Our party has ever been the champion of freedom. We have made a specialty of freedom. We have ever been in the van. That's why we have been on the move. Where freedom a quarter of a century ago was but a mere name, now we have fostered it and aided it and encouraged it and made it pay.
We have emancipated a whole race, several of whom have since voted the other way. But we must not be discouraged. We are here to work. Let us do it and so advance our common cause and honor God.
But who is to be the leader? Who will be able to carry our victorious banner from Portland, Me., to Portland, Ore., gayly speaking pieces from the tail-gate of a train? Who is sufficiently obscure to safely make the race? (Cries of "Jeremiah M. Rusk," "Rudolph Minkins Pitler," "Blaine," "James Swartout," "John Sherman," "Charlie Kinney," &c.)
The eye of the nation is upon us. We cannot escape the awful responsibility which we have to-day assumed. With all our anxiety to please our friends we must not forget that we are here in the interests of universal freedom. Do not allow yourselves to be blinded, gentlemen, by the assurance that this is to be a businessman's campaign, a campaign in which conflicting business interests are to figure more than the late war. It is a fight involving universal freedom, as I said in our conventions four, eight and twelve years ago.
We have before us a pure and highly elocutionary platform. Let us nominate a man who will, as I may say, affilliate and amalgamate with that platform. Who is that man? (Cries of "Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine," "Lockwood, Lockwood, Belva A. Lockwood," and general confusion, during which John A. Wise is seen to jerk loose about a nickel's worth of Billy Mahone's whiskers.)
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the convention, there has never been a more harmonious convention in the United States to my knowledge since the Sioux massacre in Minnesota. We are all here for the best good of the party and each is willing to concede something rather than create any ill-feeling. Look at Mahone for instance.
We have a good platform, now let us nominate a man whose record is in harmony with that platform. Freedom has ever been our watchword. Now that we have made the human race within our borders absolutely free, let us add to our magnificent history as a party by one crowning act. Let us fight for the Emancipation of Rum!
Rum has always been a mighty power in American politics, but it has not been absolutely free. Let us be the first to recognize it as the great corner-stone of American institutions. Let us make it free.
We have never had any Daniel Websters or Henry Clays since rum went up from 20 cents a gallon to its present price. The war tax on whiskey for over twenty years has made freedom a farce and liberty a loud and empty snort in mid-air. 'Who, then, shall be our standard-bearer as we journey onward towards victory? (Cries of "Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine," and confusion.)
Gentlemen, I wish that a better and thrillinger orator had been selected in my place to name the candidate on whom alone I can unite. Soldiers, rail-splitters, statesmen, canal boys, tailors, farmers, merchants and school teachers have been Presidents of the United States, but to my knowledge no convention has ever yet named a distiller. I have the honor to-day to name a modest man for the high office of President; a man who never before allowed his name to be presented to a convention; a man who never even stated in the papers that his name would not be presented to the convention; a man who has never sought or courted publicity even in his own business; a man who has been a distiller in a quiet way for over fifteen years and yet has never even advertised in the papers; a man who has so carefully shunned the eye of the world that only two or three of us know where his place of business is; a man who has such an utter contempt for office that he has shot two Government officials who claimed to be connected with the internal revenue business; a man who can drink or let it alone, but who has aimed to divide the time up about equally between the two; a man who had absolutely nothing to do with the war, not having heard about it in time; a man who defies his culumniators or anybody else of his heft; a man who would paint the White House red; a man who takes great pleasure in being his own worst enemy. (Cries of "Name him! Name him!" Great confusion, and cries of pain from several harmonious delegates who are getting the worst of it.)