot organize the Senate unless you can get the vote of some man who was elected as a democrat. You cannot escape that. Have you gotten it? If so, how? If you have, nobody knows it but yourselves. How? There is no effect without a cause; there is no change without a purpose; there is no bargain without a consideration. What is the cause? If there has been a change, why a change? How does it happen that you know the change and we do not? What induced the change? I deny that there has been a change. I maintain that all the distinguished gentlemen who make up the thirty-eight democrats on this side of the Chamber are firm, firm to the principles that sent them here, firm to the professions that sent them here, and firm to the constituencies that sent them here. They were elected as democrats. Now on the question of organization, which is nothing in the world but a pure political question and a party question at that, they will act with the democratic party, and you, gentlemen, will be deceived if you calculate otherwise. Therefore, there is no necessity for you to enter into all this filibustering and producing this delay for the purpose of getting the organization.
Mr. President, as I said before, the Senate should be a place where there should be no masquerading; men should deal frankly with each other. If I were to charge any gentleman on the republican side of the Chamber who was elected as a republican, who professed to be a republican when he was elected, with having made arrangements with the democrats to vote with them, I should insult him and he would resent it as an insult, and gentlemen excuse me for repelling the charge which if made against you, you would repel as an insult. I repel as an insult the charge made against any democrat that he would be false to his colors and is intending to vote with you on the organization.
Mr. Harris. Mr. President, I rise only to say that I regret that the honorable Senator from Georgia should have deemed it proper to dignify the miserable newspaper twaddle in respect to my political position——
Mr. Hill, of Georgia. I will say to my friend I did not intend——
Mr. Harris. I am quite sure the Senator did not intend anything unkind to me; yet, by mentioning the matter here, he gives a dignity to it that it never could have had otherwise, and one that it is not worthy of, especially in view of the fact, as I very well know, that there is not a democrat or a republican in America, who knows me, who has ever doubted, or doubts to-day, what my political position is. It is unworthy of further notice, and I will notice it no more.
Mr. Mahone. Mr. President, I do not propose to detain you and the Senate more than a few minutes. The distinguished Senator from Georgia has manifestly engaged in an effort to disclose my position on this floor.
Mr. Hill, of Georgia. I do not know what your position is. How could I disclose it?
Mr. Mahone. Sir, the Senator might be a little more direct as he might well have been in the course of his remarks in asking my position; and that I will give him.
Now, Mr. President, the Senator has assumed not only to be the custodian here of the democratic party of this nation, but he has dared to assert his right to speak for a constituency that I have the privilege, the proud and honorable privilege on this floor, of representing [applause in the galleries] without his assent, without the assent of such democracy as that he speaks for. [Applause in the galleries.] I owe them, sir, I owe you [addressing Mr. Hill] and those for whom you undertake to speak nothing in this Chamber. [Applause in the galleries.] I came here, sir, as a Virginian to represent my people, not to represent that democracy for which you stand. [Applause in the galleries.] I come with as proud a claim to represent that people as you to represent the people of Georgia, won on fields where I have vied with Georgians whom I commanded and others in the cause of my people and of their section in the late unhappy contest; but thank God for the peace and the good of the country that contest is over, and as one of those who engaged in it, and who has neither here nor elsewhere any apology to make for the part taken, I am here by my humble efforts to bring peace to this whole country, peace and good will between the sections, not here as a partisan, not here to represent that Bourbonism which has done so much injury to my section of the country. [Applause in the galleries.]
Now, sir, the gentleman undertakes to say what constitutes a democrat. A democrat! I hold, sir, that to-day I am a better democrat than he, infinitely better—he who stands nominally committed to a full vote, a free ballot, and an honest count. I should like to know how he stands for these things where tissue ballots are fashionable. [Laughter, and applause in the galleries.]
Now, sir, I serve notice on you that I intend to be here the custodian of my own democracy. I do not intend to be run by your caucus. I am in every sense a free man here. I trust I am able to protect my own rights and to defend those of the people whom I represent, and certainly to take care of my own. I do not intend that any Senator on this floor shall undertake to criticise my conduct by innuendoes, a method not becoming this body or a straightforward legitimate line of pursuit in argument.
I wish the Senator from Georgia to understand just here that we may get along in the future harmoniously, that the way to deal with me is to deal directly. We want no bills of discovery. Now, sir, you will find out how I am going to vote in a little while. [Applause.]
Mr. Davis, of West Virginia. Mr. President, during this temporary suspension——
Mr. Mahone. I have not yielded the floor. I am waiting for a little order.
Mr. Davis, of West Virginia. I wish to call the attention of the Chair to the disorder in the Senate both when my friend from Georgia was speaking and now. I believe it has been some time since we have had as much disorder as we have had to-day in the galleries. I hope the Chair will enforce order.
Mr. Teller. I should like to say that much of the disorder originated in the first place from the cheering on the democratic side of the Chamber.
The Vice-President. The Chair announces that order must be maintained in the galleries; otherwise the Sergeant-at-Arms will be directed to clear the galleries.
Mr. Mahone. I promised not to detain the Senate, and I regret that so early after my appearance here I should find it necessary to intrude any remarks whatsoever upon the attention of this body. I would prefer to be a little modest; I would prefer to listen and to learn; but I cannot feel content after what has passed in this presence, when the gentleman by all manner of methods, all manner of insinuations, direct and indirect, has sought to do that which would have been better done and more bravely pursued if he had gone directly to the question itself. He has sought to discover where the democrat was who should here choose to exercise his right to cast his vote as he pleased, who should here exercise the liberty of manhood to differ with his caucus. Why, sir, the gentleman seems to have forgotten that I refused positively to attend his little lovefeast; not only that, I refused to take part in a caucus which represents a party that has not only waged war upon me but upon those whom I represent on this floor. They have not only intruded within the boundaries of my own State, without provocation, to teach honesty and true democracy, but they would now pursue my people further by intruding their unsolicited advice and admonition to their representative in this Chamber. Yes, sir, you have been notified, duly notified that I would take no part or lot in any political machinery.
Further than that, you have been notified that I was supremely indifferent to what you did; that I had no wish to prefer, and was indifferent to your performances; that I should stand on this floor representing in part the people of the State of Virginia, for whom I have the right to speak (and not the Senator from Georgia) even of their democracy. The gentleman may not be advised that the Legislature which elected me did not require that I should state either that I was a democrat or anything else. I suppose he could not get here from Georgia unless he was to say that he was a democrat, anyhow. [Laughter.] I come here without being required to state to my people what I am. They were willing to trust me, sir, and I was elected by the people, and not by a legislature, for it was an issue in the canvass. There was no man elected by the party with which I am identified that did not go to the Legislature instructed by the sovereigns to vote for me for the position I occupy on this floor. It required no oath of allegiance blindly given to stand by your democracy, such as is, [laughter,] that makes a platform and practices another thing. That is the democracy they have in some of the Southern States.
Now, I hope the gentleman will be relieved. He has been chassezing all around this Chamber to see if he could not find a partner somewhere; he has been looking around in every direction; occasionally he would refer to some other Senator to know exactly where the Senator was who stood here as a democrat that had the manhood and the boldness to assert his opinions in this Chamber free from the dictation of a mere caucus. Now, I want the gentleman to know henceforth and forever here is a man, sir, that dares stand up [applause] and speak for himself without regard to caucus in all matters. [Applause, long continued, in the galleries and on the floor.] Mr. President, pardon me; I have done.
Mr. Hill, of Georgia. Mr. President—
The Vice-President. The Senate will be in order. Gentlemen on the floor not members of the Senate will take seats.
Mr. Hill, of Georgia. Mr. President, I hope nobody imagines that I rise to make any particular reply to the remarkable exhibition we have just seen. I rise to say a few things in justification of myself. I certainly did not say one word to justify the gentleman in the statement that I made an assault upon him, unless he was the one man who had been elected as a democrat and was not going to vote with his party. I never saw that gentleman before the other day. I have not the slightest unkind feeling for him. I never alluded to him by name; I never alluded to his State; and I cannot understand how the gentleman says that I alluded to him except upon the rule laid down by the distinguished Senator from New York, that a guilty conscience needs no accuser. [Applause and hisses in the galleries.] I did not mention the Senator. It had been stated here by the Senator from New York over and over that the other side would have a majority when that side was full. I showed it was impossible that they should have a majority unless they could get one democratic vote, with the vote of the Vice-President. I did not know who it was; I asked who it was; I begged to know who it was; and to my utter astonishment the gentleman from Virginia comes out and says he is the man.
The Senator from Virginia makes a very strange announcement. He charged me not only with attacking him, but with attacking the people of Virginia? Did I say a word of the people of Virginia? I said that the people of no portion of this country would tolerate treachery. Was that attacking the people of Virginia? I said that thirty-eight men had been elected to this body as democrats. Does the Senator deny that? Does he say he was elected here not as a democrat? He says he was not required to declare that he was a democrat, and in the next breath he says he is a truer, better democrat than I am. Then I commend him to you. Take good care of him, my friends. Nurse him well. How do you like to have a worse democrat than I am?
Mr. Conkling and others. A better democrat.
Mr. Hill, of Georgia. Oh, a better! Then my friend from New York is a better democrat than I am. You have all turned democrats; and we have in the United States Senate such an exhibition as that of a gentleman showing his democracy by going over to the Republicans!
Sir, I will not defend Virginia. She needs no defense. Virginia has given this country and the world and humanity some of the brightest names of history. She holds in her bosom to-day the ashes of some of the noblest and greatest men that ever illustrated the glories of any country. I say to the Senator from Virginia that neither Jefferson, nor Madison, nor Henry, nor Washington, nor Leigh, nor Tucker, nor any of the long list of great men that Virginia has produced ever accepted a commission to represent one party and came here and represented another. [Applause on the floor and in the galleries.]
Mr. Cockrell. I trust that those at least who are enjoying the privilege of the floor of the Senate Chamber will be prohibited from cheering.
The Vice-President. The Chair will state that the violation of the rules does not appear to be in the galleries, but by persons who have been admitted to the privilege of the floor. The Chair regrets to clear the floor, but if the manifestation is continued he will be obliged to do so. It is a violation of the rules of the Senate.
Mr. Mahone rose.
Mr. Hill, of Georgia. Does the Senator from Virginia wish to interrupt me?
Mr. Mahone. I do wish to interrupt you.
The Vice-President. Does the Senator from Georgia yield?
Mr. Hill, of Georgia. Certainly.
Mr. Mahone. I understand you to say that I accepted a commission from one party and came here to represent another. Do I understand you correctly?
Mr. Hill, of Georgia. I understood that you were elected as a democrat.
Mr. Mahone. Never mind; answer the question.
Mr. Hill, of Georgia. Yes, I say you accepted a commission, having been elected as a democrat. That is my information.
Mr. Mahone. I ask you the question: Did you say that I had accepted a commission from one party and came here to represent another? That is the question.
Mr. Hill, of Georgia. Oh, I said that will be the case if you vote with the republicans. You have not done it yet, and I say you will not do it.
Mr. Mahone. If not out of order in this place, I say to the gentleman that if he undertakes to make that statement it is unwarranted and untrue.
Mr. Hill, of Georgia. I should like to ask the gentleman a question: Was he not acting with the democratic party, and was he not elected as a democrat to this body? Answer that question.
Mr. Mahone. Quickly, sir. I was elected as a readjuster. Do you know what they are? [Laughter and applause.]
The Vice-President rapped with his gavel.
Mr. Hill, of Georgia. I understand there are in Virginia what are called readjuster democrats and debt-paying democrats, or something of that kind, but as I understand they are all democrats. We have nothing to do with that issue. We are not to settle the debt of Virginia in the Senate Chamber; but I ask the Senator again, was he not elected to this body as a member of the national democratic party?
Mr. Mahone. I will answer you, sir. No. You have got the answer now.
Mr. Hill, of Georgia. Then I conceive that the gentleman spoke truly when he said that I do not know what he is. What is he? Everybody has understood that he voted with the democrats. Did he not support Hancock for the Presidency? Did not the Senator support Hancock for the Presidency, I ask him? [A pause] Dumb! Did he not act with the democratic party in the national election, and was not the Senator from Virginia himself a democrat? That is the question. Why attempt to evade? Gentlemen, I commend him to you. Is there a man on that side of the Chamber who doubts that the Senator was sent to this body as a democrat? Is there a man in this whole body who doubts it? Is there a man in Virginia who doubts it? The gentleman will not deny it. Up to this very hour it was not known on this side of the Chamber or in the country how he would vote in this case, or whether he was still a democrat or not. I maintain that he is. The Senator from New York seemed to have information that somebody who was elected as a democrat was not, and I went to work to find out who it was. It seems I have uncovered him. For months the papers of the country have been discussing and debating how the Senator would vote. Nobody could know, nobody could tell, nobody could guess. I have been a truer friend to the Senator than he has been to himself. I have maintained always that when it came to the test the Senator would be true to his commission; that the Senator would be true to the democratic professions he made when he was elected. He will not rise in this presence and say he could have been elected to the Senate as a republican. He will not rise in the Senate and say he could have been elected to the Senate if he had given notice that on the organization of this body he would vote with the republicans. He will not say it.
The gentleman makes some remarks about the caucus. I have no objection to a gentleman remaining out of a caucus. That is not the question. I have no objection to a gentleman being independent. That is not the question. I have no objection to a gentleman being a readjuster in local politics. That is not the question. I have no objection to a man dodging from one side to another on such a question. With that I have nothing to do. That is a matter of taste with him; but I do object to any man coming into this high council, sent here by one sentiment, commissioned by one party, professing to be a democrat, and after he gets here acting with the other party. If the gentleman wants to be what he so proudly said, a man, when he changes opinions, as he had a right to do, when he changes party affiliations as he had a right to do, he should have gone to the people of Virginia and said, “You believed me to be a democrat when you gave me this commission; while I differed with many of you on the local question of the debt, I was with you cordially in national politics; I belonged to the national democratic party; but I feel that it is my duty now to co-operate with the republican party, and I return you the commission which you gave to me.” If the gentleman had done that and then gone before the people of Virginia and asked them to renew his commission upon his change of opinion, he would have been entitled to the eulogy of manhood he pronounced upon himself here in such theatrical style. I like manhood.
I say once more, it is very far from me to desire to do the Senator injury. I have nothing but the kindest feelings for him. He is very much mistaken if he supposes I had any personal enmity against him. I have not the slightest. As I said before, I never spoke to the gentleman in my life until I met him a few days ago; but I have done what the newspapers could not do, both sides having been engaged in the effort for months; I have done what both parties could not do, what the whole country could not do—I have brought out the Senator from Virginia.
But now, in the kindest spirit, knowing the country from which the honorable Senator comes, identified as I am with its fame and its character, loving as I do every line in its history, revering as I do its long list of great names, I perform the friendly office unasked of making a last appeal to the honorable Senator, whatever other fates befall him, to be true to the trust which the proud people of Virginia gave him, and whoever else may be disappointed, whoever else may be deceived, whoever else may be offended at the organization of the Senate, I appeal to the gentleman to be true to the people, to the sentiment, to the party which he knows commissioned him to a seat in this body.
Mr. Logan. Mr. President, I have but a word to say. I have listened to a very extraordinary speech. The Senate of the United States is a body where each Senator has a right to have a free voice. I have never known before a Senator, especially a new Senator, to be arraigned in the manner in which the Senator from Virginia has been, and his conduct criticised before he had performed any official act, save one, so far as voting is concerned. He needs no defense at my hands; he is able to take care of himself; but I tell the Senator from Georgia when he says to this country that no man has a right to come here unless he fulfills that office which was dictated to him by a party, he says that which does not belong to American independence. Sir, it takes more nerve, more manhood, to strike the party shackles from your limbs and give free thought its scope than any other act that man can perform. The Senator from Georgia himself, in times gone by, has changed his opinions. If the records of this country are true (and he knows whether they are or not) he, when elected to a convention as a Union man, voted for secession. [Applause in the galleries.]
The Vice-President rapped with his gavel.
Mr. Hoar. If my friend will pardon me a moment, I desire to call the attention of the Chair to the fact that there has been more disorder in this Chamber during this brief session of the Senate than in all the aggregate of many years before. I take occasion when a gentleman with whose opinions I perfectly agree myself in speaking to say that I shall move the Chair to clear any portion of the gallery from which expressions of applause or dissent shall come if they occur again.
Mr. Logan. What I have said in reference to this record I do not say by way of casting at the Senator, but merely to call attention to the fact that men are not always criticised so severely for changing their opinions. The Senator from Georgia spoke well of my colleague. Well he may. He is an honorable man and a man deserving well of all the people of this country. He was elected not as a democrat but by democratic votes. He votes with you. He never was a democrat in his life; he is not to-day. You applaud him and why? Because he votes with you. You want his vote; that is all. You criticise another man who was elected by republican votes and democratic votes, readjusters as they are called, and say that he has no right to his opinions in this Chamber. The criticism is not well. Do you say that a man shall not change his political opinions?
The Senator from Georgia in days gone by, in my boyhood days, I heard of, not as a democrat. To-day he sits here as a democrat. No one wishes to criticise him because he has changed his political opinions. He had a right to do so. I was a democrat once, too, and I had a right to change my opinions and I did change them. The man who will not change his opinions when he is honestly convinced that he was in error is a man who is not entitled to the respect of men. I say this to the Senator from Georgia. The Senator says to us, “take him,” referring to the Senator from Virginia. Yes, sir, we will take him if he will come with us, and we will take every other honest man who will come. We will take every honest man in the South who wants to come and join the republican party, and give him the right hand of fellowship, be he black or white. Will you do as much?
Mr. Hill of Georgia. We have got them already.
Mr. Logan. Yes, and if a man happens to differ with you the tyranny of political opinion in your section of country is such that you undertake to lash him upon the world and try to expose him to the gaze of the public as a man unfaithful to his trust. We have no such tyranny of opinion in the country where I live; and it will be better for your section when such notions are driven to the shades and retired from the action of your people.
I do not know that the gentleman from Virginia intends to vote as a republican. I have never heard him say so. I know only what he has said here to-day; but I respect him for stating to the Senate and the country that he is tired of the Bourbon democracy; and if more men were tired of it the country would be better off. The people are getting tired of it even down in your country, every where. The sooner we have a division down there the better it will be for both sides, for the people of the whole country.
I did not rise to make any defense of the Senator from Virginia, for he is able, as I said, to defend himself, but merely to say to the Senator from Georgia that the criticism made upon that Senator without any just cause is something I never witnessed before in this Chamber or in any other deliberative body, and in my judgment it was not justified in any way whatever.
Mr. Hill, of Georgia. I desire to say once more, what everybody in the audience knows is true, that I did not arraign the Senator from Virginia. In the first speech I never alluded to Virginia or to the Senator from Virginia.