PREJUDICE AND INVENTION.
The partisans of Reëlection, resorting to prejudice and invention, insist, first, that the Democratic party, which has adopted as its candidate an original Republican on a Republican platform, will prove untrue, and, secondly, that the candidate himself will prove untrue,—as if the Democratic party were not bound now to the very principles declared at Philadelphia, without the viscous alloy of Grantism, and as if the life and character of the candidate were not a sufficient answer to any such slander.
ADHESION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
Evidently there are individuals, calling themselves Democrats, who feel little sympathy with the movement, and there are others who insist upon the old hates, whether towards the North or towards the freedman. Unhappily, this is only according to human nature. It must be so. Therefore, though pained in feeling, my trust is not disturbed by sporadic cases cited in newspapers, or by local incidents. This is clear: in spite of politicians, and against their earnest efforts, the people represented in the Democratic Convention adopted a Republican nomination and platform. Baltimore answered to Cincinnati. A popular uprising, stirred by irresistible instinct, triumphed over all resistance. The people were wiser than their leaders,—illustrating again the saying of the French statesman, so experienced in human affairs, that above the wisdom of any individual, however great, is the wisdom of all. But this testifies to that Providence which shapes our ends:
“So Providence for us, high, infinite,
Makes our necessities its watchful task.”
Plainly in recent events there has been a presiding influence against which all machinations have been powerless. Had the Convention at Philadelphia nominated a good Republican, truly representing Republican principles without drawback, there is no reason to believe that Horace Greeley would have been a candidate. The persistence for President Grant dissolved original bonds, and gave practical opportunity to the present movement. The longing for peace, which in existing antagonisms of party was without effective expression, at last found free course.
Accordingly the original Republican who had announced himself ready to “clasp hands” in peace was accepted on a Republican platform, declaring support of the three Constitutional amendments, and placing in the foreground the great truth that all men are equal before the law. Such is the historic fact. That the party will be disloyal to this act, that it will turn its back on its covenants, and seek through a Republican President to reverse these safeguards, or in any way impair their efficacy, is not only without probability, but to imagine it is absolutely absurd.