LADIES and Gentlemen:—Democrats and Republicans have a common interest in the United States. We have a common interest in the preservation of good order. We have a common interest in the preservation of a common country. And I appeal to all, Democrats and Republicans, to endeavor to make a conscientious choice; to endeavor to select as President and Vice-President of the United States the men and the parties, which, in your judgment, will best preserve this nation, and preserve all that is dear to us either as Republicans or Democrats.
The Democratic party comes before you and asks that you will give this Government into its hands; and you have a right to investigate as to the reputation and character of the Democratic organization. The Democratic party says, "Let bygones be bygones." I never knew a man who did a decent action that wanted it forgotten. I never knew a man who did some great and shining act of self-sacrifice and heroic devotion who did not wish that act remembered. Not only so, but he expected his loving children would chisel the remembrance of it upon the marble that marked his last resting place. But whenever a man does an infamous thing; whenever a man commits some crime; whenever a man does that which mantles the cheeks of his children with shame; he is the man that says, "Let bygones be bygones." The Democratic party admits that it has a record, but it says that any man that will look into it, any man that will tell it, is not a gentleman. I do not know whether, according to the Democratic standard, I am a gentleman or not; but I do say that in a certain sense I am one of the historians of the Democratic party.
I do not know that it is true that a man cannot give this record and be a gentleman, but I admit that a gentleman hates to read this record; a gentleman hates to give this record to the world; but I do it, not because I like to do it, but because I believe the best interests of this country demand that there shall be a history given of the Democratic party.
In the first place, I claim that the Democratic party embraces within its filthy arms the worst elements in American society. I claim that every enemy that this Government has had for twenty years has been and is a Democrat; every man in the Dominion of Canada that hates the great Republic, would like to see Tilden and Hendricks successful. Every titled thief in Great Britain would like to see Tilden and Hendricks the next President and Vice-President of the United States.
I say more; every State that seceded from this Union was a Democratic State. Every man who hated to see bloodhounds cease to be the instrumentalities of a free government—every one was a Democrat. In short, every enemy that this Government has had for twenty years, every enemy that liberty and progress has had in the United States for twenty years, every hater of our flag, every despiser of our Nation, every man who has been a disgrace to the great Republic for twenty years, has been a Democrat. I do not say that they are all that way; but nearly all who are that way are Democrats.
The Democratic party is a political tramp with a yellow passport. This political tramp begs food and he carries in his pocket old dirty scraps of paper as a kind of certificate of character. On one of these papers he will show you the ordinance of 1789; on another one of those papers he will have a part of the Fugitive Slave Law; on another one some of the black laws that used to disgrace Illinois; on another Governor Tilden's Letter to Kent; on another a certificate signed by Lyman Trumbull that the Republican party is not fit to associate with—that certificate will be endorsed by Governor John M. Palmer and my friend Judge Doolittle. He will also have in his pocket an old wood-cut, somewhat torn, representing Abraham Lincoln falling upon the neck of S. Corning Judd, and thanking him for saving the Union as Commander-in-Chief of the Sons of Liberty. This political tramp will also have a letter dated Boston, Mass., saying: "I hereby certify that for fifty years I have regarded the bearer as a thief and robber, but I now look upon him as a reformer. Signed, Charles Francis Adams." Following this tramp will be a bloodhound; and when he asks for food, the bloodhound will crouch for employment on his haunches, and the drool of anticipation will run from his loose and hanging lips. Study the expression of that dog.
Translate it into English and it means "Oh! I want to bite a nigger!" And when the dog has that expression he bears a striking likeness to his master. The question is, Shall that tramp and that dog gain possession of the White House?
The Democratic party learns nothing; the Democratic party forgets nothing. The Democratic party does not know that the world has advanced a solitary inch since 1860. Time is a Democratic dumb watch. It has not given a tick for sixteen years. The Democratic party does not know that we, upon the great glittering highway of progress, have passed a single mile-stone for twenty years. The Democratic party is incapable of learning. The Democratic party is incapable of anything but prejudice and hatred. Every man that is a Democrat is a Democrat because he hates something; every man that is a Republican is a Republican because he loves something.
The Democratic party is incapable of advancement; the only stock that it has in trade to-day is the old infamous doctrine of Democratic State Rights. There never was a more infamous doctrine advanced on this earth, than the Democratic idea of State Rights. What is it? It has its foundation in the idea that this is not a Nation; it has its foundation in the idea that this is simply a confederacy, that this great Government is simply a bargain, that this great splendid people have simply made a trade, that the people of any one of the States are sovereign to the extent that they have the right to trample upon the rights of their fellow-citizens, and that the General Government cannot interfere. The great Democratic heart is fired to-day, the Democratic bosom is bloated with indignation because of an order made by General Grant sending troops into the Southern States to defend the rights of American citizens! Who objects to a soldier going? Nobody except a man who wants to carry an election by fraud, by violence, by intimidation, by assassination, and by murder.
The Democratic party is willing to-day that Tilden and Hendricks should be elected by violence; they are willing to-day to go into partnership with assassination and murder; they are willing to-day that every man in the Southern States, who is a friend of this Union, and who fought for our flag—that the rights of every one of these men should be trampled in the dust, provided that Tilden and Hendricks be elected President and Vice-President of this country. They tell us that a State line is sacred; that you never can cross it unless you want to do a mean thing; that if you want to catch a fugitive slave you have the right to cross it; but if you wish to defend the rights of men, then it is a sacred line, and you cannot cross it. Such is the infamous doctrine of the Democratic party. Who, I say, will be injured by sending soldiers into the Southern States? No one in the world except the man who wants to prevent an honest citizen from casting a legal vote for the Government of his choice. For my part, I think more of the colored Union men of the South than I do of the white disunion men of the South. For my part, I think more of a black friend than I do of a white enemy. For my part, I think more of a friend black outside, and white in, than I do of a man who is white outside and black inside. For my part, I think more of black justice, of black charity, and of black patriotism, than I do of white cruelty, than I do of white treachery and treason. As a matter of fact, all that is done in the South to-day, of use, is done by the colored man. The colored man raises everything that is raised in the South, except hell. And I say here to-night that I think one hundred times more of the good, honest, industrious black man of the South than I do of all the white men together that do not love this Government, and I think more of the black man of the South than I do of the white man of the North who sympathizes with the white wretch that wishes to trample upon the rights of that black man.