The same is true of what is called religious belief. I am willing to give all others every right that I claim for myself, and if they are not willing to give me the rights they claim for themselves, they are not civilized.
No man acknowledges the truth of my opinions because he votes the same ticket that I do, and I certainly do not acknowledge the correctness of the opinions of others because I vote the Republican ticket. We are Republicans together. Upon certain political questions we agree, upon other questions we disagree—and that is all. Only religious people, who have made up their minds to vote the Democratic ticket, will raise an objection of this kind, and they will raise the objection simply as a pretence, simply for the purpose of muddying the water while they escape.
Of course there may be some exceptions. There are a great many insane people out of asylums. If the Republican party does not stand for absolute intellectual liberty, it had better disband. And why should we take so much pains to free the body, and then enslave the mind? I believe in giving liberty to both. Give every man the right to labor, and give him the right to reap the harvest of his toil. Give every man the right to think, and to reap the harvest of his brain—that is to say, give him the right to express his thoughts.
—New York Press, July 8, 1888.
JAMES G. BLAINE AND POLITICS.
Question. I see that there has lately been published a long account of the relations between Mr. Blaine and yourself, and the reason given for your failure to support him for the nomination in 1884 and 1888?
Answer. Every little while some donkey writes a long article pretending to tell all that happened between Mr. Blaine and myself. I have never seen any article on the subject that contained any truth. They are always the invention of the writer or of somebody who told him. The last account is more than usually idiotic. An unpleasant word has never passed between Mr. Blaine and myself. We have never had any falling out. I never asked Mr. Blaine's influence for myself. I never asked President Hayes or Garfield or Arthur for any position whatever, and I have never asked Mr. Cleveland for any appointment under the civil service.
With regard to the German Mission, about which so much has been said, all that I ever did in regard to that was to call on Secretary Evarts and inform him that there was no place in the gift of the administration that I would accept. I could not afford to throw away a good many thousand dollars a year for the sake of an office. So I say again that I never asked, or dreamed of asking, any such favor of Mr. Blaine. The favors have been exactly the other way— from me, and not from him. So there is not the slightest truth in the charge that there was some difference between our families.