During the occupancy of his office as executive of the State, Governor Hayes, on a vast variety of occasions, was called upon to deliver speeches and addresses on all classes of subjects. These efforts are all admirable in their way, and give evidences of fine literary taste, great good judgment, and what Dickens called "a sense of the proprieties."
We can find space for portions only of a few of these addresses. In an address of welcome on the occasion of the great exposition of textile fabrics, held in Cincinnati, in August, 1869, the governor of Ohio said:
"We meet at a most auspicious period in our country's history. Our greeting and welcome to citizens of other States are 'without any mental reservation whatever.' It is plain that we are entering upon an era of good feeling, not known before in the life-time of the present generation. For almost half a century the great sectional bitterness which is now so rapidly and so happily disappearing, and which we know can never be revived, carried discord, division, and weakness into every enterprise requiring the united efforts of citizens of different States. Now the causes of strife have been swept away, and their last vestiges will soon be buried out of sight. Good men will no longer waste their strength in mutual crimination or recrimination about the past. The people of different sections of our country will hereafter be able to act, not merely with intelligence and energy, but with entire harmony and unity; in any enterprise which promises an increase of human welfare and human happiness.
"This association, then, is working in perfect accord with the spirit of the times. The development of new resources, the opening of new paths to skill and labor, the discovery of new methods, the invention of new machinery and implements, and the employment of capital in new and useful pursuits—these are the objects which associations like this aim to accomplish. All who encourage these things, and who desire to aid in such achievements, deserve a hearty welcome wherever they may go, and will, I assure you, always find it, as you do now, in the State of Ohio."
Soon after the death of Secretary Stanton, and near the beginning of the governor's second term, a meeting of members of the Ohio bar was held in the room of the Supreme Court of Ohio, to take action with reference to the loss of their former associate and friend. On this occasion Governor Hayes said:
"I shall not undertake to describe the life and character and services of Mr. Stanton. Few men—very few men—ever possessed such learning, such intellect, such energy, such courage, such will, such honesty, such patriotism, in one word, such manhood, as belonged to him. All of his great powers and qualities he gave to the performance of duty, and with them he gave also life itself.
"Our profession rejoices that Mr. Stanton was an eminent lawyer. Our State rejoices that he was her great son. Our country and our age may well rejoice that he lived in this age and in this country. The members of our profession, the people of our State and of the Nation, and all mankind do honor to themselves in striving to do honor to the memory of such a man as Edwin M. Stanton."
It can be readily understood why a robust, positive, hard-fighting soldier like Hayes, should so ardently give his admiration to a firm-sinewed, iron-nerved, masculine man like the great minister of war.
On the 13th of April, 1870, the colored people of Central Ohio celebrated the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment at an immense meeting held in the opera house in Columbus. Governor Hayes, as their chosen orator, delivered the following brief address, which seems the inspiration of one who has the logic of history in his head and humanity in his heart:
Fellow-citizens:—We celebrate to-night the final triumph of a righteous cause after a long, eventful, memorable struggle. The conflict which Mr. Seward pronounced "irrepressible" at last is ended. The house which was divided against itself, and which, therefore, according to Mr. Lincoln, could not stand as it was, is divided no longer; and we may now rationally hope that under Providence it is destined to stand—long to stand the home of freedom, and the refuge of the oppressed of every race and of every clime.