"If it shall turn out that the party in power are opposed to a sound, safe, stable currency, I have no doubt that in October the people will make a change. If it shall turn out that the party in power were guilty of gross corruption in the legislative department, and that when that corruption was exposed the majority shielded those who were implicated, I have no doubt the people will make a change. If it shall turn out that the party in power yielded to the dictation of an ecclesiastical sect, and through fear of a threatened loss of votes and power has suffered itself to be domineered over in its exercise of the law-making power, there ought to be, as I doubt not there will be, a great change. If it shall turn out that the party in power is dangerously allied to any body of men who are opposed to our free schools, and have proclaimed undying hostility to our educational system, then I doubt not the people will make a change in the administration."
The convention which nominated Hayes had adopted some sensible resolutions. It declared, first, that:
"The United States are one as a Nation, and all citizens are equal under the laws, and entitled to their fullest protection.
"Third. We are in favor of a tariff for revenue with incidental protection to American industry.
"Fourth. We stand by free education, our public school system, the taxation of all for its support, and no division of the school fund.
"Eleventh. The observance of Washington's example in retiring at the close of a second presidential term will be in the future, as it has been in the past, regarded as a fundamental rule in the unwritten law of the Republic."
The Democratic State Convention met on the 17th of June, and was presided over by Judge Rufus P. Ranney. It renominated Governor Allen by acclamation and a rising vote amidst great cheering.
The governor delivered an intemperate speech upon the occasion, in which his denunciation was about equally divided between the old alien and sedition laws and Grant's administration. Samuel F. Cary, nominated for lieutenant-governor, made a loud speech. Pendleton, Ewing, Thurman, Allen, and Cary spoke at the ratification meeting in the evening.
The platform contained the sound proposition that the president's services should be limited to one term, thereby endorsing a material part of Governor Hayes' letter of acceptance in advance. It also contained what some have called the rascally, others the asinine propositions that the volume of currency should be made and kept equal to the wants of trade; that all National Bank circulation should be promptly and permanently retired, and legal tenders be issued in their stead, and that the payment of at least one-half of the customs should be in legal tenders.
Senator Thurman, much to the surprise of his eastern friends, acquiesced in, or at least failed to denounce this inflation platform. He forgot the proverb that it is the bold man who wins. Had he made a ringing, thirty-minutes, hard-money speech on the occasion, no power on the continent could probably have kept him out of the White House. This was the day of his destiny, but the day of his destiny is over.