There was a feeling among Republicans of humiliation and shame that the people had placed in power the very men who waged war against the country for years, created a vast public debt, and destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. This feeling was intensified by the fact that Republicans in the south were ostracised and deprived of all political power or influence. In the Democratic party there were signs of dissension. Charges of corruption in Ohio, in the election of Payne as Senator in the place of Pendleton, were openly made, and the usual discontent as to appointments to office that follows a change of administration was manifest. Under these conditions I felt it to be my duty to take a more active part in the approaching canvass than ever before. On the 13th of August, I met at Columbus with Foraker and the state Republican committee, of which Asa S. Bushnell was chairman, and we prepared for a thorough canvass in each county, the distribution of documents and the holding of meetings. In addition to the state ticket there were to be elected members of the legislature. There was no contest as to the selection of a United States Senator, as, by general acquiescence, it was understood that if the legislature should be Democratic Thurman would be elected, and if it should be Republican I would be elected. Governor Foster, when spoken to upon this subject, very kindly said:
"As long as John Sherman desires to be Senator, or is willing to take the office, there is no use for me or any other man with senatorial aspirations to be a candidate against him. Sherman is yet young. He is not much over sixty, and it would be idle to dispute that he is the best equipped man in the Republican party in Ohio for that position. He has the learning, the ability, the experience, the popularity."
The organization of both parties was completed and a vigorous canvass inaugurated. Foraker soon after commenced a series of public meetings extending to nearly every county in the state, and everywhere made friends by his vigorous and eloquent speeches.
On the 18th I attended a pioneer picnic at Monroe, near the division line between the counties of Butler and Warren. This mode of reunion, mainly confined to farmers, is quite common in Ohio, and is by far the most pleasing and instructive popular assemblage held in that state. The discussion of politics is forbidden. The people of the country for miles around come in wagons, carriages, on horseback and on foot, men, women and children, with their baskets full of food and fruit, and gather in a well-shaded grove, in families or groups, and discuss the crops and the news, and make new or renew old acquaintance. When the scattered picnic is going on everyone who approaches is invited to eat. When the appetite is satisfied all gather around a temporary platform, and speeches, long and short, upon every topic but politics, are made. I have attended many such meetings and all with sincere pleasure. This particular picnic was notable for its large attendance—estimated to be over three thousand—and the beauty of the grove and the surrounding farms. I made an address, or rather talked, about the early times in Ohio, and especially in the Miami valley, a section which may well be regarded as among the fairest and most fruitful spots in the world. The substance of my speech was reported and published. The sketch I was able to give of incidents of Indian warfare, of the expeditions of St. Clair and Wayne, of the early settlement in that neighborhood, and of the ancestors, mainly Revolutionary soldiers, of hundreds of those who heard me, seemed to give great satisfaction. At the close of my remarks I was requested by the Pioneer Society to write them out for publication, to be kept as a memorial, but I never was able to do so.
On the 26th of August I made, at Mt. Gilead, Morrow county, my first political speech of the campaign. The people of that county were among my first constituents. More than thirty years before, in important and stirring times, I had appeared before them as a candidate for Congress. I referred to the early history of the Republican party and to the action of Lincoln and Grant in the prosecution of the war, and contrasted the opinion expressed of them by the Democratic party then and at the time of my speech. During the war our party was the "black abolition party," Lincoln was an "ape," Grant was a "butcher," and Union soldiers were "Lincoln hirelings." I said:
"Our adversaries now concede the wisdom and success of all prominent Republican measures, as well as the merits of the great leaders of the Republican party. Only a few days since I heard my colleague, Senator Payne, in addressing soldiers at Fremont, extol Lincoln and Grant in the highest terms of praise and say the war was worth all it cost and he thanked God that slavery had been abolished. Only recently, when the great procession conveyed the mortal remains of Grant to their resting place, I heard active Confederates extol him in the highest terms of praise and some of them frankly gloried in the success of Republican measures, and, especially, in the abolition of slavery."
I said that the Republican party, within six years after its organization, overthrew the powerful dominant Democratic party, and for twenty-four years afterwards conducted the operations of a great government in war and peace, with such success as to win the support and acquiescence of its enemies, and could fairly claim to be worthy of the confidence and support of the great body of the people. The defection of a few men in three Republican states had raised our old adversaries to power again in the national government. I continued:
"Some of the very men who boastfully threatened to break up the Union, and, with the oath of office in support of the constitution fresh upon their lips, conspired and confederated to overthrow it, waged war against it, and were the cause of the loss of half a million of lives and thousands of millions of treasure, have been placed in high office again, in the very seats of power which they abandoned with scorn and defiance. Two members of the Confederate congress, and one man who sympathized with them, are at the head of great departments of the government. I saw the Union flag at half-mast, floating over the interior department in sign of honor and mourning for the death of Jacob Thompson, whom we regarded as a defaulter and a conspirator. This country is now represented abroad by men, who, within twenty-five years, were in arms to overthrow it, and the governing power in the executive branch of the government is in sympathy with the ideas of, and selects the chief officers of the government from, the men who were in war against it. This strange turn in events has but one example in history, and that was the restoration of Charles II, after the brilliant but brief Protectorate of Cromwell, and, like that restoration, is a reproach to the civilization of the age."
I referred to the "solid south," and the means by which it was held together in political fellowship by crimes, violence and fraud which, if continued, would as surely renew all the strifes of the Civil War as that the sun would roll around in its course.
In referring to the Republican party and its liberality I said: