Answer. Of course, I look at things through Republican eyes and may be prejudiced without knowing it. But it really seems to me that the future is full of great promise. The South, after all, is growing more prosperous. It is producing more and more every year, until in time it will become wealthy. The West is growing almost beyond the imagination of a speculator, and the Eastern and Middle States are much more than holding their own. We have now fifty millions of people and in a few years will have a hundred. That we are a Nation I think is now settled. Our growth will be unparalleled. I myself expect to live to see as many ships on the Pacific as on the Atlantic. In a few years there will probably be ten millions of people living along the Rocky and Sierra Mountains. It will not be long until Illinois will find her market west of her. In fifty years this will be the greatest nation on the earth, and the most populous in the civilized world. China is slowly awakening from the lethargy of centuries. It will soon have the wants of Europe, and America will supply those wants. This is a nation of inventors and there is more mechanical ingenuity in the United States than on the rest of the globe. In my judgment this country will in a short time add to its customers hundreds of millions of the people of the Celestial Empire. So you see, to me, the future is exceedingly bright. And besides all this, I must not forget the thing that is always nearest my heart. There is more intellectual liberty in the United States to-day than ever before. The people are beginning to see that every citizen ought to have the right to express himself freely upon every possible subject. In a little while, all the barbarous laws that now disgrace the statute books of the States by discriminating against a man simply because he is honest, will be repealed, and there will be one country where all citizens will have and enjoy not only equal rights, but all rights. Nothing gratifies me so much as the growth of intellectual liberty. After all, the true civilization is where every man gives to every other, every right that he claims for himself.
—The Post, Washington, D. C., November 14, 1880.
RELIGION IN POLITICS.
Question. How do you regard the present political situation?
Answer. My opinion is that the ideas the North fought for upon the field have at last triumphed at the ballot-box. For several years after the Rebellion was put down the Southern ideas traveled North. We lost West Virginia, New Jersey, Connecticut, New York and a great many congressional districts in other States. We lost both houses of Congress and every Southern State. The Southern ideas reached their climax in 1876. In my judgment the tide has turned, and hereafter the Northern idea is going South. The young men are on the Republican side. The old Democrats are dying. The cradle is beating the coffin. It is a case of life and death, and life is ahead. The heirs outnumber the administrators.
Question. What kind of a President will Garfield make?
Answer. My opinion is that he will make as good a President as this nation ever had. He is fully equipped. He is a trained statesman. He has discussed all the great questions that have arisen for the last eighteen years, and with great ability. He is a thorough scholar, a conscientious student, and takes an exceedingly comprehensive survey of all questions. He is genial, generous and candid, and has all the necessary qualities of heart and brain to make a great President. He has no prejudices. Prejudice is the child and flatterer of ignorance. He is firm, but not obstinate. The obstinate man wants his own way; the firm man stands by the right. Andrew Johnson was obstinate—Lincoln was firm.
Question. How do you think he will treat the South?