I have always said, and I say again, that the more liberty there is given away, the more you have. I endeavor to be consistent in my life and action. I am a believer in intellectual liberty, and wherever the torch of knowledge burns the whole horizon is filled with a glorious halo. I am a free man. I would be less than a man if I did not wish to hand this flame to my child with the flame increased rather than diminished.
Whom will we trust to take care of free speech? Let us consider and be honest with one another. The gem of the brain is the innocence of the soul.
I am not only in favor of free speech, but I am also in favor of an absolutely honest ballot. There is only one emperor in this country; there is one czar; only one supreme crown and king, and that is the will, the legally expressed will of the majority. Every American citizen is a sovereign. The poorest and humblest may wear that crown, the beggar holds in his hand that sceptre equally with the proudest and richest, and so far as his sovereignty is concerned, the poorest American, he who earns but one dollar a day, has the same voice in controlling the destiny of the United States as the millionaire. The man who casts an illegal vote, the man who refuses to count a legal vote, poisons the fountain of power, poisons the springs of justice, and is a traitor to the only king in this land. The Government is upon the edge of Mexicanization through fraudulent voting. The ballot-box is the throne of America; the ballot-box is the ark of the covenant. Unless we see to it that every man who has a right to vote, votes, and unless we see to it that every honest vote is counted, the days of this Republic are numbered.
When you suspect that a Congressman is not elected; when you suspect that a judge upon the bench holds his place by fraud, then the people will hold the law in contempt and will laugh at the decisions of courts, and then come revolution and chaos.
It is the duty of every good man to see to it that the ballot-box is kept absolutely pure. It is the duty of every patriot, whether he is a Democrat or Republican—and I want further to admit that I believe a large majority of Democrats are honest in their opinions, and I know that all Republicans must be honest in their opinions. It is the duty, then, of all honest men of both parties to see to it that only honest votes are cast and counted. Now, honor bright, which section of this Union can you trust the ballot-box with?
Do you wish to trust Louisiana, or do you wish to trust Alabama that gave, in 1872, thirty-four thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight Republican majority and now gives ninety-two thousand Democratic majority? And of that ninety-two thousand majority, every one is a lie! A contemptible, infamous lie! Because if every voter had been allowed to vote, there would have been forty thousand Republican majority. Honor bright, can you trust it with the masked murderers who rode in the darkness of night to the hut of the freedman and shot him down, notwithstanding the supplication of his wife and the tears of his babe? Can you trust it to the men who since the close of our war have killed more men, simply because those men wished to vote, simply because they wished to exercise a right with which they had been clothed by the sublime heroism of the North—who have killed more men than were killed on both sides in the Revolutionary war; than were killed on both sides during the War of 1812; than were killed on both sides in both wars? Can you trust them? Can you trust the gentlemen who invented the tissue ballot? Do you wish to put the ballot-box in the keeping of the shot-gun, of the White-Liners, of the Ku Klux? Do you wish to put the ballot-box in the keeping of men who openly swear that they will not be ruled by a majority of American citizens if a portion of that majority is made of black men? And I want to tell you right here, I like a black man who loves this country better than I do a white man who hates it. I think more of a black man who fought for our flag than for any white man who endeavored to tear it out of heaven!
I say, can you trust the ballot-box to the Democratic party? Read the history of the State of New York. Read the history of this great and magnificent city—the Queen of the Atlantic—read her history and tell us whether you can implicitly trust Democratic returns? Honor bright!
I am not only, then, for free speech, but I am for an honest ballot; and in order that you may have no doubt left upon your minds as to which party is in favor of an honest vote, I will call your attention to this striking fact. Every law that has been passed in every State of this Union for twenty long years, the object of which was to guard the American ballot-box, has been passed by the Republican party, and in every State where the Republican party has introduced such a bill for the purpose of making it a law; in every State where such a bill has been defeated, it has been defeated by the Democratic party. That ought to satisfy any reasonable man to satiety.
I am not only in favor of free speech and an honest ballot, but I am in favor of collecting and disbursing the revenues of the United States. I want plenty of money to collect and pay the interest on our debt. I want plenty of money to pay our debt and to preserve the financial honor of the United States. I want money enough to be collected to pay pensions to widows and orphans and to wounded soldiers. And the question is, which section in this country can you trust to collect and disburse that revenue? Let us be honest about it. Which section can you trust? In the last four years we have collected four hundred and sixty-eight million dollars of the internal revenue taxes. We have collected principally from taxes upon high wines and tobacco, four hundred and sixty-eight million dollars, and in those four years we have seized, libeled and destroyed in the Southern States three thousand eight hundred and seventy-four illicit distilleries. And during the same time the Southern people have shot to death twenty-five revenue officers and wounded fifty-five others, and the only offence that the wounded and dead committed was an honest effort to collect the revenues of this country. Recollect it—don't you forget it. And in several Southern States to-day every revenue collector or officer connected with the revenue is furnished by the Internal Revenue Department with a breech-loading rifle and a pair of revolvers, simply for the purpose of collecting the revenue.
I don't feel like trusting such people to collect the revenue of my Government.