We remained under that impression until I first took my seat in the Senate on the 4th day of March, 1857. Then, again, treason was threatened on the floor of the Senate and on the floor of the House. They said then: "Do this or we will destroy your Government. Fail to do that, and we will destroy your Government." One of them in talking to brave old Ben. Wade one day repeated this threat, and the old man straightened himself up and said: "Don't delay it on my account." [Laughter.] Careful preparations were made to carry out these treasons. Jefferson Davis stepped out of the Cabinet of Franklin Pierce, as Secretary of War, into the Senate of the United States, and became chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs. There was an innocent-looking clause in the general appropriation bill which read that the Secretary of War might sell such arms as he deemed it for the interest of the government to dispose of. Under that apparently innocent clause, your arsenals were opened; your arms and implements of war went together with your ammunition; your accoutrements followed your arms; your navy was scattered wherever the winds blew and sufficient water was found to float your ships, where they could not be used to defend your government. The credit of the government, whose 6 per cent. bonds in 1857 sold for 122 cents on the dollar, was so utterly prostrated and debased that in February, 1861—four years afterward—bonds payable, principal and interest in gold, bearing 6 per cent., were sold for 88 cents on the dollar, with no buyers for the whole amount. Careful preparations were made for the overthrow of your government, and when Abraham Lincoln [cheers] took the oath of office as President of the United States [cheers], you had no army, no navy, no money, no credit, no arms, no ammunition, nothing to protect the national life. Yet with all these discouragements staring us in the face, the Republican party undertook to save your government. [Applause.] We raised your credit, created navies, raised armies, fought battles, carried on the war to a successful issue, and, finally, when the rebellion surrendered at Appomattox, they surrendered to a Government. [Applause.] They admitted that they had submitted their heresy to the arbitrament of arms and had been defeated, and they surrendered to the government of the United States of America. [Applause.] They made no claims against this government, for they had none. In the very ordinance of secession which they had signed they had pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the overthrow of this government, and when they failed to do it, they lost all they had pledged. [Cries of "Good.">[ They made no claims against the government because they had none. They asked, and asked as a boon from the government of the United States, that their miserable lives might be spared to them. [Applause.] We gave them their lives. They had forfeited all their property—we gave it back to them. We found them naked and we clothed them. They were without the rights of citizenship, having forfeited those rights, and we restored them. We took them to our bosoms as brethren, believing that they had repented of their sins. We killed for them the fatted calf, and invited them to the feast, and they gravely informed us that they had always owned that animal, and were not thankful for the invitation. [Great laughter and cheers.] By the laws of war, and by the laws of nations, they were bound to pay every dollar of the expense incurred in putting down that rebellion. Germany compelled France to pay $1,000,000,000 in gold coin for a brief campaign. The seceding States were bound by the laws of war and by the laws of nations to pay every dollar of the debt contracted for their subjugation, but we forgave them that debt, and, to-day, you are being taxed heavily to pay the interest on the debt that they ought to have paid. [Applause.] Such magnanimity as was exhibited by this nation to these rebels has never been witnessed on earth [applause], and, in my humble judgment, will never be witnessed again. [Cheers.] Mistakes we undoubtedly made, errors we committed, and I will take my full share of responsibility for the errors, for I was there, and voted upon every proposition; but, in my humble judgment, the greatest mistake we made, and the gravest error we committed was in not hanging enough of these rebels to make treason forever odious. [Prolonged cheers.] Somebody committed a crime. Either those men who rose in rebellion committed the greatest crime known to human law, or our own brave soldiers, who went out to fight to save this government, were murderers. Is there a man on the face of the earth who dares to get up and say that our brave soldiers, who bared their breasts to the bullets of the rebels, were anything but patriots? [Cheers.]
And now, after twenty years—after an absence of four years from the Senate—I go back and take my seat, and what do I find? The self same pretensions are rung in my ears from day to-day. I might close my eyes and leave my ears open to the discussions that are going on daily in Congress, and believe that I had taken a Rip Van Winkle sleep of twenty years. [Applause.] Twenty years ago they said, "Do this or we will shoot your government to death! Fail to do that or we will shoot your government to death!" To-day I go back and find these paroled rebels, who have never been relieved from their parole of honor to obey the laws, saying: "Do this! obey our will, or we will starve your government to death! Fail to obey our will, and we will starve your government to death!" Now, if I am to die, I would rather be shot dead with musketry than be starved to death. [Laughter and applause.]
These rebels—for they are just as rebellious now as they were twenty years ago—there is not a particle of difference—these rebels to-day have thirty-six members on the floor of the House of Representatives, without one single constituent, and in violation of law those thirty-six members represent 4,000,000 people, lately slaves, who are as absolutely disfranchised as if they lived in another sphere, through shot-guns, and whips, and tissue ballots; for the law expressly says, wherever a race or class is disfranchised they shall not be represented upon the floor of the House. [Applause.] And these thirty-six members thus elected constitute three times the whole of their majority upon the floor of the House. Now, my fellow-citizens, this is not only a violation of law, but it is an outrage upon all the loyal men of these United States. [Applause.] It ought not to be. It must not be. [Applause.] And it shall not be. [Tremendous cheers.]
Twelve members of the Senate—and that is more than their whole majority—twelve members of the Senate occupy their seats upon that floor by fraud and violence, and I am saying no more to you in Chicago than I said to those rebel generals to their faces on the floor of the Senate of the United States. [Enthusiastic applause.] Twelve members of that Senate were thus elected, and with majorities thus obtained by fraud and violence in both houses, they dare to dictate terms to the loyal men of these United States. [Applause.] With majorities thus obtained they dare to arraign the loyal men of this country, and say they want honest elections. [Laughter and applause.] They are mortally afraid of bayonets at the polls. We offered them a law forbidding any man to come within two miles of a polling place with arms of any description, and they promptly voted it down [laughter and applause], for they wanted their Ku-Klux there. They were afraid, not of Ku-Klux at the polls, but of soldiers at the polls. Now, in all the States north of Mason and Dixon's line and east of the Rocky Mountains there is less than one soldier to a county. [Laughter.] There is about two-thirds of a soldier to a county. [Laughter and applause.] And, of course, about two-thirds of a musket to a county. [Laughter.] Now, would not this great county of Cook tremble if you saw two-thirds of a soldier parading himself up and down in front of the city of Chicago. [Loud and long-continued applause and laughter.] But they are afraid to have inspectors. What are they afraid to have inspectors for? The law creating those inspectors is imperative that one must be a Democrat and the other a Republican. They have no power whatever except to certify that the election is honest and fair. And yet they are afraid of those inspectors, and then they are afraid of marshals at the polls. Now, while the inspectors cannot arrest, the marshals under the order of the court can arrest criminals; therefore, they said: "We will have no marshals." What they want is not free elections, but free frauds at elections. They have got a solid South by fraud and violence. Give them permission to perpetrate the same kind of fraud and violence in New York city and in Cincinnati and those two cities with a solid South will give them the presidency of the United States; and once obtained by fraud and violence, by fraud and violence they would hold it for a generation. To-day eight millions of people in those rebel States as absolutely control all the legislation of this government as they controlled their slaves while slavery was in existence. Through caucus dictation now I find precisely what I found twenty years ago when I first took my seat in Congress. In a Democratic Congress, composed of twenty-eight Southern Democrats and sixteen Northern Democrats, they decreed that Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois should be degraded and disgraced from the Committee on Territories, and there were but just two Northern Democratic senators who dared even to enter a protest against the outrage. To-day there are thirty-two Southern Democratic senators to twelve Northern, and out of the whole twelve there is not a man who dares protest against anything. [Applause.] I say, that through this caucus dictation, these eight millions of Southern rebels as absolutely control the legislation of this nation as they controlled their slaves when slavery existed.
Now, if every man within the sound of my voice should stand up in this audience and hold up his right hand and swear that a rebel soldier was better than a Union soldier, I would not believe it. [Laughter and applause.] I would hold up both of my hands and swear that I did not believe it. [Cheers.] And yet, to-day, in South Carolina, in Alabama, in Louisiana, in Mississippi and in several other States the vote of a rebel soldier counts more than two of the votes of the brave soldiers of Illinois; for they vote for the negro as well as for themselves, and their vote weighs just double the weight of that of the brave soldier in Illinois. It is an outrage upon freedom, an outrage upon the gallant soldiers of Illinois and Michigan. [Applause.]
Now, my fellow-citizens, I have undertaken to show you the condition in which the country was placed when the Republican party assumed the reins of power. When the Republican party took the reins of power, the country had no money, no credit, no arms, no ammunition, no navy, no material of war. When the Republican party took the reins of power in its hands, there was no nation poor enough to do you reverence. You were the derision of the nations of the earth. You had but one ally and friend on earth, and that was little Switzerland. [Applause.] Russia sent her fleet to winter here for her own protection, but there was not a nation on God's earth, that did not hope and pray that your republican government might be overthrown, and there was no nation on earth poor enough to do you reverence. We fought that battle through; we raised the nation's dignity, and the nation's honor, the national power and the national strength, until now, to-day, after eighteen years of Republican rule, there is no nation on earth strong enough not to do you reverence. [Loud and continued applause.] We took your national credit when it was so low that your bonds were selling at 88 cents on the dollar, bearing six per cent. interest and no takers, and we elevated your credit up, up, up, up, up until to-day your four per cent. bonds are selling at a premium in every market of the earth. [Applause.] So your credit stands higher than the credit of any other nation. [Applause.] We saved the national life and we saved the national honor, and yet, notwithstanding all this, there are those who say that the mission of the Republican party is ended and that it ought to die. If there ever was a political organization that existed on the face of this globe, which, so far as a future state of rewards and punishments is concerned, is prepared to die, it is that old Republican party. [Cheers.] But we are not going to do it. [Laughter and applause.] We have made other arrangements. [Renewed laughter and cheers.]
The Republican party is the only party that ever existed, so far as I have been able to ascertain—so far as any record can be found, either in sacred or profane history—it is the only party that ever existed on earth which had not one single, solitary, unfulfilled pledge left [cheers]—not one [renewed cheers]; and I defy the worst enemy the Republican party ever had to name one single pledge it gave to the people who created it which is not to-day a fulfilled and an established fact. [Cheers.] The Republican party was created with one idea, and that was to preserve our vast territories from the blighting curse of slavery. We gave that pledge at our birth, that we would save those territories from the withering grasp of slavery, and we saved them. [Voices. "Yes, we did.">[ It is our own work. We did it. [Cheers.] But we did more than that; we not only saved your vast territories from the blighting curse of slavery, but we wiped the accursed thing from the continent of North America. [Tremendous cheering.] We pledged ourselves to save your national life, and we saved your national life. We pledged ourselves to save your national honor, and we saved your national honor. [Applause.] We pledged ourselves to give you a homestead law, and we gave you a homestead law. [Applause.] We pledged ourselves to improve your rivers and your harbors, and we improved your rivers and your harbors. [Applause.] We pledged ourselves to build a Pacific railroad, and we built a Pacific railroad. [Applause.] We pledged ourselves to give you a college land bill, and we gave it to you; and, not to weary you, the last pledge ever given and the last to be fulfilled was that the very moment we were able we would redeem the obligations of this great government in the coin of the realm, and on the first day of January, 1879, we fulfilled the last pledge ever given by the Republican party. [Cheers and long-continued applause.]
Notwithstanding all this, you say: "Your mission is ended and you ought to die." [Laughter and applause.] Well, my fellow-citizens, if we should die to-day, or to-morrow, our children's children to the twentieth generation would boast that their ancestors belonged to that glorious old Republican party [applause] that wiped that accursed thing, slavery, from the escutcheon of this great government. [Cheers.] And they would have a right to boast throughout all generations.
Senator Ben. Hill of Georgia said, in my presence, that he was an "ambassador" from the sovereign State of Georgia [laughter] to the Senate of the United States. Suppose Ben. Hill should be caught in Africa or India, or some of those Eastern nations, and should get into a little difficulty, do you think he would raise the great flag of Georgia over his head [laughter] and say: "That will protect me." [Renewed laughter and applause.] My fellow-citizens, you may take the biggest ship that sails the ocean, put on board of her the flags of all the States that were lately in the rebellion against this government, raise to her peak the stars and bars of the rebellion, start her with all her bunting floating to the breeze, sail her around the world, and you would not get a salute of one popgun from any fort on earth. [Loud and continued laughter and applause.] Take the smallest ship that sails the ocean, mark her "U. S. A."—United States of America—raise to her peak the Stars and Stripes, and sail her around the world, and there is not a fort or a ship-of-war of any nation on God's footstool that would not receive her with a national salute. [Cheers.] And yet the Republican party has done all this. We took your government when it was despised among the nations, and we have raised it to this high point of honor; and yet you tell us we ought to die. [Laughter and applause.]