The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Complete Contents / Dresden Edition—Twelve Volumes

by Robert Green Ingersoll

James Buchanan was then President. James Buchanan read the Constitution of the United States, or a part of it, and read several platforms made by the Democratic party, and gave it as his deliberate opinion that a State had a right to go out of the Union. He gave it as his deliberate opinion that this was a Confederacy and not a Nation, and when he said that, there was another little, dried up, old bachelor sitting over in the amen corner of the political meeting and he squeaked out: "That is my opinion too," and the name of that man was Samuel J. Tilden.

The Democratic party then and now says that the Union is simply a Confederacy; but I want this country to be a Nation. I want to live in a great and splendid country. A great nation makes a great people. Your surroundings have something to do with it. Great plains, magnificent rivers, great ranges of mountains, a country washed by two oceans—all these things make us great and grand as the continent on which we live. The war commenced, and the moment the war commenced the whole country was divided into two parties. No matter what they had been before, whether Democrats, Freesoilers, Republicans, old Whigs, or Abolitionists—the whole country divided into two parties—the friends and enemies of the country—patriots and traitors, and they so continued until the Rebellion was put down. I cheerfully admit that thousands of Democrats went into the army, and that thousands of Democrats were patriotic men. I cheerfully admit that thousands of them thought more of their country than they did of the Democratic party, and they came with us to fight for the country, and I honor every one of them from the bottom of my heart, and nineteen out of twenty of them have voted the Republican ticket from that day to this. Some of them came back and went to the Democratic party again and are still in that party; I have not a word to say against them, only this: They are swapping off respectability for disgrace. They give to the Democratic party all the respectability it has, and the Democratic party gives to them all the disgrace they have.

Democratic soldier, come out of the Democratic party. There was a man in my State got mad at the railroad and would not ship his hogs on it, so he drove them to Chicago, and it took him so long to get them there that the price had fallen; when he came back, they laughed at him, and said to him, "You didn't make much, did you, driving your hogs to Chicago?" "No," he said, "I didn't make anything except the company of the hogs on the way." Soldier of the Republic, I say, with the Democratic party all you can make is the company of the hogs on the way down. Come out, come out and leave them alone in their putridity—in their rottenness. Leave them alone. Do not try to put a new patch on an old garment. Leave them alone. I tell you the Democratic party must be left alone; it must be left to enjoy the primal curse, "On thy belly shalt thou crawl and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life," O Democratic party.

Now, my friends, I need not tell you how we put down the Rebellion. You all know. I need not describe to you the battles you fought. I need not tell you of the men who sacrificed their lives. I need not tell you of the old men who are still waiting for footsteps that never will return. I need not tell you of the women who are waiting for the return of their loved ones. I need not tell you of all these things. You know we put down the Rebellion; we fought until the old flag triumphed over every inch of American soil redeemed from the clutch of treason.

Now, my friends, what was the Democratic party doing when the Republican party was doing these splendid things? When, the Republican party said this was a nation; when the Republican party said we shall be free; when the Republican party said slavery shall be extirpated from American soil; when the Republican party said the negro shall be a citizen, and the citizen shall have the ballot, and the citizen shall have the right to cast that ballot for the government of his choice peaceably—what was the Democratic party doing?

I will tell you a few things that the Democratic party has done within the last sixteen years. In the first place, they were not willing that this country should be saved unless slavery could be saved with it. There never was a Democrat, North or South—and by Democrat I mean the fellows who stuck to the party all during the war, the ones that stuck to the party after it was a disgrace; the ones that stuck to the party from simple, pure cussedness—there never was one who did not think more of the institution of slavery than he did of the Government of the United States; not one that I ever saw or read of. And so they said to us for all those years: "If you can save the Union with slavery, and without any help from us, we are willing you should do it; but we do not propose that this shall be an abolition war." So the Democratic party from the first said, "An effort to preserve this Union is unconstitutional," and they made a breastwork of the Constitution for rebels to get behind and shoot down loyal men, so that the first charge I lay at the feet of the Democratic party, the first charge I make in the indictment, is that they thought more of slavery than of liberty and of this Union, and in my judgment they are in the same condition this moment. The next thing they did was to discourage enlistments in the North. They did all in their power to prevent any man's going into the army to assist in putting down the Rebellion. And that grand reformer and statesman, Samuel J. Tilden, gave it as his opinion that the South could sue, and that every soldier who put his foot on sacred Southern soil would be a trespasser, and could be sued before a Justice of the Peace. The Democratic party met in their conventions in every State North, and denounced the war as an abolition war, and Abraham Lincoln as a tyrant. What more did they do? They went into partnership with the rebels. They said to the rebels just as plainly as though they had spoken it: "Hold on, hold out, hold hard, fight hard, until we get the political possession of the North, and then you can go in peace."

What more? A man by the name of Jacob Thompson—a nice man and a good Democrat, who thinks that of all the men to reform the Government Samuel J. Tilden is the best man—Jacob Thompson had the misfortune to be a very vigorous Democrat, and I will show you what I mean by that. A Democrat during the war who had a musket—you understand, a musket—he was a rebel, and during the war a rebel that did not have a musket was a Democrat. I call Mr. Thompson a vigorous Democrat, because he had a musket. Jacob Thompson was the rebel agent in Canada, and when he went there he took between six and seven hundred thousand dollars for the purpose of co-operating with the Northern Democracy. He got himself acquainted with and in connection with the Democratic party in Ohio, in Indiana, and in Illinois. The vigorous Democrats, the real Democrats, in these States had organized themselves under the heads of "Sons of Liberty," "Knights of the Golden Circle," "Order of the Star," and various other beautiful names, and their object was to release rebel prisoners from Camp Chase, Camp Douglass in Chicago, and from one camp in Indianapolis and another camp at Rock Island. Their object was to raise a fire in the rear, as they called it—in other words, to burn down the homes of Union soldiers while they were in the front fighting for the honor of their country. That was their object, and they put themselves in connection with Jacob Thompson. They were to have an uprising on the 16th of August, 1864. It was thought best to hold a few public meetings for the purpose of arousing the public mind. They held the first meeting in the city of Peoria, where I live. That was August 3rd, 1864. Here they came from every part of the State, and were addressed by the principal Democratic politicians in Illinois.

To that meeting Fernando Wood addressed a letter, in which he said that although absent in body he should be present in spirit. George Pendleton of Ohio, George Pugh of the same State, Seymour of Connecticut, and various other Democratic gentlemen, sent acknowledgments and expressions of regret to this Democratic meeting that met at this time for the purpose of organizing an uprising among the Democratic party. I saw that meeting, and heard some of their speeches. They denounced the war as an abolition nigger war. They denounced Abraham Lincoln as a tyrant. They carried transparencies that said, "Is there money enough in the land to pay this nigger debt? Arouse, brothers, and hurl the tyrant Lincoln from the throne." And the men that promulgated that very thing are running for the most important political offices in the country, on the ground of honesty and reform. And Jacob Thompson says that he furnished the money to pay the expenses of that Democratic meeting. They were all paid by rebel gold, by Jacob Thompson. He has on file the voucher from these Democratic gentlemen in favor of Tilden and Hendricks. The next meetings were held in Springfield, Illinois, and Indianapolis, Indiana, the expenses of which were paid in the same way. They shipped to one town these weapons of our destruction in boxes labeled Sunday school books!

That same rebel agent, Jacob Thompson, hired a Democrat by the name of Churchill to burn the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Thompson coolly remarked: "I don't think he has had much luck, as I have only heard of a few fires."

In Indianapolis a man named Dodds was arrested—a sound Democrat—so sound that the Government had to take him by the nape of the neck and put him in Fort Lafayette. The convention of Democrats then met in the city of Chicago, and declared the war a failure. There never was a more infamous lie on this earth than when the Democratic convention declared in 1864 that the war was a failure. It was but a few days afterward that the roar of Grants cannon announced that a lie. Rise from your graves, Union soldiers, one and all, that fell in support of your country—rise from your graves, and lift your skeleton hands on high, and swear that when the Democratic party resolved that the war for the preservation of your country was a failure, that the Democratic party was a vast aggregated liar. Well, we grew magnanimous, and let Dodds out of Fort Lafayette; and where do you suppose Dodds is now? He is in Wisconsin. What do you suppose Dodds is doing? Making speeches. Whom for? Tilden and Hendricks—"Honesty and reform!" This same Jacob Thompson, Democrat, hired men to burn New York, and they did set fire in some twenty places, and they used Greek fire, as he said in his letter, and ingenuously adds: "I shall never hereafter advise the use of Greek fire." They knew that in the smoke and ruins would be found the charred remains of mothers and children, and that the flames leaping like serpents would take the child from the mothers arms, and they were ready to do it to preserve the infamous institution of slavery; and the Democratic party has never objected to it from that day to this. They burned steamboats, and many men with them, and the hounds that did it are skulking in the woods of Missouri. While these things were going on, Democrats in the highest positions said: "Not one cent to prosecute the war."