I am a Republican because the Republican party advocates the protection of American industries and labor; because it is the party of school-houses, of education, of social order, of liberty regulated by law; and because it is a party that has never feared to attack vice, however strongly entrenched it might be.
I am a Republican because the Republican party would be ashamed to prefer a Northern Copperhead to a Union soldier.
I am a Republican because the Republican party does not, for expediency’s sake, ignore its greatest and bravest advocates and statesmen, while it sits upon a pedestal, like a Gessler’s hat in the market-place, a preposterous political accident, who had lived throughout the tremendous events of the past quarter of a century, utterly unknown outside of the small place wherein he resided.
The Republican party has enriched the history of the age with a long list of imperishable names, and among them all no one shines with a more brilliant luster than that of its brave and glorious leader in the late campaign, James G. Blaine.
Is it strange, then, that even in the midst of our rejoicing over our victory in Kansas my heart turns to the man who should have been the central thought and figure of this jubilee—to the defeated leader—but still the leader of the Republican hosts, as much to-day as a month ago; to the Greatheart of the party, who never sulked in his tent when others were preferred; and who never treacherously stabbed his party in order to defeat a political rival.
There are to-day, all over the land, men who proudly boast that they voted for Henry Clay, who, in his day and generation, was the greatest, bravest and noblest of American statesmen, and who will be remembered and revered a thousand years after the eleventh President of the United States is forgotten. And so, a quarter of a century hence, the young Americans who this year cast their first votes for James G. Blaine and John A. Logan, the greatest statesman and the greatest volunteer soldier of this age, will boast of it as the proudest act of their lives.
The great West presented, in the contest just closed, a stainless record of unfaltering devotion to Republican principles. Here in the West, the land of freedom and loyalty, the home of school-houses and of soldiers, the Republican candidates received a support that was as enthusiastic as it was overwhelming. The best blood and brain and energy of America abide in the West. It is the bright boy of the family who leaves the old homestead to make a name and a fortune for himself. It is the mother of bright and energetic children who, when her husband talks of removing to a new and broader country, gives a brave and willing consent. These are the men and women who have peopled this goodly Western land and transformed it by the magic touch of industry, energy and intelligence into the granary of the world. And this is the land, the broad, rich, prosperous land, where a big-hearted, big-brained people gave the greatest and most brilliant of living Americans his largest and heartiest support. We can at least rejoice over this result of the campaign, and point with pride to the fact that Kansas, in her Republican majority, leads all the other States.
The Republican party has lost a battle. It lost some during the civil war. It is neither disheartened, dismayed, nor panic-stricken. It will rally its forces, form its lines, and prepare for the contest of 1888. It embraces within its ranks the best heart and brain of the American people. It is the party of proud memories and glorious aspirations. It has never done anything it has to apologize for or feel ashamed of. It has governed the country wisely, honestly, bravely. It is as great a party to-day as it was when Abraham Lincoln led it to victory, or when Ulysses S. Grant was its commander, or when James A. Garfield was its chosen candidate. Alike in fields of war, or finance, or administration, it has justified the highest expectations of the loyalty, the honesty and the intelligence of the Nation. Pharisees revile, demagogues denounce, cranks rail at, and traitors hate it. But it is the party of the honest, sensible, practical, logical people of the country, and to them it can safely trust for vindication and final victory. Four years of Democratic stupidity, dishonesty, arrogance and disloyalty, will nauseate the Republic, and the people will turn to the Republican party as the needle does to the pole, and gladly and proudly restore it to the public confidence it has done nothing to forfeit, and to the power it has never abused.
FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
Inaugural Address, delivered in the Hall of the House of Representatives, January 12, 1885.