Answer. I have heard two or three speak of a new party to be called the National party, or National Union party, but whether there is anything in such a movement I have no means of knowing. Any party in opposition to the Republican, no matter what it may be called, must win on a new issue, and that new issue will determine the new party. Parties cannot be made to order. They must grow. They are the natural offspring of national events. They must embody certain hopes, they must gratify, or promise to gratify, the feelings of a vast number of people. No man can make a party, and if a new party springs into existence it will not be brought forth to gratify the wishes of a few, but the wants of the many. It has seemed to me for years that the Democratic party carried too great a load in the shape of record; that its autobiography was nearly killing it all the time, and that if it could die just long enough to assume another form at the resurrection, just long enough to leave a grave stone to mark the end of its history, to get a cemetery back of it, that it might hope for something like success. In other words, that there must be a funeral before there can be victory. Most of its leaders are worn out. They have become so accustomed to defeat that they take it as a matter of course; they expect it in the beginning and seem unconsciously to work for it. There must be some new ideas, and this only can happen when the party as such has been gathered to its fathers. I do not think that the advice of Senator Hill will be followed. He is willing to kill the Democratic party in the South if we will kill the Republican party in the North. This puts me in mind of what the rooster said to the horse: "Let us agree not to step on each other's feet."
Question. Your views of the country's future and prospects must naturally be rose colored?
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?