And it is the first party that had the sense to say, "What air is to the lungs, what light is to the eyes, what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man." The Republican party is the first party that ever was in favor of absolute free labor, the first party in favor of giving to every man, without distinction of race or color, the fruits of the labor of his hands. The Republican party said, "Free labor will give us wealth, free thought will give us truth." The Republican party is the first party that said to every man, "Think for yourself, and express that thought." I am a free man. I belong to the Republican party. This is a free country. I will think my thought. I will speak my thought or die. I say the Republican party is for free labor.
Free labor has invented all the machines that ever added to the power, added to the wealth, added to the leisure, added to the civilization of mankind. Every convenience, everything of use, everything of beauty in the world, we owe to free labor and to free thought. Free labor, free thought!
Science took the thunderbolt from the gods, and in the electric spark, freedom, with thought, with intelligence and with love, sweeps under all the waves of the sea; science, free thought, took a tear from the cheek of unpaid labor, converted it into steam, and created the giant that turns, with tireless arms, the countless wheels of toil.
The Republican party, I say, believes in free labor. Every solitary thing, every solitary improvement made in the United States has been made by the Republican party. Every reform accomplished was inaugurated, and was accomplished by the great, grand, glorious Republican party.
The Republican party does not say: "Let bygones be bygones." The Republican party is proud of the past and confident of the future. The Republican party brings its record before you and implores you to read every page, every paragraph, every line and every shining word. On the first page you will find it written: "Slavery has cursed American soil long enough;" on the same page you will find it written: "Slavery shall go no farther." On the same page you will find it written: "The bloodhounds shall not drip their gore upon another inch of American soil." On the second page you will find it written: "This is a Nation, not a Confederacy; every State belongs to every citizen, and no State has a right to take territory belonging to any citizens in the United States and set up a separate Government." On the third page you will find the grandest declaration ever made in this country: "Slavery shall be extirpated from the American soil." On the next page: "The Rebellion shall be put down." On the next page: "The Rebellion has been put down." On the next page: "Slavery has been extirpated from the American soil." On the next page: "The freedmen shall not be vagrants; they shall be citizens." On the next page: "They are citizens." On the next page: "The ballot shall be put in their hands;" and now we will write on the next page: "Every citizen that has a ballot in his hand, by the gods! shall have a right to cast that ballot." That in short, that in brief, is the history of the Republican party. The Republican party says, and it means what it says: "This shall be a free country forever; every man in it twenty-one years of age shall have the right to vote for the Government of his choice, and if any man endeavors to interfere with that right, the Government of the United States will see to it that the right of every American citizen is protected at the polls."
Now, my friends, there is one thing that troubles the average Democrat, and that is the idea that somehow, in some way, the negro will get to be the better man. It is the trouble in the South to-day. And I say to my Southern friends (and I admit that there are a great many good men in the South, but the bad men are in an overwhelming majority; the great mass of the population is vicious, violent, virulent and malignant; the great mass of the population is cruel, revengeful, idle, hateful,) and I tell that population: "If you do not go to work, the negro, by his patient industry, will pass you." In the long run, the nation that is honest, the people who are industrious, will pass the people who are dishonest, and the people who are idle, no matter how grand an ancestry they may have had, and so I say, Mr. Northern Democrat, look out!
The superior man is the man that loves his fellow-man; the superior man is the useful man; the superior man is the kind man, the man who lifts up his down-trodden brothers; and the greater the load of human sorrow and human want you can get in your arms, the easier you can climb the great hill of fame. The superior man is the man who loves his fellow-man. And let me say right here, the good men, the superior men, the grand men are brothers the world over, no matter what their complexion may be; centuries may separate them, yet they are hand in hand; and all the good, and all the grand, and all the superior men, shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart, are fighting the great battle for the progress of mankind.
I pity the man, I execrate and hate the man who has only to boast that he is white. Whenever I am reduced to that necessity, I believe shame will make me red instead of white. I believe another thing. If I cannot hoe my row, I will not steal corn from the fellow that hoes his row. If I belong to the superior race, I will be so superior that I can make my living without stealing from the inferior. I am perfectly willing that any Democrat in the world that can, shall pass me. I have never seen one yet, except when I looked over my shoulder. But if they can pass I shall be delighted.
Whenever we stand in the presence of genius, we take off our hats. Whenever we stand in the presence of the great, we do involuntary homage in spite of ourselves. Any one who can go by is welcome, any one in the world; but until somebody does go by, of the Democratic persuasion, I shall not trouble myself about the fact that may be, in some future time, they may get by. The Democrats are afraid of being passed, because they are being passed.
No man ever was, no man ever will be, the superior of the man whom he robs. No man ever was, no man ever will be, the superior of the man he steals from. I had rather be a slave than a slave-master. I had rather be stolen from than be a thief. I had rather be the wronged than the wrong-doer. And allow me to say again to impress it forever upon every man that hears me, you will always be the inferior of the man you wrong. Every race is inferior to the race it tramples upon and robs. There never was a man that could trample upon human rights and be superior to the man upon whom he trampled. And let me say another thing: No government can stand upon the crushed rights of one single human being; and any compromise that we make with the South, if we make it at the expense of our friends, will carry in its own bosom the seeds of its own death and destruction, and cannot stand. A government founded upon anything except liberty and justice cannot and ought not to stand. All the wrecks on either side of the stream of time, all the wrecks of the great cities and nations that have passed away—all are a warning that no nation founded upon injustice can stand. From sand-enshrouded Egypt, from the marble wilderness of Athens, from every fallen, crumbling stone of the once mighty Rome, comes as it were a wail, comes as it were the cry, "No nation founded upon injustice can permanently stand." We must found this Nation anew. We must fight our fight. We must cling to our old party until there is freedom of speech in every part of the United States. We must cling to the old party until I can speak in every State of the South as every Southerner can speak in every State of the North. We must vote the grand old Republican ticket until there is the same liberty in every Southern State that there is in every Northern, Eastern and Western State. We must stand by the party until every Southern man will admit that this country belongs to every citizen of the United States as much as to the man that is born in that country. One more thing. I do not want any man that ever fought for this country to vote the Democratic ticket. You will swap your respectability for disgrace. There are thousands of you—great, grand, splendid men—that have fought grandly for this Union, and now I beseech of you, I beg of you, do not give respectability to the enemies and haters of your country. Do not do it. Do not vote with the Democratic party, of the North. Sometimes I think a rebel sympathizer in the North worse than a rebel, and I will tell you why. The rebel was carried into the rebellion by public opinion at home,—his father, his mother, his sweetheart, his brother, and everybody he knew; and there was a kind of wind, a kind of tornado, a kind of whirlwind that took him into the army. He went on the rebel side with his State. The Northern Democrat went against his own State; went against his own Government; and went against public opinion at home. The Northern Democrat rowed up stream against wind and tide. The Southern rebel went with the current; the Northern rebel rowed against the current from pure, simple cussedness.