The Plumed Knight
Speech nominating James G. Blaine, June 15, 1876.

by Robert G. Ingersoll
(1876)

From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (Dresden Edition, 1900–1902), Volume 9.
Source: https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/the-plumed-knight/
Public domain. CC0 / Public Domain Mark 1.0.

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MASSACHUSETTS may be satisfied with the loyalty of Benjamin H. Bristow;
so am I; but if any man nominated by this convention can not 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 statesman;
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 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 the 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.
