- 
 
|-n<=H43 
 
 AN ADDRESS. 
 
 To tlieHonest and Patriotic Members of the late Union Party: 
 
 When I make an appeal to the honest and patriotic members 
 of the late Union party, I cannot but think that I am addressing 
 a large and influential portion of my fellow-citizens. 
 
 I say the late Union party I say so, because I consider that a 
 party known by that name, composed of very heterogeneous ma- 
 terials existed during the late civil war, whose sole bond of 
 union was a common desire to conduct that war to a successful 
 conclusion; which object having been effected, the partnership 
 expired by virtue of the very terms by which it was created. It 
 is beyond a doubt, that those who were banded together during 
 the war entertained political opinions of various shades and 
 complexions, embracing Whigs, Democrats, Abolitionists, Free 
 Soilers, Republicans, etc., etc. Many honest and earnest sup- 
 porters of the war were bitterly opposed to the fanaticism of the 
 Abolitionists; many who thought slavery an evil, were opposed 
 to the doctrine of universal brotherhood, negro equality, and 
 negro suffrage. To these dissentients, I propose to demonstrate, 
 that owing to fortuitous circumstances growing out of the 
 war, the fanatical element of the Union party was in the asce^d- 
 ant, and that this element is the leading one in the party which x 
 has nominated General Grant for the Presidency. 
 
 Now then, to those who have been abolitionists from the start; 
 to those who sink every other consideration, in the desire to el- 
 evate the negro to the social and political condition of the white 
 race, I have nothing to say: without impugning, in anyway, the 
 motives of this class, I pass them by as lost and gone, to all 
 sense of logic and of reason. I should as soon think of ad- 
 dressing the inmates of a lunatic asylum. 
 
 But, as to that other class to which I have alluded, those 
 who hold in abhorrence the fanaticism of the Abolitionist; who, 
 recognizing the fact, which reason and experience alike establish, 
 that when two races that cannot amalgamate come together, the 
 inferior must be subordinated to the superior race ; who, holding 
 nothing in common with the peculiar tenets of this faction, nev- 
 ertheless co-operated with it in conducting the late civil war to 
 a successful termination to such, I propose to argue that the 
 party represented by the majority in Congress, and by Grant and 
 Coif ax, are no longer the Union party to which their allegiance was 
 pledged; that in fact, it is a party without principle, kept together 
 only by the cohesive desire of public plunder; and that the measures 
 
 
by which they propose to sustain themselves are subversive of 
 the best interests of the Republic . I do not say that all of the 
 supporters of Grant are devoid of principle. The best portion 
 of them, like Sumner, and Phillips, and Wade, and Greeley, are 
 crazy fanatics; men who, beginning with a misguided, but phil- 
 anthropic desire to enfranchise the negro, have, by continued 
 dwelling upon a single subject, become men of one idea; which 
 is only another name for madness. 
 
 It is proper that he who seeks the co-operation of his fellow- 
 citizens in effecting a political object, should frankly define his 
 own position and fairly disclose his antecedents. 
 
 The writer belongs to the straitest sect of the " States-Bights" 
 school. He thinks, a general confederation of the North Ameri- 
 can States eminently conducive to the happiness and prosperity 
 of the whole; and he knows, that dissolution and separation are 
 the inevitable consequences of anything like a consolidated gov- 
 ernment. He thinks, that the late civil war was the result of a 
 silly and unconstitutional hostility to the institution of slavery; 
 and that the only permanent political effect of the war will be 
 that resulting from the overthrow of that institution. He con- 
 siders that the Southern people, with much to complain of and 
 much of evil to dread from the political success of their avowed 
 enemies, were, perhaps judging at least by the result rash, 
 hasty, and unwise in the means they adopted for the cure of the 
 evil. 
 
 You will perceive, then, that there are many questions upon 
 which you and he are as far apart as the north and south poles 
 questions upon which he and his party are apparently beaten for 
 the present, but which they cherish as the sure and only means of 
 preserving the unity of the American people. Upon these prin- 
 ciples, at the proper time and place, we mean to oppose you, and, 
 with God's help, to overthrow you. But this is not the time and 
 place for the encounter. We are both now beset by a foe who 
 threatens both pf us, and who is a deadlier enemy to both than 
 we can possibly be to each other. Our mutual relations to the 
 Kadical party are the same that two sects of religionists bear to an 
 infidel, who proposes to overthrow all religion. I declare to you 
 who differ so much with me on the subject of American govern- 
 ment, that there is an enemy abroad, nay, at our very door, who 
 threatens to overthrow all government. Before we enter upon 
 our separate encounter, let us get rid of this common enemy. 
 
 I say, then, that the living issue of the day is not the old 
 issue of the distribution of powers between the State and Fed- 
 eral Governments an issue upon which we have met on many 
 a well-fought field; but the present great, and for the time, all- 
 absorbing question is, how are peace, harmony and prosperity to 
 be restored to our 'distracted and suffering country ? 
 
 There are two great problems staring us in the face, which we 
 are to solve by our votes in the coming election. There are two 
 novelties in our political condition of a most embarrassing na- 
 ture, the mode of dealing with which, in reality, constitutes the 
 great difference between the political parties of the day. Th 
 
Presidential election establishes either the one policy or the 
 other. I do not believe that the one party is more corrupt or 
 more wicked than the other. The men who have been admin- 
 istering this government are, God knows, corrupt and wicked 
 enough; but I have little hopes of bettering this state of things 
 by the election of their opponents. The demoralization of the 
 day is the demoralization of the American people; and I am 
 afraid it is much too wide and deep to be confined to any one 
 party. Be that as it may, we have two great problems before 
 us; the one growing out of the anomalous condition of the, 
 so-called, Eebel States; the other, arising from the magnitude of 
 the public debt. The proper modes of dealing with these two 
 subjects form the staple of difference between the two parties 
 who are seeking our suffrages for their respective candidates. It 
 is to us they appeal, and it is for us to decide between them. 
 The Radicals propose to treat the Southern States as conquered 
 provinces, and to use the negro as an engine by which to sub- 
 ject them to Eadical rule. The Democrats virtually propose to 
 recognize these States as members of the Union, entitled to all 
 the rights and privileges of any other member of the confedera- 
 tion. As this is, perhaps, the most important of the two great 
 questions of the day, we will, with your leave, stop to weigh the 
 relative value of these very opposite propositions. I shall dis- 
 regard, as wholly unworthy the consideration of any sensible 
 man, all the silly clap-trap that is often addressed to you by the 
 demagogues of both parties. I shall not appeal, on the one 
 hand, to the passions aroused and inflamed during the war 
 hardly excusable in a Christian people under any possible state 
 of excitement, and altogether unpardonable in moments of calm- 
 ness and deliberation nor shall I, on the other hand, deal in 
 general vituperation of the conduct, objects and motives of the 
 party whose policy I oppose; but I will treat the subject as fairly 
 and as sensibly as I know how. I am not the hired advocate 
 of either party; and neither of them, in general politics, profess 
 the sentiments I avow. 
 
 The Radical party consider it absolutely necessary to subject 
 the Southern States to military rule. They say, "Yes, but only 
 temporarily. " "We ask : For what length of time ? The answer 
 is : " Until, by military power, we have inaugurated a civil gov- 
 ernment, which is to be so constructed as to put the whole 
 power into the hands of a miserable minority of the white in- 
 habitants of those States. " This is the unvarnished truth, and 
 it is the answer that any candid Radical will make to our ques- 
 tion of the proposed duration of the existing military govern- 
 ments in the Southern States. The Radical scheme is, then, to 
 continue indefinitely a form of government in which the white 
 majority shall be subjected to a minority composed of a few white 
 adventurers and a mass of illiterate, ignorant blacks. I submit 
 to every candid reader, is not this the Radical programme ? 
 
 This question being answered, as it must be, in the affirmative, 
 the next question we have to ask is, or rather the next questions 
 are first, is this programme constitutional? secondly, is it wise? 
 
4 
 
 Do not be alarmed. I do not propose to go very deeply into 
 the Constitution of the United States, or to dwell very long upon 
 it. I well know% that the great mass of people neither compre- 
 hend, nor are capable of comprehending, that very unique in- 
 strument ; but whilst its subtleties are perhaps beyond your 
 reach, you are capable of understanding some of the plainest 
 principles of civil liberty embodied in its provisions. There are 
 certain inhibitions upon the powers of Congress contained in the 
 amendments to the Constitution that amount to a " bill of rights/* 
 and they are often referred to under that name. For instance : 
 it is provided that no man, unless he be in the military or naval 
 service of the United States, shall be deprived of the right of 
 trial by jury. This is a declaration, that all men are entitled to 
 jury trial. But under this military government eight millions of 
 men are denied the right of trial by jury. It is said that the 
 people of the Southern States are a conquered people, and until 
 they are admitted into the Union, are not entitled to the protec- 
 tion of the Constitution. The condition of the South is one that 
 certainly is unprecedented. I believe that, technically speaking, 
 the eleven Southern States are conquered territory, and that they 
 lost their rights as members of the confederation, and can only 
 regain them by admission through Congress. But I believe this, 
 because ^believe, that until they seceded they remained sovereign 
 and independent nations, notwithstanding their close alliance 
 with the other sovereign States of the North American continent. 
 But you must be very careful how you make this admission in- 
 deed, it would at once commit you to the party to which I be- 
 long, and against which you have been fighting all your life. 
 More than that ; there are many legal propositions, such as, that 
 the conqueror succeeds to the debts, as well as to the estate of 
 the conquered, that might prove to be very awkward and embar- 
 rassing consequences of such a doctrine. You must remember 
 that, to say that these are a conquered people, is to admit that 
 they became a separate and foreign nation. Then, was there no 
 crime in resisting your invasion of their territory, then was there 
 no rebellion, and no treason. Where, let us ask, would our radi- 
 cal orators be, if the words " copperheads" traitors, rebels, were 
 clipped out of their vocabulary. 
 
 But, granting that the so-called rebel States are foreign and 
 conquered nations, it by no means follows, that Congress may es- 
 tablish over them a despotic government. That they cannot be- 
 come States of the Confederacy without the consent of Congress, 
 is unquestionable, because to Congress .alone is granted the 
 power of admission. And the authority to establish some form 
 of government over the territories has, from the necessity of the 
 case, been so long acquiesed in, that it is almost too late to alto- 
 gether deny it ; but it is equally well settled that this power is 
 by no means despotic, and that in its exercise care must be 
 taken that no man is deprived of those rights secured to all by 
 those provisions which, as I have said before, are sometimes re- 
 ferred to as constituting the ' ' Federal Bill of Rights. " That 
 these provisions enure to the benefit of all persons within the 
 
Federal jurisdiction was unequivocally admitted by Judge Cur- 
 tis in his opinion in the Dred Scott case. This was a dissenting 
 opinion, and it was the corner-stone of the Republican faith, and 
 Judge Curtis was the Magnus Apollo of the free-soilers. The 
 dominion of the government of the United States is the dominion 
 of civil liberty, and to acquire territory is to extend the area of 
 freedom. Wherever your arms may penetrate, they carry to every 
 individual who may be brought within your jurisdiction, if 
 charged with crime, the right to a " speedy and public trial by 
 an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime 
 shall have been committed." The Constitution of the United 
 States was established to secure the "blessings of liberty/' and 
 when those who derive all their powers from it establish a tyranny, 
 they are not only acting, as Mr. Stevens said, outside of it, but 
 in direct opposition to its most sacred injunctions. 
 
 Mr. Douglas went much further and contended, that there was 
 an inherent, inalienable rignt in every community to regulate its 
 domestic affairs in its own way ; that this right was openly pro- 
 claimed in the Declaration of Independence, and that there was 
 nothing in the Constitution of the United States to take it away. 
 This was his great doctrine of " Popular Sovereignty" applied 
 to the people of the territories of the United States. With what 
 face can the followers of Mr. Douglas uphold the constitutional- 
 ity of the Reconstruction Act, an Act which establishes over the 
 territories of the United States an arbitrary military government, 
 depriving individuals of trial by jury, and entirety ignoring their 
 right to manage their domestic affairs in their own way ? 
 
 But, say the advocates of the bill, these people are rebels and 
 traitors who have forfeited all right to constitutional protection. 
 But they cannot be a conquered people and rebels too, because 
 the two things are in their nature entirely incompatible. Unless 
 we mean to be contradictory and wholly unreasonable, we must 
 elect to hold them responsible either as a nation or as individu- 
 als, and having elected, we must adhere to our choice. And it 
 will not do to consider them, now, in the one light, and, now, in 
 the other ; because the moment national responsibility begins, 
 individual responsibility ceases. I repeat this, and want you to 
 understand it. To illustrate : Citizens of Great Britain have 
 come to this country and committed homicides they have been 
 held individually responsible, and have been punished for mur- 
 der. When, however, they have been acting under the direction 
 and authority of their .own government, as in case of war, it is 
 the government, and not the individual, that is held responsible. 
 In recognizing the act as one of a national character, you neces- 
 sarily exonerate the individual, because it is his duty to render 
 obedience to the government of which he is a citizen, and unless 
 he could plead the orders of his own government to a charge of 
 individual crime, this anamoly would result, that there would be 
 no way by which he could escape becoming a criminal ; every 
 man would be entangled in meshes of guilt from which there 
 would be no possibility of escape to be punished by one gov- 
 ernment if he did not obey its orders, by the other if he did. 
 
Nor is it necessary that the government which commands his 
 obedience have an absolute right to demand it it is enough that 
 the individual is within the jurisdiction, and consequently within 
 the power of an organized de facto government ; for the anomaly 
 referred to above, which is the basis of the rule, would ensue 
 equally in the case of a de facto or de jure government. If, 
 then, the people of these Southern States were at war with the 
 United States in obedience to the commands of a de facto gov- 
 ernment, they are guilty of no crime, because they have not been 
 free agents. The unreasoning reader will ask, Could they not 
 have withdrawn themselves from the jurisdiction of the Confed- 
 erate government ? But the law is not unreasoning; the makers 
 of the law knew the inconvenience and the sacrifice resulting 
 from a sudden and forced change of residence, and, under such 
 circumstances, wisely excuse the man who remains and obeys 
 the commands which he has no power to resist. But you will 
 urge, that resistance to lawful authority is criminal, and as gov- 
 ernments are myths, except for the individuals of which they are 
 composed, unless the individual can be reached, crime would go 
 unpunished. That is true, and whenever crime is committed, 
 individuals must be responsible for it. But all we urge is, that 
 they cannot be held responsible both individually and collective- 
 ly; for this would be to punish them twice for the same offence. 
 If you elect to treat them collectively, the punishment awarded 
 is war, and if they have suffered the punishment, the offence is 
 expiated, and they cannot, by the laws of any civilized nation, 
 be punished twice for the same offence. I say, we must elect to 
 treat the so-called rebels either collectively or individually, to 
 hold them responsible for a national or individual offence; and 
 the consequences of the one holding being so very different from 
 those of the other, it will not do to confound them and substi- 
 tute the one for the other, as caprice or a spirit of revenge may 
 dictate. Thus, we cannot justify the confiscation or capture of 
 the property of a female, or infant, innocent of any actual par- 
 ticipation in the war, upon the ground that it is the property of 
 the enemy, and that the citizen necessarily partakes of the na- 
 tional guilt; and, at the same time, charge another citizen of the 
 same country with the crime of treason. If one be guilty, the 
 other must be innocent. 
 
 And, too, we are to remember that if the members of a com- 
 munity are individually guilty of the highest of crimes, that fact 
 neither deprives the individuals nor the community of those 
 constitutional safeguards that are provided for the security of the 
 stranger within your gates, although he should happen to be the 
 vilest of malefactors. 
 
 I have not gone very deeply into this subject, because I am 
 aware that constitutional questions are generally little suited to 
 either the taste or comprehension of a large portion of our coun- 
 trymen. You live, it is true, under a very complex and intricate 
 form of government, and it can hardly be expected that all those 
 of even liberal education, should be able to plumb the depths 
 of constitution law. But the citizens of a Kepublic administer 
 
tlie government, and to do so intelligently, it is absolutely nec- 
 essary that they should understand the elementary principles of 
 ther/Constitution. 
 
 In the simplest and plainest way I know how, I have endeav- 
 ored to show, that if the conduct of the Southern people is to be 
 visited upon them collectively, they have expiated their offence 
 by the infliction of war, and their reduction to a territorial con- 
 dition; if they are to be considered as individual criminals, they 
 are to be indicted, tried and condemned under, and by virtue of 
 Acts of Congress, none of which, it is well known, prescribe as 
 a punishment for their offence, loss of political privileges. In 
 neither aspect, can the establishment of a despotic anti-republi- 
 can government over them be constitutional; and the frankest 
 and ablest of the Eadicals, the late Mr. Stevens, always admitted 
 that if the Southern people had not lost or forfeited their claim 
 to constitutional protection, this Act was null and void. Nor is 
 this all. This Act is made to operate not only upon those per- 
 sons actually engaged in the support of the Confederate Govern- 
 ment, but upon all persons within the territorial limits of these 
 States. Loyal whites^ unoffending blacks, and the Northern em- 
 igrant, who has exercised his undoubted right of entering the 
 territories his good right arm has helped to conquer. All within 
 the magic circle are paralysed and subjected to the despotic 
 wand of these political magicians. 
 
 But it is urged, and that by one of the ablest Kadicals of your 
 own State, himself a scholar and a gentleman, that the condi- 
 tion of things in the South is one not foreseen by the framers of 
 the Constitution, and not provided for in that instrument. And 
 then, upon some vague and undefined principle of right and 
 wrong, it is claimed that the Congress of the United States, be- 
 ing charged with the care of the supreme safety of the Republic, 
 may deal as they please with circumstances not foreseen and not 
 provided for in the Constitution. The powers of Congress, it is 
 said, must necessarily expand with the wants and requirements 
 of the country. 
 
 This is a popular and most dangerous heresy, and whenever it 
 receives the sanction of the people and becomes the settled doc- 
 trine of the country, there is an end, of course, to constitutional 
 government. If the powers of the Federal Government can be 
 inimitably expanded upon the occurrence of novel and unfore- 
 seen events, and Congress is to determine when such a state of 
 things exists, then is the Congress of the United States vested 
 with despotic power over the lives and fortunes of the people 
 of the United States, and the sooner the Constitution is burned 
 the better. I cannot argue such a proposition as this. He 
 to whom its absurdity is not apparent, is a fit subject for the 
 new government it is proposed to inaugurate, and if of such a 
 majority of the American people is composed, I admit that some 
 form of despotism is best suited to their condition. In our de- 
 sire to escape from the manifest evils of the centrifugal ten- 
 dencies of our confederation, we are likely to take refuge in the 
 still more dangerous centripetal vortex. 
 
8 
 
 So much for the constitutionality of the measures that the 
 Radical party having inaugurated, propose to continue for 
 the government of eight millions of the American people. To 
 my mind, these measures are not less impolitic than unconstitu- 
 tional. 
 
 We have in these Southern States a population of eight mil- 
 lions of whites, occupying the most fertile portion of the United 
 States a people second to none in energy, culture and courage; 
 a race that has furnished its full quota of statesmen, warriors 
 and scholars. Shall we make of such a people friends or 
 enemies? Let England's experience with Ireland answer the 
 question. We know what the products of this region have been, 
 and how much it has contributed to the national wealth. For 
 want of it the commerce and manufactures of the North and 
 East are languishing. Is the Radical policy likely to restore it 
 to us ? We see the result of three years' operation of the meas- 
 ures they have inaugurated. The country, the finest region of 
 the globe, a desolation and a waste; labor disorganized and 
 society upturned ; and these results the fruits of a system that 
 can be maintained only at an expense of a hundred millions per 
 annum; so that, instead of being a source of national wealth, 
 this magnificent region is a national curse. Instead of eight 
 millions of fellow-citizens contributing by their labor to the 
 growth, strength and prosperity of the country, we have eight 
 millions of discontented and restless subjects, ready to revolt at 
 the first opportunity against a bondage, to which if they would 
 willingly submit, they would be unworthy ever to become mem- 
 bers of a Confederated Republic. Was there ever madness like 
 this upon the face of the earth ? You make a prison-house of 
 the fairest portion of your dominions, and spend a hundred mil- 
 lions per annum in guarding your prisoners. 
 
 How shall we restore prosperity to a region whose capability 
 of production equals that of one half of our entire country? 
 Certainly, not by reducing its inhabitants to slavery. When 
 were a people ever prosperous who were not free ? 
 
 But, say the advocates of the Radical scheme, we know that 
 a military government is expensive, that it is odious and the 
 very opposite to that form which the United States is to guaran- 
 tee to every State in the Union; but, say they, this monstrosity 
 is only temporary and provisional even now we are replacing 
 these military with civil governments. And what kind of civil 
 government, pray, is it that they propose to substitute for the 
 bayonet ? Why, such an one as can only be developed and sus- 
 tained at the point of the bayonet a civil government estab- 
 lished and maintained in opposition to the determined will of 
 seven eighths of the white people that are to be subjected to its 
 operation a civil government that falls as soon as the bayonets 
 with which it is propped are withdrawn a civil government that 
 is twice as expensive, twice as oppressive, and five times as odious 
 as the one it is intended to supplant. So true is this, that a 
 prayer came up to Congress from this poor, oppressed people, 
 begging and entreating that they might be continued under the 
 
existing military government, rather than that they should be 
 turned over to the mercy of the blacks and the worthless North- 
 ern adventurers, who are to administer this free and republican 
 government with which our hopes are flattered. 
 
 But the means by which this bad end of subjugation is to be 
 attained, are even more objectionable than the object for which 
 they are used. The rifle and the bayonet inaugurated the sys- 
 tem, and drum-head courts-martial were substituted for the jury 
 box. But this species of territorial government is too odious to 
 be permanent, and the ugly features of this system had to be 
 veiled, whilst the compulsory element was not to be impaired 
 the substance of tyranny was to be disguised under the mask of 
 liberty. Hence, we have all the form of civil representative gov- 
 ernment; a government, however, in which the intelligence, the 
 wealth, and the virtue of the country are disfranchised. It is, 
 indeed, a representative Government, but it represents nothing 
 but vice and ignorance; and this, because, in that section, it is 
 only amongst the vicious and ignorant that the_ Radical party 
 
 OflOCPOtt 
 
 finds its supporters. 
 
 The Radicals repel the charge that the masses of the South- 
 ern people are disfranchised because, if allowed to vote they 
 would not support the Radical ticket; they say, they are disfran- 
 chised because they have committed treason; but this is a mere 
 pretence, and deceives no one; everybody knows that Congress 
 is ready to extend the right of suffrage to any rebel who promises 
 to vote their ticket; they have done so in many cases, and there 
 is no instance where the part}- has refused the boon when they 
 have been satisfied with the political character of the applicant. 
 Besides, the Supreme Court of the United States have virtually 
 adjudged, that to deny the right of suffrage because of a crime 
 previously committed, is an ex post facto law, which is expressly 
 contrary to the letter of the Constitution. 
 
 I have now, I think, clearly proved to you that the only object 
 of these obnoxious measures for the government of the South- 
 ern States, was the perpetuation of party dominion; and that to 
 this end, the Constitution, the peace and the quiet of the coun- 
 try, have been sacrificed. 
 
 But it is pretended that the hostile and rebellious spirit ex- 
 hibited by the Southern people after the close of the war, ren- 
 dered it absolutely necessary to keep them under military 
 surveillance. This is not true. The people of the South were 
 tired, and God knows they had reason to be tired, of the war. 
 They made the war in defence, as they conceived, of their legal 
 right to the institution of slavery. The masses of the Southern 
 people entertained a romantic love of the Union, and the only 
 cause for alienation was what they considered the unconstitu- 
 tional assaults upon an institution inseparably interwoven with 
 their political and social systems. When they found this insti- 
 tution irretrievably gone, they considered that the only cause 
 that made separation desirable had been removed, and they were 
 willing and ready to return to the Union. Of course, like all 
 wars, this civil war had engendered some bitterness of feeling; 
 
10 
 
 but there was none that time would not soon have allayed, and 
 that kindness and liberality would not have quickly effaced. 
 That such was the state of things in December, 1865," and that 
 at that period there was no need for the exercise of military 
 power, is evidenced by the report of General Grant to the Presi- 
 dent, upon his return from his tour of observation in the South- 
 ern States. The extreme Kadicals of that day, not forseeing 
 what has come to pass, denounced this as a whitewashing report. 
 What do they say to it now ? Is their candidate unworthy of 
 belief ? But, say they, whatever may have been the feeling 
 then, it is one of bitter hostility now. "Well, and if it be so, 
 what, pray, but the wrongs and oppressions heaped upon them 
 by the Radical party has wrought the change ? Can it be desir- 
 able to continue a system which leads to such a result ? Is ill- 
 will and discontent with the Government upon the part of so 
 large and so powerful a portion of your fellow-citizens, a state of 
 mind which you desire either to engender or to perpetuate? Have 
 we not had a sufficient trial of the compulsory system; and is it 
 not time, let me ask you, that we had tried the Christian virtue 
 of conciliation ? Is it not the part of true statesmanship to 
 redress, rather than to excite, grievances ? To my mind, to hope 
 for the restoration of a broken fellowship from " pounding," is 
 about as reasonable as to expect a good result from the applica- 
 tion of a sledge-hammer to a broken bowl. 
 
 The truth is, there is a bitter feeling pervading the Southern 
 mind. Of course there is. The people of that section would 
 be more or less than mortal were it otherwise. But it is not 
 against the Government, but against the bad and weak men who 
 have of late administered it, that this feeling is directed. These 
 people dislike the authors of the insults and oppressions to 
 which they have been subjected, as good men throughout the 
 world ought to dislike them. But they are just in that condi- 
 tion, heart-broken, but not broken-spirited, when further perse- 
 cution may make them desperate, and when a little justice and 
 a little liberality would make them your friends forever. 
 
 I have shown you that the Radical plan for the government of 
 the Southern States is unconstitutional and impolitic. I will 
 now endeavor to prove to you that it is impracticable. 
 
 The whole plan is based upon an enforced supremacy of a ne- 
 gro minority over a white majority. The elevation of the negro 
 is a chimera of a fanatical brain. He is doomed, forever doomed, 
 in this country at least, to be a hewer of wood and drawer of 
 water for his white brother; and this, in consequence of a preju- 
 dice against him so strong and so universal that to hope to stem 
 it is as useless as it would be to attempt to arrest the Atlantic tide. 
 
 The proposition is to make a voter, nay a legislator of and a 
 governor of an individual who is everywhere refused admission 
 to the humblest mechanical guild. What watchmaker, what 
 joiner, or what bricklayer will take a negro apprentice; or should 
 he become a journeyman, what white man would work in com- 
 pany with him ? He is a pariah and an outcast; he may shave 
 your beard, cut your hair, plough your fields, clean your shoes, 
 
11 
 
 or brush your clothes; but higher than these menial employ" 
 ments he must not aspire. So true is this, that a lot of these 
 poor creatures, living in Washington, within the very verge of 
 the Capitol, under the protecting /smiles of a Radical Congress, 
 sent up to that Congress, last winter a petition, setting forth 
 their grievances, the chief est of which was that there, in the 
 citadel of freedom, of equal rights and universal brotherhood, 
 nothing but the most menial employments were open to them. 
 And for this crying evil, the learning of Sumner, and the in- 
 genuity of Fessenden, and the zeal of Wilson, could find no 
 remedy. How is it possible that out of such stuff as this you 
 are going to create governors of the white race ? It is a proposi- 
 tion against which all the prejudices of the American people cry 
 aloud; it is a proposition so monstrous and so unnatural that all 
 the military power of France would not suffice to enforce it in 
 America. 
 
 We are sometimes asked "Are there not negroes who are the 
 equals, morally and intellectually, of white men, that are ad- 
 mitted to suffrage ?" Undoubtedly there are, but the difference 
 is, that the w r hite man, or his descendants, by culture and educa- 
 tion, may rise to the highest social position ; this the negro can 
 never attain; and it is both unwise and unsafe to admit him to 
 the political, who is precluded by the insurmountable barrier of 
 race from the social, circle. I say unsafe, because, where two 
 races come together and amalgamation is impossible, there must 
 be either submission or resistance on the pail of the weaker race. 
 Under such circumstances, it is the height of folly to engender 
 the spirit of resistance and then to strengthen it. These two re- 
 sults are the necessary consequence of education and the enjoy- 
 ment of political and social power. 
 
 Upon the question of the mode of dealing with the Southern 
 States, there is no middle course, no half-way ground. They 
 must be admitted into full fellowship as equal members of the 
 confederacy, or they must be kept under strict military subjec- 
 tion. We must make of them friends and allies, or we must 
 treat them as enemies and prisoners of war. The Constitution, 
 the nature and character of our institutions, forbid any measures 
 intermediate these two extremes. 
 
 I believe that this is all I have to say to you concerning the 
 unconstitutionally, the folly, and the impracticability of the 
 Radical scheme of reconstruction. No good ever has, or ever 
 can come of it. 
 
 Upon the subject of the public debt, I have little to say. The 
 only question, in relation to it, upon which the two parties differ, 
 and with which we have now to deal, are the propriety of taxing 
 the government bonds, and the disposition to be made of the large 
 class of these bonds, the principal of which is not specially pro- 
 vided for. The Democratic platform declares that the holder of 
 government bonds ought to bear, proportionately with his fellow- 
 citizens, the burdens of that government which affords protection 
 to both alike; and it asserts that " where the obligations of the 
 Government do not expressly state upon their face, or the law 
 
12 
 
 under which they were issued, does not provide, that they shall 
 be paid in coin, they ought, in right and justice, to be paid'in the 
 lawful money of the United States. " The Eadicals ignore both 
 of these propositfons. 
 
 These are interesting questions, and are not without their dif- 
 ficulties. Both propositions tend to equalize and lighten the 
 public burdens, consummations highly desirable, if they can be 
 obtained without a sacrifice of national faith. , 
 
 The Act authorizing the issue of some of these bonds, declared 
 that they should be free from State or Federal taxation. What 
 is the force and effect of such a provision ? With my construc- 
 tion of the Constitution of the United States, I cannot under- 
 stand how the power of a State to subject to taxation any kind 
 of property within its jurisdiction, can be limited by an Act of the 
 Federal Congress. If the Federal authority may exempt one 
 species of property, it may exempt all, and as no government 
 could possibly exist without revenue, it follows, that the crea- 
 ture possesses the lawful power to destroy the creator. If 
 Congress can exempt from taxation this species of property 
 held within the limits of the State, then may they provide that 
 the public lands may be exempted in the hands of an individual 
 purchaser. This would be to authorize the Federal Government 
 to build up in every State, a privileged class, who would enjoy all 
 the benefits, without being subject to the burdens, of a State 
 government. This, I think, is going a bow-shot beyond the 
 most Federal decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, 
 in its most Federal days. 
 
 Again, this pretended right of the bond-holder to be free from 
 the exactions to which his fellow-citizens are subject, is the crea- 
 ture of legislation, and legislation, in its very nature, can never 
 be irrevocable. Is it possible that an unwise or improvident 
 legislature can bind its successors and fasten an intolerable bur- 
 den upon posterity to the latest generation ? That oftentimes a 
 wise policy demands the tolerance of great inconvenience, when 
 relief can only be obtained by the repeal of that class of laws, 
 upon the faith of which individuals have contracted with the 
 Government, is undoubted; but it is at last but a question of pol- 
 icy and the choice between two evils. There may be a law of this 
 class that nobody would hesitate to repeal; there are hundreds of 
 the same class that nobody would think of repealing. 
 
 Now, if this law, so far as the limitation upon the States is 
 concerned, be unconstitutional, and, so far as the United States 
 is concerned, be repealable, the original and present holders of 
 the bonds must be presumed to have known these facts, and to 
 have taken the bonds subject to all the consequences that might 
 flow from them. 
 
 With respect to the proposition to stop the interest upon 
 the great mass of Government bonds, by discharging them as 
 they become due, with non-interest paying greenbacks, before 
 we can determine whether this measure, so fraught with relief 
 to the tax-burdened masses, would be a breach of national 
 faith we must look at the conditions upon which these bonds 
 
13 
 
 were originally taken. They were all issued under and by vir- 
 tue of Acts of Congress, and the terms and conditions of pay- 
 ment can be none other than those therein specified. The case 
 stands thus : By the Act commonly known as the ' ' Legal Tender 
 Act," it is provided that all debts, public and private, may be 
 discharged in the currency known as " greenbacks." An Act of 
 February 25th, 18G2, provides for the payment of interest, in 
 coin, on all bonds and notes of the Government then outstand* 
 ing. These two are the general Acts affecting the currency in 
 which principal and interest may be paid. The Act of March 
 3d, 1863, authorized the sale of seventy-five millions of bonds, 
 bearing an interest of six per cent. On these the principal and 
 interest are both made payable in coin ; and, with the exception 
 of the ten-forties issued under Act of March 3d, 1864, and a 
 few five-twenties of 1864, these are the only bonds the principal 
 of which is expressly declared to be payable in coin. All the 
 other issues are based upon Acts providing for the payment of 
 the interest in coin, leaving the principal subject to the general 
 provisions of the Legal Tender Act. 
 
 It is under these circumstances that it is proposed to pay off, 
 as they fall due, in legal tenders, all that large class of Govern- 
 ment bonds the principal of which, by no express provision, is 
 taken out of the purview of the Legal Tender Act. The advo- 
 cates of this policy are not confined to the Democratic party. 
 The late Mr. Stevens, and several other Radicals- -some of their 
 names would add nothing to the moral force of the argument 
 unequivocally declared that they might be so discharged, with- 
 out violating either the letter or the spirit of the contract; and, 
 indeed, it is difficult to see how it can be otherwise. With a 
 knowledge of the law under which they were issued, w r hich every- 
 body is presumed, and must be presumed, to have known, these 
 bonds were purchased. In gold, they were paid for at the rate 
 of from 40 to 50 cents, an average, say, of 50 cents on the dol- 
 lar. The holder, for five years, has drawn interest, in gold, at 
 the rate of six cents on the hundred that is, at the rate of 
 twelve per cent per annum on his investment; and now, when 
 it is proposed repay them in greenbacks, which in gold would 
 be about 70 for his 50, the gentleman bond-holder becomes 
 highly indignant, and charges the honest people of the country, 
 who for five years have toiled and sweated in his service, with 
 repudiation and breach of faith. What insatiate leeches are 
 these, whu are sucking the life-blood of the country ! 
 
 One word more upon the subject of repudiation. It is an 
 ugly word, and is expressive of an ugly thing. But it is enough 
 to make one's gorge rise to see and hear the members of the 
 present Congress turn up the whites of their eyes, draw down 
 the corners of their mouths, and groan, at the very suggestion 
 of repudiation. Why, they are covered all over, from the crowns 
 of their heads to the soles of their feet, with the slime and filth of 
 repudiation. They have repudiated the most honest portion of 
 the public debt; they made it a condition precedent to the admis- 
 sion of the Southern States, that they should debase themselves 
 
14 
 
 to their own level by an act of repudiation; and they lowered 
 the standard of public and private morals by authorizing individ- 
 uals to repudiate their debts. Each and every one of these 
 charges I am prepared to substantiate. 
 
 First When they passed the Legal Tender Act, they not only 
 paid the then existing debts of the Government in a depreciated 
 currency, but, they authorized and invited every citizen to do the 
 same, a privilege of which, to their honor be it spoken, the peo- 
 ple of California indignantly refused to avail themselves. 
 
 Secondly I say that the Badical Congress has repudiated the 
 most honest portion of the public debt. They have passed re- 
 peated Acts forbidding the Court of Claims and the Departments 
 from taking cognizance of any claims, preferred even by loyal 
 citizens, for any property taken and used by the army and navy 
 during the war. These claims have been estimated to amount 
 to three or four thousand millions. Mr. Stevens, the Chairman 
 oj the House Committee on Appropriations, reckoned them at 
 the former sum; and Mr. Wilson, the Third Auditor, thinks 
 they might be brought within the latter. 
 
 Now, if there is one portion of this people more entitled than 
 another to the favorable regard of the Federal Government, one 
 would suppose it to be that portion of the Southern people who 
 remained true to the Federal cause. And yet, when they come 
 up to the Capital and ask to be paid a fair compensation for 
 their private property, taken for the public use, those who ad- 
 minister the government they helped to sustain turn their backs 
 upon them, and refuse even to listen to them. And at whose 
 instance and for whose benefit, think you, these acts of repudia- 
 tion were passed? Why, it was done at the behest of these 
 same bond-holders, who were afraid that the value of the public 
 securities held by them would be impaired if the unaudited 
 debt should even be audited. And it is these very same repu- 
 diating bond-holders who pretend to be horrified at what they 
 unjustly stigmatize as the repudiating feature of the Democratic 
 platform ! 
 
 In all this I have stated nothing but facts, which an examina- 
 tion of the record will verify. 
 
 Far less objectionable is a military government, with the South 
 in a state of pupilage, than these proposed civil governments, 
 with the negro element incorporated into them. Under a mili- 
 tary government the Southern people would have the sympathy 
 of freemen throughout the world; but the suffering and the evil 
 would be confined to their own borders. The moment you bring 
 the negro upon the stage you force him upon us as a partner in 
 the public councils. This is a point that was quite overlooked by 
 the authors of the Chicago platform. It was a motley crew that 
 met to frame this enunciation of principles. The only honest 
 element in their composition was the original abolitionist, the 
 negro absorbed fanatic. He was quickly disposed of. His doc- 
 trine of ' ' impartial saffrage, and no distinction on account of 
 race or color/' was too unpopular to be embodied in an available 
 platform. Notwithstanding, therefore, the distinguished ser- 
 
15 
 
 vices of those shining lights, Simmer and Wade and "Wilson and 
 Chase, their notorious use of what had been the shibboleth of 
 the party, was sufficient to taboo them and cause them to be 
 postponed to a man thoroughly dyed in the aristocracy of the 
 army, and one, strange to say, who had authorised Senator Doo- 
 little to tell the people of Wisconsin that a persistence in the 
 radical plan of reconstruction, would, in his opinion, result in 
 the most deplorable consequences. So far the conduct of the 
 members of the Chicago convention was unexceptionable. They 
 ignored their fatal doctrine of the equality of races, and selected 
 as their representative an individual avowedly opposed to their 
 destructive measures. In this Phillips and Greeley charged 
 them with a desertion of principle. Well would it have been 
 had they stopped here. But whilst they abandoned the negro 
 generally, because he was unpopular in the free States, they pro- 
 claimed their intention to make him an instrument of party con- 
 trol in the South. They said We abandon the negro and the 
 doctrine of the equality of races; we propose to give him the 
 control of the white men of the South, not because of his merits, 
 which, if asserted, would force us to claim for him the right of 
 suffrage everywhere, but for the purpose of punishing rebels 
 and as the only means of sustaining our party supremacy. This 
 they considered would be unobjectionable to the voters of the 
 Northern and Western States. Ohio, thak had rejected the pro- 
 position of negro suffrage by fifty thousand votes, could not pos- 
 sibly object to having this great evil forced upon the people of 
 the South. They made no account of a sympathy for the suffer- 
 ing of others; that was a feeling outlying the sphere of their hu- 
 manity. But this they forgot, that if the people of Ohio were 
 so bitterly opposed to negro participation in their State govern- 
 ment, they could not but object to the introduction of this ele- 
 ment into the Federal government. They forgot that it was 
 against any governmental partnership with the negro, either 
 State or Federal, that the people had so loudly proclaimed. And 
 if you, the people of California, are unwilling that the negro 
 should share with you in administering the powers of govern- 
 ment, how can you support the party who are determined to 
 make him your equal in the Federal legislature ? 
 
 In view of the fact that there is nothing in the platform upon 
 which Mr. Seymour stands to commit you to what you are pleased 
 to call the heresy of secession; since, indeed, that " heresy" is 
 therein explicitly repudiated, and that the only issues between 
 the two parties are the distinct and opposite modes in which they 
 T propose to deal with the Southern question and the public debt, 
 
 can you hesitate between them ? I am no croaker; much less do 
 I desire to appear as threatening the Radical party w T ith forcible 
 resistance to their administration of the government, should they 
 succeed; but there are some measures so abhorent to the preju- 
 dices of a minority, that they will not be yielded to a bare, or to 
 an apparent, majority. To this class, in my humble judgment, 
 belongs the proposition to elevate the negro over the white race 
 at the South, a proposition that constitutes tfie corner stone of 
 
16 
 
 the Badical programme. Upon this proposition the South is an 
 unit, and the North and West, to say the least, are very nearly 
 equally divided. It cannot possibly be carried out without en- 
 gendering great excitement ! Is there anything about the plan 
 that justifies the risk we run in its enforcement. Quiet and 
 peace, that quiet and peace for which we are longing, will never 
 be restored to the country until the idea of putting the Chinese 
 and the negro on a level with the white man, is abandoned, or, 
 at least, removed from the political arena. 
 
 Upon the merits of the respective candidates I have little to 
 say; indeed, before such important principles as are now at stake, 
 individuals pale into insignificance. Mr. Seymour is one of the 
 most accomplished statesmen of the age, with a character for 
 integrity that the breath of calumny cannot sully. If ever there 
 was a period in the history of our country when we needed the 
 guiding hand of a statesman, that period is upon us. General 
 Grant is without culture or political experience. We here in 
 California have known him he has lived in our midst. When 
 we knew him, if by any chance he had received a nomination for 
 supervisor of the county of San Francisco, the ' 'People's Party" 
 would have indignantly denounced him as unfit by nature, edu- 
 cation, or habits, for the position. I know of 110 improvement 
 in him in any of these respects since that day. 
 
 It is sometimes said that General Grant is a conservative, and 
 that he will never lend himself to the extreme views of the Rad- 
 ical party. I know nothing about General Grant to warrant the 
 aspersion upon his integrity implied in this assertion. He ac- 
 cepted the nomination upon the Chicago platform; in doing so, 
 he pledged himself to the doctrines and measures it announces 
 as the principles and views of the party. It is these doctrines 
 and measures that we arraign, and if General Grant holds other 
 views upon which he intends, if elected, to administer the gov- 
 ernment, then is he a traitor, and unworthy the confidence or 
 support of any party. 
 
 I have now, in a plain way, without figure, trope, or metaphor, 
 placed my views before my countrymen; I express my own sen- 
 timents, and speak for myself alone. What I have written, I 
 have written without conference with any other human being, 
 and I can hardly hope that it will be entirely acceptable to either 
 of the two parties into which the country is divided. I think by 
 this time you will be satisfied that I have no selfish object in 
 view, and that I have been moved to the course I have pursued 
 solely by a desire to secure a common good to our common 
 country; and with the hope that I have at least succeeded in 
 inspiring that feeling, I take my leave of you. Knowing that the 
 name of the author would add nothing to the weight of his argu- 
 ment, I am content to subscribe myself, 
 
 YOUR FELLOW CITIZEN.