The Speech
Delivered at the Republican National Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 15, 1876, this speech nominates James G. Blaine of Maine for President of the United States. Though Blaine did not win the nomination, the speech became one of the most quoted pieces of oratory in American political history. It established Ingersoll as the greatest political orator of the age.
The Nomination of James G. Blaine
Massachusetts may be satisfied with the loyalty of Benjamin H. Bristow; so am I. But if any gentleman wins the prize, I cast my ballot 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 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 man now is to rush, with lighted torches, into the home of its friends. The Republican Party, to preserve its honor and dignity, will vote for one of its own. And we shall remember that the soldiers who swore by the old flag, who died for the old flag, who were saved by the old flag — they will remember that their old commander, James G. Blaine, never left a soldier to rot in a Southern prison that he could release or comfort.
On the Flag and the Republic
For the grand, for the glorious, for the magnanimous Republican Party — the party of justice, of liberty, of humanity, of progress — we will stand by James G. Blaine forever.
Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, he has stood for the honor of his party and his country.
I ask you, in the name of the soldiers who wore the blue, in the name of the sacred dead — whose graves, strewn with flowers, attest to the price of the Republic — to nominate James G. Blaine for the highest office in the gift of the American people.
The Larger Vision
But I want to say something beyond the claims of any particular candidacy. I want to say something about what this Republic is and what it can be.
This Republic was founded on the proposition that all men are created equal. That they are endowed — not by kings, not by priests, not by the lottery of birth, but by their nature as human beings — with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
These are not Republican ideas; they are human ideas. They are the ideas that gave birth to this Republic, and they are the ideas that will determine whether this Republic endures.
The man who would lead this Republic must understand that its greatness lies not in its wealth or its armies or its territories, but in its fidelity to these ideas. In its willingness, when tested, to extend liberty rather than restrict it, to broaden equality rather than narrow it, to make real what the founders proclaimed to be self-evident.
We have not always done this. We will not always do this. But when we do, we are worthy of the men who died for this flag.
A Republic of Free Men
Let this Republic be what it was meant to be: a republic of free men and women. Where no church dictates to the state. Where no authority, human or divine, exempts itself from the scrutiny of free citizens. Where every human being, regardless of race or religion or origin, may stand before the law as the equal of every other.
This is the America I believe in. This is the America I ask you to help build.
“I want a country in which every man may speak the truth, in which every man may live by his conscience, in which no man may be persecuted for his opinions.”
The “Plumed Knight” speech appears in Volume 6 of the Dresden Edition.