Chicago Speech
Exposition Building, Chicago, 1876.

by Robert G. Ingersoll
(1876)

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

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• Col. Robert G. Ingersoll spoke last night at the
    Exposition Building to the largest audience ever drawn by
    one man In Chicago. From 6.30 o'clock the sidewalks fronting
    along the building were jammed. At every entrance there were
    hundreds, and half-an-hour later thousands were clamoring
    for admittance. So great was the pressure the doors were
    finally closed, and the entrances at either end cautiously
    opened to admit the select who knew enough to apply In those
    directions. Occasionally a rush was made for the main door,
    and as the crowd came up against the huge barricade they
    were swept back only for another effort. Wabash Avenue,
    Monroe, Adams, Jackson, and Van Buren Streets were jammed
    with ladies and gentlemen who swept into Michigan Avenue and
    swelled the sea that surged around the building.
    At 7.30 the doors were flung open and the people rushed in.
    Seating accommodations supposed to be adequate to all
    demands, had been provided, but in an Instant they were
    filled, the aisles were jammed and around the sides of the
    building poured a steady stream of humanity, Intent only
    upon some coign of vantage, some place, where they could see
    and where they could hear. Prom the fountain, beyond which
    the building lay in shadow to the northern end, was a
    swaying, surging mass of people.
    Such another attendance of ladies has never been known at a
    political meeting in Chicago. They came by the hundreds, and
    the speaker looked down from his perch upon thousands of
    fair upturned faces, stamped with the most intense interest
    in his remarks.
    The galleries were packed. The frame of the huge elevator
    creaked, groaned, and swayed with the crowd roosting upon
    it. The trusses bore their living weight. The gallery
    railings bent and cracked. The roof was crowded, and the sky
    lights teemed with heads. Here and there an adventurous
    youth crept out on the girders and braces. Towards the
    northern end of the building, on the west side, is a smaller
    gallery, dark, and not particularly strong-looking. It was
    fairly packed—packed like a sardine-box—with men and boys.
    Up in the organ-loft around the sides of the organ,
    everywhere that a human being could sit, stand or hang, was
    pre-empted and filled.
    It was a magnificent, outpouring, at east 50,000 In number,
    a compliment alike to the principle it represented, and the
    orator.—Chicago Tribune., October 21st, 1876.

Hayes Campaign

1876.

LADIES and Gentlemen:—Democrats and Republicans have a common interest
in the United States. We have a common interest in the preservation of
good order. We have a common interest in the preservation of a common
country. And I appeal to all, Democrats and Republicans, to endeavor
to make a conscientious choice; to endeavor to select as President and
Vice-President of the United States the men and the parties, which, in
your judgment, will best preserve this nation, and preserve all that is
dear to us either as Republicans or Democrats.

The Democratic party comes before you and asks that you will give this
Government into its hands; and you have a right to investigate as to the
reputation and character of the Democratic organization. The Democratic
party says, "Let bygones be bygones." I never knew a man who did a
decent action that wanted it forgotten. I never knew a man who did some
great and shining act of self-sacrifice and heroic devotion who did
not wish that act remembered. Not only so, but he expected his loving
children would chisel the remembrance of it upon the marble that marked
his last resting place. But whenever a man does an infamous thing;
whenever a man commits some crime; whenever a man does that which
mantles the cheeks of his children with shame; he is the man that says,
"Let bygones be bygones." The Democratic party admits that it has a
record, but it says that any man that will look into it, any man that
will tell it, is not a gentleman. I do not know whether, according to
the Democratic standard, I am a gentleman or not; but I do say that in a
certain sense I am one of the historians of the Democratic party.

I do not know that it is true that a man cannot give this record and be
a gentleman, but I admit that a gentleman hates to read this record;
a gentleman hates to give this record to the world; but I do it, not
because I like to do it, but because I believe the best interests
of this country demand that there shall be a history given of the
Democratic party.

In the first place, I claim that the Democratic party embraces within
its filthy arms the worst elements in American society. I claim that
every enemy that this Government has had for twenty years has been and
is a Democrat; every man in the Dominion of Canada that hates the great
Republic, would like to see Tilden and Hendricks successful. Every
titled thief in Great Britain would like to see Tilden and Hendricks the
next President and Vice-President of the United States.

I say more; every State that seceded from this Union was a Democratic
State. Every man who hated to see bloodhounds cease to be the
instrumentalities of a free government—every one was a Democrat. In
short, every enemy that this Government has had for twenty years, every
enemy that liberty and progress has had in the United States for twenty
years, every hater of our flag, every despiser of our Nation, every man
who has been a disgrace to the great Republic for twenty years, has been
a Democrat. I do not say that they are all that way; but nearly all who
are that way are Democrats.

The Democratic party is a political tramp with a yellow passport. This
political tramp begs food and he carries in his pocket old dirty scraps
of paper as a kind of certificate of character. On one of these papers
he will show you the ordinance of 1789; on another one of those papers
he will have a part of the Fugitive Slave Law; on another one some
of the black laws that used to disgrace Illinois; on another Governor
Tilden's Letter to Kent; on another a certificate signed by Lyman
Trumbull that the Republican party is not fit to associate with—that
certificate will be endorsed by Governor John M. Palmer and my friend
Judge Doolittle. He will also have in his pocket an old wood-cut,
somewhat torn, representing Abraham Lincoln falling upon the neck of
S. Corning Judd, and thanking him for saving the Union as
Commander-in-Chief of the Sons of Liberty. This political tramp will
also have a letter dated Boston, Mass., saying: "I hereby certify that
for fifty years I have regarded the bearer as a thief and robber, but
I now look upon him as a reformer. Signed, Charles Francis Adams."
Following this tramp will be a bloodhound; and when he asks for food,
the bloodhound will crouch for employment on his haunches, and the drool
of anticipation will run from his loose and hanging lips. Study the
expression of that dog.

Translate it into English and it means "Oh! I want to bite a nigger!"
And when the dog has that expression he bears a striking likeness to his
master. The question is, Shall that tramp and that dog gain possession
of the White House?

The Democratic party learns nothing; the Democratic party forgets
nothing. The Democratic party does not know that the world has advanced
a solitary inch since 1860. Time is a Democratic dumb watch. It has not
given a tick for sixteen years. The Democratic party does not know that
we, upon the great glittering highway of progress, have passed a single
mile-stone for twenty years. The Democratic party is incapable of
learning. The Democratic party is incapable of anything but prejudice
and hatred. Every man that is a Democrat is a Democrat because he hates
something; every man that is a Republican is a Republican because he
loves something.

The Democratic party is incapable of advancement; the only stock that
it has in trade to-day is the old infamous doctrine of Democratic State
Rights. There never was a more infamous doctrine advanced on this
earth, than the Democratic idea of State Rights. What is it? It has its
foundation in the idea that this is not a Nation; it has its foundation
in the idea that this is simply a confederacy, that this great
Government is simply a bargain, that this great splendid people have
simply made a trade, that the people of any one of the States are
sovereign to the extent that they have the right to trample upon the
rights of their fellow-citizens, and that the General Government cannot
interfere. The great Democratic heart is fired to-day, the Democratic
bosom is bloated with indignation because of an order made by General
Grant sending troops into the Southern States to defend the rights of
American citizens! Who objects to a soldier going? Nobody except a man
who wants to carry an election by fraud, by violence, by intimidation,
by assassination, and by murder.

The Democratic party is willing to-day that Tilden and Hendricks should
be elected by violence; they are willing to-day to go into partnership
with assassination and murder; they are willing to-day that every man in
the Southern States, who is a friend of this Union, and who fought for
our flag—that the rights of every one of these men should be trampled
in the dust, provided that Tilden and Hendricks be elected President
and Vice-President of this country. They tell us that a State line is
sacred; that you never can cross it unless you want to do a mean thing;
that if you want to catch a fugitive slave you have the right to cross
it; but if you wish to defend the rights of men, then it is a sacred
line, and you cannot cross it. Such is the infamous doctrine of the
Democratic party. Who, I say, will be injured by sending soldiers into
the Southern States? No one in the world except the man who wants to
prevent an honest citizen from casting a legal vote for the Government
of his choice. For my part, I think more of the colored Union men of the
South than I do of the white disunion men of the South. For my part, I
think more of a black friend than I do of a white enemy. For my part, I
think more of a friend black outside, and white in, than I do of a man
who is white outside and black inside. For my part, I think more of
black justice, of black charity, and of black patriotism, than I do of
white cruelty, than I do of white treachery and treason. As a matter
of fact, all that is done in the South to-day, of use, is done by the
colored man. The colored man raises everything that is raised in the
South, except hell. And I say here to-night that I think one hundred
times more of the good, honest, industrious black man of the South than
I do of all the white men together that do not love this Government, and
I think more of the black man of the South than I do of the white man of
the North who sympathizes with the white wretch that wishes to trample
upon the rights of that black man.

I believe that this is a Government, first, not only of power, but that
it is the right of this Government to march all the soldiers in the
United States into any sovereign State of this Union to defend the
rights of every American citizen in that State. If it is the duty of the
Government to defend you in time of war, when you were compelled to go
into the army, how much more is it the duty of the Government to defend
in time of peace the man who, in time of war, voluntarily and gladly
rushed to the rescue and defence of his country; and yet the Democratic
doctrine is that you are to answer the call of the Nation, but the
Nation will be deaf to your cry, unless the Governor of your State makes
request of your Government. Suppose the Governors and every man trample
upon your rights, is the Nation then to let you be trampled upon? Will
the Nation hear only the cry of the oppressor, or will it heed the cry
of the oppressed? I believe we should have a Government that can hear
the faintest wail, the faintest cry for justice from the lips of the
humblest citizen beneath the flag. But the Democratic doctrine is that
this Government can protect its citizens only when they are away from
home. This may account for so many Democrats going to Canada during the
war. I believe that the Government must protect you, not only abroad but
must protect you at home; and that is the greatest question before the
American people to-day.

I had thought that human impudence had reached its limit ages and ages
ago. I had believed that some time in the history of the world impudence
had reached its height, and so believed until I read the congratulatory
address of Abram S. Hewitt, Chairman of the National Executive
Democratic Committee, wherein he congratulates the negroes of the South
on what he calls a Democratic victory in the State of Indiana. If human
impudence can go beyond this, all I have to say is, it never has. What
does he say to the Southern people, to the colored people? He says to
them in substance: "The reason the white people trample upon you is
because the white people are weak. Give the white people more strength,
put the white people in authority, and, although they murder you now
when they are weak, when they are strong they will let you alone. Yes;
the only trouble with our Southern white brethren is that they are in
the minority, and they kill you now, and the only way to save your lives
is to put your enemy in the majority." That is the doctrine of Abram S.
Hewitt, and he congratulates the colored people of the South upon the
Democratic victory in Indiana. There is going to be a great crop of
hawks next season—let us congratulate the doves. That is it. The
burglars have whipped the police—let us congratulate the bank. That
is it. The wolves have killed off almost all the shepherds—let us
congratulate the sheep.

In my judgment, the black people have suffered enough. They have
been slaves for two hundred years, and more than all, they have been
compelled to keep the company of the men that owned them. Think of that!
Think of being compelled to keep the society of the man who is stealing
from you! Think of being compelled to live with the man that sold your
wife! Think of being compelled to live with the man that stole your
child from the cradle before your very eyes! Think of being compelled
to live with the thief of your life, and spend your days with the white
robber, and be under his control! The black people have suffered enough.
For two hundred years they were owned and bought and sold and branded
like cattle. For two hundred years every human tie was rent and torn
asunder by the bloody, brutal hands of avarice and might. They have
suffered enough. During the war the black people were our friends not
only, but whenever they were entrusted with the family, with the wives
and children of their masters, they were true to them. They stayed at
home and protected the wife and child of the master while he went into
the field and fought for the right to sell the wife and the right to
whip and steal the child of the very black man that was protecting him.
The black people, I say, have suffered enough, and for that reason I am
in favor of the Government protecting them in every Southern State, if
it takes another war to do it. We can never compromise with the South
at the expense of our friends. We never can be friends with the men that
starved and shot our brothers. We can never be friends with the men
that waged the most cruel war in the world; not for liberty, but for
the right to deprive other men of their liberty. We never can be their
friends until they are the friends of our friends, until they treat the
black man justly; until they treat the white Union man respectfully;
until Republicanism ceases to be a crime; until to vote the Republican
ticket ceases to make you a political and social outcast. We want no
friendship with the enemies of our country. The next question is, who
shall have possession of this country—the men that saved it,—or the
men that sought to destroy it? The Southern people lit the fires of
civil war. They who set the conflagration must be satisfied with the
ashes left. The men that saved this country must rule it. The men
that saved the flag must carry it. This Government is not far from
destruction when it crowns with its highest honor in time of peace, the
man that was false to it in time of war. This Nation is not far from
the precipice of annihilation and destruction when it gives its highest
honor to a man false, false to the country when everything we held
dear trembled in the balance of war, when everything was left to the
arbitrament of the sword.

The next question prominently before the people—though I think the
great question is, whether citizens shall be protected at home—the
next question I say, is the financial question. With that there is no
trouble. We had to borrow money, and we have to pay it. That is all
there is of that, and we are going to pay it just as soon as we make
the money to pay it with, and we are going to make the money out of
prosperity.

We have to dig it out of the earth. You cannot make a dollar by law. You
cannot redeem a cent by statute. You cannot pay one solitary farthing by
all the resolutions, by all the speeches ever made beneath the sun.

If the greenback doctrine is right, that evidence of national
indebtedness is wealth, if that is their idea, why not go another step
and make every individual note a legal tender? Why not pass a law that
every man shall take every other man's note? Then I swear we would have
money in plenty. No, my friends, a promise to pay a dollar is not a
dollar, no matter if that promise is made by the greatest and most
powerful nation on the globe. A promise is not a performance. An
agreement is not an accomplishment and there never will come a time when
a promise to pay a dollar is as good as the dollar, unless everybody
knows that you have the dollar and will pay it whenever they ask for it.
We want no more inflation. We want simply to pay our debts as fast as
the prosperity of the country allows it and no faster. Every speculator
that was caught with property on his hands upon which he owed more
than the property was worth, wanted the game to go on a little longer.
Whoever heard of a man playing poker that wanted to quit when he was
a loser? He wants to have a fresh deal. He wants another hand, and he
don't want any man that is ahead to jump the game. It is so with the
speculators in this country. They bought land, they bought houses, they
bought goods, and when the crisis and crash came, they were caught with
the property on their hands, and they want another inflation, they
want another tide to rise that will again sweep this driftwood into the
middle of the great financial stream. That is all. Every lot in this
city that was worth five thousand and that is now worth two thousand—do
you know what is the matter with that lot? It has been redeeming. It has
been resuming. That is what is the matter with that lot. Every man that
owned property that has now fallen fifty per cent., that property has
been resuming; and if you could have another inflation to-morrow, the
day that the bubble burst would find thousands of speculators who paid
as much for property as property was worth, and they would ask for
another tide of affairs in men. They would ask for another inflation.
What for? To let them out and put somebody else in.

We want no more inflation. We want the simple honest payment of the
debt, and to pay out of the prosperity of this country. But, says the
greenback man, "We never had as good times as when we had plenty of
greenbacks."

Suppose a farmer would buy a farm for ten thousand dollars and give
his note. He would buy carriages, horses, wagons and agricultural
implements, and give his note. He would send Mary, Jane and Lucy to
school. He would buy them pianos, and send them to college, and would
give his note, and the next year he would again give his note for the
interest, and the next year again his note, and finally they would come
to him and say, "We must settle up; we have taken your notes as long as
we can; we want money." "Why," he would say to the gentleman, "I never
had as good a time in my life as while I have been giving those notes.
I never had a farm until the man gave it to me for my note. My children
have been clothed as well as anybody's. We have had carriages; we have
had fine horses; and our house has been filled with music, and laughter,
and dancing; and why not keep on taking those notes?" So it is with the
greenback man; he says, "When we were running in debt we had a jolly
time—let us keep it up." But, my friends, there must come a time when
inflation would reach that point when all the Goverment notes in the
world would not buy a pin; when all the Government notes in the world
would not be worth as much as the last year's Democratic platform. I
have no fear that these debts will not be paid. I have no fear that
every solitary greenback dollar will not be redeemed; but, my friends,
we shall have some trouble doing it. Why? Because the debt is a great
deal larger than it should have been. In the first place, there should
have been po debt. If it had not been for the Southern Democracy there
would have been no war. If it had not been for the Northern Democracy
the war would not have lasted one year.

There was a man tried in court for having murdered his father and
mother. He was found guilty, and the judge asked him, "What have you to
say that sentence of death shall not be pronounced on you?" "Nothing in
the world Judge," said he, "only I hope your Honor will take pity on me
and remember that I am a poor orphan."

I have no doubt that this debt will be paid. We have the honor to pay
it, and we do not pay it on account of the avarice or greed of the
bondholder. An honest man does not pay money to a creditor simply
because the creditor wants it. The honest man pays at the command of his
honor and not at the demand of the creditor.

The United States will pay its debts, not because the creditor demands,
but because we owe it.

The United States will liquidate every debt at the command of its honor,
and every cent will be paid. War is destruction, war is loss, and all
the property destroyed, and the time that is lost, put together, amount
to what we call a national debt. When in peace we shall have made as
much net profit as there was wealth lost in the war, then we shall be a
solvent people. The greenback will be redeemed, we expect to redeem
it on the first day of January, 1879. We may fail; we will fail if the
prosperity of the country fails; but we intend to try to do it, and if
we fail, we will fail as a soldier fails to take a fort, high upon the
rampart, with the flag of resumption in our hands. We will not say that
we cannot pay the debt because there is a date fixed when the debt is to
be paid. I have had to borrow money myself; I have had to give my note,
and I recollect distinctly that every man I ever did give my note to
insisted that somewhere in that note there should be some vague hint
as to the cycle, as to the geological period, as to the time, as to
the century and date when I expected to pay those little notes. I never
understood that having a time fixed would prevent my being industrious;
that it would interfere with my honesty; or with my activity, or with my
desire to discharge that debt. And if any man in this great country owed
you one thousand dollars, due you the first day of next January, and he
should come to you and say: "I want to pay you that debt, but you must
take that date out of that note." "Why?" you would say. "Why," he would
reply in the language of Tilden, "I have to make wise preparation."
"Well," you would say, "why don't you do it?" "Oh," he says, "I cannot
do it while you have that date in that note." "Another thing," he says,
"I have to get me a central reservoir of coin." And do you know I have
always thought I would like to see the Democratic party around a central
reservoir of coin.

Suppose this debtor would also tell you, "I want the date out of that
note, because I have to come at it by a very slow and gradual process."
"Well," you would say, "I do not care how slow or how gradual you are,
provided that you get around by the time the note is due."

What would you think of a man that wanted the date out of the note? You
would think he was a mixture of rascal and Democrat. That is what you
would think.

Now, my friends, the Democratic party (if you may call it a party)
brings forward as its candidate Samuel J. Tilden, of New York. I am
opposed to him, first, because he is an old bachelor. In a country like
ours, depending for its prosperity and glory upon an increase of the
population, to elect an old bachelor is a suicidal policy. Any man that
will live in this country for sixty years, surrounded by beautiful women
with rosy lips and dimpled cheeks, in every dimple lurking a Cupid, with
pearly teeth and sparkling eyes—any man that will push them all aside
and be satisfied with the embraces of the Democratic party, does not
even know the value of time. I am opposed to Samuel J. Tilden, because
he is a Democrat; because he belongs to the Democratic party of the city
of New York; the worst party ever organized in any civilized country.

No man should be President of this Nation who denies that it is a
Nation. Samuel J. Tilden denounced the war as an outrage. No man should
be President of this country that denounced a war waged in its defence
as an outrage. To elect such a man would be an outrage.

Samuel J. Tilden said that the flag stands for a contract; that it
stands for a confederation; that it stands for a bargain. But the great,
splendid Republican party says, "No! That flag stands for a great,
hoping, aspiring, sublime Nation, not for a confederacy."

I am opposed, I say, to the election of Samuel J. Tilden for another
reason. If he is elected he will be controlled by his party, and his
party will be controlled by the Southern stockholders in that party.
They own nineteen-twentieths of the stock, and they will dictate the
policy of the Democratic Corporation.

No Northern Democrat has the manliness to stand up before a Southern
Democrat. Every Democrat, nearly, has a face of dough, and the Southern
Democrat will swap his ears, change his nose, cut his mouth the other
way of the leather, so that his own mother would not know him, in
fifteen minutes. If Samuel J. Tilden is elected President of the
United States, he will be controlled by the Democratic party, and the
Democratic party will be controlled by the Southern Democracy—that is
to say, the late rebels; that is to say, the men that tried to destroy
the Government; that is to say, the men who are sorry they did not
destroy the Government; that is to say, the enemies of every friend of
this Union; that is to say, the murderers and the assassins of Union men
living in the Southern country.

Let me say another thing. If Mr. Tilden does not act in accordance with
the Southern Democratic command, the Southern Democracy will not allow
a single life to stand between them and the absolute control of this
country. Hendricks will then be their man. I say that it would be an
outrage to give this country into the control of men who endeavored to
destroy it, to give this country into the control of the Southern rebels
and haters of Union men.

And on the other hand, the Republican party has put forward Rutherford
B. Hayes. He is an honest man. The Democrats will say, "That is
nothing." Well, let them try it. Rutherford B. Hayes has a good
character.

Rutherford B. Hayes, when this war commenced, did not say with Tilden,
"It is an outrage." He did not say with Tilden, "I never will contribute
to the prosecution of this war." But he did say this, "I would go into
this war if I knew I would be killed in the course of it, rather than
to live through it and take no part in it." During the war Rutherford
B. Hayes received many wounds in his flesh, but not one scratch upon his
honor. Samuel J. Tilden received many wounds upon his honor, but not
one scratch on his flesh. Rutherford B. Hayes is a firm man; not an
obstinate man, but a firm man; and I draw this distinction: A firm man
will do what he believes to be right, because he wants to do right. He
will stand firm because he believes it to be right; but an obstinate
man wants his own way, whether it is right or whether it is wrong.
Rutherford B. Hayes is firm in the right, and obstinate only when he
knows he is in the right. If you want to vote for a man who fought for
you, vote for Rutherford B. Hayes. If you want to vote for a man
that carried our flag through the storm of shot and shell, vote for
Rutherford B. Hayes. If you believe patriotism to be a virtue, vote for
Rutherford B. Hayes. If you believe this country wants heroes, vote for
Rutherford B. Hayes. If you want a man who turned against his country in
time of war, vote for Samuel J. Tilden. If you believe the war waged for
the salvation of our Nation was an outrage, vote for Samuel J. Tilden.
If you believe it is better to stay at home and curse the brave men in
the field, fighting for the sacred rights of man, vote for Samuel J.
Tilden. If you want to pay a premium upon treason, if you want to pay a
premium upon hypocrisy, if you want to pay a premium upon chicanery,
if you want to pay a premium upon sympathizing with the enemies of your
country, vote for Samuel J. Tilden.

If you believe that patriotism is right, if you believe the brave
defender of liberty is better than the assassin of freedom, vote for
Rutherford B. Hayes.

I am proud that I belong to the Republican party. It is the only party
that has not begged pardon for doing right. It is the only party that
has said: "There shall be no distinction on account of race, on account
of color, on account of previous condition." It is the only party that
ever had a platform broad enough for all humanity to stand upon.

It is the first decent party that ever lived. The Republican party made
the first free government that was ever made. The Republican party made
the first decent constitution that any nation ever had. The Republican
party gave to the sky the first pure flag that was ever kissed by the
waves of air. The Republican party is the first party that ever said:
"Every man is entitled to liberty," not because he is white, not because
he is black, not because he is rich, not because he is poor, but because
he is a man.

The Republican party is the first party that knew enough to know that
humanity is more than skin deep. It is the first party that said,
"Government should be for all, as the light, as the air, is for all."

And it is the first party that had the sense to say, "What air is to the
lungs, what light is to the eyes, what love is to the heart, liberty is
to the soul of man." The Republican party is the first party that ever
was in favor of absolute free labor, the first party in favor of giving
to every man, without distinction of race or color, the fruits of the
labor of his hands. The Republican party said, "Free labor will give us
wealth, free thought will give us truth." The Republican party is the
first party that said to every man, "Think for yourself, and express
that thought." I am a free man. I belong to the Republican party. This
is a free country. I will think my thought. I will speak my thought or
die. I say the Republican party is for free labor.

Free labor has invented all the machines that ever added to the power,
added to the wealth, added to the leisure, added to the civilization of
mankind. Every convenience, everything of use, everything of beauty in
the world, we owe to free labor and to free thought. Free labor, free
thought!

Science took the thunderbolt from the gods, and in the electric spark,
freedom, with thought, with intelligence and with love, sweeps under all
the waves of the sea; science, free thought, took a tear from the cheek
of unpaid labor, converted it into steam, and created the giant that
turns, with tireless arms, the countless wheels of toil.

The Republican party, I say, believes in free labor. Every solitary
thing, every solitary improvement made in the United States has been
made by the Republican party. Every reform accomplished was inaugurated,
and was accomplished by the great, grand, glorious Republican party.

The Republican party does not say: "Let bygones be bygones." The
Republican party is proud of the past and confident of the future. The
Republican party brings its record before you and implores you to read
every page, every paragraph, every line and every shining word. On the
first page you will find it written: "Slavery has cursed American soil
long enough;" on the same page you will find it written: "Slavery
shall go no farther." On the same page you will find it written: "The
bloodhounds shall not drip their gore upon another inch of American
soil." On the second page you will find it written: "This is a Nation,
not a Confederacy; every State belongs to every citizen, and no State
has a right to take territory belonging to any citizens in the United
States and set up a separate Government." On the third page you will
find the grandest declaration ever made in this country: "Slavery shall
be extirpated from the American soil." On the next page: "The Rebellion
shall be put down." On the next page: "The Rebellion has been put down."
On the next page: "Slavery has been extirpated from the American soil."
On the next page: "The freedmen shall not be vagrants; they shall be
citizens." On the next page: "They are citizens." On the next page: "The
ballot shall be put in their hands;" and now we will write on the next
page: "Every citizen that has a ballot in his hand, by the gods! shall
have a right to cast that ballot." That in short, that in brief, is the
history of the Republican party. The Republican party says, and it means
what it says: "This shall be a free country forever; every man in it
twenty-one years of age shall have the right to vote for the Government
of his choice, and if any man endeavors to interfere with that right,
the Government of the United States will see to it that the right of
every American citizen is protected at the polls."

Now, my friends, there is one thing that troubles the average Democrat,
and that is the idea that somehow, in some way, the negro will get to be
the better man. It is the trouble in the South to-day. And I say to my
Southern friends (and I admit that there are a great many good men in
the South, but the bad men are in an overwhelming majority; the great
mass of the population is vicious, violent, virulent and malignant; the
great mass of the population is cruel, revengeful, idle, hateful,) and
I tell that population: "If you do not go to work, the negro, by his
patient industry, will pass you." In the long run, the nation that is
honest, the people who are industrious, will pass the people who are
dishonest, and the people who are idle, no matter how grand an ancestry
they may have had, and so I say, Mr. Northern Democrat, look out!

The superior man is the man that loves his fellow-man; the superior man
is the useful man; the superior man is the kind man, the man who lifts
up his down-trodden brothers; and the greater the load of human sorrow
and human want you can get in your arms, the easier you can climb
the great hill of fame. The superior man is the man who loves his
fellow-man. And let me say right here, the good men, the superior
men, the grand men are brothers the world over, no matter what their
complexion may be; centuries may separate them, yet they are hand in
hand; and all the good, and all the grand, and all the superior men,
shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart, are fighting the great battle for
the progress of mankind.

I pity the man, I execrate and hate the man who has only to boast that
he is white. Whenever I am reduced to that necessity, I believe shame
will make me red instead of white. I believe another thing. If I cannot
hoe my row, I will not steal corn from the fellow that hoes his row. If
I belong to the superior race, I will be so superior that I can make my
living without stealing from the inferior. I am perfectly willing that
any Democrat in the world that can, shall pass me. I have never seen one
yet, except when I looked over my shoulder. But if they can pass I shall
be delighted.

Whenever we stand in the presence of genius, we take off our hats.
Whenever we stand in the presence of the great, we do involuntary homage
in spite of ourselves. Any one who can go by is welcome, any one in the
world; but until somebody does go by, of the Democratic persuasion,
I shall not trouble myself about the fact that may be, in some future
time, they may get by. The Democrats are afraid of being passed, because
they are being passed.

No man ever was, no man ever will be, the superior of the man whom he
robs. No man ever was, no man ever will be, the superior of the man he
steals from. I had rather be a slave than a slave-master. I had rather
be stolen from than be a thief. I had rather be the wronged than the
wrong-doer. And allow me to say again to impress it forever upon every
man that hears me, you will always be the inferior of the man you wrong.
Every race is inferior to the race it tramples upon and robs. There
never was a man that could trample upon human rights and be superior
to the man upon whom he trampled. And let me say another thing: No
government can stand upon the crushed rights of one single human being;
and any compromise that we make with the South, if we make it at the
expense of our friends, will carry in its own bosom the seeds of its
own death and destruction, and cannot stand. A government founded upon
anything except liberty and justice cannot and ought not to stand. All
the wrecks on either side of the stream of time, all the wrecks of the
great cities and nations that have passed away—all are a warning that
no nation founded upon injustice can stand. From sand-enshrouded Egypt,
from the marble wilderness of Athens, from every fallen, crumbling stone
of the once mighty Rome, comes as it were a wail, comes as it were the
cry, "No nation founded upon injustice can permanently stand." We must
found this Nation anew. We must fight our fight. We must cling to our
old party until there is freedom of speech in every part of the United
States. We must cling to the old party until I can speak in every State
of the South as every Southerner can speak in every State of the North.
We must vote the grand old Republican ticket until there is the same
liberty in every Southern State that there is in every Northern, Eastern
and Western State. We must stand by the party until every Southern man
will admit that this country belongs to every citizen of the United
States as much as to the man that is born in that country. One more
thing. I do not want any man that ever fought for this country to vote
the Democratic ticket. You will swap your respectability for disgrace.
There are thousands of you—great, grand, splendid men—that have fought
grandly for this Union, and now I beseech of you, I beg of you, do not
give respectability to the enemies and haters of your country. Do not
do it. Do not vote with the Democratic party, of the North. Sometimes
I think a rebel sympathizer in the North worse than a rebel, and I will
tell you why. The rebel was carried into the rebellion by public opinion
at home,—his father, his mother, his sweetheart, his brother, and
everybody he knew; and there was a kind of wind, a kind of tornado, a
kind of whirlwind that took him into the army. He went on the rebel side
with his State. The Northern Democrat went against his own State; went
against his own Government; and went against public opinion at home. The
Northern Democrat rowed up stream against wind and tide. The Southern
rebel went with the current; the Northern rebel rowed against the
current from pure, simple cussedness.

And I beg every man that ever fought for the Union, every man that ever
bared his breast to a storm of shot and shell, that the old flag might
float over every inch of American soil redeemed from the clutch of
treason; I beg him, I implore him, do not go with the Democratic party.
And to every young man within the sound of my voice I say, do not tie
your bright and shining prospects to that old corpse of Democracy. You
will get tired of dragging it around. Do not cast your first vote
with the enemies of your country. Do not cast your first vote with the
Democratic party that was glad when the Union army was defeated. Do not
cast your vote with that party whose cheeks flushed with the roses of
joy when the old flag was trailed in disaster upon the field of battle.
Remember, my friends, that that party did every mean thing it could,
every dishonest and treasonable thing it could. Recollect that that
party did all it could to divide this Nation, and destroy this country.

For myself I have no fear; Hayes and Wheeler will be the next President
and Vice-President of the United States of America. Let me beg of
you—let me implore you—let me beseech you, every man, to come out on
election day. Every man, do your duty; every man do his duty with regard
to the State ticket of the great and glorious State of Illinois.

This year we need Republicans; this year we need men that will vote for
the party; and I tell you that a Republican this year, no matter what
you have against him, no matter whether you like him or do not like him,
is better for the country, no matter how much you hate him, he is better
for the country than any Democrat Nature can make, or ever has made.

We must, in this supreme election, we must at this supreme moment, vote
only for the men who are in favor of keeping this Government in
the power, in the custody, in the control of the great, the sublime
Republican party.

Ladies and gentlemen, if I were insensible to the honor you have done me
by this magnificent meeting—the most magnificent I ever saw on earth—a
meeting such as only the marvelous City of Pluck could produce; if I
were insensible of the honor, I would be made of stone. I shall remember
it with delight; I shall remember it with thankfulness all the days of
my life. And I ask in return of every Republican here to remember all
the days of his life, every sacrifice made by this nation for liberty;
every sacrifice made by every private soldier, every sacrifice made by
every patriotic man and patriotic woman.

I do not ask you to remember in revenge, but I ask you never, never to
forget. As the world swings through the constellations year after year,
I want the memory, I want the patriotic memory of this country to sit
by the grave of every Union soldier, and, while her eyes are filled with
tears, to crown him again and again with the crown of everlasting
honor. I thank you, I thank you, ladies and gentlemen, a thousand times.
Good-night.
    Note:—There was no full report made of this speech, the
    above are simply extracts.
