How do you get your money? By work. Where from? You have to dig it out of the ground. That is where it comes from. Men have always had a kind of hope that something could be made out of nothing. The old alchemists sought, with dim eyes, for something that could change the baser metals to gold. With tottering steps, they searched for the spring of Eternal Youth. Holding in trembling hands retort and crucible, they dreamed of the Elixir of Life. The baser metals are not gold. No human ear has ever heard the silver gurgle of the spring of Immortal Youth. The wrinkles upon the brow of Age are still waiting for the Elixir of Life.
Inspired by the same idea, mechanics have endeavored, by curious combinations of levers and inclined planes, of wheels and cranks and shifting weights, to produce perpetual motion; but the wheels and levers wait for force. And, in the financial world, there are thousands now trying to find some way for promises to take the place of performance; for some way to make the word dollar as good as the dollar itself; for some way to make the promise to pay a dollar take the dollar's place. This financial alchemy, this pecuniary perpetual motion, this fountain of eternal wealth, are the same old failures with new names. Something cannot be made out of nothing. Nothing is a poor capital to, carry on business with, and makes a very unsatisfactory balance at your bankers.
Let me tell you another thing. The Democrats seem to think that you can fail to keep a promise so long that it is as good as though you had kept it. They say you can stamp the sovereignty of the Government upon paper.
I saw not long ago a piece of gold bearing the stamp of the Roman Empire. That Empire is dust, and over it has been thrown the mantle of oblivion, but that piece of gold is as good as though Julius Cæsar were still riding at the head of the Roman Legions.
Was it his sovereignty that made it valuable? Suppose he had put it upon a piece of paper—it would have been of no more value than a Democratic promise.
Another thing, my friends: this debt will be paid; you need not worry about that. The Democrats ought to pay it. They lost the suit, and they ought to pay the costs. But we in our patriotism are willing to pay our share.
Every man that has a bond, every man that has a greenback dollar has a mortgage upon the best continent of land on earth. Every one has a mortgage on the honor of the Republican party, and it is on record. Every spear of grass; every bearded head of golden wheat that grows upon this continent is a guarantee that the debt will be paid; every field of bannered corn in the great, glorious West is a guarantee that the debt will be paid; every particle of coal laid away by that old miser the sun, millions-of years ago, is a guarantee that every dollar will be paid; all the iron ore, all the gold and silver under the snow-capped Sierra Nevadas, waiting for the miners pick to give back the flash of the sun, every ounce is a guarantee that this debt will be paid; and all the cattle on the prairies, pastures and plains which adorn our broad land are guarantees that this debt will be paid; every pine standing in the sombre forests of the North, waiting for the woodman's axe, is a guarantee that this debt will be paid; every locomotive with its muscles of iron and breath of flame, and all the boys and girls bending over their books at school, every dimpled babe in the cradle, every honest man, every noble woman, and every man that votes the Republican ticket is a guarantee that the debt will be paid—these, all these, each and all, are the guarantees that every promise of the United States will be sacredly fulfilled.
What is the next question? The next question is, will we protect the Union men in the South? I tell you the white Union men have suffered enough. It is a crime in the Southern States to be a Republican. It is a crime in every Southern State to love this country, to believe in the sacred rights of men.
The colored people have suffered enough. For more than two hundred years they have suffered the fabled torments of the damned; for more than two hundred years they worked and toiled without reward, bending, in the burning sun, their bleeding backs; for more than two hundred years, babes were torn from the breasts of mothers, wives from husbands, and every human tie broken by the cruel hand of greed; for more than two hundred years they were pursued by hounds, beaten with clubs, burned with fire, bound with chains; two hundred years of toil, of agony, of tears; two hundred years of hope deferred; two hundred years of gloom and shadow and darkness and blackness; two hundred years of supplication, of entreaty; two hundred years of infinite outrage, without a moment of revenge.
The colored people have suffered enough. They were and are our friends. They are the friends of this country, and, cost what it may, they must be protected.