The Senator from Georgia in days gone by, in my boyhood days, I heard of, not as a democrat. To-day he sits here as a democrat. No one wishes to criticise him because he has changed his political opinions. He had a right to do so. I was a democrat once, too, and I had a right to change my opinions and I did change them. The man who will not change his opinions when he is honestly convinced that he was in error is a man who is not entitled to the respect of men. I say this to the Senator from Georgia. The Senator says to us, “take him,” referring to the Senator from Virginia. Yes, sir, we will take him if he will come with us, and we will take every other honest man who will come. We will take every honest man in the South who wants to come and join the republican party, and give him the right hand of fellowship, be he black or white. Will you do as much?
Mr. Hill of Georgia. We have got them already.
Mr. Logan. Yes, and if a man happens to differ with you the tyranny of political opinion in your section of country is such that you undertake to lash him upon the world and try to expose him to the gaze of the public as a man unfaithful to his trust. We have no such tyranny of opinion in the country where I live; and it will be better for your section when such notions are driven to the shades and retired from the action of your people.
I do not know that the gentleman from Virginia intends to vote as a republican. I have never heard him say so. I know only what he has said here to-day; but I respect him for stating to the Senate and the country that he is tired of the Bourbon democracy; and if more men were tired of it the country would be better off. The people are getting tired of it even down in your country, every where. The sooner we have a division down there the better it will be for both sides, for the people of the whole country.
I did not rise to make any defense of the Senator from Virginia, for he is able, as I said, to defend himself, but merely to say to the Senator from Georgia that the criticism made upon that Senator without any just cause is something I never witnessed before in this Chamber or in any other deliberative body, and in my judgment it was not justified in any way whatever.
Mr. Hill, of Georgia. I desire to say once more, what everybody in the audience knows is true, that I did not arraign the Senator from Virginia. In the first speech I never alluded to Virginia or to the Senator from Virginia.
Mr. Logan. Every one in the Chamber knew to whom the Senator alluded.
Mr. Hill, of Georgia. I alluded to somebody who was elected as a democrat, and who was going to vote as a republican.
Mr. Teller. He was not elected as a democrat.
Mr. Hill, of Georgia. Then I did not allude to the Senator from Virginia.