Bangor Speech
Bangor, Maine, 1876.

by Robert G. Ingersoll
(1876)

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

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• Yesterday was a glorious day for the Republicans of
    Bangor. The weather was delightful and all the imposing
    exercises of the day were conducted with a gratifying and
    even inspiring success.
    The noon train from Waterville brought Gov. Connor, Col.
    Ingersoll and Senator Blaine.
    At 3 p. m. the speakers arrived at the grounds and were
    received with applause as they ascended the platform, where
    a number of the most prominent citizens of Bangor and
    vicinity were assembled. At this time the platform was
    surrounded by a dense mass of people, numbering thousands.
    The meeting was called to order by C. A. Boutelle, in behalf
    of the Republican State Committee. As Col. Ingersoll was
    introduced by Gov. Connor he was welcomed by tumultuous
    cheers, which he gracefully acknowledged.
    As we said before, no report could do justice to such a
    masterly effort as that of the great Western Orator, and we
    have not attempted to convey any adequate impression of an
    address which is conceded on all hands to be the most
    remarkable for originality, power and eloquence ever heard
    in this section.
    Such a speech by such a man—if there is another—must be
    heard; the magnetism of the speaker must be felt; the
    indescribable influence must be experienced, in order to
    appreciate his wonderful power. The vast audience was
    alternately swayed from enthusiasm for the grand principles
    advocated, to indignation at the crimes of Democracy, as the
    record of that party was scorched with his invective; from
    laughter at the ludicrous presentment of Democratic
    inconsistencies, to tears brought forth by the pathos and
    eloquence of his appeals for justice and humanity. During
    portions of his address there was moisture in the eyes of
    every person in the audience, and from opening to close he
    held the assemblage by a spell more potent than that of any
    man we have ever heard speak. It was one of the grandest,
    most cogent and thrilling appeals in behalf of the great
    principles of liberty, loyalty and justice to all men, ever
    delivered, and we wish it might have been heard by every
    citizen of our beloved Republic. The Colonel was repeatedly
    urged by the audience to go on, and he spoke for about two
    hours with undiminished fervor. His hearers would gladly
    have given him audience for two hours longer, but with a
    splendid tribute to Mr. Blaine as the strongest tie between
    New England and the West, he took his seat amid the ringing
    cheers and plaudits of the assemblage.—The Whig and
    Courier, Bangor, Maine, August 25,1876.

Hayes Campaign

1876.

I HAVE the honor to belong to the Republican party; the grandest, the
sublimest party in the history of the world. This grand party is not
only in favor of the liberty of the body, but also the liberty of the
soul. This sublime party gives to all the labor of their hands and of
their brains. This party allows every person to think for himself and
to express his thoughts. The Republican party forges no chains for the
mind, no fetters for the souls of men. It declares that the intellectual
domain shall be forever free. In the free air there is room for every
wing. The Republican party endeavors to remove all obstructions on the
highway of progress. In this sublime undertaking it asks the assistance
of all. Its platform is Continental. Upon it there is room for
the Methodist, the Baptist, the Catholic, the Universalist, the
Presbyterian, and the Freethinker. There is room for all who are in
favor of the preservation of the sacred rights of men.

I am going to give you a few reasons for voting the Republican ticket.
The Republican party depends upon reason, upon argument, upon education,
upon intelligence and upon patriotism. The Republican party makes no
appeal to ignorance and prejudice. It wishes to destroy both.

It is the party of humanity, the party that hates caste, that honors
labor, that rewards toil, that believes in justice. It appeals to all
that is elevated and noble in man, to the higher instincts, to the
nobler aspirations. It has accomplished grand things.

The horizon of the past is filled with the glory of Republican
achievement. The monuments of its wisdom, its power and patriotism crowd
all the fields of conflict. Upon the Constitution this party wrote
equal rights for all; upon every statute book, humanity; upon the flag,
liberty. The Republican party of the United States is the conscience of
the nineteenth century. It is the justice of this age, the embodiment
of social progress and honor. It has no knee for the past. Its face is
toward the future. It is the party of advancement, of the dawn, of the
sunrise.

The Republican party commenced its grand career by saying that the
institution of human slavery had cursed enough American soil; that the
territories should not be damned with that most infamous thing; that
this country was sacred to freedom; that slavery had gone far enough.
Upon that issue the great campaign of 1860 was fought and won. The
Republican party was born of wisdom and conscience.

The people of the South claimed that slavery should be protected; that
the doors of the territories should be thrown open to them and to their
institutions. They not only claimed this, but they also insisted that
the Constitution of the United States protected slave property, the same
as other property everywhere. The South was defeated, and then appealed
to arms. In a moment all their energies were directed toward the
destruction of this Government. They commenced the war—they fired upon
the flag that had protected them for nearly a century.

The North was compelled to decide instantly between the destruction of
the nation and civil war.

The division between the friends and enemies of the Union at once took
place. The Government began to defend itself. To carry on the war money
was necessary. The Government borrowed, and finally issued its notes and
bonds. The Democratic party in the North sympathized with the Rebellion.
Everything was done to hinder, embarrass, obstruct and delay. They
endeavored to make a rebel breastwork of the Constitution; to create
a fire in the rear. They denounced the Government; resisted the draft;
shot United States officers; declared the war a failure and an outrage;
rejoiced over our defeats, and wept and cursed at our victories.

To crush the Rebellion in the South and keep in subjection the
Democratic party at the North, thousands of millions of money were
expended—the nation burdened with a fearful debt, and the best blood of
the country poured out upon the fields of battle.

In order to destroy the Rebellion it became necessary to destroy
slavery. As a matter of fact, slavery was the Rebellion. As soon as
this truth forced itself upon the Government—thrust as it were into
the brain of the North upon the point of a rebel bayonet—the Republican
party resolved to destroy forever the last vestige of that savage and
cruel institution; an institution that made white men devils and black
men beasts.

The Republican party put down the Rebellion; saved the nation; destroyed
slavery; made the slave a citizen; put the ballot in the hands of the
black man; forgave the assassins of the Government; restored nearly
every rebel to citizenship, and proclaimed peace to, and for each and
all.

For sixteen years the country has been in the hands of that great party.
For sixteen years that grand party, in spite of rebels in arms—in spite
of the Democratic party of the North, has preserved the territorial
integrity, and the financial honor of the country. It has endeavored to
enforce the laws; it has tried to protect loyal men at the South; it has
labored to bring murderers and assassins to justice, and it is working
now to preserve the priceless fruits of its great victory.

The present question is, whom shall we trust? To whom shall we give the
reins of power? What party will best preserve the rights of the people?

What party is most deserving of our confidence? There is but one way
to determine the character of a party, and that is, by ascertaining its
history.

Could we have safely trusted the Democratic party in 1860? No. And why
not? Because it was a believer in the right of secession—a believer
in the sacredness of human slavery. The Democratic party then solemnly
declared—speaking through its most honored and trusted leaders—that
each State had the right to secede. This made the Constitution a _nudum
pactum_, a contract without a consideration, a Democratic promise, a
wall of mist, and left every State free to destroy at will the fabric of
American Government—the fabric reared by our fathers through years of
toil and blood.

Could we have safely trusted that party in 1864, when, in convention
assembled, it declared the war a failure, and wished to give up the
contest at a moment when universal victory was within the grasp of the
Republic? Had the people put that party in power then, there would have
been a Southern Confederacy to-day, and upon the limbs of four million
people the chains of slavery would still have clanked. Is there one man
present who, to-day, regrets that the Vallandigham Democracy of 1864 was
spurned and beaten by the American people? Is there one man present who,
to-day, regrets the utter defeat of that mixture of slavery, malice and
meanness, called the Democratic party, in 1864?

Could we have safely trusted that party in 1868?

At that time the Democracy of the South was trying to humble and
frighten the colored people or exterminate them. These inoffensive
colored people were shot down without provocation, without mercy. The
white Democrats were as relentless as fiends. They killed simply to
kill. They murdered these helpless people, thinking that they were in
some blind way getting their revenge upon the people of the North. No
tongue can exaggerate the cruelties practiced upon the helpless freedmen
of the South. These white Democrats had been reared amid and by slavery.
Slavery knows no such thing as justice, no such thing as mercy. Slavery
does not dream of governing by reason, by argument or persuasion.
Slavery depends upon force, upon the bowie-knife, the revolver, the
whip, the chain and the bloodhound. The white Democrats of the South had
been reared amid slavery; they cared nothing for reason; they knew of
but one thing to be used when there was a difference of opinion or a
conflict of interest, and that was brute force. It never occurred to
them to educate, to inform, and to reason. It was easier to shoot than
to reason; it was quicker to stab than to argue; cheaper to kill than
to educate. A grave costs less than a schoolhouse; bullets were cheaper
than books; and one knife could stab more than forty schools could
convert.

They could not bear to see the negro free—to see the former slave
trampling on his old chains, holding a ballot in his hand. They could
not endure the sight of a negro in office. It was gall and wormwood
to think of a slave occupying a seat in Congress; to think of a negro
giving his ideas about the political questions of the day. And so these
white Democrats made up their minds that by a reign of terrorism they
would drive the negro from the polls, drive him from all official
positions, and put him back in reality in the old condition. To
accomplish this they commenced a system of murder, of assassination,
of robbery, theft, and plunder, never before equaled in extent and
atrocity. All this was in its height when in 1868 the Democracy asked
the control of this Government.

Is there a man here who in his heart regrets that the Democrats failed
in 1868? Do you wish that the masked murderers who rode in the darkness
of night to the hut of the freedman and shot him down like a wild beast,
regardless of the prayers and tears of wife and children, were now
holding positions of honor and trust in this Government? Are you sorry
that these assassins were defeated in 1868?

In 1872 the Democratic party, bent upon victory, greedy for office, with
itching palms and empty pockets, threw away all principle—if Democratic
doctrines can be called principles—and nominated a life-long enemy
of their party for President. No one doubted or doubts the loyalty
and integrity of Horace Greeley. But all knew that if elected he would
belong to the party electing him; that he would have to use Democrats as
his agents, and all knew, or at least feared, that the agents would own
and use the principal. All believed that in the malicious clutch of
the Democratic party Horace Greeley would be not a President, but a
prisoner—not a ruler, but a victim. Against that grand man I have
nothing to say. I simply congratulate him upon his escape from being
used as a false key by the Democratic party.

During all these years the Democratic party prophesied the destruction
of the Government, the destruction of the Constitution, and the
banishment of liberty from American soil.

In 1864 that party declared that after four years of failure to restore
the Union by the experiment of war, there should be a cessation of
hostilities. They then declared "that the Constitution had been violated
in every part, and that public liberty and private rights had been
trodden down."

And yet the Constitution remained and still remains; public liberty
still exists, and private rights are still respected.

In 1868, growing more desperate, and being still filled with the spirit
of prophecy, this same party in its platform said: "Under the repeated
assaults of the Republican party, the pillars of the Government are
rocking on their base, and should it succeed in November next, and
inaugurate its President, we will meet as a subjected and conquered
people, amid the ruins of liberty and the scattered fragments of the
Constitution."

The Republican party did succeed in November, 1868, and did inaugurate
its President, and we did not meet as a subjected and conquered
people amid the ruins of liberty and the scattered fragments of
the Constitution. We met as a victorious people, amid the proudest
achievements of liberty, protected by a Constitution spotless and
stainless—pure as the Alpine snow thrice sifted by the northern blast.

You must not forget the condition of the Government when it came into
the hands of the Republican party. Its treasury was empty, its means
squandered, its navy dispersed, its army unreliable, the offices filled
with rebels and rebel spies; the Democratic party of the North rubbing
its hands in a kind of hellish glee and shouting, "I told you so."

When the Republican party came into power in 1861, it found the Southern
States in arms; it came into power when human beings were chained hand
to hand and driven like cattle to market; when white men were engaged
in the ennobling business of raising dogs to pursue and catch men and
women; when the bay of the bloodhound was considered as the music of the
Union. It came into power when, from thousands of pulpits, slavery was
declared to be a divine institution. It took the reins of Government
when education was an offence, when mercy, humanity and justice were
political crimes.

The Republican party came into power when the Constitution of the United
States upheld the crime of crimes, a Constitution that gave the lie
direct to the Declaration of Independence, and, as I said before, when
the Southern States were in arms.

To the fulfillment of its great destiny it gave all its energies. To the
almost superhuman task, it gave its every thought and power. For four
long and terrible years, with vast armies in the field against it; beset
by false friends; in constant peril; betrayed again and again; stabbed
by the Democratic party, in the name of the Constitution; reviled and
slandered beyond conception; attacked in every conceivable manner—the
Republican party never faltered for an instant. Its courage increased
with the difficulties to be overcome. Hopeful in defeat, confident
in disaster, merciful in victory; sustained by high aims and noble
aspirations, it marched forward, through storms of shot and shell—on to
the last fortification of treason and rebellion—forward to the shining
goal of victory, lasting and universal.

During these savage and glorious years, the Democratic party of the
North, as a party, assisted the South. Democrats formed secret societies
to burn cities—to release rebel prisoners. They shot down officers who
were enforcing the draft; they declared the war unconstitutional;
they left nothing undone to injure the credit of the Government; they
persuaded soldiers to desert; they went into partnership with rebels
for the purpose of spreading contagious diseases through the North. They
were the friends and allies of persons who regarded yellow fever and
smallpox as weapons of civilized warfare. In spite of all this, the
Republicans succeeded.

The Democrats declared slavery to be a divine institution; The
Republican party abolished it. The Constitution of the United States was
changed from a sword that stabbed the rights of four million people to a
shield for every human being beneath our flag.

The Democrats of New York burned orphan asylums and inaugurated a reign
of terror in order to co-operate with the raid of John Morgan. Remember,
my friends, that all this was done when the fate of our country trembled
in the balance of war; that all this was done when the great heart of
the North was filled with agony and courage; when the question was,
"Shall Liberty or Slavery triumph?"

No words have ever passed the human lips strong enough to curse the
Northern allies of the South.

The United States wanted money. It wanted money to buy muskets and
cannon and shot and shell, it wanted money to pay soldiers, to buy
horses, wagons, ambulances, clothing and food. Like an individual, it
had to borrow this money; and, like an honest individual, it must pay
this money. Clothed with sovereignty, it had, or at least exercised, the
power to make its notes a legal tender. This quality of being a legal
tender was the only respect in which these notes differ from those
signed by an individual. As a matter of fact, every note issued was
a forced loan from the people, a forced loan from the soldiers in the
field—in short, a forced loan from every person that took a single
dollar. Upon every one of these notes is printed a promise. The belief
that this promise will be made good gives every particle of value to
each note that it has. Although each note, by law, is a legal tender,
yet if the Government declared that it never would redeem these
notes, the people would not take them if revolution could hurl such a
Government from power. So that the belief that these notes will finally
be paid, added to the fact that in the meantime they are a legal tender,
gives them all the value they have. And, although all are substantially
satisfied that they will be paid, none know at what time. This
uncertainty as to the time, as to when, affects the value of these
notes.

They must be paid, unless a promise can be delayed so long as to amount
to a fulfillment. They must be paid. The question is, "How?" The answer
is, "By the industry and prosperity of the people." They cannot be paid
by law. Law made them; labor must pay them; and they must be paid out
of the profits of the people. We must pay the debt with eggs, not with
goose. In a terrible war we spent thousands of millions; all the bullets
thrown; all the powder burned; all the property destroyed, of every
sort, kind, and character; all the time of the people engaged—all these
things were a dead loss. The debt represents the loss. Paying the debt
is simply repairing the loss. When we, as a people, shall have made
a net amount, equal to the amount thrown, as it were, away in war,
or somewhere near that amount, we will resume specie payment; we will
redeem our promises. We promised on paper, we shall pay in gold and
silver. We asked the people to hold this paper until we got the money,
and they are holding the paper and we are getting the money.

As soon as the slaves were free, the Republican party said, "They must
be citizens, not vagrants." The Democratic party opposed this just, this
generous measure. The freedmen were made citizens. The Republican party
then said, "These citizens must vote; they must have the ballot, to keep
what the bullet has won." The Democratic party said "No." The negroes
received the ballot. The Republican party then said, "These voters must
be educated, so that the ballot shall be the weapon of intelligence, not
of ignorance." The Democratic party objected. But schools were founded,
and books were put in the hands of the colored people, instead of whips
upon their backs. We said to the Southern people, "The colored men are
citizens; their rights must be respected; they are voters, they must
be allowed to vote; they were and are our friends, and we are their
protectors."

All this was accomplished by the Republican party.

It changed the organic law of the land, so that it is now a proper
foundation for a free government; it struck the cruel shackles from four
million human beings; it put down the most gigantic rebellion in the
history of the world; it expunged from the statute books of every
State, and of the Nation, all the cruel and savage laws that Slavery
had enacted; it took whips from the backs, and chains from the limbs, of
men; it dispensed with bloodhounds as the instruments of civilization;
it banished to the memory of barbarism the slave-pen, the auction block,
and the whipping-post; it purified a Nation; it elevated the human race.

All this was opposed by the Democratic party; opposed with a bitterness,
compared to which ordinary malice is sweet. I say the Democratic party,
because I consider those who fought against the Government, in the
fields of the South, and those who opposed in the North, as
Democrats—one and all. The Democratic party has been, during all these
years, the enemy of civilization, the hater of liberty, the despiser of
justice.

When I say the Democratic party sympathized with the Rebellion, I mean
a majority of that party. I know there are in the Democratic party,
soldiers who fought for the Union. I do not know why they are there, but
I have nothing to say against them. I will never utter a word against
any man who bared his breast to a storm of shot and shell, for the
preservation of the Republic. When I use the term Democratic party, I do
not mean those soldiers.

There are others in the Democratic party who are there just because
their fathers were Democrats. They do not mean any particular harm.
Others are there because they could not amount to anything in the
Republican party. A man only fit for a corporal in the Republican ranks,
will make a leader in the Democratic party. By the Democratic party,
I mean that party that sided with the South—that believed in
secession—that loved slavery—that hated liberty—that denounced
Lincoln as a tyrant—that burned orphan asylums—that gloried in our
disasters—that denounced every effort to save the nation—they are the
gentlemen I mean, and they constitute a large majority of the Democratic
party.

The Democrats hate the negro to-day, with a hatred begotten of a
well-grounded fear that the colored people are rapidly becoming their
superiors in industry, intellect and character.

The colored people have suffered enough. They were and are our friends.
They are the friends of this country, and cost what it may they must
be protected. The white loyal man must be protected. They have been
ostracized, slandered, mobbed, and murdered. Their very blood cries from
the ground.

These two things—payment of the debt and protection of loyal citizens,
are the things to be done. Which party can be trusted?

Which will be the more apt to pay the debt?

Which will be the more apt to protect the colored and white loyalist at
the South?

Who is Samuel J. Tilden?

Samuel J. Tilden is an attorney. He never gave birth to an elevated,
noble sentiment in his life. He is a kind of legal spider, watching in
a web of technicalities for victims. He is a compound of cunning and
heartlessness—of beak and claw and fang. He is one of the few men who
can grab a railroad and hide the deep cuts, tunnels and culverts in a
single night. He is a corporation wrecker. He is a demurrer filed by the
Confederate congress. He waits on the shores of bankruptcy to clutch the
drowning by the throat. He was never married. The Democratic party
has satisfied the longings of his heart. He has looked upon love as
weakness. He has courted men because women cannot vote. He has contented
himself by adopting a rag-baby, that really belongs to Mr. Hendricks,
and his principal business at present is explaining how he came to adopt
this child.

Samuel J. Tilden has been for years without number a New York Democrat.

New York has been, and still is, the worst governed city in the world.
Political influence is bought and sold like stocks and bonds. Nearly
every contract is larceny in disguise—nearly every appointment is a
reward for crime, and every election is a fraud. Among such men Samuel
J. Tilden has lived; with such men he has acted; by such men he has been
educated; such men have been his scholars, and such men are his friends.
These men resisted the draft, but Samuel J. Tilden remained their
friend. They burned orphan asylums, but Tilden's friendship never
cooled. They inaugurated riot and murder, but Tilden wavered not. They
stole a hundred millions, and when no more was left to steal—when the
people could not even pay the interest on the amount stolen—then these
Democrats, clapping their hands over their bursting pockets, began
shouting for reform. Mr. Tilden has been a reformer for years,
especially of railroads. The vital issue with him has been the issue
of bogus stock. Although a life-long Democrat, he has been an
amalgamationist—of corporations. While amassing millions, he has
occasionally turned his attention to national affairs. He left his
private affairs (and his reputation depends upon these affairs being
kept private) long enough to assist the Democracy to declare the war for
the restoration of the Union a failure; long enough to denounce Lincoln
as a tyrant and usurper. He was generally too busy to denounce the
political murders and assassinations in the South—too busy to say a
word in favor of justice and liberty; but he found time to declare the
war for the preservation of the country an outrage. He managed to spare
time enough to revile the Proclamation of Emancipation—time enough to
shed a few tears over the corpse of slavery; time enough to oppose
the enfranchisement of the colored man; time enough to raise his voice
against the injustice of putting a loyal negro on a political level with
a pardoned rebel; time enough to oppose every forward movement of the
nation.

No man should ever be elected President of this country who raised his
hand to dismember and destroy it. No man should be elected President who
sympathized with those who were endeavoring to destroy it. No man should
be elected President of this great nation who, when it was in deadly
peril, did not endeavor to save it by act and word. No man should
be elected President who does not believe that every negro should be
free—that the colored people should be allowed to vote. No man
should be placed at the head of the nation—in command of the army
and navy—who does not believe that the Constitution, with all its
amendments, should be sacredly enforced. No man should be elected
President of this nation who believes in the Democratic doctrine of
"States Rights;" who believes that this Government is only a federation
of States. No man should be elected President of our great country
who aided and abetted her enemies in war—who advised or countenanced
resistance to a draft in time of war, who by slander impaired her
credit, sneered at her heroes, and laughed at her martyrs. Samuel J.
Tilden is the possessor of nearly every disqualification mentioned.

Mr. Tilden is the author of an essay on finance, commonly called a
letter of acceptance, in which his ideas upon the great subject are
given in the plainest and most direct manner imaginable. All through
this letter or essay there runs a vein of honest bluntness really
refreshing. As a specimen of bluntness and clearness, take the following
extracts:

How shall the Government make these notes at all times as good as
specie? It has to provide in reference to the mass which would be kept
in use by the wants of business a central reservoir of coin, adequate
to the adjustment of the temporary fluctuations of the international
balance, and as a guaranty against transient drains, artificially
created by panic or by speculation. It has also to provide for the
payment in coin of such fractional currency as may be presented
for redemption, and such inconsiderable portion of legal tenders as
individuals may from time to time desire to convert for special use, or
in order to lay by in coin their little store of money. To make the
coin now in the treasury available for the objects of this reserve, to
gradually strengthen and enlarge that reserve, and to provide for such
other exceptional demands for coin as may arise, does not seem to me a
work of difficulty. If wisely planned and discreetly pursued, it ought
not to cost any sacrifice to the business of the country. It should
tend, on the contrary, to the revival of hope and confidence.

In other words, the way to pay the debt is to get the money, and the
way to get the money is to provide a central reservoir of coin to adjust
fluctuations. As to the resumption he gives us this:

The proper time for the resumption is the time when wise preparation
shall have ripened into perfect ability to accomplish the object with
a certainty and ease that will inspire confidence and encourage the
reviving of business.

The earliest time in which such a result can be brought about is best.
Even when preparations shall have been matured, the exact date would
have to be chosen with reference to the then existing state of trade and
credit operations in our own country, and the course of foreign commerce
and condition of exchanges with other nations. The specific measure and
actual date are matters of details, having reference to ever-changing
conditions. They belong to the domain of practical, administrative
statesmanship. The captain of a steamer, about starting from New York to
Liverpool, does not assemble a council over his ocean craft, and fix
an angle by which to lash the rudder for the whole voyage. A human
intelligence must be at the helm to discern the shifting forces of water
and winds. A human mind must be at the helm to feel the elements day by
day, and guide to a mastery over them. Such preparations are everything.
Without them a legislative command fixing a day—an official promise
fixing a day, are shams. They are worse. They are a snare and a delusion
to all who trust them. They destroy all confidence among thoughtful men
whose judgment will at last sway public opinion. An attempt to act on
such a command, or such a promise without preparation, would end in a
new suspension. It would be a fresh calamity, prolific of confusion,
distrust, and distress.

That is to say, Congress has not sufficient intelligence to fix the
date of resumption. They cannot fix the proper time. But a Democratic
convention has human intelligence enough to know that the first day of
January, 1879, is not the proper date. That convention knew what the
state of trade and credit in our country and the course of foreign
commerce and the condition of exchanges with other nations would be on
the first day of January, 1879. Of course they did, or else they
never would have had the impudence to declare that resumption would be
impossible at that date.

The next extract is more luminous still:

The Government of the United States, in my opinion, can advance to a
resumption of specie payments on its legal tender notes by gradual and
safe processes tending to relieve the present business distress. If
charged by the people with the administration of the executive office, I
should deem it a duty so to exercise the powers with which it has or may
be invested by Congress, as the best and soonest to conduct the country
to that beneficent result.

Why did not this great statesman tell us of some "gradual and safe
process"? He promises, if elected, to so administer the Government that
it will soon reach a beneficent result. How is this to be done? What is
his plan? Will he rely on "a human intelligence at the helm," or on "the
central reservoir," or on some "gradual and safe process"?

I defy any man to read this letter and tell me what Mr. Tilden really
proposes to do. There is nothing definite said. He uses such general
terms, such vague and misty expressions, such unmeaning platitudes, that
the real idea, if he had one, is lost in fog and mist.

Suppose I should, in the most solemn and impressive manner, tell
you that the fluctuations caused in the vital stability of shifting
financial operations, not to say speculations of the wildest character,
cannot be rendered instantly accountable to a true financial theory
based upon the great law that the superfluous is not a necessity, except
in vague thoughts of persons unacquainted with the exigencies of the
hour, and cannot, in the absence of a central reservoir of coin with
a human intelligence at the head, hasten by any system of convertible
bonds the expectation of public distrust, no matter how wisely planned
and discreetly pursued, failure is assured whatever the real result may
be.

Must we wage this war for the right forever? Is there no time when the
soldiers of progress can rest? Will the bugles of the great army of
civilization never sound even a halt? It does seem as though there
can be no stop, no rest. It is in the world of mind as in the physical
world. Every plant of value has to be cultivated. The land must be
plowed, the seeds must be planted and watered. It must be guarded every
moment. Its enemies crawl in the earth and fly in the air. The sun
scorches it, the rain drowns it, the dew rusts it. He who wins it must
fight. But the weeds they grow in spite of all. Nobody plows for them
except accident. The winds sow the seeds, chance covers them, and they
flourish and multiply. The sun cannot burn them—they laugh at rain and
frost—they care not for birds and beasts. In spite of all they grow. It
is the same in politics. A true Republican must continue to grow, must
work, must think, must advance. The Republican party is the party of
progress, of ideas, of work. To make a Republican you must have schools,
books, papers. To make a Democrat, take all these away. Republicans are
the useful; Democrats the noxious—corn and wheat against the dog fennel
and Canada thistles.

Republicans of Maine, do not forget that each of you has two votes in
this election—one in Maine and one in Indiana.

Remember that we are relying on you. There is no stronger tie between
the prairies of Illinois and the pines of Maine—between the Western
States and New England, than James G. Blaine.

We are relying on Maine for from twelve to fifteen thousand on the
12th of September, and Indiana will answer with from fifteen to twenty
thousand, and hearing these two votes the Nation in November will
declare for Hayes and Wheeler.*
  • This being a newspaper report, and never revised by the
    author, is of necessity incomplete, but the publisher feels
    that it should not be lost
