Could we have safely trusted that party in 1864, when, in convention assembled, it declared the war a failure, and wished to give up the contest at a moment when universal victory was within the grasp of the Republic? Had the people put that party in power then, there would have been a Southern Confederacy to-day, and upon the limbs of four million people the chains of slavery would still have clanked. Is there one man present who, to-day, regrets that the Vallandigham Democracy of 1864 was spurned and beaten by the American people? Is there one man present who, to-day, regrets the utter defeat of that mixture of slavery, malice and meanness, called the Democratic party, in 1864?
Could we have safely trusted that party in 1868?
At that time the Democracy of the South was trying to humble and frighten the colored people or exterminate them. These inoffensive colored people were shot down without provocation, without mercy. The white Democrats were as relentless as fiends. They killed simply to kill. They murdered these helpless people, thinking that they were in some blind way getting their revenge upon the people of the North. No tongue can exaggerate the cruelties practiced upon the helpless freedmen of the South. These white Democrats had been reared amid and by slavery. Slavery knows no such thing as justice, no such thing as mercy. Slavery does not dream of governing by reason, by argument or persuasion. Slavery depends upon force, upon the bowie-knife, the revolver, the whip, the chain and the bloodhound. The white Democrats of the South had been reared amid slavery; they cared nothing for reason; they knew of but one thing to be used when there was a difference of opinion or a conflict of interest, and that was brute force. It never occurred to them to educate, to inform, and to reason. It was easier to shoot than to reason; it was quicker to stab than to argue; cheaper to kill than to educate. A grave costs less than a schoolhouse; bullets were cheaper than books; and one knife could stab more than forty schools could convert.
They could not bear to see the negro free—to see the former slave trampling on his old chains, holding a ballot in his hand. They could not endure the sight of a negro in office. It was gall and wormwood to think of a slave occupying a seat in Congress; to think of a negro giving his ideas about the political questions of the day. And so these white Democrats made up their minds that by a reign of terrorism they would drive the negro from the polls, drive him from all official positions, and put him back in reality in the old condition. To accomplish this they commenced a system of murder, of assassination, of robbery, theft, and plunder, never before equaled in extent and atrocity. All this was in its height when in 1868 the Democracy asked the control of this Government.
Is there a man here who in his heart regrets that the Democrats failed in 1868? Do you wish that the masked murderers who rode in the darkness of night to the hut of the freedman and shot him down like a wild beast, regardless of the prayers and tears of wife and children, were now holding positions of honor and trust in this Government? Are you sorry that these assassins were defeated in 1868?
In 1872 the Democratic party, bent upon victory, greedy for office, with itching palms and empty pockets, threw away all principle—if Democratic doctrines can be called principles—and nominated a life-long enemy of their party for President. No one doubted or doubts the loyalty and integrity of Horace Greeley. But all knew that if elected he would belong to the party electing him; that he would have to use Democrats as his agents, and all knew, or at least feared, that the agents would own and use the principal. All believed that in the malicious clutch of the Democratic party Horace Greeley would be not a President, but a prisoner—not a ruler, but a victim. Against that grand man I have nothing to say. I simply congratulate him upon his escape from being used as a false key by the Democratic party.
During all these years the Democratic party prophesied the destruction of the Government, the destruction of the Constitution, and the banishment of liberty from American soil.
In 1864 that party declared that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, there should be a cessation of hostilities. They then declared "that the Constitution had been violated in every part, and that public liberty and private rights had been trodden down."
And yet the Constitution remained and still remains; public liberty still exists, and private rights are still respected.
In 1868, growing more desperate, and being still filled with the spirit of prophecy, this same party in its platform said: "Under the repeated assaults of the Republican party, the pillars of the Government are rocking on their base, and should it succeed in November next, and inaugurate its President, we will meet as a subjected and conquered people, amid the ruins of liberty and the scattered fragments of the Constitution."