THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE :^i,/^*^ A*>i^*fl8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ZH1 ItiTH PRESLQZXT OF THK UHETEU STATM. CHICAGO RHODES & McCLURS P0B. 00. 1888. toterec according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, by tte RHODES & MOCLUEE PUa CO. Although Col. Ingersoll wa8 known for years as a brill iant speaker and leading lawyer, his extended public assaults upon Christianity brought him into national prom inence. While his anti-religious diatribes have been too freely published, his other speeches have not been printed as much as they merited. The present collection is a com plete list of the magnificent orations of this celebrated infi del, lawyer and politician. These speeches contain some of the finest gems of oratory the world has ever known. To the student of oratory, politics, or humanity, the following pages will prove of great value. To the general reader they will furnish abun dant entertainment. R S. R. CHICAGO, January 1st, 1888 m Abraham Lincoln 199 Ainsworth B. Spofford's Interest-ing Table 21 American Republic, The 195 Amusing Remarks about Early Rising 18 At His Brother's Grave 65 B Bay of the Blood-hound 198 Best Country for the Poor 837 Best of this Earth 7 Best People, The 124 Beware of Bachelors 259 Bonds and Greenbacks 200 Bondholders 249 Business and the Money Question 7 Buying a Family Horse 117 C Candidates, The (1880) 129 Candidates of the Two Parties 163 Centralization 126 Chalmers, Mr 116 Charity of Extravagance 251 Colored Race, The 84 Contraction 286 Contrast between the Farmer and Mechanic 8 Contrast between the Farmer and Professional Man 10 Crash of 1873, The 241 Creditor Class 284 D Democratic Blundering 274 Democratic Charges 130 Democratic Meanness .. 216 CONTENTS. Democratic Party, The 76, 114 Democratic Record, The 269 Democratic Stupidity , 79 Democratic Usefulness Obsolete 8 Democracy the Greatest Luxury 281 Desperate Resorts of the Democrats 185 Dream, A 45 Doctrine of State-Rights, The 181 E Edncation by Nature 50 Educated Farmer, The 10 Epitaph, An 201 Equal Opportunities for All 336 Everbody Has a Chance in the United States 306 Every Man who Advocated Secession was a Democrat 271 Extract from Democratic Pedigree, An 261 F Fallacy and Folly of Fiat Dollars 148 Farmers Should Live in Villages 12 Fashions and Handsome Women 14 Ferryman, The 128 Fiat Money r 229, 243 Financial Crash of 1873 228 Financial Honor 293 Free Ballot-box, A 277 Freedom and Progress 217 Free Speech 276 Fugitive Law of 1850, The 196 Funeral Oration at His Brother's Grave 65 Future of America 63 Q Garfield 186,304 Gen. Hancock 299 Good Money 234 Government a Pauper, The 245 Government Taxes 230 Grease Story, A 122 Greenbacks 89,92.287,288 CONTENTS. H H'Uf-bushels and Yardsticks 289 Bappy Home, The 23 Hard Money 211 Hard Times 90,286 Hayea, Rutherford B 96,262 Hayes and Wheeler 108,215 Home va. the Boarding- House 14 Honest Money 146,284,287 How a Man Should Treat His Wife, 21 How to Vote 807 How Wealth is Accumulated 236 I Illinois 20 Industry and Brotherhood 15 In Favor of Protection. 182 Inflation and Contraction 248 Ingersoll's Beautiful Dream 45 Ingersoll's Big Horse Race 43, 104 Ingersoll's Early Experience in Farming 8 Ingersoll's Eloquent Vision 34 Ingereoll's Ideal Farmer 6 Ingersoll on American Nationality 335 Ingersoll on Cookery 22 Ingersoll not Preaching a Gospel of Hate 172 Ingersoll's Plea for Honest Money 227 Intelligence not a Doctrine of Hatred 294 L Labor-Saving Machines 252 Legislation Growing out of War 303 Let the Black People Rule 281 Let the Money Fade Out 248 Liberty or Death..... 58 M Manly Voting 267 Marvelous City of Pluck, The 109 Merchants and Drummers 240 Methodist Ministers' Collection, The 118,146 CONTENTS. Money 89,119,248,290,292 More Solid Shot 86 Morey- Letter, The 171 Mud-Throwing 170 N Nation, A 56, 153 National Protection 296 Negro or White Superiority 102 No Free Speech in the South 138 No Oppression of Labor in the United States 237 Note to Chicago Speech 110 O Old Corpse of Democracy, The 107 Old Life- Insurance Associations 239 Oration at a Child's Grave , 220 Our Country 113 P Paper not Money 291 Parties Compared, The Two 194 Party of an Honest Ballot 142 Party that Needs a " Change " 178 Payment of Southern Claims 301 Perils of the Republic 338 Period of Inflation 238 Plain Truths for the Democrats 263 Playing Poker 148 Political Tramp, A 78 Poor Have a Chance, The 254 Protecting American Labor 158 Protecting Northern Men in the South 41 Protection of Citizens 212 E Reasons why the Colonel is not a Democrat 27 Repudiation 120, 286, 340 Republican Families 337 Republican Party, The 51, 98, 123, 168, 205, 258, 273 Responsibility for the Hard Times 262 Retrospective View of Farming 8 CONTENTS. Revelation and Revolution 48 Revenue 118 Revenue Collectors Killed and Wounded 119, 145 Running in debt 90 8 Shot Down for Opinion's Sake 213 Solid Comfort 25 Solid South. The 275 " Sons of Liberty " 202 Source of the Free-Trade Doctrine 160 South and Tissue-Ballots and Shotguns, The 280 Southern Church, The 124 Specie Payments 282 Splendid Democrats 129 Standing by the Republican Party 106 State Rights 81, 299 State Sovereignty 154, 295 Statue of Liberty 100 Struggle after the Panic, The 152 Sufferings of the Slaves 85 SPEECHES (In full): At a Child's Grave 220 At Banquet of the Army of the Tennessee 72 At Boston, Mass., Oct. 21, 1878 235 At Chicago, Oct. 21, 1876 76 Athis Brother's Grave 65 At Lewiston, Me., Sept. 10, 1880 112 AtRockford, 111., Sept 28, 1880 266 Nominating Mr. Blaine for President 68 On the Declaration of Independence 47 To the Farmers on Farming I 3 To the Veteran Soldiers at Indianapolis 27 SPEECHES (Extracts): Star- Route Trial 314, 328 At Augusta, Me., Sept. 2, 1876 224 At Gloucester, Mass., Aug. 12, 1880 835 At Lewiston, Me., Aug. 21, 1876 258 AtMalone, N. Y., Oct. 4, 1878 227 At Newark, N. J., Oct. 21, 188C 310 At New York, Sept. 11, 1876 194 At New York, Oct. 23,1880 188 At New York, Oct 28, 1880.... . ITS CONTENTS. Telegram from Elaine 194, 20? Tewksbury Illustration, The , 127 Tilden...'. 94, 95,208, 214 Thirty-three Dozen Eggs for $1 16 The Past Rises before Me like a Dream 84 Three Important Questions Answered 38 Tramps 254 V Voting with Rebels... 306 W Way Out, The 250 What a Dollar Can Do 20 What is a Capitalist ? 236 What the Railroads Have Done 16 What We Want To-day 61 What Would Follow Hancock's Election 188 Who Shall Collect Revenue ? 144 Why the Colonel is a Republican 29 Why the Colonel is not a Democrat 27 President Lincoln Frontispiece. Col. Ingersoll Title-page. Niobe 65 Hon. James G. Elaine 71 Union Arms 72 Union Flag 73 Capitol at Washington 75 The Old Mill Ill The Rustic Bridge 131 U. S. Grant 132 Garfield 169 The Windmill .". 173 A Pair in a Boat. 174 Scene in Holland 192 Sunset 193 Beside the Moonlit Sea 218 National Lincoln Monument 219 The Brook 222 Mirror Lake 223 Stone Bridges 225 ViewH in Union Park, Chicago 226 In Harbor 233 The Skylark 234 Peace 256 The Crib of the Chicago Water Works 257 Two of aKind 264 " Far from the Madding Crowd " : 265 Old Fort Dearborn, Chic?^o 308 "Haunts of Coot and Hern " 309 Chicago Resurgam 312 L' Avenue dea Palmes 813 Old Chicago Court-House 827 Bj Wood and Lake 834 COL.INGERSOLL'5 TO THE FARMERS ON FARMING. INGERSOLL'S EARLY EXPERIENCE WHEN HE WAS A FARMEB A RETROSPECTIVE VIEW. [from the Illinois State Register^ LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I am not an old and expe rienced farmer, nor a tiller of the soil, nor one of the hard- handed sons of labor. I imagine, however, that I know something about cultivating the soil, and getting happiness out of the ground. I know enough to know that agriculture is the basis of all wealth, prosperity and luxury. I know that in the country where the tillers of the fields are free, everybody is free and ought to be prosperous. The old way of farming was a great mistake. Every thing was done the wrong way. It was all work and waste, weariness and want. They used to fence a hundred and sixty acres of land with a couple of dogs. Everything was left to the protection of the blessed trinity of chance, acci dent and mistake. When I was a farmer they used to haul wheat two hun- 4 COL. INGERSOLLS dred wiles in wagons and sell it for thirty-five cents a bushel. They would bring home about three hundred feet of lumber, two bunches of shingles, a barrel of salt, and a cook-stove that never would draw and never did bake. In those blessed days the people lived on corn and bacon. Cooking was an unknown art. Eating was a necessity, not a pleasure. It was hard work for the cook to keep on good terms even with hunger. We had poor houses. The rain held the roofs in perfect contempt, and the snow drifted joyfully on the floors and beds. They had no barns. The horses were kept in rail pens surrounded with straw. Long before spring the sides would be eaten away and nothing but roofs would be left. Food is fuel. "When the cattle were exposed to all the blasts of winter, it took all the corn and oats that could be stuffed into them to prevent actual starvation. In those times farmers thought the best place for the pig pen was immediately in front of the house. There is noth ing like sociability. Women were supposed to know the art of making fires without fuel. The wood-pile consisted, as a general thing, of one log, upon which an axe or two had been worn out in vain. There was nothing to kindle a fire with. Pickets were pulled from the garden fence, clap-boards taken from the house, and every stray plank was seized upon for kind ling. Everything was done in the hardest way. Every thing about the farm was disagreeable. Nothing was kept in order. Nothing was preserved. The wagons stood in the sun and rain, and the plows rusted in the fields. There was no leisure, no feeling that the work was done. It was all labor and weariness and vexation of spirit. The crops were destroyed by wandering herds, or they were put in too late, or too early, or they were blown down, or caught by the frost, or devoured by bugs, or stung by fiies, or GREAT SPEECHES. 5 eaten by worms, or carried away by birds, or dug up by gophers, or washed away by floods, or dried up by the sun, or rotted in the stack, or heated in the crib, or they all run to vines, or tops, or straw, or smut, or cobs. And when in spite of all these accidents that lie in wait between the plow and the reaper, they did succeed in raising a good crop and a high price was offered, then the roads would be impassible. And when the roads got good, then the prices went down. Everything worked together for evil. Nearly every farmer's boy took an oath that he wotild never cultivate the soil. The moment they arrived at the age of twenty-one they left the desolate and dreary farms and rushed to the towns and cities. They wanted to be book-keepers, doctors, merchants, railroad men, insurance agents, lawyers, even preachers, anything to avoid the drudgery of the fartn. Nearly every boy acquainted with the three R's reading, writing and arithmetic imagined that he had altogether more education than ought to be wasted in raising potatoes and corn. They made haste to get into some other business. Those who stayed upon the farm envied those who went away. A few years ago the times were prosperous, and the young men went to the cities to enjoy the fortunes that were waiting for them. They wanted to engage in something that promised quick returns. They built railways, estab lished banks and insurance companies. They speculated in stocks in Wall street, and gambled in grain at Chicago. They became rich. They lived in palaces. They rode in carriages. They pitied their poor brothers on the farms, and the poor brothers envied them. But time has brought its revenge. The farmers have seen the railroad president a bankrupt, and the road in the hands of a receiver. They have seen the bank president abscond, and the insurance company a wrecked and ruined 6 COL. INGERSOLLS fraud. The only solvent people, as a class, the only inde pendent people, are the tillers of the soil. OOL. INGERSOLL'S IDEAL FARMER. Farming must be made more attractive. The comforts of the town must be added to the beauty of the fields. The sociability of the city must be rendered possible in the country. Farming has been made repulsive. The farmers have been unsociable, and their homes have been lonely. They have been wasteful and careless. They have not been proud of their business. No farmer can afford to raise corn and oats and hay to sell. He should sell horses, not oats; sheep, cattle and pork, not corn. He should make every profit possible out of what he produces. So long as the farmers of the Middle States ship their corn and oats, so long they will be poor, just so long will their farms be mortgaged to the insurance companies and banks of the east, just so long will they do the work, and others reap the benefit, just so long will they be poor, and the money lenders grow rich, just so long will cunning avarice grasp and hold the net profits of honest toil. When the farmers of the west ship beef and pork instead of grain, when we manufacture here, when we cease paying tribute to others, ours will be the most prosperous country in the world. Another thing It is just as cheap to raise a good as a poor breed of cattle. Scrubs will eat just as much as thoroughbreds. If you are not able to buy Durhams and Alderneys, you can raise the corn-breed. By " corn-breed " I mean the cattle that have for several generations had enough to eat, and have been treated with kindness. Every farmer who will treat his cattle kindly, and feed them all they want, will, in a few years, have blooded stock on hie GREAT SPEECHES. 7 farm. All blooded stock has been produced in this way. You can raise good cattle just as you can raise good people. If you wish to raise a good boy you must give him plenty to eat, and treat him with kindness. In this way, and in this way only, can good cattle or good people be produced. Another thing You must beautify your homes. When I was a farmer it was not fashionable to set out trees, nor to plant vines. When you visited the farm you were not welcomed by flowers, and greeted by trees loaded with fruit. Yellow dogs came bounding over the tumbled fence like wild beasts. There is no sense there is no profit in such a life. It is not living. The farmers ought to beautify their homes. There should be trees and grass, and flowers and running vines. Everything should be kept in order ; gates should be kept on their hinges, and about all there should be the pleasant air of thrift. In every house there should be a bath-room. The bath is a civilizer, a refiner, a beautifier. When you come from the fields tired, covered with dust, nothing is so refreshing. Above all things, keep clean. It is not necessary to be a pig in order to raise one. In the cool of the evening, after a day in the field, put on clean clothes, take a seat under the trees, 'mid the perfume of flowers, surrounded by your family, and you will know what it is to enjoy life like a gentleman. WHAT THE COLONEL BELIEVES TO BE THE BEST PORTION O>F THE EAKTH. In no part of the globe will farming pay better than in the Western States. You are in the best portion of the earth. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, there is no such eountry as yours. The east is hard and stony ; the soil is stingy. The far west is a desert parched and barren, dreary and desolate as perdition would be with the fires out. It 8 COL. INGERSOLL'S is better to dig wheat and corn from the soil than gold. Only a few days ago I was where they wrench the precious metals from the miserly clutch of the rocks. When I saw the mountains, treeless, shrubless, flowerless, without even a spire of grass, it seemed to me that gold had the same effect upon the country that holds it, as upon the man who lives and labors only for that. It affects the land as it does the man. It leaves the heart barren without a flower of kindness without a blossom of pity. The farmer in the Middle States has the best soil the greatest return for the least labor more leisure more time for enjoyment than any other farmer in the world. His hard work ceases with autumn. He has the long win ters in which to become acquainted with his family with his neighbors in which to read and keep abreast with the advanced thought of his day. He has the time and means of self-culture. He has more time than the mechanic, the merchant or the professional man. If the farmer is not well informed it is his own fault. Books are cheap, and every farmer can have enough to give him the outline of every science, and an idea of all that has been accomplished by man. THE FAEMEB AND THE MECHANIC WHICH THE COLONEL THINKS HAS THE BEST OF IT. In many respects the farmer has the advantage of the mechanic. In our time we have plenty of mechanics but no tradesmen. In the sub-division of labor we have a thousand men working upon different parts of the same thing, each taught in one particular branch, and in . only one. We have, say, in a shoe-factory, hundreds of mea, but not a shoemaker. It takes them all, assisted by a great number of machines, to make a shoe. Each does a par- Ocular part, and not on of them knows the entire trade. GREAT SPEECHES. 9 The i-esult is that the moment the factory shuts down these men are out of employment. Out of employment means out of bread out of bread means famine and horror. The mechanic of to-day has but little independence. His pros perity often depends upon the good-will of one man. He is liable to be discharged for a look, for a word. He lays by but little for his declining years. He is, at the best, the slave of capital. It is a thousand times better to be a whole farmer than part of a mechanic. It is better to till the ground and work for yourself than to be hired by corporations. Every man should endeavor to belong to himself. About seven hundred years ago, Kheyam, a Persian, said : "Why should a man who possesses a piece of bread securing life for two days, and who has a cup of water why should such a man serve another?" Young men should not be satisfied with a salary. Do not mortgage the possibilities of your future. Have the courage to take life as it comes, feast or famine. Think of hunting a gold mine for a dollar a day, and think of finding one for another man. How would you feel then ? We are lacking in true courage, when, for fear of the future, we take the crusts and scraps and niggardly salaries of the present. I had. a thousand times rather have a farm and be independent, than to be President of the United States without independence, filled with doubt and trem bling, feeling of the popular pulse, resorting to art and artifice, inquiring about the wind of opinion, and succeed ing at last in losing my self-respect without gaining the re spect of others. Man needs more manliness, more real independence. We must take care of ourselves. This we can do by labor, and in this way we can preserve our independence. We should try and choose that business or profession the pursuit of IO COL. INGERSOLLS which will give us the most happiness. Happiness is wealth. We can be happy without being rich without holding office without being famous. I am not sure that we can be happy with wealth, with office, or with fame. THE FARMER AND THS PROFESSIONAL MAN THE RACE OF LIFE. There is a quiet about the life of a farmer, and the hope of a serene old age, that no other business or profession can promise. A : professional man is doomed some time to feel that his powers are waning. He is doomed to see younger and stronger men pass him in the race of life. He looks forward to an old age of intellectual mediocrity. He will be last where once he was the first. But the farmer goes, as it were, into partnership with nature he lives with tree?* and flowers he breathes the sweet air of the fields. There is no constant and frightful strain upon his mind. Hie nights are filled with sleep and rest. He watches his flocks and herds as they feed upon the green and sunny slopes. He hears the pleasant rain falling upon the waving corn, and the trees he planted in youth rustle above him as he plants others for the children yet to be. Our country is filled with tho idle and unemployed, and the great question asking for an answer is : What shall be done with these men? What shall these men do? To this there is but one answer : They must cultivate the soil. COL. INGERSOLL'S IDEA OF AN EDUCATED FARMER. Farming must be more attractive. Those who work the land must have an honest pride in their business. They must educate their children to cultivate the soil. They must make farming easier, so that their children will not hake it themselves. The boys must not be taught that GREAT SPEECHES. I I Idling the soil is a curse and almost a disgrace. They must not suppose that education is thrown away upon them unless they become ministers, lawyers, doctors or states men. It must be understood that education can be used to advantage on a farm. We mast get rid of the idea that a little learning unfits one for work. There are hundreds of graduates of Yale and Harvard and other colleges, who are agents of sewing machines, solicitors for insurance, clerks, copyists, in short, performing a hundred varieties of menial service. They seem willing to do anything that is not regarded as work anything that can be done in a town, in the house, in an ofdce, but they avoid farming as they would a leprosy. Nearly every young man educated in this way is simply ruined. Such an education ought to be called ignorance. It is a thousand times better to have common-senee without education, than education without the sense. Boys and girls should be educated to help themselves. They should be taught that it is disgraceful to be idle, and dishonorable to be useless. I say again, if you want more men and women on the farms, something must be done to make farm-life pleasant. One great difficulty is that the farm is lonely. People write about the pleasures of solitude, but they are found only in books. He who lives long alone becomes insane. A hermit is a mad man. Without friends and wife and child, there is nothing left worth living for. The unsocial are the enemies of joy. They are filled with egotism and envy, with vanity and hatredi People who live much alone become narrow and suspicious. They are apt to be the property of one idea. They begin to think there is no u*e in anything. They look upon the happiness of others as a kind of folly. They hate joyous folks, because, way down in their hearts, they envy them. 12 COL. INGERSOLLS SHOULD LIVE IN VILLAGES. In our country farm-life is too lonely. The farms are large, and neighbors are too far apart. In these days, when the roads are filled with "tramps," the wives and children need protection. When the farmer leaves home and goes to some distant field to work, a shadow of fear is upon his heart all day, and a like shadow rests upon all at home. In the early settlement of our country the pioneer was forced to take his family, his axe, his dog and his gun, and go into the far wild forest, and build his cabin miles and miles from any neighbor. He saw the smoke from his hearth go up alone in all the wide and lonely sky. But this necessity has passed away, and now, instead (A living so far apart upon the lonely farms, you should live in villages. With the improved machinery which you have with your generous soil with your markets and means of transportation, you can now afford to live together. You should live in villages, so that you can have the benefits of sociaj life. You can have a reading-room you can take the best papers and magazines you can have plenty of books, and each one can have the benefit of them all. Some of the young men and women can cultivate music. You can have social gatherings you can learo from each other you can discuss all topic? of interest, and in this way you can make farming a delightful business. You must keep up with the age. The way to make farming respectable is for farmers to become really intelligent. They must live intelligent and happy lives. They must not be satisfied with knowing something of the affairs of a neighborhood and nothing about the re?t of the earth. The business must be made attractive, and it never can be until the farmer has prosperity, intelligence and leisure. GREAT SPEECHES. 13 THE COLONEL'S AMUSING REMARKS ABOUT GETTING UP EARLY IN THE MORNING. It is not necessary in this age of the world for the farmer to rise in the middle of the night and begin his work. This getting up so early in the morning is a relic of bar barism. It has made hundreds of thousands of young men curse the business. There is no need of getting up at three or four o'clock in the winter morning. The farmer who persists in dragging his wife and children from their beds ought to be visited by a missionary. It is time enough to rise after the sun has set the example. For what pur pose do you get up ? To feed the cattle ? Why not feed them more the night before ? It is a waste of life. In the old times they used to get up about three o'clock in the morning, and go to work long before the sun had risen with "healing upon his wings," and as a just punishment they all had the ague ; and they ought to have it now. The man who cannot get a living upon Illinois soil without rising before daylight ought to starve. Eight hours a day is enough for any farmer to work except in harvest time. When you rise at four and work till dark what is life worth ? Of what use are all the improvements in farming? Of what use is all the improved machinery unless it tends to give the farmer a little more leisure ? What is harvesting now, compared with what is was in the old time ? Think of the days of reaping, of cradling, of raking and binding and mowing. Think of threshing with the flail and win nowing with the wind. And now think of the reapers and' mowers, the binders and threshing machines, the plows and cultivators, upon which the farmer rides protected from the sun. If, with all these advantages, you cannot get a living without rising in the middle of the night, go into some *tfeer business. You should not rob your families of sleep. 14 COL. INGERSOLLS Sleep is the best medicine in the world. There is no such thing as health without plenty of sleep. Sleep until you are thoroughly rested and restored. When you work, work ; and when you get through take a good, long and refreshing sleep. THE FASHIONS AMD HANDSOME WOMEN. Another thing I am a believer in fashion. It is the duty cf every woman to make herself as beautiful and attractive as she possibly can. "Handsome is as handsome does," but she is much handsomer if well dressed. Every man should look hie very best. I am a believer in good clothes. The time never ought to come in this country when you can tell a farmer's wife or daughter simply by the garments she wears. I say to every girl and woman, no matter what the material of your dress may be, no matter how cheap and coarse it is, cut it and make it in the fashion. I believe in jewelry. Some people look upon it as barbaric, but in my judgment, wearing jewelry is the first evidence the barbarian gives of a wish to be civilized. To adorn ourselves seems to be a part of our nature, and this desire seems to be every where and in everything. I have sometimes thought that the desire for beauty covers the earth with flowers. It is this desire that paints the wings of moths, tints the chamber of the shell, and gives the bird its plumage and its song. Ohl daughters and wives, if you would be loved, adorn yourselves if you would be adored, be beautiful 1 HOME VS. THE BOARDING-HOUSE. There is another fault common with the farmers of otu country they want too much land. You cannot, at present, when taxes are high, afford to own land that you do not Cultivate. Sell it and let others make farms and homes. GREAT SPEECHES. 1 5 In this way what you keep will be enhanced in value. Farmers ought to own the land they cultivate, and cultivate what they own. Renters can hardly be called farmers. There can be no such thing in the highest sense as a home unless you own it. There must be an incentive to plant trees, to beautify the grounds, to preserve and improve. It elevates a man to own a home. It gives a certain inde* pendence, a force of character that is obtained in no other way. A man without a home feels like a passenger. There i-3 in such a man a little of the vagrant. Homss make patriots. He who has sat by his own fireside with wife and children, will defend it. When he hears the word country pronounced, be thinks of his home. Few men have been patriotic enough to shoulder a mus ket in defense of a boarding house. The prosperity and glory of onr country depend upon the number of our people who are the owners of homes. Around the fireside cluster the private and the public vir tues of our race. Raise your sons to be independent through labor to pursue some business for themselves, and upon their own account to be self-reliant to act upon their own responsibility, and to take the consequences like men. Teach them above all things to be good, true and faithful husbands winners of love, and builders of homes. INDUSTRY AND BROTHERHOOD. A great many farmers seem to think that they are the only laborers in the world. This is a very foolish thing. Farmers cannot get along without the mechanic. You are not independent of the man of genius. Your prosperity depends upon the inventor. The world advances by the assistance of all laborers; and all labor is under obligations to the inventions of genius. The inventor does as much for agriculture as he who tills the soil. All laboring men 1 6 COL. INGERSOLL'S should be brothers. You are in partnership with the me. chanics who make your reapers, your mowers and your plows ; and you should take into your granges all the men who make their living by honest labor. The laboring people should unite and should protect themselves against all idlers. You can divide mankind into two classes: the laborers and the idlers, the supporters and the supported, the honest and the dishonest. Every man is dishonest who lives upon the unpaid labor of others, no matter if he occu pies a throne. All laborers should be brothers. The laborers should have equal rights before the world and before the law. And I want every farmer to consider every man who labors either with hand or brain as his brother. Until genius and labor formed a partnership there was no such thing as prosperity among men. Every reaper and mower, every agricultural implement, has elevated the work of the farmer, and his vocation grows grander with every invention. In the olden time the agriculturist was ignorant ; he knew nothing of machinery, he was the slave of superstition. The farmer has been elevated through science, and he should not forget the debt he owes to the mechanic, to the inventor, to the thinker. He should, remember that all laborers belong to the same grand family that they are the real kings and queens, the only true nobility. WHAT THE EA1LROADS HAVE DONE THIRTY-THREE DOZEN EGGS FOR ONE DOLLAB. Another idea entertained by most farmers is that they are in some mysterious way oppressed by every other kind of business that they are devoured by monopolies, espe cially by railroads. Of course, the railroads are indebted to the farmers for their prosperity, and the farmers are indebted to the railroads. GREAT SPEECHES. 1 7 A fe'w years ago you endeavored to regulate the charges of railroad companies. The principal complaint you had was that they charged too much for the transportation of corn and other cereals to the East. You should remember that all freight are paid by the consumers of the grain. You are really interested in transportation from the East to the West and in local freights. The result is that while you have put down through freights you have not succeeded so well in local freights. The exact opposite should be the policy in Illinois. Put down local freights ; put them down, if you can, to the lowest possible figure, and let through freights take care of themselves. If all the corn raised in Illinois could be transported to New York absolutely free, it would enhance but little the price that you would receive. What we want is the lowest possible local rate. Instead of this you have simply succeeded in helping the East at the expense of the West. The railroads are your friends. They are your partners. They can prosper only where the country through which they run prospers. All intelligent railroad men know this. They know that present robbery is future bankruptcy. They know that the interest of the farmer and of the railroad is the same. We must have railroads. What can we do without them ? When we had no railroads, we drew, as I said before, our grain two hundred miles to market. In those days the farmers did not stop at hotels. They slept under the wagons took with them their food fried their own bacon, made their own coffee, and ate their meals in the snow and rain. Those were the days when they received ten cents a bushels for corn when they sold four bushels of potatoes for a quarter thirty-three dozen eggs for a dollar, and a hundred pounds of pork for a dollar and a half. What has made the difference ? The railroads came to 1 8 COL. INGERSOLL'S your door and they brought with them the markets of tbf world. They brought New York and Liverpool and Lon don into Illinois, and the State has been clothed with pros perity as with a mantle. It is the interest of the farmer t protect every great interest in the State. In these iron highways more than three hundred million dollars have been invested a sum equal to ten times the original cost of all the land in the State. To make war upon the rail roads is a short-sighted and suicidal policy. They should be treated fairly and should be taxed by the same standard that farms are taxed, and in no other way. If we wish to prosper we must act together, and we must see to it that every form of labor is protected. BUSINESS AND THE MONET QUESTION. There has been a long period of depression in all busi ness. The farmers have suffered least of all. Your land is just as rich and productive as ever. Prices have been reasonable. The towns and cities have suffered. Stocks and bonds have shrunk from par to worthless paper. Princes have become paupers, and bankers, merchants and millionaires have passed into the oblivion of bankruptcy. The period of depression is slowly passing away, and we are entering upon better times. A great many people say that a scarcity of money is our only difficulty. In my opinion we have money enough, but we lack confidence in each other in the future. There has been so much dishonesty, there have been so many failures, that the people are afraid to trust anybody. There is plenty of money, but there seems to be a scarcity of business. If you were to go to the owner of a ferry, and, upon seeing his boat lying high and dry on the shore, should say, "There is a superabundance of ferry-boat," he would probably reply, "No, but there is a scarcity of GREAT SPEECHES. 19 water." So with us there is not a scarcity >f money, but there is a scarcity of business. And this scarcity springs from lack of confidence in one another. So many presi dents of savings banks, even those belonging to the Young Men's Christian Association, run off with the funds; so many railroad and insurance companies are in the hands of receivers; there is so much bankruptcy on every hand, that all capital is held in the nervous clutch of fear. Slowly, but surely, we 'are coming back to honest methods in busi ness. Confidence will return, and then enterprise will un lock the safe and money will again circulate as of yore; the dollars will leave their hiding places, and every one will be seeking investment. For my part I do not ask any interference on the part of the government except to undo the wrong it has done. I do not ask that money be made out of nothing. I do not ask for the prosperity born of paper. But I do ask for the remonetization of silver. Silver was demonetized by fraud. It was an imposition upon every solvent man; a fraud upon every honest debtor in the United States. It assas sinated labor. It was done in the interest of avarice and greed, and should be undone by honest men. The farmers should vote only for such men as are able and willing to guard and advance the interests of labor. We should know better than to vote for men who will de liberately put a tariff of three dollars a thousand upon Canada lumber, when every farmer in the States is a pur chaser of lumber. People who live upon the prairies ought to vote for cheap lumber. We should protect ourselves. We ought to have intelligence enough to know what we want and how to get it. The real laboring men of this county can succeed if they are united. By laboring men, I do not mean only the farmers. I mean all who contri bute in some way to the general welfare. They should 2O COL. INGERSOLLS forget prejudices and party names, and remember only the best interests of the people. Let us see if we cannot pro tect every department of industry. Let us see if all prop erty cannot be protected alike and taxed alike, whether owned by individuals or corporations. Where industry creates and justice protects, prosper^ dwells. ILLINOIS. Let me tell you something about Illinois. We have fifty- six thousand square miles of land nearly thirty-six mil lion acres. Upon these plains we can raise enough to feed and clothe twenty million people. Beneath these prairies were hidden, millions of ages ago, by that old miser, the sun, thirty-six thousand square miles of coal. The aggre gate thickness of these veins is at least fifteen feet. Think of a column of coal one mile square and one hundred miles high ! All this came from the sun. What a sunbeam such *a column would be! Think of all this force, willed and left to us by the dead morning of the world ! Think of the fireside of the future around which will sit the fathers, mothers and children of the years to be ! Think of the sweet and happy faces, the loving and tender eyes that will glow and gleam in the sacred light of all these flames ! We have the best country in the world. Is there any reason that our farmers should not be prosperous and happy men? They have every advantage, and within their reach are all the comforts and conveniences of life. Do not get the land fever and think you must buy all the land that joins you. Get out of debt as soon as you pos sibly can. A mortgage casts a shadow on the sunniest field. There is no business under the sun that can pay ten per cent. WHAT A DOLLAR CAN DO. Ainsworth E. Spofford gives the following facts about GREAT SPEECHES. 21 interest: " One dollar loaned for one hundred years at six per cent, with the interest collected annually and added to the principal, will amount to three hundred and forty dollars. At eight per cent, it amounts to two thousand two hundred and three dollars. At three per cent, it amounts only to nineteen dollars and twenty-five cents. At ten per cent, it is thirteen thousand eight hundred and nine dollars, or about seven hundred times as much. At twelve per cent, it amounts to eighty-four thousand and sev enty-five dollars, or more than four thousand times as much. At eighteen per cent, it amounts to fifteen million one hun dred and forty-five thousand and seven dollars. At twen ty-four per cent, (which we sometimes hear talked of) it reaches the enormous sum of two billion five hundred and fifty-one million seven hundred and ninety-nine thousand four hundred and four dollars." One dollar at compound interest, at twenty-four per cent., for one hundred years, would produce a sum equal to our national debt. Interest eats night and day, and the more it eats the hungrier it grows. The farmer in debt, lying awake at night, can, if he listens, hear it gnaw. If he owes nothing, he can hear his corn grow. Get out of debt as soon as you possibly can. You have supported idle avarice and lazy economy long enough. HOW A MAN SHOULD TKEAT HIS WIFE AND CHILDREN. Above all, let every farmer treat his wife and children with infinite kindness. Give your sons and daughters every advantage within your power. In the air of kindness they will grow about you like flowers. They will fill your homes with sunshine and all your years with joy. Do not try to rule by force. A blow from a parent leaves a scar on the soul. I should feel ashamed to die surrounded by children 22 COL. INGERSOLLS I had whipped. Think of feeling upon your dying lips the kiss of a child you had struck. See to it that your wife has every convenience. Make her life worth living. Never allow her to become a servant. Wives, weary and worn ; mothers, wrinkled and bent be fore their time, fill homes with grief and shame. If you are not able to hire help for your wives, help them your selves. See that they have the best utensils to work with. Women cannot create things by magic. Have plenty of wood aud coal good cellars and plenty in them. Have cisterns, so that you can have plenty of rain water for wash ing. Do not rely on a barrel and a board. When the rain comes the board will be lost or the hoops will be off the barrel. Farmers should live like princes. Eat the best things you raise and sell the rest. Have good things to cook and good things to cook with. Of all people in our country, you should live the best. Throw your miserable little stoves out of the window. Get ranges, and have them so built that your wife need not burn her face off to get you a break fast. Do not make her cook in a kitchen hot as the ortho dox perdition. The beef, not the cook, should be roasted. It is just as easy to have things convenient and right as to have them any other way. INOEESOLL ON COOKERY. Cooking is one of the fine arts. Give your wives and daughters things to cook, and things to cook with, and they will soon become most excellent cooks. Good cooking is the basis of civilization. The man whose arteries and veins are filled with rich blood made of good and well-cooked food, has pluck, courage, endurance and noble impulses. Remember that your wife should have things to cook with. In the good old days there would be eleven children in GREAT SPEECHES. 23 the family and only one skillet. Everything was broken or cracked or loaned or lost. There ought to be a law making it a crime, punishable by imprisonment, to fry beefsteak. Broil it ; it is just as easy, and when broiled it is delicious. Fried beefsteak is not fit for a wild beast. You can broil even on a stove. Shut the front damper open the back one, then take off a griddle. There will then be a draft downwards through this opening. Put on your steak, using a wire broiler, and not a particle of smoke will touch it, for the reason that the smoke goes down. If you try to broil it with the front damper open, the smoke will rise. For broiling, coal, even soft coal, makes a better fire than wood. There is no reason why farmers should not have fresh meat all the year round. There is certainly no sense in- stuffing yourself full of salt meat every morning, and making a well or a cistern of your stomach for the rest of the day. Every farmer should have an ice house. Upon or near every farm is some stream from which plenty of ice can be obtained, and the long summer days made delightful. Dr. Draper, one of the world's greatest scientists, says that ice water is healthy, and that it has done away with many of the low forms of fever in the great cities. Ice has become one of the necessaries, of civilized life, and without it there is very little comfort. THE HAPPY HOME. Make your homes pleasant. Have your houses warm and comfortable for the winter. Do not build a story-and- a-half house. The half-story is simply an oven in which, during the summer, you will bake every night, and feel in the morning as though only the rind of yourself was left. Decorate your rooms, even if you do so with cheap engravings. The cheapest are far better than none. Have froeks -have papers, and read them. You have iiiore 24 COL. INGERSOLLS leisure than the dwellers in cities. Beautify your grounds with plants and flowers and vines. Have good gardens. Remember that everything of beauty tends to the elevation of man. Every little morning-glory whose purple bosom is thrilled with the amorous kisses of the sun, tends to put a blossom in your heart. Do not judge of the value of everything by the market reports. Every flower about a house certifies to the refinement of somebody. Every vine, climbing and blossoming, tells of love and joy. Make your houses comfortable. Do not huddle together in a little room around a red-hot stove, with every window fastened down. Do not live in this poisoned atmosphere, and then, when one of your children dies, put a piece in the papers commencing with, "Whereas, it has pleased divine Providence to remove from our midst ." Have plenty of air, and plenty of warmth. Comfort is health. Do not imagine anything is unhealthy simply because it is pleasant. This is an old and foolish idea. Let your children sleep. Do not drag them from their beds in the darkness of night. Do not compel them to associate all that is tiresome, irksome and dreadful with cultivating the soil. In this way you bring farming into hatred and disrepute. Treat your children with infinite kindness treat them as equals. There is no happiness in a home not filled with love. Where the husband hates his wife where the wife hates the husband ; where children hate their parents and each other there is a hell upon earth. There is no reason why farmers should not be the kindest and most cultivated of men. There is nothing in plowing the fields to make men cross, cruel and crabbed. To look upon the sunny slopes covered with daisies does not tend to make men unjust. Whoever labors for the happiness of taose ht, loves, elevates himself, no matter whether he GREAT SPEECHES. 25 works in the dark and dreary shops, or in the perfumed fields. To work for others is, in reality, the only way in which a man can work for himself. Selfishness is ignor ance. Speculators cannot make unless somebody loses. In the realm of speculation, every success has at least one victim. The harvest reaped by the farmer benefits all and injures none. For him to succeed, it is not necessary that some one should fail. The same is true of all producers of all laborers. THE COLONEL'S VIEW OF "SOLID COMFOBT." I can imagine no condition that carries with it such a promise of joy as that of the farmer in the early winter. He has his cellar filled he has made every preparation for the days of snow and storm he looks forward to three months of ease and rest ; to three months of fireside con tent; three months with wife and children; three months of long, delightful evenings ; three months of home ; three months of solid comfort. "When the life of the farmer is such as I have described, the cities and towns will not be filled with want the streets will not be crowded with wrecked rogues, broken bankers, and bankrupt speculators. The fields will be tilled, and country villages, almost hidden by trees, and vines, and flowers, filled with industrious and happy people, will nes tle in every vale and gleam liko gems on every plain. The idea must be done away with that there is something intellectually degrading in cultivating the soil. Nothing can be noblei than to be useful. Idleness should not be respectable. If farmers will cultivate well, and without waste ; if they will so build that their houses will be warm in winter and cool in summer; if they* will plant trees and beautify their homes ; if they will occupy their leisure in reading, in ilr. .;"' tgj iU improving their minds and in devisin .: ~,7y& a 6 COL. INGERSOLL'S and means to make their business profitable and pleasant ; if they will live nearer together and cultivate sociability ; if they will come together often ; if they will have reading rooms and cultivate music ; if they will have bath-rooms, ice-houses and good gardens ; if their wives can have an easy time ; if the nights can be taken for sleep and the evenings for enjoyment, everybody will be in love with the fields. Happiness should be the object of life, and if life on the farm can be made really happy, the children will grow up in love with the meadows, the streams, the woods and the old home. Around the farm will cling and cluster the happy memories of the delightful years. Remember, I pray you, that you are in partnership with all labor that you should join hands with all the sons and daughters of toil, and that all who work belong to the same noble family. For my part, I envy the man who has lived on the same broad acres from his boyhood, who cultivates the fields where in youth he played, and lives where his father lived and died. I can imagine no sweeter way to end one's life than in the quiet of the country, out of the mad race for money, place and power far from the demands of business out of the dusty highway where fools struggle and strive for the hollow praise ot other fools. Surrounded by these pleasant fields and faithful friends, by those I have loved, I hope to end my days. And this I hope may be the lot of all who hear my voice. I hope that you, in the country, in houses covered with vines and clothed with flowers, looking from the open window upon rustling fields of corn and wheat, over which will run the sunshine and the shadow, surrounded by those whose lives you have filled with joy, will pass away serenely as the Autumn dies. COL. INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECH TO THE VETERAN SOLDIERS. DELIVERED AT INDIANAPOLIS. BEASONS WHY THE COLONEL IS NOT A DEMOCEAT. [From the Indianapolis Jotirnal^\ LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: FELLOW CITIZENS AND CITIZEN SOLDIERS : I am opposed to the Democratic party, and I will tell you why. Every State that seceded from the United States was a Democratic State. Every ordinance of secession that was drawn was drawn by a Democrat. Every man that endeavored to tear the old flag from the heaven that it enriches was a Democrat. Every man that tried to destroy this nation was a Democrat. Every enemy this great republic has had for twenty years has been a Democrat. Every man that shot Union soldiers was a Democrat. Every man that starved Union soldiers and refused them in the extremity of death, a crust, was a Dem ocrat. Every man that loved slavery better than liberty was a Democrat. The man that assassinated Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat. Every man that sympathized with the assassin every man glad that the noblest Presi dent ever elected was assassinated, was a Democrat. Every man that wanted the privilege of whipping another man to make him work for him for nothing and pay him with lashes on his naked back, was a Democrat. Every man that raised blood-hounds to pursue human beings was a Demo* crat. Every man that clutched from shrieking, shuddering, 27 28 COL. INGERSOLL'S crouching mothers, babes from their breasts, and sold them into slavery, was a Democrat. Every man that impaired the credit of the United States, every man that swore we would never pay the bonds, every man that swore we would never redeem the greenbacks, every maligner of his coun try's credit, every calumniator of his country's honor, was a Democrat. Every man that resisted the draft, every man that hid in the bushes and shot at Union men simply be cause they were endeavoring to enforce the laws of their country, was a Democrat. Every man that wept over the corpse of slavery was a Democrat. Every man that cursed Lincoln because he issued the proclamation of emancipation the grandest paper since the Declaration of Independence every one of them was a Democrat. Every man that denounced the soldiers that bared their bosoms to the storms of shot and shell for the honor of America and for the sacred rights of man, was a Democrat. Every man that wanted an uprising in the North, that wanted to release the rebel prisoners that they might burn down the homes of Union soldiers above the heads of their wives and children, while the brave husbands, the heroic fathers, were in the front fighting for the honor of the old flag, every one of them was a Democrat. I am not through yet. Every man that be lieved this glorious nation of ours is a confederacy, every man that believed the old banner carried by our fathers through the Revolution, through the war of 1812, carried by our brothers over the plains of Mexico, carried by our brothers over the fields of the rebellion, simply stood for a contract, simply stood for an agreement, was a Democrat. Every man who believed that any State could go out of the Union at its pleasure, every man that believed the grand fabric of the American Government could be made to crum ble instantly into dust at the touch of treason, was a Dem ocrat. Every man that helped to burn orphan asylums in GREAT SPEECHES. 2Q New York, was a Democrat ; every man that tried to fire the city of New York, although he knew that thousands would perish, and knew that the great serpents of flame leaping from buildings would clutch children from their mothers' arms every wretch that did it was a Democrat. Recollect it! Every man that tried to spread small-pox and yellow fever in the North, as the instrumentalities of civilized war, was a Democrat. Soldiers, every scar you have got on your heroic bodies was given you by a Demo crat. Every scar, every arm that is lacking, every limb that is gone, every scar is a souvenir of a Democrat. I want you to recollect it. Every man that was the enemy of human liberty in this country was a Democrat. Every man that wanted the fruit of all the heroism of all the ages to turn to ashes upon the lips every one was a Democrat. WHY THE COLONEL IS A REPUBLICAN. I am a Republican. I will tell you why : This is the only free government in the world. The Republican party made it so. The Republican party took the chains from 4,000,000 of people. The Republican party, with the wand of progress, touched the auction-block and it became a school-house. The Republican party put down the re bellion, saved the nation, kept the old banner afloat in the air, and declared that slavery of every kind should be ex tirpated from the face of the continent. What more ? I am a Republican because it is the only free party that ever existed. It is a party that has a platform as broad as hu manity, a platform as broad as the human race, a party that says you shall have all the fruit of the labor of your hands, a party that says you may think for yourself; a part T ' that says no chains for the hands, no fetters for the soul. (A voice "Amen." Cheers.) At this point the rain began to descend, and it looked as if a heavy shower JO COL. INGERSOLLS was impending. Several umbrellas were put up. Gov. Noyes "God bless you! What is rain to soldiers?" Voice "Go ahead; we don't mind the rain." (It was proposed to adjourn the meeting to Masonic Hall, but the motion was voted down by an overwhelming majority, and Mr. Ingersoll proceeded.) I am a Republican because the Republican party says this country is a nation, and not a confederacy. I am here in Indiana to speak, and I have as good a right to speak here in Indiana as though I had been born on this stand not because the State flag of In diana waves over me. I would not know it if I should see it. You have the same right to speak in Illinois, not be cause the State flag of Illinois waves over you, but because that banner, rendered sacred by the blood of all the heroes, waves over me and you. I am in favor of this being a na tion. Think of a man gratifying his entire ambition in the State of Rhode Island. We want this to be a nation, and you can't have a great, grand, splendid people without a great, grand, splendid country. The great plains, the sublime mountains, the great rushing, roaring rivers, shores lashed by two oceans, and the grand anthem of Niagara, mingle and enter, as it were, in the character of every American citizen, and make him or tend to make him a great and a grand character. I am for the Republican party because it says the government has as much right, as much power to protect its citizens at home as abroad. The Republican party don't say you have to go away from home to get the protection of the government. The Demo cratic party says tne government can't march its troops into the South to protect the rights of the citizens. It is a lie. The government claims the right, and it is conceded that the government has the right, to go to your house, while you are sitting by your fireside with your wife and children about you, and the old lady knitting, and the cat GREAT SPEECHES. 31 playing with the yarn, and everybody happy and sweet the government claims the right to go to your fireside and take you by force and put you into the army : take you down to the valley and the shadow of hell, set you by the ruddy, roaring guns, and make you fight for your flag. Now, that being so, when the war is over and your country is victorious, and you go back to your home, and a lot of Democrats want to trample upon your rights, I want to know if the government that took you from your fireside and made you fight for it, I want to know if it is not bound to fight for you. The flag that will not protect its pro tectors is a dirty rag that contaminates the air in which it waves. The government that will not defend its defenders is a disgrace to the nations of the world. I am a Republi can because the Republican party says, "We will protect the rights of American citizens at home, and if necessary we will march an army into any State to protect the rights of the humblest American citizen in that State." I am a Republican because that party allows me to be free allows me to do my own thinking in my own way. I am a Re publican because it is a party grand enough and splendid enough and sublime enough to invite every human being in favor of liberty and progress to fight shoulder to shoul der for the advancement of mankind. It invites the Meth odist ; it invites the Catholic ; it invites the Presbyterian and every kind of sectarian ; it invites the free-thinker ; it invites the infidel, provided he is in favor of giving to every other human being every chance and every right that he claims for himself. I am a Republican, I tell you. There is room in the Republican air for every wing ; there is room on the Republican sea for every sail. Republicanism says to every man : "Let your soul be like an eagle; fly out in the great dome of thought, an i question the stars for yourself. 1 ' But the Democratic party says : " Be blind 32 COL. IXGERSOLLS owls ; sit on the dry limb of a dead tree, and only hoot when Tilden & Co. tell you to." In the Republican party there are no followers. We are all leaders. There is not a party chain. There is not a party lash. Any man that does not love this country, any man that does not love liberty, any man that is not in favor of human progress, that is not in favor of giving to others all he claims for himself; we don't ask him to vote the Republican ticket. You can vote it if you please, and if there is any Democrat within hearing who expects to die before another election, we are willing that he should vote one Republican ticket, simply as a consolation upon his death-bed. What more ? I am a Republican because that party believes in free labor. It believes that free labor will give us wealth. It believes in free thought, because it believes that free thought will give us truth. You don't know what a grand party you belong to. I never want any holier or grander title of nobility than that I belong to the Republican party and have fought for the liberty of man. The Republican party, I say, believes in free labor. The Republican party also believes in slavery. What kind of slavery ? In enslaving the forces of nature. We believe that free labor, that free thought, have en- slaved the forces of nature, and made them work for man. We make old attraction of gravitation work for us; we make the lightning do our errands ; we make steam ham mer and fashion what we need. The forces of nature are the slaves of the Republican party. They have got no backs to be whipped ; they have got no hearts to be torn no hearts to be broken ; they cannot be separated from their wives; they cannot be dragged from the bosoms of their husbands ; they wo k eight and day and they cannot tire. You cannot whip tnem, you cannot starve them, and a Democrat eveu can be trusted with one of them. I tell GREAT SPEECHES. 33 you I am a Republican. I believe, as I told you, that free labor will give us these slaves. Free labor will produce all these things, and everything you have got to-day has been produced by free labor, nothing by slave labor. Slavery never invented but one machine, and that was a threshing-machine in the shape of a whip. Free labor has invented all the machines. We want to come down to the philosophy of these things. The problem of free labor, when a man works for the wife he loves, when he works for the little children he adores the problem is to do the most work in the shortest space of time. The problem of slavery is to do the least work in the longest space of time. That is the difference. Free labor, love, affection they have invented everything of use in this world. I am a Republican. I tell you, my friends, this world is getting better every day, and the Democratic party is getting smaller every day. See the advancement we have made in a few years, see what we have done. We have covered this nation with wealth, and glory, and with liberty. This is the first free govern ment in the world. The Republican party is the first party that was not founded on some compromise with the devil. It is the first party of pure, square, honest principle ; the first one. And we have got the first free country that ever existed. And right here I want to thank every soldier that fought to make it free, every one living and dead. I want to thank you again, and again, and again. You made the first free government in the world, and we must not forget the dead heroes. If they were here they would vote the Republican ticket, every one of them. I tell you we must not forget them. 34 COL. INGERSOLLS COL. INGERSOLL'S REMARKABLE VISION ONE OF THE MOST ELOQUENT EXTRACTS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. The past, as it were, rises before me like a dream. Agai; we are in the great struggle for national life. We hear the sound of preparation the music of the boisterous drums the silver voices of heroic bugles. We see thousands of assemblages, and hear the appeals of orators ; we see the pale cheeks of women, and the flushed faces of men ; and in those assemblages we see all the dead whose dust we have covered with flowers. We lose sight of them no more. We are with them when they enlist in the great army of freedom. We see them part with those they love. Some are walking for the last time in quiet woody places with the maidens they adore. We hear the whisperings and the sweet vows of eternal love as they lingeringly part forever. Others are bending over cradles kissing babes that are asleep. Some are receiving the blessings of old men. Some are parting with mothers who hold them and press them to their hearts again and again, and say nothing ; and some are talking with wives, and endeavoring with brave words spoken in the old tones to drive away the awful fear. We see them part. We see the wife standing in the door with the babe in her arms standing in the sun light sobbing at the turn of the road a hand waves she answers by holding high in her loving hands the child. He is gone, and forever. We see them all as they march proudly away under the flaunting flags, keeping time to the wild grand music of war marching down the streets of the great cities through the towns and across the prairies down to the fields of glory, to do and to die for the eternal right. We go with them one and all. We are by their side on all the gory fields, in all the hospitals of pain on all the GREAT SPEECHES. 3 weary marches. We stand guard with them in the wild storm and under the quiet stars. We are with them in ravines running with blood in the furrows of old fields. We are with them between contending hosts, unable to move, wild with thirst, the life ebbing slowly away among the withered leaves. We see them pierced by balls and: torn with shells in the trenches of forts, and in the whirl wind of the charge, where men become iron with nerves of steel. We are with them in the prisons of hatred and famine, but human speech can never tell what they endured. We are at home when the news comes that they are dead. We see the maiden in the shadow of her sorrow. We see the silvered head of the old man bowed with the last grief. The past rises before us, and we see four millions of human beings governed by the lash we see them bound hand and foot we hear the strokes of cruel whips we see the hounds tracking women through tangled swamps. We see babes sold from the breasts of mothers. Cruelty un speakable! Outrage infinite! Four million bodies in chains four million souls in fetters. All the sacred relations of wife, mother, father and child, trampled beneath the brutal feet of might. And all this was done under our own beautiful banner of the free. The past rises before us. We hear the roar and shriek of the bursting shell. The broken fetters fall. There heroes died. We look. Instead of slaves we see men and women and children. The wand of progress touches the auction-block, the slave-pen, and the whipping-post, and we see homes and firesides, and school-houses and books, and where all was want and crime, and cruelty and fear, we see the faces of the free. These heroes are dead. They died for liberty they died for us. They are at rest. They sleep in the land they 36 COL. INGERSOLL'S made free, under the flag they rendered stainless, under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the tearful willows, the embracing vines. They sleep beneath the shadows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or storm, each in the windowless palace of rest. Earth may run red with other wars they are at peace. In the midst of battle, in the roar of conflict, they found the serenity of death. I have one sentiment for the soldiers living and dead cheers for the living and tears for the dead. MOKE SOLID SHOT. Now, my friends, I have given you a few reasons why I am a Republican. I have given you a -few reasons why I am not a Democrat. Let me say another thing. The Democratic party opposed every movement of the army of the Republic, every one. Don't be fooled. Imagine the meanest resolution that you can think of that is the reso lution the Democratic party passed. Imagine the meanest thing you can think of that is what they did ; and I want you to recollect that the Democratic party did these devilish things when the fate of this nation was trembling in the balance of war. I want you to recollect another thins: ; when they tell you about hard times, that the Democratic party made the hard times ; that every dollar we owe to day was made by the Southern and Northern Democracy. When we commenced to put down the rebellion we had to borrow money, and the Democratic party went into the markets of the world and impaired the credit of the United States. They slandered, they lied, they maligned the credit of the United States, and to such an extent did they do this, that at one time during the war paper was only worth about 3-.- cents on the dollar. Gold wo it up to $2.90. "What did that mean? It meanf that greenbacks were worth GREAT LECTURES. 37 34 cents on the dollar. What became of the other 66 cents ? They were lied out of the greenbacks, they were calumniated out of the greenbacks, by the Democratic party of the North. Two-thirds of the debt, two-thirds of the burden now upon the shoulders of American industry, were placed there by the slanders of the Democratic party of the North, and the other third by the Democratic party of the South. And when you pay your taxes keep an account and charge two-thirds to the Northern Democracy and one-third to the Southern Democracy, and whenever you have to earn the money to pay the taxes, when you have to blister your hands to earn that money, pull off the blisters, and under each one, as the foundation, you will mid a Democratic lie. Recollect that the Democratic party did all the things of which I have told you, when the fate of our nation was submitted to the arbitrament of the sword. Recollect they did these things when your husbands, your fathers, your brothers, your chivalric sons were fighting, bleeding, suffer ing upon the fields of the South, where shot and shell were crashing through their sacred flesh, where they were lying upon the field of battle, the blood slowly oozing from the pallid, mangled lips of death ; when they were in the hos pitals of pain, dreaming broken dreams of home, and seeing fever pictures of the ones they loved ; when they were in the prison pens of the South, with no covering but the clouds, no bed except the frozen earth, no food except such as worms had refused to eat, and no friends except insanity and death. Recollect it. I have often said that 1 wished there were words of pure hatred out of which I might construct sentences like serpents, sentences like snakes, sentences that would writhe and hiss I could then give my opinion of the Northern allies of the Southern 38 COL. INGERSOLL'S THEEE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS ANSWERED. There are three questions now submitted to the American people. The first is, Shall the people that saved this country rule it ? Shall the men who saved the old flag hold it ? Shall the men who saved the ship of State sail it ? or shall the rebels walk her quarter-deck, give the orders and sink it. That is the question. Shall a solid South, a united South, united by assassination and murder, a South solidi fied by the shot-gun ; shall a united South, with the aid of a divided North, shall they control this great and splendid country? Well, then the North must'wake up. We are right back where we were in 1881. This is simply a pro longation of the war. This is the war of the idea, the other was the war of the musket. The other was the war of cannon, this is the war of thought ; and we have got to beat them in this war of thought, recollect that. The ques tion is, Shall the men who endeavored to destroy this country rule it ? Shall the men that said, This is not a nation, have charge of the nation ? The next question is, Shall we pay our debts ? We had to borrow some money to pay for shot and shell to shoot Democrats with. We found that we could get along with a few less Democrats, but not with any less country, and so we borrowed the money, arid the question now is, will we pay it ? And which party is the most apt to pay it, the Republican party, that made the debt the party that swore it was constitutional, or the party that said it was unconsti tutional ? Whenever a Democrat sees a greenback, the greenback says to the Democrat, " I am one of the fellows that whipped you." Whenever a Republican sees a green back, the greenback says to him, "You and I put down the rebellion and saved the country." Now, my friends, you have heard a great deal about finances. Nearly everj- GREAT SPEECHES. 39 body that talks about it gets as dry as if they had been in the final home of the Democratic party for forty years. INGERSOLL ON THE MONEY QUESTION. I will give you my ideas about finances. In the first place the government don't support the people ; the people support the government. The government passes around the hat, the government passes around the alms dish. True enough, it has a musket behind it, but it is a perpetual, chronic pauper. It passes, I told you, the alms-dish, and we all throw in our share except Tilden. This govern ment is a perpetual consumer. You understand me, the government don't plow ground, the government don't raise corn and wheat ; the government is simply a perpetual consumer ; we support the government. Now, the idea that the government can make money for you and I to live on why, it is the same as though my hired man should issue certificates of my indebtedness to him for me to live on. Some people tell me that the government can impress its sovereignty on a piece of paper, and that is money. Well, if it is, what's the use of wasting it making one dollar bills? It takes no more ink and no more paper why not make $1000 bills? "Why not make $100,000,000 bills and all be billionaires ? If the government can make money, what on earth does it collect taxes from you and me for? Why don't it make what money it wants, take the taxes out, and give the balance to us ? Mr. Greenbacker, suppose the government issued $1,000,000,000 to-morrow, how would you get any of it? (A voice Steal it.) I was not speaking to the Democrats. You would not get any of it unless you had something to exchange for it. The government would nol 4O COL. INGERSOLLS go around and give you your average. You have to have some corn, or wheat, or pork to give for it. How do you get your money ? By work. "Where ; >om ? You have to dig it out of the ground. That is wh( *. it comes from. In old times there were some men T~ :o th i they could get some way to turn the baser metals into feold. and old gray-haired men, trembling, tottering on the verge of the grave, were hunting for something to turn ordinary metals into gold ; they were searching for the fountain of eternal youth, but they did not find it. No human ear has ever heard the silver gurgle of the spring of immortal youth. There used to be mechanics that tried to make perpetual motion by combinations of wheels, shifting weights, and rolling balls ; but somehow the machine would never quite run. A perpetual fountain of greenbacks, of wealth with out labor, is just as foolish as a fountain of eternal youth. The idea that you can produce money without labor is just as foolish as the idea of perpetual motion. They are old follies under new names. Let me tell you another thing. The Democrats seem to think that you can fail to keep a promise so long that it is as good as though you had kept it. They say you can stamp the sovereignty of the government upon paper. The other day I saw a piece of silver bearing the sovereign stamp of Julius Caesar. Julius Caesar has been dust about two thousand years, but that piece of silver was worth just as much as though Julius Caesar was at the head of the Roman legions. Was it his sovereignty that made it valu able ? Suppose he had put it upon a piece of paper it would have been of no more value than a Democratic promise. Another thing, rny friends, this debt will be paid ; you need not worry about that. The Democrats ought to pay GREAT SPEECHES. 41 It. They lost the suit and they ought to pay the costs. But we are willing to pay our share. It will be paid. The holders of the debt have got a mortgage on a continent They have a mortgage on the honor of the Republican party, and it is on record. Every blade of grj^ss that grows upon this continent is a guarantee that the debt will be paid ; every field of bannered corn in the great, glorious West is a guarantee that the debt will be paid ; all the coal put away in the ground millions of years ago by that old miser, the sun, is a guarantee that every dollar of that debt will be paid ; all the cattle on the prairies, pastures and plains, every one of them is a guarantee that this debt will be paid ; every pine standing in the somber forests of the North, waiting for the woodman's ax, is a guarantee that this debt will be paid ; all the gold and silver hid in the Siei.^a Nevadas, waiting for the miner's pick, is a guaran tee th;it the debt will be paid ; every locomotive, with its muscles of iron and breath of flame, and all the boys and girls bending over their books at school, every dimpled child in the cradle, every good man and every good woman, and every man that votes the Republican ticket is r, guar antee that the debt will be Daid. MOKE ELOQUENCE. What is the next question ? The next question is, will we protect the Union men in the South ? I tell you the white Union men have suffered enough. It is a crime in ihe Southern States to be a Republican. It is a crime in every Southern State to love this country, to believe in the sacred rights of men. I tell you the colored people have suffered enough. They have been owned by Democrats for two hundred years. Worse than that : they have been forced to keep the com pany of their owners. It is a terrible thing to live with a 42 COL. INGERSOLLS man that steals from you. They have suffered enough. For two hundred years they were branded like cattle. Yes, for two hundred years every human tie was torn asunder by the cruel hand of avarice and greed. For two hundred years children were sold from their mothers, husbands from their wives, brothers from brothers, and sisters from sis ters. There was not during the whole rebellion a single negro that was not our friend. We are willing to be recon ciled to our Southern brethren when they will treat our friends as men. When they will be just to the friends of this country ; when they are in favor of allowing every American citizen to have his rights then we are their friends. We are willing to trust them with the Nation when they are the friends of the Nation. We are willing to trust them with liberty when they believe in liberty. We are willing to trust them with the black man when they cease riding in the darkness of night those masked wretches to the hut of the freedman, and notwithstanding the prayers and supplications of his family, shoot him down ; when they cease to consider the massacre of Hamburg as a Democratic triumph, then, I say, we will be their friends, And not before. Now, my friends, thousands of the Southern people, and thousands of the Northern Democrats, are afraid that the negroes are going to pass them in the race for life. And, Mr. Democrat, he will do it unless you attend to your busi ness. The simple fact that you are white cannot save you always. You have got to be industrious, honest, to culti vate a justice. If you don't the colored race will pass you, as sure as you live. I am for giving every man a chance. Anybody that can pass me is welcome. I believe, my friends, that the intellectual domain of the future, like the land used to be in the State of Illinois, is open to pre-emption. The fellow that gets a fact first, that GREAT SPEECHES. 43 is his ; that gets an idea first, that is his. Every round in the ladder of fame, from the one that touches the ground to the last one that leans against the shining summit of ambition, belongs to the foot that gets upon it first. Mr. Democrat, I point down because they are nearly all on the first round of the ladder, if you can't climb, stand one side and let the deserving negro pass. INGERSOLL'S BIG HORSE-RACE. I must tell you one thing. I have told it so much, and you have all heard it, I have no doubt, fifty times from others, but I am going to tell it again because I like it. Suppose there was a great horse-race here to-day, free to every horse in the world, and to all the mules, and all the scrubs, and all the donkeys. At the tap of the drum they come to the line, and the judges say "it is a go." Let me ask you, what does the blooded horse, rushing ahead, with nostrils distended, drinking in the breath of his own swift ness, with his mane flying like F oanner of victory, with his veins standing out all over him, as if a net of life had been cast around him with his thin i sck, his high withers, his tremulous flanks what does he care how many mules and donkeys run on that track? But the Democratic scrub, with his chuckle-head and lop-ears, with his tail full of cuckle-burs, jumping high and short, and digging in the ground when he feels the breath of the coming mule on his cuckle-bur tail, he is the chap that jumps the track and says, "I am down on mule equality." My friends, the Republican party is the blooded horse in this race. I stood, a little while ago, in the city of Paris, where stood the Bastile, where now stands the column of July, surmounted by the figure of liberty. In its right hand is a broken chain, in its left hand a banner ; upon its shining 44 COL. INGERSOLLS forehead a glittering star and as I looked upon it I said, such is the Republican party of my country. The other day going along the road I came to the place where the road had been changed, but the guide-board was as they had put it twenty years before. It pointed diligently in the direction of a desolate field. Now, that guide-post had been there for twenty years. Thousands of people passed, but nobody heeded the hand on the guide-post, and it stuck there through storm and shine, and it pointed as hard as ever as if the road was through the desolate field ; and I said to myself, such is the Democratic party of the United States. The other day I came to a river where there had been a mill ; a part of it was there yet. An old sign said, " Cash for wheat." The old water-wheel was broken, and it had been warped by the sun, cracked and split by many winds and storms. There hadn't been a grain of wheat ground there for twenty years. There was nothing in good order but the dam ; it was as good a dam as ever I saw, and I said to myself, "such is the Democratic party." I was going along the road the other day, when I came to where there had once been a hotel. But the hotel and barn had burned down ; nothing remained but the two chimneys, monuments of the disaster. In the road there was an old sign, upon which were these words: "Entertainment for man and beast." The word "man" was nearly burned out. There hadn't been a hotel there for thirty years. That sign had swung and creaked in the wind ; the snow had fallen upon it in the winter, the birds had sung upon it in the summer. Nobody ever stopped at that hotel ; but the sign stuck to it and kept swearing to it, "Entertain ment for man and beast," and I said to myself, " Such is the Democratic party of the United States." Now, my friends, I want you to vote the Republican GREAT SPEECHES. 4$ ticket. I want you to swear you will not vote for a man who opposed putting down the rebellion. I want you to ewear that you will not vote for a man opposed to the utter abolition of slavery. I want you to swear that you will not vote for a man who called the soldiers in the field Lin coln hirelings. I want you to swear that you will not vote for a man who denounced Lincoln as a tyrant. I want you to swear that you will not vote for any enemy of human progress. Go and talk to every Democrat that you can see ; get him by the coat-collar, talk to him, and hold him like Coleridge's Ancient mariner, with your glittering eye; hold him, tell him all the mean things his party ever did ; tell him kindly ; tell him in a Christian spirit, as I do, but tell him. Recollect there never was a more important election than the one you are going to hold in Indiana. I want you every one to swear that you will vote for glorious Ben Harrison. I tell you we must stand by the country. It is a glorious country. It permits you and me to be free. It is the only country in the world where labor is respected. Let us support it. It is the only country in the world where the useful man is the only aristocrat. The man that works for a dollar a day, goes home at night to his little ones, taking his little boy on his knee, and he thinks that boy can achieve anything that the sons of the wealthy man can achieve. The free schools are open to him ; he may be the richest, the greatest, and the grandest, and that thought sweetens every drop of sweat that rolls down the honest face of toil. Yote to save that country. INGEBSOLL'S BEAUTIFUL DREAM. MY friends, this country is getting better every day. Samuel J. Tilden says we are a nation of thieves and ras cals If that is so he ought to be the President. But I denounce him as a calumniator of my country ; a maliguer 46 COL, INGERSOLL'S of this nation. It is not so. This country is covered with asy lums for the aged, the helpless, the insane, the orphan, wound ed soldiers. Thieves and rascals don't build such things. In the cities of the Atlantic coast this summer, they built floating hospitals, great ships, and took the little children from the sub-cellars and narrow, dirty streets of New York city, where the Democratic party is the strongest, took these poor waifs and put them in these great hospitals out at sea, and let the breezes of oceau kiss the roses of health back to their pallid cheeks. Rascals and thieves do not do so. When Chicago burned, railroads were blocked with the charity of the American Deople. Thieves and rascals did not do so. I am a Republican. The world is getting better. Hus bands are treating their wives better than they used to ; wives are treating their husbands better. Children are better treated than they used to be ; the old whips and gods are out of the schools, and they are governing children by love and by sense. The world is getting better ; it is get ting better in Maine. It has got better in Maine, in Ver mont. It is getting better in every State of the North. I have a dream that this world is growing better and bet ter every day and every year ; that there is more charity, more justice, more love every day. I have a dream that prisons will not always curse the earth ; that the shadow of the gallows will not always fall on the land ; that the withered hand of want will not always be stretched out for charity ; that finally wisdom will sit in the legislature, just ice in the courts, charity will occupy all the pulpits, and that finally the world will be controlled by liberty and love, by justice and charity. That is my dream, and if it does not come true, it shall not be my fault. Good-bye. (Im mense and prolonged cheering.) COL. INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECH ON THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. THE GRANDEST OF DOCUMENTS. [From the Indianapolis Journal.] LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: The Declaration of Inde pendence is the grandest, the bravest, and the profoundest political document that was ever signed by the represent atives of the people. It is the embodiment of physical and moral courage and of political wisdom. I say physical courage, because it was a declaration of war against the most powerful nation then on the globe; a declaration of war by thirteen weak, unorganized colonies ; a declaration of war by a few people, without military stores, without wealth, without strength, against the most powerful kingdom on the earth ; a declaration of war made when the British navy, at that day the mistress of every sea, was hovering along the coast of America, looking after defenseless towns and villages to ravage and destroy. It was made when thousands of English soldiers were upon our soil, and when the principal cities of America were in the substantial possession of the enemy. And so, I say, all things considered, it was the bravest political document ever signed by man. And if it was physically brave, the moral courage of the document is almost infinitely beyond the physical. They had the courage not only, but they M. 48 COL. INGERSOLL'S had the almost infinite wisdom, to declare that all men are created equal. With one blow, with one stroke of the pen, they struck down all the cruel, heartless barriers that aristocracy, that priestcraft, that kingcraft had raised between man and man. They struck down with one immortal blow that infamous spirit of caste that makes a god almost a beast, and a beast almost a god. With one word, with one blow, they wiped away and utterly destroyed all that had been done by cen turies of war centuries of hypocrisy centuries of in justice. What more did they do ? Then they declared that each man has a right to live. And what does that mean ? It means that he has tl e right to make his living. It means that he has the right to breathe the air, to work the land, that he stands the equal of every other human being be neath the shining stars ; entitled to the product of his labor the labor of his hand and of his brain. What more ? That every man has the right to pursue his own happiness in his own way. Grander words than these have never been spoken by man. And what more did these men say ? They laid down the doctrine that governments were instituted among men for the purpose of preserving the rights of the people. The old idea was that people existed solely for the benefit of the State that is to say, for kings and nobles. The old idea was that the people were the wards of king and priest that their bodies belonged to one and their souls to the other. A REVELATION AND REVOLUTION. And what more? That the people are the source of political power. That was not only a revelation, but it was a revolution. It changed the ideas of people with regard GREAT SPEECHES. 49 to the source of political power. For the first time it made human beings men. What was the old idea ? The old idea was that no political power came from, nor in any manner belonged to, the people. The old idea was that the political power came from the clouds ; that the political power came in some miraculous way from heaven ; that it came down to kings, and queens, and robbers. That was the old idea. The nobles lived upon the labor of the people ; the people had no rights ; the nobles stole what they had and divided with the kings, and the kings pre tended to divide what they stole with God Almighty. The source, then, of political power was from above. The people were responsible to the nobles, the nobles to the king, and the people had no political rights whatever, no more than the wild beasts of the forest. The kings were responsible to God, not to the people. The kings were responsible to the clouds, not to the toiling millions they robbed and plundered. And our forefathers, in this declaration of independence, reversed this thing, and said : No, the people, they are the source of political power, and their rulers, these presidents, these kings, are but the agents and servants of the great, sublime people. For the first time, really, in the history of the world, the king was made to get off the throne and the people were royally seated thereon. The people be came the sovereigns, and the old sovereigns became the servants and the agents of the people. It is hard for you and me now to imagine even the immense results of that change. It is hard for you and me, at this day, to under, stand how thoroughly it had been ingrained in the brain of almost every man, that the king had some wonderful right over him ; that in some strange way the king owned him ; that in some miraculous manner he belonged, jbody and soul, to somebody who rode on a horse, to somebody with 5o COL. INGERSOLL'S epaulettes on his shoulders, and a tinsel crown upon his brainless head. Our forefathers had been educated in that idea, and when they first landed on American shores they believed it. They thought they belonged to somebody, and that they must be loyal to some thief, who could trace his pedigree back to antiquity's most successful robber. It took a long time for them to get that idea out of their heads and hearts. They were three thousand miles away from the despotisms of the old world, and every wave of the sea was an assistant to them. The distance helped to disenchant their minds of that infamous belief, and every mile between them and the pomp and glory of monarchy helped to put republican ideas and thoughts into their minds. Besides that, when they came to this country, when the savage was in the forest and three thousand miles of waves on the other side, menaced by barbarians on the one side, and famine on the other, they learned that a man who had courage, a man who had thought, was as good as any other man in the world, and they built up, as it were, in spite of themselves, little republics. And the man that had the most nerve and heart was the best man, whether he had any noble blood in his veins or not. THE EDUCATION OF NATUBE. It has been a favorite idea with me that our forefatlw^ were educated by nature ; that they grew grand as the continent upon which they landed ; that the grea. rivers the wide plains the splendid lakes the lonely forests the sublime mountains that all these things stole into and became a part of their being, and they gre\ great as the country in which they lived. They began to hate the narrow, contracted views of Europe. Thty were educated by their surroundings, and every little colony had to be, GREAT SPEECHES. 5 1 to a certain extent, a republic. The kings of the old world endeavored to parcel out this land to their favorites. But there were too rnauy Indians. There was too much courage required for them to take and keep it, and so men had to come here who were dissatisfied with the old country who were dissatisfied with England, dissatisfied with France, with Germany, with Ireland and Holland. The kings' favorites stayed at home. Men came here for liberty, and on account of certain principles they entertained and held dearer than life. And they were willing to work, willing to fell the forests, to fight tlr savages, willing to go through all the hardships, perils and dangers of a new country, of a new land ; and the consequence was that our country was settled by brave and adventurous spirits, by men who had opinions of their own, and were willing to live in the wild forests for the sake of expressing those opinions, even it they expressed them only to trees, rocks, and savage men. The best blood of the old world came to the new. THE KISE OF THE REPUBLIC LIBERTY AND TOLERATION. When they first came over they did not have a great deal of political philosophy, nor the best ideas of liberty. We might as well tell the truth. When the puritans first came they were narrow. They did not understand what liberty meant what religious liberty, what political liberty, was ; but they found out in a few years. There was one feeling among them that rises to their eternal honor like a white shaft to the clouds they were in favor of universal educa tion. Wherever they went they built school houses, intro duced books, and ideas of literature. They believed that every man should know how to read and how to write, and should find out all that his capacity allowed him to compre hend. That is the glory of the Puritan fathers. 52 COL. INGERSOLL'S Tney forgot in a little while what they had suffered, and they forgot to apply the principle of universal liberty of toleration. Some of the colonies did not forget it, and I want to give credit where credit should be given. The Catholics of Maryland were the first people on the new continent to declare universal religious toleration. Let this be remembered to their eternal honor. Let it be remem bered to the disgrace of the Protestant government of Eng land, that it caused this grand law to be repealed. And to the honor and credit of the Catholics of Maryland let it be remembered, that the moment they got back into powei they re-enacted the old law. The Baptists of Rhode Island, also, led by Roger Williams, were in favor of universal religious liberty. No American should fail to honor Roger Williams. He was the first grand advocate of the liberty of the soul. He was in favor of the eternal divorce of Church and State. So far as I know, he was the only man at that time in this country who was in favor of real religious liberty. While the Catholics of Maryland declared in favor of religious toleration, they had no idea of religious liberty. They would not allow any one to call in question the doctrine of the trinity, or the inspiration of the scriptures. They stood ready with branding-iron and gallows to burn and choke out of man the idea that he had a right to think and to express his thoughts. So many religions met in our country so many theories and dogmas came in contact so many follies, mistakes and stupidities became acquainted with each other, that religion began to fall somewhat into dispute. Besides this, the question of a new nation began to take precedence of all others. The people were too much interested in this world to quarrel about the next. The preacher was lost in the GREAT SPEECHES. 5i patriot. The bible was read to find passages against kings. Everybody was discussing the rights of man. Farmers and mechanics suddenly became statesmen, and in every shop and cabin nearly every question was asked and answered. During these years of political excitement, the interest in religion abated to that degree that a common purpose ani mated men of all sects and creeds. At last our fathers became tired of being colonists tired of writing and reading and signing petitions, and present ing them, on their bended knees, to an idiot king. They began to have an aspiration to form a new nation, to be citizens of a new republic instead of subjects to an old monarchy. They had the idea the Puritans, the Catho lics, the Episcopalians, the Baptists, the Quakers, and a few Free-Thinkers, all had the idea that they would like to form a new nation. Now, do not understand that all of our fathers were in favor of independence. Do not understand that they were all like Jefferson ; that they were all like Adams or Lee ; that they were all like Thomas Paine or John Hancock. There were thousands and thousands of them who were opposed to American independence. There were thousands and thousands who said: "When yon say men are created equal, it is a lie ; when you say the political power resides in the great body of the people, it is false." Thousands and thousands of them said : " We prefer Great Britain." But the men who were in favor of independence, the men who knew that a new nation must be born, went on full of hope and courage, and nothing could daunt or stop or stay the heroic, fearless few. They met in Philadelphia, and the resolution was moved by Lee, of Virginia, that the colonies ought to be inde- 54 COL. INGERSOLL'S pendent States, and ought to dissolve their political connec tion with Great Britain. They made up their minds that a new nation must be formed. All nations had been, so to speak, the wards of some church. The religious idea as to the source of power had been at the foundation of all governments, and had been the bane and curse of man. Happily for us, there was no church strong enough to dictate to the rest. Fortunately for us, the colonists not only, but the colonies differed widely in their religious views. There were the Puritans who hated the Episco palians, and Episcopalians who hated the Catholics, and the Catholics who hated both, while the Quakers held them all in contempt. There they were, of every sort, and color, and kind, and how was it that they came together ? They had a common aspiration. They wanted to form a new nation. More than that, most of them cordially hated Great Britain ; and they pledged each other to forget these religious preiudices, for a time at least, and agreed that there should be only one religion until they got through, and that was the religion of patriotism. They solemnly agreed that the new nation should not belong to any partic ular church, but that it should secure the rights of all. Our fathers founded the first secular government that was ever founded in this world. Recollect that. The first sec ular government; the first government that said every church has exactly the same rights, and no more ; every religion has the same rights and no more. In other words our fathers were the first men who had the sense, had the genius, to know that no church should be allowed to have a sword ; that it should be allowed only to exert its moral influence. You might" as well have a government united by force with Art, or with Poetry, or with Oratory, as with Relig- GREAT SPEECHES. 55 ion. Religion should have the influence upon mankind that its goodness, that its morality, its justice, its charity, its reason and its argument give it, and no more. Religion should have the effect upon mankind that it necessarily has, and no more. So our fathers said: "We shall form a secular govern ment, and under the flag with which we are going to enrich the air, we will allow every man to worship God as he thinks best." They said : " Religion is an individual thing between each man and his Creator, and he can worship as he pleases and as he desires." And why did they do this? The history of the world warned them that the liberty of man was not safe in the clutch and grasp of any church. They had read of and seen the thumb-screws, the racks and the dungeons of .the inquisition. They knew all about the hypocrisy of the olden time. They knew that the church had stood side by side with the throne; that the high priests were hypocrites, and that the kings were robbers. They also knew that if they gave to any church power, it would corrupt the best church in the world. And so they said that power must not reside in a church, nor in a sect, but power must be wherever humanity is in the great body of the people. And the officers and servants of the people must be responsible to them. And so I say agpjn, as I said in the commencement, this is the wisest, the profound- est, the bravest political document that ever was written and signed by man. They turned, as I tell you, everything squarely about. They derived ail their authority from the people. They did away forever with the theological idea of government. And what more did they say ? They said that whenever the rulers abused this authority, this power, incapable of destruction, returned to the people. How did they come to say this ? I will tell you ; they were pushed into it. 56 COL. INGERSOLL'S How i They felt that they were oppressed ; and when evei a man feels that he is the subject of injustice, his perception of right and wrong is wonderfully quickened. Nobody was ever in prison wrongfully who did not be lieve in the writ of habeas corpus. Nobody ever suffered wrongfully without instantly having ideas of justice. And they began to inquire what rights the king of Great Britain had. They began to search for the charter of his authority. They began to investigate and dig down to the bed-rock upon which society must be founded, and when they got there, forced there, too, by their oppressors, forced against their own prejudices and education, they found at the bottom of things, not lords, not nobles, not pulpits, not thrones, but humanity, and the rights of men. And so they said, we are men ; we are MEN. A NATION. They found out they were men. And the next thing they said was : " We will be free men ; we are weary oi being colonists ; we are tired of being subjects ; we are men; and these colonies ought to be states ; and these states ought to be a nation ; and that nation ought to drive the last British soldier into the sea." And so they signed that brave declaration of independence. I thank every one of them from the bottom of my heart for signing that sublime declaration. I thank them for their courage for their patriotism for their wisdom for the splendid confidence in themselves and in the human race. I thank them for what they were, and for what we are for what they did, and for what we have received for what they suffered, and for what we enjoy. What would we have been if we had remained colonists and subjects? What would we have been to-day? No* bodies ready to get down on our knees and crawl in the very dust at the sight of somebody that was supposed to GREAT SPEECHES. 5 7 have in him some drop of blood that flowed in the veins of that mailed marauder William the Conqueror. They signed that declaration of independence, although they knew that it would produce a long, terrible, and bloody war. They looked forward and saw poverty, depri vation, gloom, and death. But they also saw, on the wrecked clouds of war, the beautiful bow of freedom. These grand men were enthusiasts ; and the world has only been raised by enthusiasts. In every country there have been a few who have given a national aspiration to the people. The enthusiasts ef 1776 were the builders and framers of this great and splendid government ; and they were the men who saw, although others did not, the golden fringe of the mantle of glory, that will finally cover this world. They knew, they felt, they believed they would give a new constellation to the political heavens that they would make the Americans a grand people grand as the continent upon which they lived. The war commenced. There was little money and less credit. The new nation had but few friends. To a great extent, each soldier of freedom had to clothe and feed him self. He was poor and pure brave and good, and so he went to the fields of death to fight for the rights of man. "What did the soldier leave when he went? He left his wife and children. Did he leave them in a beautiful home, surrounded by civilization, in the repose of law, in the security of a great and powerful republic ? No. He left his wife and children on the edge, on the fringe of the boundless forest, in which crouched and crept the red savage, who was at that time the ally of the still more savage Briton. He left his wife to defend herself, and he left the prattling babes to be defended by their mother and by nature. The mother made the living ; she 58 COL. INGERSOLL'S planted the corn and the potatoes, and hoed them in the eitii, raised the children, and in the dark night told them about their brave father, and the "sacred cause," she told them that in a little while the war would be over, and father would come back covered with honor and glory. Think of the women, of the sweet children who listened for the footsteps of the dead who waited through the sad and desolated years for the dear ones who never came. LIBERTY OR DEATH. The soldiers of 1776 did not march away with music and banners. They went in silence, looked at and gazed after by eyes filled with tears. They went to meet, not an equal, but a superior to fight five times their number to make a desperate stand to stop the advance of the enemy, and then, when their ammunition gave out, seek the protection of rocks, of rivers, and of hills. Let me say here : The greatest test of courage on the earth is to bear defeat without losing heart. That army is the bravest that can be whipped the greatest number of times and fight again. Over the entire territory, so to speak, then settled by our forefathers, they were driven again and again. Now and then they would meet the English with something like equal numbers, and then the eagle of victory would proudly perch upon the stripes and stars. And so they went cr *s best they could, hoping and fighting until they came to the dark and somber gloom of Valley Forge. There were very few hearts than beneath that flag that did not begin to think that the struggle was useless ; that ail the blood and treasure had been spent and shed in vain. But there were some men gifted with that wonderful proph ecy that fulfills itself, and with that wonderful magnetic power that makes heroes of everybody they come in contact with. And so our fathers went through the gloom of that ter~ GREAT SPEECHES. 5g rible time, and still fought on. Brave men wrote g.'and words, cheering the despondent; brave men did brave deeds ; the rich man gave his wealth ; the poor man gave his life, until at last, by the victory of Yorktown, the old banner won its place in the air, and became glorious forever. Seven long years of war fighting for what? For the principle that all men are created equal a truth that no body ever disputed except a scoundrel ; nobody in the entire history of this world. No man ever denied that truth who was not a rascal, and at heart a thief; never, never, and never will. What else were they fighting for \ Simply that in America every man should have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Nobody ever denied that except a villian ; never, never. It has been denied by kings they were thieves. It has been denied by statesmen they were liars. It has been denied by priests, by clergymen, by cardinals, by bishops and by popes they were hypocrites. What else were they fighting for ? For the idea that all political power is vested in the great body of the people. They make all the money ; do all the work. They plow the land ; cut down the forests ; they produce everything that is produced. Then who shall say what shall be done with what is produced except the producer ? Is it the non- producing thief, sitting on a throne, surrounded by vermin \ The history of civilization is the history of the slow and painful enfranchisement of the human race. In the older, times the family was a monarchy, the father being the mon arch. The mother and children were the veriest slaves. The will of the father was the supreme law. He had tlu power of life and death. It took thousands of years to civil ize this father, thousand s of years to make the condition oi wife and mother and children even tolerable. A few fam* ilies constituted a tribe ; the tribe had a chief; the chief 60 COL. INGERSOLL'S was a tyrant ; a few tribes formed a nation ; the nation was governed by a king, who was also a tyrant. A strong na tion robbed, plundered, and took captive the weaker ones. This was the commencement of human slavery. THE COLONEL GROWS ELOQUENT. It is not possible for the human imagination to conceive of the horrors of slavery. It has left no possible wrong un committed, no possible crime un perpetrated. It has been practised and defended by all nations in some form. It has been upheld by all religions. It has been defended by nearly every pulpit. From the profits derived from the slave trade churches have been built, cathedrals reared and priests paid. Slavery has been blessed by bishop, by car dinal and by pope. It has received the sanction of states men, of kings, of queens. Monarchs have shared in the profits. Clergymen have taken their part of the spoil, re citing passages of scripture in its defense at the same time, and judges have taken their portion in the name of equity and law. Only a few years ago our ancestors were slaves. Only a few years ago they passed with and belonged to the soil, like coal under it and rocks on it. Only a few years ago they were treated like beasts of burden, worse far than we treat our animals at the present day. Only a few years ago it was a crime in England for a man to have a bible in his house, a crime for which men were hanged, and their bodies afterwards burned. Only a few years ago fathers could and did sell their children. Only a few years ago our ancestors were not allowed to speak or write their thoughts that being a crime. As soon as our ancestors began to get free they began to enslave others. With an inconsistency that defies explanation, they practiced upon others the same out rages that had been perpetrated upon them. As soon as white slavery began to be abolished, black slavery com- GREAT SPEECHES. 6 1 menced. In this infamous traffic nearly every nation of Europe embarked. The other day there came shoemakers, potters, workers in wood and iron, from Europe, and they wefe received in the city of New York as though they had been princes. They had been sent by the great republic of France to ex amine into the arts and manufactures of the great republic of America. They looked a thousand times better to me than the Edward Alberts and Albert Edwards the royal vermin, that live on the body politic. And I would think much more of our government if it would fete and feast them, instead of wining and dining the imbeciles of a royal line. WHAT WE WANT TO-DAY. What we want to-day is what our fathers wrote down. They did not attain to their ideal ; we approach it nearer, but have not reached it yet. We want, not only the inde pendence of a state, not only the independence of a nation, but something far more glorious the absolute independence of the individual. That is what we want. I want it so that I, one of the children of Nature, can stand on an equality with the rest; that 'I can say this is my air, my sunshine, my earth, and I have a right to live, and hope, and aspire, and labor, and enjoy the fruit of that labor, as much as any individual, or any nation on the face of the globe. The French convention gave the best definition of liberty I have ever read: " The liberty of one citizen ceases only where the liberty of another citizen commences." I know of no better definition. I ask you to-day to make a dec laration of individual independence. And if you are indepen dent, be just. Allow everybody else to make his declaration of individual independence. Allow your wife, allow your husband, allow your children to make theirs. It is a grand thing to be the owner of yourself. It is a grand thing to 62 COL. INGERSOLLS protect the rights of others. It is a sublime thing to be free and just. Only a few days ago I stood in Independence Hall in that little room where was signed the immortal paper. A little room, like any other ; and it did not seem possible that from that room went forth ideas, like cherubim and seraphim, spreading their wings over a continent, and touching, as with holy fire, the hearts of men. In a few moments I was in the park, where are gathered the accomplishments of a century. Our fathers never dreamed of the things I saw. There were hundreds of loco motives, with their nerves of steel and breath of flame every kind of machine, with whirling wheels and the myriad thoughts of men that have been wrought in iron, brass and steel. And going out from one little building were wires in the air, stretching to every civilized nation, and they could send a shining messenger in a moment to any part of the world, and it would go sweeping under the waves of the sea with thoughts and words within its glowing heart. I saw all that had been achieved by this nation, and I wished that the signers of the Declaration the soldiers of the Revo lution could see what a century of freedom has produced. I wished they could see the fields we cultivate the rivers we navigate the railroads running over the Alleghanies, far into what was then the unknown forest on over the broad prairies on over the vast plains away over the mountains of the West, to the Golden Gate of the Pacific. All this is the result of a hundred years of freedom. Are you not more than glad that in 1776 was announced the sublime principle that political power resides with the peo. pie ? that our fathers then made up their minds nevermore to be colonists and subjects, but that they would be free and independent citizens of America. I will not name any ef the grand men who fought for liberty. All should be GREAT SPEECHES. 63 named, or none. I feel that the unknown soldier who was shot down without even his name being remembered who was included only in a report of "a hundred killed," or "a hundred missing," nobody knowing even the number that attached to his august corpse is entitled to as deep and heartfelt thanks as the titled leader who fell at the head of the host. THE GRAND FUTURE OF AMERICA. Standing here amid the sacred memories of the first, on the golden threshold of the second, I ask, Will the second century be as grand as the first? I believe it will, because we are growing more and more humane ; I believe there is more human kindness, and a greater desire to help one an other, than in all the world besides. We must progress. We are just at the commencement of invention. The steam engine the telegraph these are but the toys with which science has been amused. There will be grander things; there will be wider and higher cul ture a grander standard of character, of literature and art. We have now half as many millions of people as we have years. We are getting more real solid sense. We are writing and reading more books ; we are struggling more and more to get at the philosophy of life, of things trying more and more to answer the questions of the eternal Sphinx. We are looking in every direction investigating ; in short, we are thinking and working. The world has changed. I have had the supreme pleasure of seeing a man once a slave sitting in the seat of his former master in the Congress of the United States. I have had that pleasure, and when I saw it my eyes were filled with tears, I felt that we had carried out the Declara tion of independence, that we have given reality to it, and breathed the breath of life into its every word. I felt that o*> fiag would float over and protect the colored man and 64 COL. INGERSOLL'S His iittie children standing straight in the sun, just the same as though he were white and worth a million. All wno stand beneath our banner are free. Ours is the only Hag that has in reality written upoo it : Liberty, Fraternity, Equality the three grandest words in all the languages of men. Liberty : Give to every man the fruit of his own labof the labor of his hand and of his brain. Fraternity : Every man in the right is my brother. Equal ity : The rights of all are equal. No race, no color, no previous condition, can change the rights of men. The Declaration of Independence has at last been carried out in letter and in spirit. The second century will be grander than the first. To-day the black man looks upon his child and says : The avenues of distinction are open to you up3R your brow may fall the civic wreath. We are celebrating the courage and wisdom of our fathers, and the glad shout of a free people, the anthem of a grand nation, commencing at the Atlantic, is following the sun to the Pacific, across a continent of happy homes. We are a great people. Three millions have increased to fifty thirteen states to thirty- eight. We have better homes, and more of the conveni ences of life than any other people upon the face of the globe. The farmers of our country live better than did the kings and princes two hundred years ago and they have twice as much sense and heart. Liberty and labor have given us all. Remember that all men have equal rights. Remember that the man who acts best his part who loves his friends the best is most willing to help others truest to the obligation who has the best heart the most feeling the deepest sympathies and who freely gives to others the rights that he claims for himself, is the best man. We have disfranchised the aristocrats of the air and have given one country to mankind. COL. INGERSOLL'S FUNERAL ORATION. Col. Ingersoll's Funeral Oration at His Brother's Grave. The funeral of Hon. Ebon C. Ingersoll, brother of Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, took place at his residence in Wash ington, D. C., June 2, 1879. The ceremonies were ex tremely simple, consisting merely of viewing the remains by relatives and friends, arid a funeral oration by Col. Ingersoll. A large number of distinguished gentlemen were present. Soon after Mr. Ingersoll began to read his eloquent characterization of the dead, his eyes filled with tears. He tried to hide them behind his eye-glasses, but he could not do it, and finally he bowed his head upon the dead man's coffin in uncontrollable grief. It was after <*6 COL. INGERSOLL'S some delay and the greatest efforts at self-mastery, that Col. Ingersoll was able to finish reading his address, which was as follows : MY FRIENDS : i am going to do that which the dead often promised he would do for me. The loved and loving brother, husband, father, friend, died where manhood's morning almost touches noon, and while the shadows still were falling towards the West. He had not passed on life's highway the stone that marks the highest point, but being weary for a moment he laid down by the wayside, and, using his burden for a pillow, fell into that dreamless sleep that kisses down his eyelids still. While yet in love with life and raptured with the world, he passed to silence and pathetic dust. Yet, after all, it may be best, just in the happiest, sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager winds are kissing every sr.il, to dash against the unseen rock, and in an instant hear the billows roar a sunken ship. For, whether in mid-sea or among the breakers of the far ther shore, a wreck must mark at last the end of each and all. And every life, no matter if its every hour is rich with love and every moment jeweled with a joy, will, at- its close, become a tragedy, as sad, and deep, and dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death. This brave and tender man in every storm of life was oak and rock, but in the sunshine he was vine and flower. He was the friend of all heroic souls. He climbed the heights and left all superstitions far belov, while on his forehead fell the golden dawning of a grander day. He loved the beautiful, and was with color, form and mu- eic touched to tears. He sided with the weak, and with a willing hand gave alms ; with loyal heart and with the purest hand he faithfully discharged all public trusts. He was a worshipper of liberty and a friend of the oppressed A thousand times I have heard him quote tl?o words. FUNERAL ORATION. 67 "For justice all place a temple and all season summer." He believed that happiness was the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worshipper, humanity the only religion, and love the priest. He added to the sum of human joy, and were every one for whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave he would sleep to-night beneath a wilderness of flowers. Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word ; but in the night of death hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rus tle of a wing. He who sleeps here, when dying, mistak ing the approach of death for the return of health, whis pered with his latest breath, "I am better now." Let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas and tears and fears that these dear words are true of all the countless dead. And now, to you who have been chosen from among the many men he loved to do the last sad office for the dead, we give his sacred dust. Speech cannot contain our love. There was there is no gentler, stronger, manlier man. 68 COL. INGERSOLL'S The Celebrated Speech of Col. Ingersoll Nominating James G. Elaine for President. At Cincinnati, June, 1876, in nominating James G. Elaine for President, Col. Ingersoll spoke as follows : (full report.) MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : Massachu setts may be satisfied with the loyalty of Benjamin H. Bristow ; so am I ; but if any man nominated by this con vention cannot carry the State of Massachusetts, I am not satisfied with the loyalty of that State. If the nominee of this convention cannot carry the grand old commonwealth of Massachusetts by seventy-five thousand majority I would advise them to sell out Faneuil Hall as a Democratic head quarters. I would advise them to take from Bunker Hill that old monument of glory. The Republicans of the United States demand as their leader in the great contest of 1876, a man of intelligence, a man of integrity, a man of well-known and approved politi cal opinions. They demand a statesman ; they demand a reformer after as well as before the election. They de mand a politician in the highest, broadest and best sense a man of superb moral courage. They demand a man ac quainted with public affairs ; with the wants of the people ; with not only the requirements of the hour, but with the demands of the future. They demand a man broad enough to comprehend the relations of this Government to the other nations of the earth. They demand a man well versed in the powers, duties and prerogatives of each and every department of this Government. They demand a man who will sacredly preserve the financial honor of the United States ; one who knows enough to know that the national debt must be paid through the prosperity of the people ; one who knows enough 1 3 know that all the financial theories in the world GREAT SPEECHES. 69 cannot redeem a single dollar ; one who knows enough to know that all the money must be made, not by law but by labor ; one who knows enough to know that the people of the United States have the industry to make the money, and the honor to pay it over just as fast as they make it. The Republicans of the United States demand a man who knows that prosperity and resumption, when they come, must come together ; that when they come they will come hand in hand through the golden harvest fields; hand in hand by the whirling spindles and the turning wheels ; hand in hand past the open furnace doors ; hand in hand by the chimneys filled with eager fire, greeted and grasped by the countless sons of toil. This money has to be dug out of the earth. You cannot make it by passing resolutions in a political convention. The Republicans of the United States want a man who knows that this Government should protect every citizen, at home and abroad ; who knows that any Government that will not defend its defenders and protect its protectors, is a disgrace to the map of the world. They demand a man who believes in the eternal separation and divorce ment of church and school. They demand a man whose political reputation is as spotless as a star ; but they do not demand that their candidate shall have a certificate of moral character signed by a Confederate Congress. The man who has, in full, heaped and rounded measure, all these splendid qualifications is the present grand and gal lant leader of the Republican party James G. Elaine. Our country, crowned with the vast and marvelous achievements of its first century, asks for a man worthy of the past and prophetic of her future ; asks for a man who has the audacity of genius ; asks for a man who is the grand est combination of heart, conscience and brain beneath hef flag. Such a man is James G. Elaine- COL. INGERSOLL'S For the Republican host, led by this intrepid man, there can be no defeat. This is a grand year a year filled with recollections ol the Revolution ; filled with the proud and tender memories of the past; with the sacred legends of liberty ; a year in which the sons of freedom will drink from the fountains of enthusiasm ; a year in which the people call for a man who has preserved in Congress what our soldiers won upon the field ; a year in which they call for the man who has torn from the throat of treason the tongue of slander for the man who has snatched the mask of Democracy from the hideous face of rebellion ; for this man who, like an intel lectual athlete, has stood in the arena of debate and chal lenged all comers, and who is still a total stranger to de feat. Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Elaine marched down the halls of the American Congress and threw his shining lance full and fair against the brazen foreheads of the defamers of his country and the maligners of her honor. For the Republican party to desert this gal lant leader now is as though an army should desert their General upon the field of battle. James G. Elaine is now and has been for years the bearer of the sacred standard of the Republican party. I call it sacred because no human being can stand beneath its folds without becoming and without remaining free. Gentlemen of the convention, in the name of the great Republic, the only Republic that ever existed upon this earth ; in the name of all her defenders and of all her sup porters ; in the name of all her soldiers living ; in the name of all her soldiers dead upon the field of battle, and in the name of those who perished in the skeleton clutch of famine at Andersonville and Libby, whose sufferings he so vividly remembers, Illinois Illinois nominates for the next GREAT SPEECHES. President of this country that prince of parliamentarian*"- that leader of leaders James G. Elaine. HON. JAMES G. BLAIisE. COL. INGERSOLL S Ingersoll's Eloquent Speech to the Volunteer Soldiers. At the banquet given to the Army of the Tennessee, at Chicago, Nov. 13th 1879, Gen. Sherman announced the following toast: "The volunteer soldiers of the Union army, whose valor and patriotism saved the world a gov ernment of the people, by the people and for the people." Response by Col. Robert G. Ingersoll. Col. Ingersoll, mounting the table by which he was sit ting, spoke as follows : "When the savagery of the lash, the barbarism of the class, and the insanity of secession confronted the civiliza tion of our century, the question, "Will the great republic defend itself?" trembled on the lips of every lover of man kind. The North, filled with intelligence and wealth children of liberty marshalled her hosts and asked only for a leader. From civil life, a man, silent, thoughtful, poised and calm, stepped forth and with lips of victory voiced the nation's first and last demand: "Unconditional and immediate surrender." From that moment the end was known. That utterance was the first real declaration of war, and, in accordance with the dramatic unities of mighty events, the GREAT SPEECHES. 73 great soldier who made it received the final reward of the rebellion. The soldiers of the republic were not seekers after vulgar glory. They were not animated by the hope of plunder or the love of conquest. They fought to preserve the bless ings of liberty and that their children might have peace. They were the defenders of humanity, the destroyers of prejudice, the breakers of chains, and in the name of the future they slew the monster of their time. They finished what the soldiers of the Revolution commenced. They re lighted the torch that fell from their august hands and filled the world again with light. They blotted from the statute books laws that had been passed by hypocrites at the insti gation of robbers, and tore with indignant hands from the Constitution that infamous clause that made men the catch ers of their fellow men. They made it possible for judges to be just, for states men to be human, and for politicians to be honest. They broke the shackles from the limbs of slaves, from the souls of martyrs, and from the Northern brain. They kept our country on the map of the world and our flag in heaven. They rolled the stone from the sepulchre of progress, and for these two angels clad in shining garments Nation ality and Liberty. The soldiers were the saviors of the na. tion They were the liberators of men. In writing the 74 COL. INGERSOLL'S proclamation of independence, Lincoln, the greatest of our mighty dead, whose memory is as gentle as the summer air when reapers sing amid the gathered sheaves copied with the pen what Grant and his brave comrades wrote ftdth their swords. Grander than the Greek, nobler than the Roman, the sol diers of the republic, with patriotism as taintless as the air, battled for the rights of others ; for the nobility of labor ; fought that mothers might own their babes; that arrogant idleness should not scar the back of patient toil, and that our country should not be a many-headed monster made of warring States, but a nation, sovereign, great and free. Blood was water, money, leaves, and life was common air until one flag floated over a republic without a master and without a slave. Then was asked the question: Will a free people tax themselves to pay the nation's debt? The soldiers went home to their waiting wives, to their glad children, and to the girls they loved they went back to the fields, the shops and mines. They had not been de moralized. They had been ennobled. They were as hon est in peace as they had been brave in war. Mocking at , poverty, laughing at reverses, they made a friend of toil. They said : "We saved the nation's life, and what is life without honor?" They worked and wrought with all of labor's sons, that every pledge the nation gave should be redeemed. And their great leader, having put a shining hand of friendship a girdle of clasped and happy hands around the globe, comes home and finds that every promise made in war has now the ring and gleam of gold. There is still another question : "Will all the wounds of the war be healed?" I answer, Yes. The Southern peo. pie must submit, not to the dictation of the North, but to the nation's will and to the verdict of mankind. They were wrong, and the time will come when they will say GREAT SPEECHES. /5 that they are victors who have been vanquished by the right. Freedom conquered them, and freedom will culti vate their fields, educate their children, weave for them the robes of wealth, execute their laws, and fill their land with happy homes. The soldiers of the Union saved the South as well as the North. They made us a Nation. Their victory made us free and rendered tyranny in every other land as insecure as snow upon volcano lips. And now let us drink to the volunteers, to those who sleep in unknown, sunken graves, whose names are only in the hearts of those they loved and left of those who only hear in happy dreams the footsteps of return. Let us drink to those who died where lipless famine mocked at want to all the maimed whose scars give mod esty a tongue, to all who dared and gave to chance the care and keeping of their lives to all the living and all the dead to Sherman, to Sheridan and to Grantj the foremost soldiers of the world ; and last, to Lincoln, whose loving life, like a bow of peace, spans and arches all the clouds of war." TO COL. INGERSOLLS Speech at Chicago, October 21, 1876.* [Chicago Evening Journal^ LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : Democrats and Republicans have a common interest in the United States. We have a common interest in the preservation of a common country. And I appeal to all, Democrats and Republicans, to en deavor to make a conscientious choice; to endeavor to select aft President and Yice President of the United States the men and the parties, so to speak, which in your judgment will preserve this nation, and preserve all that is dear to us either as Republicans or Democrats. THE DEMOCRATIC PAETY DESCRIBED. 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 say: " Let bygones be bygones." I never knew a man who did a decent action that wanted it forgotten. 1 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 infa mous thing; whenever a man commits some crime; when ever a man does that which mantles the cheeks of his chil dren with ehame, he says: "Let bygones be bygones." (Ap plause.) 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, lam a gentleman or not; but I do say that in a certain sense I am one of the his- [See note on page 110.] GREAT SPEECHES. // torians of the Democratic party. I do not know that it is true that a man cannot give his 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, 1 claim that the Democratic party em braces within its filthy arms the worst elements in Amer ican society. I claim that every enemy that this Govern ment 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 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 that drew an ordinance of secession was a Democrat; every man that tried to tear the flag out of heaven was a Democrat; every man that tore that old banner of glory with shot and shell was a Demo crat; every Union soldier that has a scar upon his body to-day carries with him a souvenir of the Democratic party; every man that shot a Union soldier was a Democrat; every man that denied to the Union prisoners even the worm-eaten crust of famine was a Democrat; and when some famished Union soldier, crazed by agony and by pain and by want, saw in his dream the face of his mother, and she seemed to beckon him, and he innocently followed her beckoning, and in so following, got his feet one inch beyond the dead-line, the rebel wretch who put a bullet through his heart was and is a Democrat. (Applause and loud cries of "That's so.") The men that burned the orphan asylum in the city of New York were Democrats; every one that fired that city, know ing: that, if it burned, the serpents of flame would leap 78 COL. INGERSOLL'S from the buildings and clutch children from their mother's arms; every wretch that did it was a Democrat. (Applause.) The man that shot Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat. (Applause.) And every man that was glad of it was a Dem ocrat (Loud applause.) Everyman that was sorry to see the institution of slavery abolished"; every man that shed a tear over the corpse of human slavery was, and is, a Democrat. (Applause.) The men that cursed Abraham Lincoln, cursed the grandest, the purest man that was ever President of the United States; every man that cursed him for issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, the grandest paper since the Declaration of Independence every man that cursed him for it was a Democrat. (Applause.) Every man who hated to see blood-hounds 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 ever 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 they are all that way; but nearly all who are that way are Democrats. (Loud applause.) A POLITICAL TRAMP. The Democratic party to-day is a political tramp (laugh ter) crawling to the back door of the White House, begging for official food. The Democratic party has not had a bite to eat for sixteen long and weary years. (Laughter and applause.) The Democratic party has a vast appetite. (Laughter.) The Democratic party is all teeth and an empty stomach. (Laughter.) In other words, the Demo cratic party is a political tramp with a yellow passport. This political tramp begs food and he carries in his pocket GREAT SPEECHES. 79 old dirfy scraps of paper as a kind of certificate of charac ter. On one of those papers he will showyou 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 (laughter and applause); on another a certificate signed by Lyman Trumbull that the Kepubli- ean party is not fit to associate with (laughter and ap plause) that certificate will be endorsed by Governor John M. Palmer, and my friend Judge Doolittle. (Laughter.) 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-Cbief of the Sons of Liberty. (Laughter and applause.) Following this tramp will be a blood-hound ; and when he asks for food, the blood-hound will crouch for employment on his haunches, and the drool of anticipation will run from his loose and hanging lips. Study the ex pression of that dog. (Laughter.) Translate it into Eng lish and it means: " Oh! I want to bite a nigger!" (Laugh ter.) And when the dog has that expression he shows a strik ing likeness to his master. (Laughter.) The question is, " Shall that tramp and that dog gain possession of the White House? " (Loud cries of " No! Eol ") DEMOCRATIC STUPIDITY. 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. (Laughter.) The Democratic party does know that we, upon the great glittering highway of , have passed a single mile-stone for twenty years. 8o COL. INGERSOLL'S The Democratic party, I say, 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 Republi can is a Republican because he loves something. (Ap plause.) And it is not whisky, either. (Laughter.) ITS USEFULNESS OBSOLETE. The other day I was going along the road, and I came to a place where it had been changed, and the guide-board did not know it. It had stood there for twenty years point ing industriously, pointing diligently over to a deserted field; nobody ever went that way, but the guide-board thought the next man would. Thousands passed, and not withstanding the fact that not one went in the direction of the guide-board, through calm and shine and storm, it pointed diligently into the old field, and swore to it the road went that way; and I said to myself, "Such is the Demo cratic party of the United States." (Laughter.) I saw a little while ago a place in the road where there had been a hotel. The hotel had gone down over thirty years ago, and there was nothing standing but two desolate chimneys, up the flues of which the fires of hospitality had not roared for thirty years. The fence was gone, and the post holes even were obliterated, but there was a sign in the road, and on the sign were the words: "Entertainment for man and beast." The old sign swung and creaked in the winter wind, the snow fell upon it, the sleet clung to it, and in the summer the birds sung and twittered and made love upon it; nobody ever stopped there, but the sign swore to it, the sign certified to it: "Entertainment for man and beast" And I said to myself, " Such is the Democratic party of the United States, and one chimney ought to be called Tiiden, GREAT SPEECHES. 8 1 and the other chimney ought to be called Hendricks." (Laughter.) I saw also by a stream, a building that had once been a mill; all the clap-boards nearly were gone, and the roof leaked liked an average Democratic wool hat with the top burst; though there was a sign hanging by one nail: " Cash for wheat." Not a kernel had been ground there for thirty years; the old mill wheel had fallen off its gud geons into the street, and it was as dry as though it had been in the final home of the Democratic party for forty years. (Laughter and applause.) The dam was gone; nobody had built a new dam; the mill was not worth a dam! (Laugh ter.) And I said to myself, " That is exactly the condi tion of the Democratic party to-day." THE " STATE EIGHTS " DOCTRINE. The Democratic party, I say, is incapable of advance ment; the only stock that they have 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 confed eracy, that this great Government is simply a bargain, that this great splendid people have simply made a trade, and 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 Govern ment 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, 6 8a COL. INGERSOLL'S by intimidation, by assassination, and by murder. The Democratic party is willing to-day that Tilden and Hen- dricks 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 to this Union, and who fought for our flag that the rights of every one of these men should be trampled in the dust, provided Tilden and Hendricks be elected President and Yice 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 sa cred line, and you cannot cross it. Such is the infamous doctrine of the Democratic party. Who, I say, will be in jured 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. (Applause.) For my part, I think more of a black friend than a white enemy. (Applause.) 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. (Applause.) 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. (Applause.) As a matter of fact all that is done in the South to-day, of use, is done by colored men. The colored man raises everything that is raised in the South, except hell. (Laughter and cheers.) And I say here to-night that I think one hundred times more of the good, honest, industrious man of the South than I do of all GREAT SPEECHES. 83 the white men together that do not love this Government (applause), and I think more of the black man in the South than I do of the white man in the North that sympathizes with the white wretch that wishes to trample upon the rights of that black man. (Applause.) I believe that this is a Government, first, not only of power, but that it is the right of this Government to march all the soldiers in the United States into any sovereign State of this Union to de fend the rights of every American citizen in that State. (Applause. Yoice, "That's so;" "That's the doctrine.") If it takes the last man and the last dollar, I am in favor of killing enough Democrats to protect the rights of Union men. ("Good," "Good;" cheers.) A Government that will not protect its protectors, a Gov ernment that will not defend its defenders, is a disgrace to the Nations of the earth, and the flag that will not protect them in her own country is a dirty rag that contaminates the air in which it floats. It is conceded by all Democrats and Republicans that in time of war this Government can come to your house, come to you when you are sitting with your family at your fireside, sitting there with your chil dren, everything happy and delightful; this Government has the right to take you and march you down into the valley of the shadow of hell, and standing you by the red roaring guns make you fight for the flag of your coun try. Now, suppose the Government does it, and you go and fight, and your Government is victorious, and you go home, and there you find a few Democrats who sympathized with the enemy, and they endeavor to trample upon your rights; is it not the duty of the Government that made you fight for it to defend you in time of peace? (Applause.) If it is the duty of the Government to defend you in time of war, when you were compelled to go into the army, 84 COL. INGERSOLL'S how much more is it the doty of the Government to defend in time of peace the man who, in time of war, voluntarily and gladly rushed to the rescue and defense of his country; and yet the Democratic doctrine is that you are to answer the call of the Nation, but that the Nation will be deaf to your cry, unless the Governor of your State makes request of your Government. Suppose the Governors and every . man trample upon your rights, is the Nation then to let you be trampled? Will the Nation hear only the cry of the op pressor, or will it heed the cry of the oppressed? I believe we should have a Government that can hear the faintest wail, the faintest cry for justice from the lips of the humblest citizen beneath her flag. But the Democratic doctrine is that this Government can protect its citizens only when they are away from home. This may account for so many Democrats going to Canada during the war. (Laughter and applause.) I believe that the Government must protect you, not only abroad, but must protect you at home; and that is the greatest question before the American people to-day. THE COLORED RACE. I have thought that human impudence reached its limit ages and ages ago. I had believed that some time in the history of the world impudence had reached its height, and so believed until I read the congratulatory address of Abram S. Hewitt, chairman of the National Executive Democratic Committee, wherein he congratulates the negroes of the South on what he calls a Democratic victory in the State of Indiana. If human impudence can go beyond this, all I have to say is, it never has. (Laughter.) What does he eay to the Southern people, to the colored people? He says to them, in substance: "The reason the white people tram- GREAT SPEECHES. 8$ pie upon you is because the white people are weak. Give the white people more strength, put the white people in au thority, and, although they murder you now when they are weak, when they are strong they will let you alone. (Laugh ter and applause.) Yes; the only trouble with our Southern white brethren is that now they are in the minority, and they kill you now, and the only way to save your lives is to put yoar enemy in the majority." That is the doctrine oi Abram S. Hewitt, and he congratulates the colored people of the South upon the Democratic victory of Indiana. There is going to be a great crop of hawks next season let us con gratulate the doves. (Laughter.) That is it. The burg lars have whipped the police let us congratulate the bank. (Laughter.) That is it. The wolves have killed off almost all the shepherds let us congratulate the sheep. (Laugh ter and applause.) This is the same Abram S. Hewitt who has endeavored to set the rotten teeth of Democratic slan der into the live and quivering flesh of that splendid man, James G. Elaine. (Cheers.) The same Hewitt that con gratulates the negroes of the South upon the prospect of their assassins getting into political power the next thing we hear from him is the slander against the name and rep utation of a man of whom he is not fit to speak even in terms of praise. (Applause.) SUFFERINGS OF THE SLAVES. In my judgment the black people have suffered enough. They have been slaves for 200 years, and, more than all, they have been compelled to keep the company of the men that owned them. (Laughter and applause.) Think of that. Think of being compelled to keep the society of the man who is stealing from yon! Think of being compelled to live with the man who sold your wife! Think of being compelled to 86 COL. INGERSOLL'S live with the man who stole your child from the cradle bft- fore your very eyesl Think of being compelled to live with the thief of yonr life, and spend your days with the white robber, and to be under his control! The black peo ple have suffered enough. For 200 years they were owned and bought and sold and branded like cattle. For 200 years every human tie was rent aad torn asunder by the bloody, brutal hands of avarice and might. They have suffered enough. During the war the black people were our friends not only, but whenever they were entrusted with the family, with the wives and children of their masters, they were true to them. They stayed at home and protected the wife and child of the master while he went into the field and fought for the right to whip and steal the child of the very black man that was protecting him. (Applause.) The black people, I say, have suffered enough, and for that reason I am in favor of this Government protecting them in every Southern State, if it takes another war to do it. (Cheers.) We never can compromise with the South at the expense of our friends. (Yoices, "Never! ") "We never can be friends with the men that starved and shot our brothers. (Yoices, " Never!") We never can be friends with the men that waged the most cruel war in the world ; not for liberty, but for the right to deprive other men of their liberty. We never can be their friends until they treat the black man justly; until the}' treat the white Union man respectfully; until Republicanism ceases to be a crime; until to vote the Republican ticket ceases to make you a political and social outcast We want no friendship with the enemies of our sountry. (Applause.) THE NATION'S FEIENDS AND ENEMIES. The next question is, who shall have possession of this aountry the men that saved it, or the men that Bought to GREAT SPEECHES. 8/ destroy it? The Sonthern people lit the fires of civil war. They who set the conflagration must be satisfied with the ashes left by tne conflagration. The men that saved the Ship of State must sail it. The men that saved the flag must carry it. (Applause.) This Government is not far from destruction when it crowns with its highest honor in time of peace, the man that was false to it in the time of war. (Applause.) This Nation is not far from the prec ipice of annihilation and destruction when it gives its highest honor to a man false, false to the country when everything we hold dear trembled in the balance of war, when everything was left to the arbitrament of the sword. THE GREENBACK QUESTION. The next question prominently before the people though I think the great question is, whether citizens shall be protected at home the next question I say, is the financial question. With that there is no trouble. We had to bor row money and we have got to pay it. That is all there is of that, and we are going to pay it just as soon as we make the money to pay it with, and we are going to make the money out of prosperity. We have got to dig it out of the earth. You can't make a dollar by law. You can't re deem a cent by statute. You can't pay one solitary far- tiling by all the resolutions, by all the speeches ever made under the sun. (Applause.) You have got to dig this money right square out of the ground. Every dollar we owe is not wealth of this Nation, but it is the evidence of the poverty of this Nation. The Nation cannot make money. The Nation cannot support yon and me; it cannot support us. We support the Nation. The Nation collects its taxes from us. The Nation is a perpetual, everlasting pauper, and we have to support the Nation. The Nation passes the 88 COL. INGERSOLL'S measure of taxation, and the Nation passes around the hat, and makes us all throw in our charity to support the Gov ernment, and everybody does throw in except Tilden, as tar as heard from. (Laughter.) Now, then, we have some men among us who say that the Government can make money. If the Government can make money, why should it collect taxes from us? "Why shouldn't it make all the taxes it wants? Why shouldn't it make all the money it wants, and take the taxes out and give the balance to us? Why should this Government, if it has the power to make money, collect any money from the people? But they tell you that this Government has the power to put its sov ereign impress on a piece of paper; and, if the Government has that power, it don't take any more sovereignty to make a $2 bill than it does to make a $1 bill. "What is the use of wasting sovereignty on $1 bills? (Laughter.) Why not have $10 bills? What is the use of wasting sovereignty on a $10 bill? Why not have $100 bills? (Laughter.) Why not have million-dollar bills, and every one become a millionaire at once? (Laughter and applause.) If the greenback doctrine is right, that evidence of national indebt edness is wealth, if that is their idea, why not go another step and make every individual note a legal tender? Why not pass a law that every man shall take every other man's note? Then, I swear, we would have money in plenty. (Laugh ter.) No, my friends, a promise to pay a dollar is not a dollar, no matter if that promise is made by the greatest and most powerful Nation on the globe. A promise is not a performance. An agreement is not an accomplishment, and there never will come a time when a promise to pay a dollar is as good as the dollar, unless everybody you know liavegot tJie dollar, and will pay it whenever they ask for it. The Democrats ought to pay every cent of the national GREAT SPEECHES. 89 debt. (Applause.) They lost the suit; they ought to pay the costs. (Laughter.) They commenced the war; they ought to pay the expenses. But we, in our patriotism, are willing to pay our share, but we want them to pay theirs. GREENBACK INFLATION. We want no more inflation. We want simply to pay our debts as fast as the prosperity of the country allows it and no faster. Every speculator that was caught with property on his hands upon which he owed more than the property was worth wanted the game to go a little longer. Whoever heard of a man playing poker that wanted to quit when he was a loser? (Laughter.) He wants to have a fresh deal. He wants another hand, and he don't want any that is ahead to jump the game. (Laughter and applause.) It is so with the speculators in this country. They bought land, they bought houses, they bought goods, and when the crisis and the crash came, they were caught with the property on their hands, and they want another inflation, they want another tide to rise that will again sweep this driftwood into the middle of the great financial stream. That is all. Every lot in this city that was worth $5,000 and that is now worth $2,000 do you know what is the matter with that lot? It has been redeeming. It has been resuming. That is what is the matter with that lot. Every man that owned property that has now fallen 50 per cent., that property has been resuming; and if you could have another inflation to-morrow, the day that the bubble would burst would find thousands of speculators who paid as much for property a* property was worth, and they would ask for another tide of affairs in men. They would ask for another inflation. What for? To let them out and put somebody else in. (Laughter.) go COL. INGERSOLL'S EUKNTNO IN DEBT. "We want no more inflation. "We want the simple, hon est payment of the debt, and to pay out of the prosperity of this country. " But," says the greenback man, " we never had as good times as when we had plenty of green backs." Suppose a farmer would buy a farm for $10,000, and give his note. He would send Mary, Jane and Lucy to school. He would give them pianos, and send them to college, and would give his note for the interest, and the next year he would again give his note for the interest, and the next year again his note, and finallj they would come to him and say: "We must settle up; we have taken your notes as long as we can; we want money." ""Why," he would say to the gentleman, " I never had as good a time in my life as while I have been giving those notes. I never had a farm until the man gave it to me for my note. My children have been clothed as well as anybody's. "We have had carriages; we have had fine horses; and our house has been filled with music, and laughter, and dancing; and why not keep on taking those notes?" So it is with the green back man; he says, " When we were running in debt, we had a jolly time let us keep it up." But, my friends, there must come a time when inflation would reach that point when all the Government notes in the world wouldn't buy a pin ; that all the Government notes in the world wouldn't be worth as much as the last year's Democratic platform. (Laughter and applause.) HARD TIMES. I have no fear but what these debts will be paid. I have no fear but what every solitary greenback dollar will be re deemed ; but, my friends, we will have some trouble doing it Why? Because the debt is a great deal larger than it GREAT SPEECHES. 9! should have been. In the first place there should have been no debt. If it had not been for the Southern Democ racy there would have been no war. If it hadn't been for the Northern Democracy the war wouldn't have lasted one year. (Cheers voices, "That's so.") When we put np the greenbacks, the Democrats went to all the markets in the world and swore that we never could redeem that paper. They stuck to it during the period of the war until gold went up to 290. What did it mean? It meant that the greenback dollar was only worth 34 cents. That is what it meant. What became of the other 66 cents? They were lied out of the greenbacks. They were maligned and slandered and calumniated out of the greenback by the Democrats of the North. Whenever a Democrat talks about hard times, tell him, "Your party made the hard times." Whenever a Democrat wants to get sympathy on account of the national debt, tell him, " Your party made the national debt." There was a man tried in court for having murdered his own father and his own mother. He was found guilty and the judge asked him, "What have you to say that seii' tence of death shall not be pronounced on you?" "Noth ing in the world, judge," said he, "only I hope your Honor will take pity on me and remember that I am a poor or phan." (Laughter and applause; renewed laughter.) The Democratic party made this debt. The Democratic party caused these hard times, and now they go around the coun try and ask sympathy from the people because the Demo crats are suffering such hard times. When you think about this debt, charge two-thirds of it to the Democracy of the North; charge the other third to the Democracy of the South, and if you have to work to get this money, and in working blister your hands, pull off the blister, and under 92 COL. INGERSOLL'S every blister yon will find a Northern Democratic lie. (Laughter and applause.) I, I say, have no doubt but that this debt will be paid. "We have got the honor to pay it, and we do not pay it on account of the avarice or greed of the bondholder. An honest man don't pay money to a creditor simply because the creditor wants it. The honest man pays at the command of his honor, and not at the de mand of the creditor. (Applause.) The United States will liquidate every debt at the command of its honor, and every cent will be paid. War is destruction, war is loss, and all the property destroyed, and the time that is lost, put together, amount to what we call a national debt. When in peace we shall have made as much net profit as there was wealth lost in the war, then we will be a solvent people, THE GREENBACK TO BE REDEEMED. The greenback will be redeemed; we expect to redeem it on the 1st day of January, 1879. We may fail; we will fail if the prosperity of the country fails; but we intend to try to do it, and if \ve fail, we will fail as a soldier fails to take a fort, high upon the rampart, with the flag of resumption in our hands. (Applause.) We will not say that we can not pay the debt because there is a date fixed when the debt is to be paid. I have had to borrow money myself; I have had to give my note, and I recollect distinctly that every man I ever did give my note to insisted that somewhere in that note there should be some vague hint as to the cycle, as to the geological period, as to the time, as to the century and date when I expected to pay those little notes. (Laugh ter.) I never understood that having a time fixed would prevent my being industrious; that it would interfere with my honesty, or with my activity, or with my desire to GREAT SPEECHES. 93 discharge that debt. And if any man in this great conntrj owed you $1,000, due you the first d^^y of next January, and he should come to you and say: "I want to pay you that debt, but you must take that date out of that note." " Why?" you would say. " Why," he would reply, in the language of Tilden, " I have got to make wise preparation." "Well," you would say then, "why don't you do it?" " Oh," he saVs, " I can't do it while you have that date in that note." "Another thing," he says, " I have got to get me a central reservoir of coin." (Here the speaker went through the motions of filling his pockets with both hands.) Suppose this debtor would also tell you, " I want the date out of that note, because I have got to come at it by a very slow and gradual process." " Well," yon would say, " I do not care how slow you are or how gradual you are, pro vided that you get around by the time the note is due. 5 ' What would you think of a man that wanted the date out of the note? You would think he was a mixture of rascal and Democrat. (Laughter.) That is what you would think. No, my friends, we are going to pay that money; every man that has got a bond, every man that has got a green back dollar has got a mortgage upon the best continent of land on earth, and every spear of grass on this continent is a guaranty that this debt will be paid. (Applause.) Every particle of coal laid away by that old miser, the sun, millions of years ago, is a guaranty that every dollar will be paid; all the iron ore, all the gold and silver under the snow capped Sierra Nevadas, waiting for the miner's pick to give back the flash of the sun, every ounce is a guaranty that this debt will be paid, and every furrowed field of corn, and every good man, and every good woman, and every dimpled, kicking, healthy babe in the cradle, and all the boys and girls bending over their books at school, and every good 94 COL. INGERSOLL'S man who is going to vote the Republican ticket, is a guar anty that every dollar of the national debt will be paid. (Loud applause.) TILDEH. Now, my friends, the Democratic party (if you may call it a party) brings forward as its candidate, Samuel J. Tilden, of New York. I am opposed to him, first: because he is an old bachelor. (Laughter.) In a country like ours, de pending for its prosperity and glory upon an increase of the population, to elect an old bachelor is a suicidal policy. (Applause.) Any man that will live in this country for sixty years, surrounded by beautiful women with rosy lips and dimpled cheeks, in every dimple lurking a cupid, with coral lips and pearly teeth and sparkling eyes any man that will posh them all aside and be satisfied with the embraces of the Democratic party, does not even know the value of time. (Laughter aud applause.) I am opposed to Samuel J. Til- den, because he is a Democrat; because he belongs to the Democratic party of the city of New York; the worst party ever organized in any civilized country. I wish yon could see it. The pugilists, the prize-fighters* the plug-uglies, the fellows that run with the " ma- sheen;" nearly ever nose is mashed, about half the ears have been chawed off. (Laughter.) And of whatever com plexion they are, their eyes are nearly always black. (Laugh ter.) They have fists like teakettles and heads like bul lets. (Laughter.) I wish you could see them. I have been in New York every few weeks for the last fifteen years; and whenever I go there I see the old banner of Tammany Hall, " Tammany Hall and Reform;" "John Morrisey and Reform;"" Connolly and Reform;" "John Kelly and Re form;" "William M. Tweed and Reform;" and the other GREAT SPEECHES. 95 day I saw that same old flag, u Samuel J. Tilden and 'Re form" (Loud laughter and applause.) The Democratic party of the city of New York never had but two objects, grand and petty larceny. (Laughter and applause.) In that school Samuel J. Tilden has been a pupil. In that school Samuel J. Tilden is now head teacher. (Laughter and cheers.) The Democratic party of the city of New York has stolen everything it could lay its hands on, and ? my God! what hands 1 If we elect Samuel J. Tilden, we will have the Democratic party of the city of New York to reform this country. (Laughter and applause.) TILDEN A SECESSIONIST. I have another objection to Tilden. He was a Secession ist in the beginning of the war, he is a Secessionist to-day. He believes that every State in this Union has a right to snap what he calls a tie of confederation at its pleasure, the same as a Nation has a right to break a treaty, and every State has the right to repel coercion as a Nation has the right to repel invasion. No man ought to be President of this Nation who denies that it is a Nation. Samuel J. Tilden denounced the war as an outrage. No man ever should be President of this country that denounced a war waged in its defense as an outrage. To elect such a man would be an outrage indeed. Samuel J. Tilden said the old flasr car- o o ried by our fathers over the fields of the Revolution; the old flag carried by our fathers over the fields of 1812; the glo rious old flag carried by our brothers over the plains of Mexico; the same banner carried by our brothers over the cruel fields of the South Samuel J. Tilden said that flag stands for a contract; that it stands for a confederation; that it stands for a bargain. But the great, splendid Re publican party says, " No. That flag stands for a great, 96 COL. INGERSOLL'S hoping, aspiring, sublime Nation, not for a confederacy." (Applause.) I am opposed, I saj, to the election of Samuel J. Tilden for another reason. If he is elected he will be controlled by his party, and his party will be controlled by the Southern stockholders in that party. They own nine- teen-twentieths of the stock, and they will dictate the policy of the Democratic corporation. No Northern Democrat has the manhood to stand up before a Southern Democrat. Every Northern Democrat, nearly, has a face of dough, and the Southern Democrat will swap his ears, change his nose, cut his mouth the other way of the leather, so that his own mother wouldn't know him, in fifteen minutes. (Great jaoghter.) If Samuel J. Tilden is elected President of the United States, he will be controlled by the Democratic party, and the Democratic party will be controlled by the Southern Democracy, that is to say, the late rebels; that is to say, the men that tried to destroy the Government; that is to say, the men who are sorry they didn't destroy the Government; that is to say, the enemies of every friend of this Union; that is to say, the murderers and the assassins of Union men living in the Southern country. (Applause.) Let me say another thing. If Mr. Tilden does not act in accordance with the Southern Democratic command, the Southern Democracy will not allow a single life to stand between them and the absolute control of this country. Heridricks will then be their man. I say that it would be an outrage to give this country into the control of men who tried to destroy it; to give this country into the control of the men who endeavored to destroy it; to give this country into the control of the Southern rebels and haters of Union men. RUTHERFORD B. HATES. And on the other hand the Republican party have put GREAT SPEECHES. 97 forward Rutherford B. Hayes. (Applause.) He is an honest man. The Democrats will say, " That is nothing." Well, let them try it. (Applause and laughter.) Rutherford B. Hayes has a good character. A good character is not built upon a prospectus, but upon a good record. A good char acter is made up, not of what you agree to do, but of the good things you really have done. If you could make a good character on promises, the Democratic party would have one to-morrow. (Laughter.) But a good character rests upon good action, upon something already accom plished. Rutherford B. Hayes, when this war commenced, did not say with Tilden, " I never will contribute to the prosecution of this war." But he did say this, " I would go into this war if I knew I would be killed in the course of it, rather than to live through it and take no part in it." (Cheers.) Search the patriotic records of the world, and you will find no nobler, no grander saying than that declaration of Rutherford B. Hayes. During the war Rutherford B. Hayes received many wounds in his flesh, but NOT ONE SCKATCH UPON HIS HONOR. (Applause.) Samuel J. Tilden received many wounds in his honor, but not one scratch on his flesh. (Laughter.) Rutherford B. Hayes is a firm man; not an obstinate man, but a firm man; and I draw this distinction: A firm man will do what he believes to be right, because he wants to do the right. He will stand firm because he believes it to be right; but an obstinate man wants his own way, whether it is right or whether it is wrong. Rutherford B. Haj^es is firm in the right, and obstinate only when he knows he is in the right. (Applause.) If yon want to vote for a man who fought for you, vote for Rutherford B. 7 98 COL. INGERSOLL'S Hayes. If you want to vote for a man that carried our flag during the storm of shot and shell, vote for Ruther ford B. Hayes. (A voice, " We are going to.") If you be lieve patriotism to be a virtue, vote for Rutherford B. Hayes. If you believe this country wants heroes, vote for Rutherford B. Hayes. If you are for a man who turned gainst his country in time of war, vote for Samuel J. Til- den. If you believe the war waged for the salvation of your Nation is an outrage, vote for Samuel J. Tilden. If you believe that it is better to stay at home and curse the brave men in the field, fighting for the sacred rights of man^ vote for Samuel J. Tilden. If you want to pay a premium upon treason, if you want to pay a premium upon hypoc risy, if you want to pay a premium upon sympathizing with the enemies of your country, vote for Samuel J. Til den. If you believe that patriotism is right, if yon be lieve a brave defender of liberty is better than an assassin of freedom, vote for Rutherford B. Hayes. (Cheers.) THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. I am proud that I belong to the Republican party. (Ap plause.) I want no grander title to nobility than that I belong to the Republican party, and helped to make this country a free land. (Applause.) I say here to-night that the Republican party is the only decent party that ever existed on this earth. (Applause.) It is the only party not founded on a compromise with the devil. (Applause.) It is the only party that has not begged pardon for doing right. It is the only party that has said, " There shall be no distinction on account of race, on account of color, on account of previous condition." It is the only party that ever had a platform GREAT SPEECHES. 9$ BKOAD ENOUGH FOB ALL HUMANITY to stand npon. (Applause.) It is the first decent party that ever lived. (Applause.) The Republican party made the first free government that was ever made. The Re publican party made the first decent constitution that any Nation ever had. The Republican party gave to the sky the first pure flag that was ever kissed by the waves of air. (Cheers.) The Republican party that said, " Every man is entitled to liberty," not because he is white, not because he is poor, but because he is a man. (Cheers and cries of "Goodl" "Good!") The Republican is the first party that knew enough to know that humanity is more than akin deep. (Applause.) It is the first party that said: "GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE FOB ALL," as the light, as the air is for all. And it is the first party that had the sense to say, "What air is to the lungs, what light is to the eyes, what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul." (Applause and cries of " Good! " " Good! ") The Republican party is the first party that ever was in favor of absolute free labor, the first party in favor of giving to every man, without distinction of race or color, the fruit of the labor of his own hands. (Applause.) The Republi can party said, "Free labor will give us wealth; free thought will give us truth." The Republican is the first party that said to every man, " Think for yourself, and ex press that thought." (Applause.) I am a free man. I belong to the Republican party. This is a free country. I will think my thought, I will speak my thought or die. (Cheers.) In the Republican air there is room for every wing, as on the Republican sea there is room for every sail. The Republican party says to every soul, " Fly out into the great intellectual dome of thought, ioo COL. INGERSOLL'S question the stars for yourself." But the Democratic party says: "BE A BLIND OWL; Sit on the dry limb of a dead tree and hoot only when that party says, hoot." (Laughter.) I say that the Republican party is for free labor. Free labor will bring us wealth, and why? Whenever a man works for himself, works for his wife, works for his children, he endeavors then to do the most work in the shortest space of time. The problem of slavery is to do the least work in the longest space of time. Slavery never invented but one machine, and that was a threshing machine in the shape of a whip. (Loud laughter and applause.) Free labor has invented all the machines that ever added to the power, added to the wealth, added to the leisure, added to the civilization of mankind. Every convenience, everything of use, everything of beauty in the world, we owe to free labor and free thought. Free labor, free thought science took the thunderbolt, away from the gods, and in the electric sport, freedom, with thought, with intelligence and with love, sweeps under all the waves of the sea* science, free thought, took a tear from the cheek of unpaid labor, converted it into steam, and created the giant that turns, with tireless arras, the countless wheels of toil. The Republican party, I say, believes in free labor. Every solitary thing, every solitary improvement made in the United States has been made by the Republican party. Every reform accomplished was inaugurated, and was ac complished by the great, grand and glorious Republican party. (Applause.) LIBERTY. Last year I stood in the City of Paris, where once stood the old Bastile prison, where now stands the column of July. That column is surmounted by a magnificent statue GEEAT SPEECHES. IOI of Liberty; in its right hand is a broken chain, in its left hand a banrer, and upon the glorious forehead the glitter ing and shini .g star of progress. And as I looked at it, I said: " Snch is th Republican party of my country." (Applause.) The R publican party does not say, " Let by gones be by-gones." The Republican party is proud of the past and confident of the future. The Republican party brings ITS EECOED before you, and implores you to read every page, every paragraph, every line and every shining word. On the first page you will find it written : " Slavery has cursed American soil long enough." On the same page you will find it written: "Slavery shall go no further." On the same page you will find it written: " The blood-hounds shall not drip their gore upon another inch of American soil." On the second page you will find it written: "This is a Nation and not a Confederacy; every State belongs to every citizen, and no State has a right to take territory belonging to every citizen in the United States and set up a separate Government." On the third page you will find the grandest declaration ever made in this country: " Slavery shall be ex tirpated from the American soil." On the next page: "The rebellion shall be put down." (Applause.) On the next page: "The rebellion has been put down." (Loud applause.) On the next page: "Slavery has been extir pated from the American soil." (Applause.) On the next page: "The freedmen shall not be vagrants; they shall be citizens." (Applause.) On the next page: "They are citizens." (Applause.) On the next page: "The ballot shall bo put in their hands;" and now we will write on the next page: "That every citizen that has a ballot in his hand, by the gods! shall have the right to cast that ballot." 103 COL. INGERSOLL'S (Loud applause.) That in short, that in brie is the history of the Republican party. The Republican party says, and it means what it says, " This shall be a free coun try forever; every man in it 21 years of age shall have the right to vote for the Government of his choice, and if any man endeavors to interfere with that right, the Govern ment of the United States will see to it that the right of every American citizen is protected at the polls." (Ap plause.) THE QUESTION OF SUPERIORITY. Now, my friends, there is one thing that troubles the average Democrat, and that is the idea that somehow, in some way, the negro will get to be the better man. It is the trouble in the South to-day. And I say to- my South ern friends (and I admit that there are a good many good men in the South, but the bad men are in an overwhelming majority; the great mass of the population are cruel, re vengeful, idle, hateful), and I tell that population, "If you don't go to work, the negro, by his patient industry, will pass you." In the long run, the Nation that is honest, the people who are industrious, will pass the people who are dishonest, and the people that are idle, no matter how grand an aristocracy they may have had, and so I say, Mr. Northern Democrat, look out! (Laughter.) The superior man is the man that loves his fellow-man; the superior man is the useful man; the superior man is the kind man, the man who lifts tip his down-trodden brothers; and the greater the load of human sorrow and human want you can get in your arms, the easier you can climb the great hill of fame. (Applause.) The superior man is tho man who loves his fellow-man. And let me say right here, the good men, the superior men, the grand men are brothers the world over, no matter what their GREAT SPEECHES 1 03 complexion may be; centuries may separate them, yet they are hand in hand; and all the good, and all the grand, and all the superior men, shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart, are fighting the great battle for the progress of mankind. (Applause.) 1 pity the man, I execrate and hate the man, who has only to brag that he is white. (Laughter.) Whenever I am reduced to that necessity, I believe shame will make me red instead of white. I believe another thing. If I can not hoe my row, I won't steal corn from the fellow that hoes his row. (Laughter and applause.) If I belong to the superior race, I will be so superior that I can get my living without stealing from the inferior. (Applause.) I believe all the intellectual ^domain of the future is open to pre-emption. Every man that finds a fact first, that is his fact; every man that thinks the thought first, that is his thought. I believe that every round on the ladder of fame, from the one that rests upon the ground to the last that leans against the shining summit, ambition, belongs to the foot that gets on it first. (Applause.) Mr. Democrat (pointing to his feet) I point down because they are nearly all on the first round Mr. Democrat, if you can not climb, stand out of the way and let some deserving negro pass. (Applause.) I am perfectly willing that any Democrat in the world that can, shall pass me. I have never seen one yet, except when I looked out over my shoulder. (Laughter.) But if they can pass, I shall be de lighted. Whenever we stand in the presence of genius, we take our hats off. Whenever we stand in the presence of the great we do involuntary homage, as it were, in spite of ourselves. Any one who can go by is welcome, any one in the world; but until somebody does go by, of the Demo cratic persuasion, I shall not trouble myself about the fact 104 COL - INGERSOLL'S that maybe in some future time they may get by. The Democrats are afraid of being passed because they are being passed. I must tell you about MY HORSE BAOB. I like to tell it. I enjoy it a thousand times better proba bly than you do. (Laughter.) It will illustrate who is being passed in the great race of life. Suppose we were going to have a horse race here to-day, free to all the horses in the world; to scrubs, to mules, even to donkeys. It is a splendid day, and we all go out to the track; and they tap the drum, and the horses, the scrubs, the mules and the donkeys start off together under the wire, so that their noses look like a row of marbles; the judges say go, and away they fly; honor bright, do you believe that the head horse, the blooded horse, his eyes flashing fire, his distended nostrils drinking the breath of their own swiftness, his thin neck, his high withers, his tremulous flanks, the veins standing out all over his body, as though a net of life had been cast upon him, his mane flying like a banner of victory do you be lieve that horse would care how many scrubs, how many mules, how many donkeys run on that track? (Laughter.) Honor bright. (Laughter.) The old Democratic chuckle- headed, lop-eared, long-bodied, ehort-legged, with a neck like a log, tail and mane full of cockle-burrs, jump high and dig in deep and short yon have seen them run ; when he would feel the breath of the mule coming on his cockle-burr tail, he is the fellow that would fly the track and say: " I am down on mule equality." (Laughter.) Fellow citizens, allow me to say that the Republican party is the blooded horse in the race. (Applause.) Ko man ever was, no man ever will be the superior of GREAT SPEECHES. IOJ the man lie robs. No man ever was, no man ever will be the superior of the man he steals from. I had rather be a slave than a slave master. I had rather be stolen from than be a thief. I had rather be wronged than a wrong doer. And allow me to say again to impress it forever up on every man that hears, you are always the inferior of the man you rob. Any race is inferior to the race it tramples upon and robs. (Cheers.) There never was a man that could trample upon human rights and be superior to the man upon whom he trampled. And you may say another thing. No Government can stand founded upon the crushed rights of simply one human being, and any com promise we make with the South, if we make it at the ex pense of our friends, will carry in its bosom all the seeds; of its own death and destruction and can not stand. A Government founded upon anything except liberty and justice can not and ought not to stand. All the wrecks on either side of the river of time, all the wrecks of the great cities and all the nations that have passed away all are a warning that no nation founded upon injustice can stand. From sand-enshrouded Egypt, from the marble wilderness of Athens, from every fallen, crumbling stone of the once mighty Rome, comes a wail, as it were, the cry that no nation founded upon injustice can permanently stand. (Cheers.) "We must found this nation as it were anew. We must fight our fight. We must cling to our own party until there is freedom of speech over every part of the United States. We must cling to the old party until I can speak in every State of the South as every Southerner can speak in every State of the North. (Applause and a voice, " That's good.") We "must vote the grand old Re publican ticket until there is the same liberty in every Southern State that there is in every Northern, Eastern and Western State. io6 COL. INGERSOLL'S dfE MUST STAND BY THE PARTY until every Southern man will admit that this country be longs to every citizen of the United States as much as to the man that is born in that country. I have a right to stand here to-day because I live in Illinois? No. Because the State flag of Illinois waves over me? "No. Why? Be cause the flag of the United States waves over me. I owe no allegiance to the State of Illinois except that which is subordinate to the allegiance of the great, grand Union the United States of America. One more thing. I don't want any man that ever fought for this country to vote the Democratic ticket. You are swapping off respectability for disgrace. There are thousands of you great, splendid, grand men, that fought as grandly for the Union as any body else, and now I beseech you, and now I beg of you, do not give your respectability to the enemies and haters of your country. (Applause.) Don't do it. Don't vote with the Democratic party of the North. Sometimes 1 think I hate the rebel sympathizer in the North worse than the rebel, and I will tell you why. The rebel was carried into the rebellion by political opinion at home. His father, his mother, his sweetheart, his brother, everybody he knew, and there was a kind of wind, a kind of tornado, a kind of whirlwind that took him into the rebel army. He went into the rebel army along with his State. The Northern Democrat went against his own State; went against his own Government; and went against public opinion at home. The Northern Democrat rowed up stream against wind and tide. The Southern rebel went with the current; the Northern Democrat rowed against it from pure, simple cus- sedness. (Prolonged laughter.) And I beg every man that ever fought for this Union, every man that ever bared his bosom to a storm of shot and shell, I beg him, I GREAT SPEECHES. I Of Implore him, do not go with the Democratic party. And every young man within the sound of my voice, do not tie vour bright and shining prospects to that OLD COKPSE OF DEMOCRACY. Yon will get tired of dragging it around, yet won't you get tired of smelling it? (Applause and laughter.) Don't cast your first vote for the men that were the enemies of your country. Don't cast your first vote for the Democratic party that was stopping the army when beset. Don't cast your vote for that party which never rose right when the old flag was trailed in disaster upon the field of battle. Re member, my friends, that that party did every mean thing it could every dishonest, every treasonable thing it could. Recollect that that party did all it could to divide this Na tion, to destroy this country. Recollect that the Democratic party did that when your brothers, your fathers, your chiv- alric sons were fighting, bleeding, suffering, dying upon the battle fields of the South. Recollect that this Demo cratic party was false to the Nation when your husbands, your fathers, your brothers and your chivalric sons were lying in the hospitals of pain, dreaming broken dreams of home, and seeing fever-pictures of the ones they loved. Recollect that the Democratic party was false to the Nation when your husbands, your fathers, your brothers and your chivalric sons were lying alone upon the field of battle at night, the life-blood oozing slowly from the mangled, pallid lips of death. Recollect that the Democratic party was false to this country when your husbands, your fathers, your brothers and your chivalric sons were in the prison-pens of the South, with no covering but the clouds, with no bed but the frozen earth, with no food except such as worms had re fused, and with no friends except insanity and death. Rec ollect it, and lo8 COL. INGERSOLL'S SPUKN .THAT PAETY FOKEVEK. I have sometimes wished that there were words of pure hatred out of which I might construct sentences like snakes out of which I might construct sentences that had mouths fanged, that had forked tongues out of which I might construct sentences that writhed and hissed, then I could give my opinion of the Northern allies of Southern rebels during the great struggle for the preservation of this Na tion. (Cheers.) Let me say one word more and I am done. (Cries of " Go on.") The youngest man here, the youngest child here, will never live long enough to see a Democrat Presi dent of the United States. (Cries of " Good" and "Nev er," and applause.) No man can carry that aggregation of rascality, that aggregation of treasonable practices, that ag gregation of Southern sympathizers, that aggregation of traitors, that aggregation of men that endeavored to destroy this country no man can carry their reputation on his back and -make a successful run for the Presidency of the United States. (Cries of " Never, never.") No man can carry Secession upon his shoulders. No man can carry Libby Prison, no man can carry Andersonville, no man can carry the history of the Democratic party, and get a majority of votes in the United States. (Cries of " Never,'' and applause.) For myself, I have no fear. HAYES AND WHEELER will be the next President and Yice President of the Uni ted States of America. (Cheers.) Let me beg of you, let me implore you, let me beseech you, every man, come out on election day. Every man do your duty, and every man do his duty in regard to the State ticket of the great and glorious State of Illinois. (Cheers.) We have a man run- GREAT SPEECHES. 1 09 ning for Governor, a gentleman. We have a man running for Governor who will be an honor to the State when he is elected. Do not let us play the fool like the State of Indi ana. Do not let us believe that there is so much connec tion between patriotism and any kind of eccentricity. Let us vote for the men we know. I want to see Shelby M. Cullom and Andrew Shuman the next Governor and Lieu tenant Governor of the State of Illinois. Stand by our ticket. Vote for every Republican on the ticket. This year we need men who vote with the party, and I tell you that a Republican this year, no matter what you have got against him, no matter whether you like him or do not like him, is better for the country no matter how much you hate him he is better for the country than any Democrat Nature can make, or ever has made. We must in this su preme election, we must at this supreme moment, vote only for the men who are in favor of keeping this Government in the power, in the custody, in the control of the great, sublime Republican party. Ladies and gentlemen, if I were insensible to the honor you have done me by this magnificent meeting, the most magnificent I ever saw on earth, a meeting such as only THE MARVELOUS CITY OF PLUCK could produce if I were insensible to the honor it does me, I should be made of stone. I shall remember it with delight; I shall remember it with thankfulness all the days of my life, and I ask you in return every Re publican here to remember all the days of your life every sacrifice made by this Nation for liberty, every sacrifice made by every patriotic man and woman. I do not ask you to remember any revenge, but I ask yon never, never, to forget, as the world swings through the no COL. INGERSOLL'S constellations, year after year I want the memory, I want the patriotic memory of this country to sit by the grave of every Union soldier, and, while her eyes are filled with tears, to crown him again and again with the crown of everlasting honor. I thank you, I thank you, ladies and gentlemen, a thou sand times. Good night [NOTE. While thousands of torches, in the hands of Republican Minute-men and Boys in Blue, were marching through the streets of Chicago, like a vast army with banners, last Saturday evening, the great Exposition Building was filling up with an immense throng of people attracted thither by the announcement that Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, the most brilliant orator of the present political campaign, would there ad dress our citizens on the issues and candidates of the pending contest. By eight o'clock there was an audience of at least thirty thousand people gathered in that great building, and many thousands more, being unable to get within hearing distance of the platform, returned to the street to wait for or witness the march of the grand procession. Never before, that we know of, has such an immense assemblage of people come together in this city to hear or honor one man, on a political or any other occasion. And the frequent applause and enthusiastic cheering that greeted the orator's utterances indicated that his audience was in close sympathy with him. They were, for the most part, Repub licans. It is worthy of note, also, that there were many ladies present. At about eight o'clock Colonel Ingersoll, under the escort of two hun dred veteran soldiers and a band, reachsd the Exposition Building, and mounting the stage, he was received with tremendous and oft-repeated cheering. No time was lost. Hon. George M. Bogue called the meeting to order, and announced Andrew Shuman as President of the evening. Mr. Shu- man at once stepped forward and said, " Ladies and gentlemen: Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll." The Colonel then took the stand amid a storm of applause, which was rapturous and long-continued. THE OLD MILL. COL. INGERSOLL'l Speech at Lewiston, Me., Sept. 10, 1880. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: This is, in my opinion, the grandest and best country in the world. (A voice, " Bully for you," followed by cheers.) And when I speak of " Our country," I mean the North, East and "West. There are parts of this country that are not yet civilized. There are parts of this country in which the people do not believe in the great principle of self-government. In other words, they don't believe in being governed at all. (Laughter.) The question we must settle is, whether our Government shall be preserved or not. That is the question for us. And the North must decide it! The Republicans, Democrats and Greenbackers of the North, when they understand it as I understand it, will all unite and overwhelm the solidity of barbarism with the solidity of civilization. (Applause.) I do not pretend that the Republican party is perfectly good, and I do not pretend that the Democratic party is perfectly bad. I admit that there are thousands of good Democrats, men whom I like; And I cheerfully admit, with a mixture of regret, that there are many Republicans whom I do not like. (Laughter.) But there are thousands of only bad Democrats, and there are thousands of only good Republicans. Now I think this is a good country. If so, I am bound to do all I can to preserve it; I am bound to do all I can to make it better. Man is the providence of man. As long as I live (whatever party may be in power and have the handling of the offices) I mean to talk on the side of human liberty. (Cheers and applause.) The reason why I admire a good government is because the people are made happy. What's the good of government unless the people are happy? GREAT SPEECHES. 113 unless they have plenty to eat and to wear? Now I believe that ir OTTR COTJNTKY we've got more kind husbands, more good women, that we wear better clothes, and that our clothes fit us better on an average (great laughter) than in any other country on the globe. We've got more information. We know more things about more things. We've got greater charity and a fuller .sense of justice than any other people on the face of the globe. Now how is it we've got a good Government? We've taken the failures of all other Nations! We've taken the paupers of all other countries! And of their paupers we've made grander men than the nobility they've left behind them in their old countries. (Applause.) I believe in a country where every man nas an equal chance. That's the reason why I work for the Republican party. Now, if there's anything that's dear to an Ameri can citizen it's the right of free speech! (Loud applause.) The grand reason is that every human being has a right to Jthe public ear. If a man can not speak, others can not hear. The right of free speech is the priceless gem of the human soul. (Applause.) And a man that don't allow another man the right of free speech is a barbarian. What is the use of free speech, if all the results of free speech are to be reversed by fraud? What's the use for the counsel on one side of a case to address a jury, if, before he com mences, the jury has been bought? What's the use to try a man, if, after he's tried, he's taken out and hung by a mob? (Laughter.) This is a Government Ox ^loerty regulated bylaw. This is a Government founded on reason. This is a Government where the people have honest thought on every subject. The 8 H4 COL. INGERSOLL'S man who has these privileges himself and is not willing to accord them to others is a barbarian. I believe it. So do you. (Applause.) I'm not going to say a word to exclude my Democratic hearers. They believe it as well as I do. (Laughter.) It makes no matter what they say with their mouths. Inside they'll swear to it. (Uncontrollable laughter.) When a man hears what he knows to be true, he feel sit, no matter what he says. I'm not going to say a word that a Democrat will dispute. Is there a Democrat who denies the common right of free speech? He dare not say it! Is there a Democrat who denies the right to talk and breathe in one common air? He dare not say it! (Applause.) Now, if that liberty is to be preserved, whom will you have preserve it? Honor bright, now! (Tremendous ap plause and laughter.) Will you appoint the South to keep that treasure? (Cries of " No.") Will you leave it to Ala bama? Is there a Democrat here who doesn't know that a man stands no chance for the right of free speech in Ala bama? I'm not going there! I'm not going to put my self into the hands of a State where there is no law. I'm going farther off, and the longer the lever the more 1 can lift! Maine is a good place in which to begin. Let a Re publican try it in Alabama and see how soon he'll get Ku- Kluxed. Let a Greenbacker try it, and see how soon he'll get mobbed for attempting to draw voters away from the Democratic party! I'll admit there are thousands of good men in THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, but those men are not in the ascendant. They don't hold the power. There are many honest men in the party, but their voice has been lost. I'd rather trust Maine with my right to free speech than Louisiana. I'd rather intrust GREAT SPEECHES. 1 1 JJ Massachusetts than Louisiana. In order to preserve this right, the North must be kept in power. (Loud applause.) There is an aristocracy in the South, based on a trade in hu man beings. They are men who believed that lashes were a legal tender for a human being. That is the kind of aris tocracy there is in the South. I sometimes feel like find ing fault with the North because she ain't proud enough. I want the time to come when a Northern man will be as proud because his father was an honest man, as a Southern man is proud because his father was a slaveholder. I want the time to come when we will be as proud of breaking the chains of the slave as they were of forging them. (Ap plause.) In this country we have our sovereign, our King one power. That is the legally expressed will of the majority of the people. That's our King. (Applause.) Every soli tary voter has a certain amount of King! Any man that will throw an illegal vote; any man that will count votes illegally after they have been thrown, is a traitor to the great principles of our Government. He is a traitor to the only King we have. He deserves the punishment of a trai tor, too. Now, who are you going to have count your votes and protect your ballot-box for you? (A voice, "Garfield.") And he'll do it, too. Are you going to have the South pro tect your ballot-box for you? In the South elections are a farce. It is there that Bulldozing holds the election, Dis honesty counts their votes, and Fraud declares the result! (Prolonged cheers and applause.) Now it is a fact, my friends, that since the Rebellion the South has killed more men, in a time of profound peace, than our country lost in the two wars with Great Britain! Are they the men you will have to protect your ballot-box? Do you want to leare it with the masked man who shoots fathers, mothers and Il6 COL. INGERSOLI/S children? Oh, Mr. Honest Greenbacker and Democrat! 'Way down in your soul I know you say " JSTo! " no matter what you say outside. (Immense applause.) Do you want the Chalmers, the Hamptons, and the murderers of Coushatta to hold your ballot-box? I guess not! (Cheers.) ME. CHALMERS comes here to Maine, and the people of Maine regard it as an honor to themselves that they allow him to waste their air without opposition! Let a Republican go down into the Shoestring District in Mississippi, and try to express his sentiments and see how long he can stay there! "We want an honest vote, and after an honest vote we want an honest count. Come a little nearer home, now! (Laughter.) Do you want the Democrats of Maine to count your votes for local affairs ? Of course, I don't know much about your local affairs. I know enough to make me blush to think that Maine had men that were guilty of thai great treason of last winter! (Great applause.) I know enough to know that that they ought to have been sent to the Penitentiary! I know enough to know that that great crime has made the cheeks of Maine red with the hectic flush of shame. The only way to wipe it off is to give Governor Davis at least 10,000 or 15,000 majority in September! (Cheers.) Ton must tell the whoie country that Maine is a State of law abiding people, and that no great crime can go unpunished. You must declare to the world that in your State every vote shall be honestly counted and honestly declared. You must do that much to save the honor of your State. Honest Greenbackers and Democrats, you must vote the Republican ticket this fall, for the honor of your State! No use for you to vote for your man, he won't be elected. (Cheers and laughter.) GREAT SPEECHES. There are thousands of honest Democrats who wouldn't steal a ballot-box. There are thousands of Democrats who wouldn't rob a henroost, who wouldn't steal the shroud that covered a dead man. Mr. Good Democrat, if you have any self-respect, teach your leaders that you follow nowhere where virtue does not lead. I learn that the Democratic party has had cheek enough to pass a resolution declaring that the right to vote is the right preservative of all rights! Can you believe that is the same party that stuffs ballot-boxes and carries elections by bulldozing? The same party that believes that being a Republican is a crime? " Oh," you ask me, " ain't you ever going to forgive the Democratic party ? " No ! I'm not going to forgive them until I can speak as freely in one part of the laud as another, protected by the old flag! (Applause.) And I ought not to ! The men who tried to repeal the constitutional amendments; the men who tried to keep the negro in the chains of slavery! Is it possible that that is the same party who now passes a resolution about the "right preservative of all rights?" I guess it is the same old party ! (Great laughter.) This reminds me of the story about the man who wanted to buy a family horse. He went into a Boston stable, and the keeper showed him a handsome bay. ^ Oh, that one won't do for me. I want one that's handsome, spirited and safe," said the man. The dealer brought out another horse. " Oh, he's too logy," said the man. Then they came along to a handsome gray. " There," said the dealer, " is a horse ; I wouldn't part with. I keep it for my wife. She thinks more of him than she does of me! Ton know General Bonks has a steel engraving of the horse that George Washington rode. Well, horsemen who have seen that picture say that this horse looks exactly like that one." iiS COL. INGERSOLL'S " Yes," said the man looking at the horse's teeth, " I'll be d d if I don't believe it is the same horse." (Tremen dous laughter.) So I find it is the same party, precisely. I can't trust it. Why? Because I want free speech. I want an honest bal lot. And what else? 1 know the history of that party! REVENUE. What else have we got to have in this country? We have got to have a revenue to pay our bills with. Can you trust the Democratic party to raise our revenue? That's the question. Let me tell you how it is in the South. We get a large proportion of our revenue by a tax on high- wines, whisky and tobacco. It is a fact that the collectors of revenue in the Southern States have to be armed as though they were going to war. There is not one but who goes armed with a breech-loading gun! It is necessary when the Democrats have complete control. Let's be honest about it! Do you want them to get rid of paying their taxes? Do we want the people where the soil is rich to have their taxes paid by people where the soil is poor? How many illicit distilleries have been found in the South? Just guess. I'll tell you. In the last four years, in the Southern States, 3,871 illicit distilleries have been uncovered. They're the gentlemen whom you wish to trust with the collection of your revenue. If you trust them, you'll be like the minis ter. Two ministers were holding a revival in a certain place. After the services one of them passed around the hat. The congregation threw in a lot of old nails and sticks, but no money. The minister turned his hat up, and out came the old nails! He couldn't find a cent of money. " Well," said the other minister, " let us thank God." GREAT SPEECHES. 119 " What for?" asked the first minister. (Laughter.) "Be cause we've got the hat back! " (Uproarious laughter.) You depend on the Southern people for your revenue, and you'll be fortunate if you can thank God you've got your hat back! How many men, in the Southern States, do you suppose have been arrested for stealing revenue? Seven thousand and seventy-eight have been arrested and indicted! Think of that! They're the gentlemen whom the Democrats of Maine wish to have collect their revenue. They're the gentlemen that Greenbackers have joined the Demo crats to help along! Twenty-five collectors of revenue have been shot dead in the South by ambushed Demo crats. Twenty-five by men who hid in the bush to shoot officers of the United States, and make wid ows and orphans of their wives and children! They're the men! What has been done with them? They have been defended by the State authorities. What more did they do? They have wounded fifty-five more! And still we've got to pay interest on over $1,900,000,000 of bonds. Are we going to let them collect it? (Cries of "No.") Of course not. No sensible man would! MONEY. Another thing. We've got to make our money. On this point I differ with some Republicans. I am in favor of a double standard, because this is the greatest silver-produc ing country on the earth. We want a National money. I want to say -a few words to Greenbackers. They have done a great deal of good. They have opened the way to our examination of the whole question. The Greenbackers made resumption possible. They went into every school dis trict in the country, and stuck to it that the greenback I2O COL. INGERSOLL'S was the best money in the world. (Laughter.) And they convinced so many of it that, when they were offered gold they said, " No; we want greenbacks." If we all had de manded gold, our resumption would have been impossible. But we preferred greenbacks. I want to thank the Green- backers for that much! Having accomplished that, . I think their mission is ended. (Laughter.) No man can calculate the grandeur of this country from '73 to resumption. Oh, my friends, it's a great deed to die for one's country! But I think there is the greatest heroism in living for a thing! There's no glory in digging potatoes. You don't wear a uniform when you're picking up stones- You can't have a band of music when you dig potatoes! (Prolonged laughter.) In 1873 came the great crash. "We staggered over the desert of bankruptcy. !No one car esti mate the anguish of that time. Millionaires found them selves paupers. Palaces were exchanged for hovels. The aged man who had spent his life in hard labor, and who thought he had accumulated enough to support himself in his old age, and leave a little something to his children and grand-children, found they were all beggars. The high ways were filled with tramps. REPUDIATION. Then it was that the serpent of temptation whispered in the ear of want that dreadful word " Eepudiation." An effort was made to repudiate. They appealed to want, to misery, to threatened financial ruin, to the bare hearth stones, to the army of beggars. We had grandeur enough to say, " No; we'll settle fair if we don't pay a cent!" And we'll pay it. (Applause.) 'Twas grandeur! Is there a Democrat now who wishes we had taken the advice of Bayard to scale the bonds? Is there an American, a Dem- GREAT SPEECHES. 121 ocrat here, who is not glad we escaped the stench and shame of repudiation, and did not take Democratic advice? Is there a Greenbacker here who is not glad we didn't do it? He may say he is, but he isn't. We then had to pay seven per cent, interest on our bonds. Now we only pay four. Our greenbacks were then at ten per cent discount Now they are at par. How would an American feel to be in Germany or France, and hear it said that the United States repudiated? "We have found out that money is something that can't be made. We have found out that money is a product of Nature. When a Nation gets hard up, it is right and proper for it to give its notes; and it should pay them We have found out that it is better to trust for payment to the miserly cleft of the rocks than to any Congress blown about by the wind of demagogues. We want our money good in any civilized Nation. Yes, we want it good in Central Africa! (Applause.) And when a naked Hottentot sees a United States greenback blown about by the wind, he will pick it up as eagerly as if it was a lump of gold. (Laugh ter.) They say even now that money is a device to facili tate exchange. 'Tisn't so! Gold is not a device. Silver is not a device. You might as well attempt to make fiat suns and stars as a fiat dollar. (Applause.) WHAT MONET ISN'T. Again they say that money is a measure of value. 'Tisn't so! A bushel doesn't measure values. It measures diamonds as well as potatoes. If it measured values, a bushel of potatoes would be worth as much as a bushel of diamonds. A yard-stick doesn't measure values. They used to say, " There is no use in having a gold yard-stick." That was right. You don't buy the yard-stick. (Great laughter.) If money bore the same relation to trade as a 122 COL. INGERSOLL'S yard-stick or half-bushel, you would have the same money when you got through trading as you had when you begun. A man don't sell half-bushels. He sells corn. All we want is a little sense about these things. I don't blame the man who wanted inflation. I don't blame him for praying for another period of inflation- " When it comes," said the man who had a lot of shrunken property on his hands, " blame me, if I don't unload, you may shoot me." It's a good deal like the game of poker! (Laughter.) I don't suppose any of you know anything about that game! Along toward morning the fellow who is ahead always wants another deal. The fellow that is be hind says his wife's sick, and he must go home. (Laugh ter.) You ought to hear that fellow descant on domestic virtue! (Uproarious laughter.) And the other fellow ac cuses him of being a coward and wanting to jump the game. A man whose dead wood is hung up on the shore in a dry time wants the water to rise once more and float it out into the middle of the stream. "We were in trouble. The thing was discussed. Some said there wasn't enough money. That's so; I know what that means myself. They said if we had more money we'd be more prosperous. The truth is, if we were more pros perous we'd have more money. (Applause.) They said more money would facilitate business. A GREASE STORY. Now, suppose a shareholder in a railroad that had earned $18,000 the past year should look over the books and find thatinthat year the railroad had used $12,000 worh of grease. The next year, suppose the earnings should fall off $5,000, and the man, in looking over the accounts, should lenrn that in that year the road had used only $500 wortfc of GREAT SPEECHES. I2J grease I (Laughter.) Supposing the man should say: "The trouble is, we want more grease." What would you think of a man if he discharged the superintendent for not using more grease? (Perfect gale of laughter and applause.) Here we come to a ferryman with his boat hauled up on the sand, and the river dry. "How's business?" we ask him. He says business is rather dull. We say, "You need more boats." I guess he'd tell us, " All I ask for is more water for this one." (Laughter.) 1 said years ago, that resumption would come only by prosperity, and the only way to pay debts was by labor. I knew that every man who raised a bushel of corn helped re sumption. It was a question of crops, a question of in dustry. REPUBLICAN HONESTY. Wow then, honor bright, don't you believe you're better off than if you hadn't resumed? I don't care what you say 1 I know what you mean. The Republicans have made mis takes. There are good and bad men in all parties. We have collected in the year past $468,000,000 of revenue. And we have collected it cheaper then it could have been col lected in any other country in the world. It cost us, 1 be lieve, 3^ per cent, to collect it. And of the whole amount not a dollar has been lost. Can the Democrats equal that? (Cries of " No.") Do you now wish your bonds had been repudiated? I guess not! Do you now wish you had adopted the Democratic policy? I want to ask yon, Demo crats, one question. Which had you rather own, a bond of Maine or a bond of Tennessee? a Southern promise or a Northern performance? Southern words or Northern gold! You must decide the question for yourselves. Every man of us is an agent of the United States of America. Each 124 COL - INGERSOLL'S man of us has a part to perform. In him depends, in part, whether we shall have true Government or notl That's why I want you to think carefully on these things; THE BEST PEOPLE. Another thing. "We want to trust the Government to the best people. Now, the best State in the South is Georgia. In that State criminals are rented out to task-masters, like slaves, for $10 or $11 a piece. They have overseers. They have the power of life and death over those men. They can shoot them down. They violate the laws of decency. They chain men and women together. The death-rate in the prisons of the North is about one per cent, per annum. There's something that I like in the North. It's a monu ment to Northern charity and honesty. In one of those Georgia camps the death-rate was thirty per cent. In an other forty per cent. In one of them it reached fifty per cent. En another it run up to ten per cent, per month. (Sensation.) Those are the kind of people the Northern Democrats will get on their knees to please in power. Robert Allston, as good a man as ever breathed, brought their atrocities to light. He went back to Georgia and was assassinated. They're the kind of men honest Democrats want to sup port, that the Greenbackers want to tie to. (Laughter.) A.nd Georgia is the best State in the South. Her bonds are worth the most. I ask whether they're the people to be trusted with this Govern men tl THE SOUTHERN CHURCH has no respect for men's right. Good Northern men and women have gone South and taken letters from Northern churches. In the House of God they have been refused GREAT SPEECHES. 125 the sacramental bread. Recollect itl There's not anybody in tire South who will admit that there ever was a Northern gentleman or lady. Why? They won't admit that labor is honorable. I like the North because it respects its in dustry. There's only one way to make them respect us, and that is to respect ourselves. There's only one way to overcome the South. That is to hold fast to our own prin ciples. Now, then, whom will you trust? There's still another important thing we have have got to overcome. We can't overcome it without killing it, either. Yon can convince a man without killing him, but you can't kill him without convincing him! (Laughter.) The South is honest in one thing, and that is their belief in the doctrine of State sover eignty. They are ready to fight for it. The truth is, the confederation idea has been outgrown. They talked about it for the sake of slavery. They never would have done it but for slavery. And you know it. They pretended that the difference in climate forbade their working and made slavery necessary. The idea that justice isn't the same in all climates. If that was so, you'd have, to have two sets of justice in Maine, one for winter and one for summer. (Laughter.) The Northern Democrats became slaves for the South, and so did the Whigs. The old Democratic party followed the South and ate dirt for years, and they seem to like the diet. (Prolonged laughter.) Another thing they wanted. They wanted to keep the slave-trade agoing until 1880. They did it. And they kept the Fugitive-Slave law in force. It was so a man in the North was obliged to pursue a fugitive slave woman, no matter if she was within one step of Canadian soil, and send her back to slavery. Ain't you ashamed of it? lam. 126 COL. INGERSOLL'S We never would have been out of it but for the Republican party. Splendid, splendid party 1 The next time the South appealed to State sovereignty was when she wanted slavery to extend over the "West. Next, she used it to defend treason and secession. And BO I've made up my mind that, when I hear a man taking up the doctrine of State sovereignty, he wants to steal some thing from somebody, somewhere. (Great laughter.) I'm not afraid of OENTBALIZATIOW. I want the power where somebody can use it. As long as a man is responsible to the people there is no fear of des potism. There's no reigning family in this country. We are all of us kings. We are the reigning family. And when any man talks about despotism, you may be sure he wants to steal or be up to devilment. If we have any sense, we have got to have localization of brain. If we have any power, we must have centralization . Carry out the Demo cratic doctrine, and you'll scatter your brains all over you. (Laughter.) We want centralization of the right kind. The man we choose for our head wants the army in one hand and the navy in the other, and to execute the supreme will of the supreme people. (Cheers.) But yon say you will cross a State line. I hope so. When the Democratic party was in power, and wanted to pursue a human slave, there was no State line. When we want to save a human being, the State line arises up like a Chinese wall. I believe when one party can cross a State line to put a chain on, another party can cross it to take a chain off. "Why," you say, "you want the Federal Government to interfere with the rights of a State?" Yes, I do, if neces sary. I want the ear of the Government acute enough and GREAT SPEECHES. 127 arms long enough to reach a wrong man in any State. A government that will not protect its protectors is no govern ment. Its flag is a dirty rag. That is not my government. I want a government that will protect its citizens at home. The Democratic doctrine is that a government can only protect its citizens abroad. If a father can't protect his children at home, depend upon it, that old gentleman can't do much for them when they are abroad. (Laughter.) Think of itl Here's a war. They come to me in Illi nois and draft me. They tell me I must go. I go through the war and come home safe. Afterward that State finds a way to trample on me. I say to the Federal Government, ** Yon told me I owed my first allegiance to you, and I had to go to war. Now I say to you, Yon owe your first al legiance to me, and I want you to protect me!" The Fed eral Government says, " Oh, you must ask your State to re quest it" I say, " That's just what they won't do 1" Such a condition of things is perfectly horrible 1 (Applause.) If so with a man who was drafted, what will you say of a volunteer? Yet that's the Democratic doctrine of Federal Government. It won't do. And you know itl There's not a Democrat or a Greenbacker who believes it Not one. You hate to admit you were wrong. You hate to eat your words. You'd rather remain in the hell you've made for yourselves than eat all your words. It's a hard thing to do. Yon had almost rather be with the damned . But you've got to do it. (Thundering cheers and applause.) And you will do it, THB TEWKSBURY ILLUSTRATION. You're like the old woman in the Tewksbury, Mass., poor house. She used to be well off, and didn't like her quarters. You Greenbackers have left your father's house 128 COL. INGERSOLL'S of many mansions and have fed on shucks about long enough. (Laughter.) The supervisor came into the poor house one day and asked the old lady how she liked it. She said she didn't like the company, and asked him what he would advise her to do under similar circumstances. " Oh, you'd better stay. You're prejudiced," said he. "Do you think anybody is ever prejudiced in their sleep?" asked the old lady. "I had a dream the other night I dreamed I died and went to Heaven. Lots of nice people were there. A nice man came to me and asked me where I was fro m. Says I, ' From Tewksbury , Mass.' He looked in his book and said, ' You can't stay here.' I asked what he would advise me to do under similar cir cumstances. (Laughter.) ' Well,' he said, * there's Hell down there, you might try that! ' u Well, I went down there, and the man told me my name wasn't on the book, and I couldn't stay there. 'Well,' said I, ' what would you advise me to do under similar circumstances?' (Laugh ten) Said he, ' You'll have to go back to Tewksbury.' " (Uproarious laughter.) And, Green- backers, when you remember what you once were, you must feel now. when you are forced to join the Democratic party, as bad as the old lady who had to go back to Tewks bury. I want to tell you what kind of company you're in. I want you to know that every man who thinks the State is greater than the Nation is a Democrat. Every man that defended slavery was a Democrat. Every man that signed an ordinance of secession was a Democrat Every man that lowered our flag from the skies was a Democrat. Every man that bred blood-hounds was a Democrat Every preacher that said slavery was a divine institution was a Democrat. Recollect it! Every man that shot a Union soldier was a Democrat Every wpund borne by you, GREAT SPEECHES. Union soldiers, is a souvenir of a Democrat. You got your crutches from Democrats. Every man that starved a Union soldier was a Democrat. Every man that shot the ema ciated maniac who happened to totter across the death line, with a hellish grin on his face, was a Democrat. Nice company you're inl The keepers of Andersonville and Libby, those two wings that will bear the Confederacy to eternal infamy, were all Democrats. There were lots of SPLENDID DEMOCRATS. I mean the war Democrats. I never will bear hard feel ings against a man who bared his breast in his country's defense. (Cheers.) The men who attempted to spread yel low fever in our Northern cities were all Democrats. The men who proposed to give our Northern cities to the flames were all Democrats! Just think of it! Think what com pany you're in! Recollect it! The men who wanted to assassinate Northern Governors were Democrats. Now all I ask you to do is what you believe to be right. If you really think liberty of speech, the ballot box, the revenue are safer with the South than with the North, then vote the Democratic ticket, early and often. If you believe it is better to trust the men who fought against the country than the men who fought to preserve it; if you have more confidence in Chalmers than in Elaine; (grand cheers,) if you have more confidence in Hampton than your own men ; if you have a greater trust in the solvency of Mississippi than in Massachusetts, then vote the Democratic ticket (Applause.) But there's not a Democrat in Maine who believes it' (Robert Martin, Esq., " Not one.") THE CANDIDATES. Pve got a little while to talk about candidates. I haven't much against Hancock. The most 1 have against him is 9 I3O COL. INGERSOLL'S that he was a creature of Andy Johnson. I would as soon vote for Andy Johnson as vote for him. What are his opinions on finance? What are his opinions on State rights? I don't know nor anybody else. The Democrats now have both Houses of Congress. If they get the Executive they'll have the whole; they'll annul the legislation of the war. They'd make Unionism disreputable. They'd make a Union soldier ashamed to own he lost a leg on the field of glory and make him say he lost it in a thrashing machine. (Laughter.) 1 don't want to see them have that pleasure. The Rebel possessions and claims don't amount to anything in dollars and cents. Liberty is cheap at any price. (Cheers.) I want my Government to be proud and free. Liberty is a thing wherein extravagance is economy. Now comes the Republican party. Who is at its head ? Thousands of men say to me: " How can you support Gar- field? (Ringing cheers.) He is a Christian; he's a Camp- bellite." I support him because 1 am not a bigot; I sup port him because he is not a bigo^; I support him because there's no man better acquainted with the civil affairs of the country; I support him because he's a politician in the best sense. We want no land-lnbbers on our ship. Gar- field is as good a soldier as Hancock. I've got nothing against the regular army; but a man who, in a time of pro found peace, determines to mike killing folks his regular business, who, when there's no sound of war, longs for the din of shot and shell is no better, in my opinion, than the man who hates war, but. when he is called upon, puts his sword on, and goes into the field of battle! (Tremendous cheers.) That's my man. DEMOCRATIC CHARGES. They say he's dishonest. Who says it! The Solid South and the counting out conspirators of Maine! That won't GREAT SPEECHES. I ^ I do. (Laughter.) Garfield has been in a position where he could have reaped millions by selling his influence for good. Yet he's a poor man. Put a Maine Democrat in his place and see how long he'll remain poor! I know Garfield You know him! I want you in Maine to know that your vote in September will elect him, that as Maine goes so goes the Union. (Cheers.) I want the Democrats to know it, so they can help do it. The honor of Maine must be reclaimed. I understand that there's a man here who has voted the Dem ocratic ticket for forty-nine years, and who now intends to put a blossom on the half-century of his life by voting the Republican ticket next September! (Yoices Who is he? " " Trot him out! ") Ingersoll It's J. M. Crooker, of Waterville! (Cheers and great enthusiasm.) Time fails me, but I want to im press on your minds that we must hand over to our country a legacy of power and glory. (Rousing cheers.) Col. Ingersoll here left the stand and took a special trail) for Portland. GREAT SPEECHES. 133 Speech at New York, Oct. 23, 1880. Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll made one of his most elo quent and impressive addresses last evening before an im mense audience in the Cooper Institute. The thousands who heard him were stirred as few other orators in the country have power to stir their hearers. Almost every sentence was interrupted or rounded with applause or laugh ter. The speech was crammed with good things sharp hits, lively sallies, rich humor and glowing wit, and with appeals of a high order of eloquence. All the great ques tions of the [campaign were considered. The orator first took up the suppression of free speech in the South; then he spoke of the importance of an honest ballot; the honest collection ot the public revenues was then touched upon; the currency was next considered; the doctrine of State Sovereignty was riddled; the duty of the Government to protect every citizen was upheld; the importance of the protection of labor was presented, and in conclusion the claims of the candidates of the two parties to public sup port were reviewed in a masterly manner. THE AUDIENCE AND THE SPEAKER. The spaces around the Cooper Union were filled shortly after 6 o'clock last evening by great crowds of people who had hurried through their dinners to get seats to hear Colonel Ingersoll. Police Captain McCullagh was duly at his post with fifty patrolmen. He has had an extensive experience at Cooper Union meetings, but never, he was heard to say, bad he seen so large and enthusiastic an as semblage as that of last night. At 6:45 the doors were opened, and a rush was made. Pushing by the policemen 134 COL ' INGERSOLL'S on duty, the foremost among the throng entered the cor ridor. The others pressing on from behind, they were carried as if on a huge breaker to the very doors of the hall at the bottom of the stone staircases. The police, however, soon regained the mastery, and occupying the inner doors, controlled the general entry, which took place with very good order. Ladies were shown the greatest politeness, the best places being surrendered to them, even by the most ardent male admirers of the orator. In less than twenty- five minutes there was neither sitting nor standing room left. Every square foot one might almost say every square inch of the immense hall had its occupant. Over 3,500 persons found room during the evening, and sup ported the numerous inconveniences of the situation with a fortitude only equaled by their enthusiasm. But this number does not represent by half the mass of citizens who left their homes to hear Colonel Ingersoll. Fully 5,OOC people were turned from the doors. Many of these per sisted in remaining in the corridors, on the steps, and even out on the pavement, during a large part of the evening, in the futile hope that the departure of inmates of the hall would give them an opportunity of hearing the address. Shortly after seven o'clock Joseph Height called the meeting to order, and the Ingersoll Chicago Campaign Glee Club appeared on the platform. This club is com posed of four men who have accompanied Colonel Ingersoll throughout his campaign tour. Their songs were much applauded. At half past seven precisely the handsome, though somewhat corpulent, figure of Colonel Ingersoll was seen struggling through the masses filling the back ground of the platform. The Colonel, who seemed as fresh and hearty as ever, in spite of his recent campaign experi ence, was accompanied by his wife and his daughter. GREAT SPEECHES. 135 His appearance called forth thunders of applause, which did not die away until several minutes had elapsed. These demonstrations elicited an acknowledgment from the Col onel which took the form of a bow, a slight wave of the hand and a quaint expression of countenance peculiar to the man. Mr. Camp arose and introduced him as the speaker for the evening. Another cheer and then all was quiet. It is needless to say that almost every utterance had its accompaniment of applause. At one moment the orator convulsed his hearers with laughter, while another he drew tears into their eyes and into those of men as well as women. His upholding of free speech which he considered a vital issue in the present campaign, his ad vocacy of honest money, his attack on free trade, and in fact all the features of his powerful speech impressed nis hearers deeply. COLONEL INGERSOLL'S SPEECH. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: Years ago I made up my mind that there was no particular argument in slander. (Ap plause.) I made up my mind that for parties as well as for individuals, honesty in the long run is the best policy. (Applause.) I made up my mind that the people were en titled to know a man's honest thoughts, and I propose to night to tell you exactly what I think. (Applause.) And it may be well enough, in the first place, for me to say that no party has a mortgage on me. (Applause.) I am the sole proprietor of myself. (Laughter and applause.) No party, no organization, has any deed of trust on what little brains I have, and,as long as I can get my part of the com mon air I am going to tell my honest thoughts. (Applause.) One man in the right will finally get to be a majority. (Laughter.) I am not going to say a word to-night that every Democrat here will not know is true, and whatever 136 COL. INGERSOLL'S he may say with his mouth, I will compel him in his heart to give three cheers. (Applause.) In the first place, I wish to admit that during the war there were hundreds of thousands of patriotic Democrats. I wish to admit that if it had not been for the "War Demo crats of the North, we never would have put down the Re bellion. (Applause.) Let us be honest. I further admit that had it not been for other than War Democrats there never would have been a Rebellion to put down. (Great applause.) War Democrats 1 Why did we call them War Democrats? Did you ever hear anybody talk about a War Republican? We spoke of War Democrats to distinguish them from those Democrats who were in favor of peace upon any terms. I also wish to admit that the Republican party is not ab solutely perfect. (Laughter.) While I believe that it is the best party that ever existed (applause), while 1 believe it has within its organization more heart, more brain, more patriotism than any other organization that ever existed beneath the sun, I still admit that it is not entirely perfect. I admit, in its great things, in its splendid efforts to pre serve this Nation, in its grand effort to keep our flag in heaven, in its magnificent effort to free four millions of slaves (applause), in its great and sublime efforts to save the financial honor of this Nation, 1 admit that it has made some mistakes. In its great effort to do right it has some times by mistake done wrong. And I also wish to admit that the great Democratic party, in its effort to get office, has sometimes by mistake done right. (Laughier.) You see that I am inclined to be perfectly fair. (Applause and laughter.) I am going with the Republican party, because it is go ing my way; bat if it ever turns to the right or left, 1 in tend to go straight ahead. GREAT SPEECHES. 137 In every Government there is something that ought to bo preserved; in every Government there are many things that ought to be destroyed. Every good man, every patriot, every lover of the human race wishes to preserve the good and destroy the bad; and every one in this audience who wishes to preserve the good, will go with that section of our common country with that party in our country that he honestly be lieves will preserve the good and destroy the bad. (Applause.) It takes a great deal of trouble to raise a good .Republican. (Laughter.) It is a vast deal of labor. The Republican party is the fruit of all ages of self-sacrifice and devotion. (Applause.) The Republican party is born of every good thing that was ever done in this world. (Applause.) The Republican party is the result of all martyrdom, of all he roic bloodshed for the right. It is the blossom and fruit of the great world's best endeavor. (Applause.) In order to make a Republican you have got to have schoolhouses. (Applause.) You have got to have newspapers and maga zines. (Applause.) A good Republican is the best fruit of civilization, of all there is of intelligence, of art, of music and of song. (Applause.) If you want to make Democrats let them alone. (Laughter.) The Democratic party is the settlings of this country. (Laughter.) Nobody hoes weeds. Nobody takes especial pains to raise dog fennel, and yet it grows under the very hoof of travel. The seeds are sown by accident and gathered by chance. But if you want to raise wheat and corn you must plow the ground. You must defend and you must harvest the crop with infinite patience and toil. It is precisely that way if you want to raise a good Republican you must work. If you wish to raise a Democrat give him wholesome neglect. (Laughter.) The Democratic party flatters the vices of mankind. That 138 COL. INGKRSOU/S party says to the ignorant man, " Yon know enough." It says to the vicious man, "You are good enough." The Republican party says, " You must be better next year than you are this." A man is a Republican because he loves something. Most men are Democrats because they hate something. A Republican takes a man, as it were, by the collar and says, " You must do your best, you must climb the infinite hill of human progress as long as you live." Now and then one gets tired. He says, " I have climbed enough, and so much better than I expected to do that I don't wish to travel any further." Now and then one gets tired and lets go all hold, and he rolls down to the very b)ttom, and as he strikes the mud he springs upon his feet transfigured, and says, " Hurrah for Hancock." (Great laughter.) NO FREE SPEECH IN THE SOUTH. There are things in this Government that I wish to pre" serve, and there are things that I wish to destroy; and in order to convince you that you ought to go the way that I am going, it is only fair that I give you my reasons. This is a Republic founded upon intelligence and the patriotism of the people, and in every Republic it is absolutely neces sary that there should be free speech. ("Good," "good," and applause.) Free speech is the gem of the human soul. Words are the bodies of thought, and liberty gives to those* words wings, and the whole intellectual heavens are filled with thought. (Applause.) In a Republic every individ ual tongue has right to the general ear. In a Republic every man has the right to give his reasons for the course he pursues to all his fellow citizens, and when you say that a man shall not speak, you also say that others shall not hear. When yon Bay a man shall not express his GREAT SPEECHES. 139 aonest thonght you say his fellow citizens shall be de prived of honest thoughts; for of what use is it to allow the attorney for the defendant to address the jury if the jury has been bought? Of what use is it to allow the jury, if they bring in a verdict of " not guilty," if the defendant is to be hung by a mob? I ask you to-night, is not every solitary man here in favor of free speech? Is there a soli tary Democrat here who dares say he is not in favor of free speech? In what part of the country are the lips of thought free in the South or in the North? What section of our c ountry can you trust the inestimable gem of free speech with? Can you trust it to the gentlemen of Mississippi, or to the gentlemen of Massachusetts? Can you trust it to Alabama or to New York? Can you trust it to the South, or can you trust it to the great and splendid North? Honor bright. (Laughter.) Honor bright, is there any freedom of speech in the South? There never was and there is none to-night and let me tell you why. They had the institution of human slavery in the South which could not be defended at the bar of public reason. It was an institution that could not be defended in the high forum of human conscience. No man could stand there and defend the ri^ht to rob the cradle none o to defend the right to sell the babe from the breast of the agonized mother none to defend the claim that lashes on a bare back are a legal tender for labor performed. Every man that lived, upon the unpaid labor of another knew in his heart that he was a thief. (Applause.) And for that reason he did not wish to discuss that question. (Laughter.) Thereupon the institution of slavery said, "You shall not speak; you shall not reason," and the lips of free thought were manacled. You know it. Every one of you. (Laughter.) Every Democrat knows it as well as I4O COL. INGERSOLL'S every Republican. There never was free speech !L the South. And what has been the result? And allow me tw at/mit right here, because I want to be fair, there are thousands and thousands of most excellent people in the South thousands of them. There are hundreds and hundreds of thousands there who would like to vote the Republican ticket. (Applause.) And whenever there is free speech there and whenever there is a free ballot there, they will vote the Republican ticket (Great applause.) I say again, there are hundreds of thousands of good people in the South; but the institution of human slavery prevented free speech, and it is a splendid fact in nature that you cannot put chains upon the limbs of others without putting cor responding manacles upon your own brain. (Applause.) When the South enslaved the negro, it also enslaved itself and the result was an intellectual desert. No book has been produced, with one exception, that has added to the knowledge of mankind; no paper, no magazine, no poet, no philosopher, no philanthropist, was ever raised in that des ert. (Great applause.) Now and then some one pro tested against th t infamous institution, and he came as near being a philosopher as the society in which he lived permitted. (Laughter.) Why is it that New England, a rock-clad land, blossoms like a rose? Why is it that New York is the Empire State of the great Union? I will tell you. Because you have been permitted to trade in ideas. Because the lips of speech have been absolutely free for twenty years. We never had free speech in any State in this Union until the Republican party was born. (Ap plause.) That party was rocked in the cradle of intellect ual liberty, and that is the reason I say it is the best party that ever existed in the wide, wide world. (Applause.) I GREAT SPEECHES. 141 want to preserve free speech, and, as an honest man, I look about me: " How can I best preserve it?" By giving it to the South or North? to the Democracy or the Republican party? And I am bound, as an honest man, to say free speech is safest with the earliest defenders. (Applause.) Where is there such a thing as a Republican mob to pre vent the expression of an honest thought? where? The people of the South are allowed to come to the North; they are allowed to express their sentiments upon every stump in the great East, the great West and the great Mid dle States; they go to Maine, to Vermont, and to all our States, and they are allowed to speak, and we give them a respectful hearing, and the meanest thing we do is to an swer their argument. (Applause.) i .say to-night that we ought to have the same liberty to discuss these questions in the South that Southerners have in the North. And I say, more than that, the Democrats of the North ought to compel the Democrats of the South to ireat the Republicans of the South as well as the Repub- licans of the North treat them. (Applause.) We treat the Democrats well in the North. (Laughter.) We treat them like gentlemen in the North; and yet they go in partner ship with the Democracy of the South, knowing that the Democracy ot the South will not treat Republicans in that section with fairness. A Democrat ought to be ashamed of that. If my friends will not treat other people as well as the friends of the other people treat me, I'll swap friends. (Applause and laughter.) First, then, I am in favor of free speech, and I am going with that section of my country that believes in free speech. I am going with that party that has always upheld that sacred right. When you stop free speech, when you say that a thought shall die in the womb of the brain why, it 142 COL. INGERSOLL'S would have the same effect upon the intellectual world that to stop springs at their sources would have upon the phys ical world. Stop the springs at their sources and they cease to gurgle, the streams cease to murmur, and the great rivers cease rushing to the embrace of the sea. So yon stop thought. Stop thought in the brain in which it is born and theory die?; and the great ocean of knowledge to which all should be permitted to contribute, and from which all should be allowed to draw, becomes a vast desert of ignorance. (Applause.) I have always said, and I say again, that the more liberty there is given away, the more you have. There is room in this world for us all; there is room enough for all of our thoughts; out upon the intellectual sea there is room for every sail, and in the intellectual air there is space for every wing. (Applause.) A man that exercises a right that he will not give to others is a barbarian. A State that does not allow free speech is uncivilized, and is H disgrace to the American Union. (Applause.) THE PARTY OF AN HONEST BALLOT. I am not only in favor of free speech, but I am also in favor of an absolutely honest ballot. There is one king in this country; there is one emperor; there is one supreme Czar; and that is the legally expressed will of a majority of the people. (Applause.) The man who casts an illegal vote, the man who refuses to count a legal vote, poisons the fountain of power, poisons the spring of justice, and is a traitor to the only king in this land. The Government is upon the edge of Mexicanization through fraudulent voting. The ballot box is the throne of America; the ballot box is the ark of the covenant. Unless we see to it that every man who has a right to vote votes, and unless we see to it GREAT SPEECHES. 143 that every honest vote is counted, the days of this Republic are numbered. When you suspect that a Congressman is not elected; when you suspect that a judge upon the bench holds his place by fraud, then the people will hold the law in con tempt and will laugh at the decisions of courts, and then come revolution and chaos. It is the duty of every good man to see to it that the ballot box is kept absolutely pure. It is the duty of every patriot, whether he is a Demo crat or Republican and I want to further admit that I be- . sieve a large majority of Democrats are honest in their opinions, and I know that all Republicans must be honest in their opinions. (Applause.) It is the duty, then, of all honest men of both parties to see to it that only honest votes ire cast and counted. Now, honor bright, which section of this Union can you trust the ballot box with? Honor bright, can you trust it with the masked murderers who rode in the darkness of night to the hut of the freedman and shot him down, notwithstanding the supplication of his wife and the tears of his babe? Can you trust it to the men who ince the close of our war have killed more men, simply be cause those men wished to vote, simply because they wished to exercise a right with which they had been clothed by the .-ublime heroism of the North who have killed more men than were killed on both sides during the war of 1812; than \vere killed on both sides in both wars? Can you trust them? Can you trust the gentlemen who invented the tissue ballot? (Laughter.) Do you wish to pnt the ballot box in the keeping of the shot gun, of the White Liners, of the Ku Klux? Do you wish to put the ballot box in the keeping of men who openly swear that they will not be ruled by a majority of American citizens if a portion of that majority is made of black men? (Applause.) And I want to tell 144 c 01 - INGERSOLL'S you right here, I like a black man who loves this country better than I do a white man who hates it. (Applause.) I think more of a black man who fonght for our flag than for any white man who endeavored to tear it out of heaven. (Applause.) I like black friends better than white enemies. (Applause.) And I think more of a man black outside and white inside, than I do of one white outside and black inside. (Applause.) I say, can you trust the ballot box to the Democratic par ty ? Head the history of the State of New York! Read the history of this great and magnificent city the Queen of the Atlantic read her history and tell us whether you can im plicitly trust Democratic returns? (Laughter.) Honor bright. (Laughter.) I am not only, then, for free speech, but I am for an honest ballot; and in order that you may have no doubt left upon your mind as to which party is in favor of an honest vote I will call your attention to this striking fact. Every law that has been passed in every State of this Union for twenty long years, the object of which was to guard the American ballot box, has been passed by the Republican party (applause), and in everj r State where the Republican party has introduced such a bill for the purpose of making it a law, in every State where such a bill has been defeated it has been defeated by the Democratic party. (Applause.) That ought to satisfy any reasonable man to satiety. WHO SHALL COLLECT THE REVENUE? I am not only in favor of free speech and an honest ballot, but I am in favor of collecting and disbursing the revenues of the United States. I want plenty of money to collect and pay the interest on our debt. I want plenty of money to pay our debt and to preserve the financial honor of the GREAT SPEECHES 145 United States. (Applause.) I want money enough to be collected to pay pensions to widows and orphans and to wounded soldiers. (Applause.) And the question is what section in this country can you trust to collect and disburse that revenue. Let us be honest about it. (Laughter.) What section can you trust? In the last four years we have collected $467,000 of the internal revenue taxes. "We have collected principally from taxes upon high wines and to bacco, $168,000,000, and in those four years we have seized, libeled and destroyed in the Southern States 3,874 illicit distilleries. And during the .~ame time the Southern people have shot to death twenty-five revenue officers and wounded fifty-five others, and the only offense that the wounded and dead committed was an honest effort to collect the revenues of this country. (Applause.) .Recollect it don't you forget it. (Laughter.) And in several Southern States to-day every revenue collector or officer connected with the revenue is furnished by the Internal Revenue Department with a breech-loading rifle and a pair of revolvers, simply for the purpose of collecting the revenue. I don't feel like trusting such people to collect the revenue of my Government. During the same four years we have arrested and have indicted 7,084 Southern Democrats for endeavoring to de fraud the revenue of the United States. Recollect 3,874 distilleries seized, 25 revenue officers killed, 55 wounded, and 7,084 Democrats arrested. (Applause.) Can we trust them? The State of Alabama in its last Democratic Convention passed a resolution that no man should be tried in a Federal Court for a violation of the revenue law that he should be tried in a State Court. (Laughter.) Think of it he should be tried in a State Court! Let me tell you how it will come out if we trust the Southern States to collect thii IO 140 COL. INGERSOLL'S revenue. A couple of Methodist ministers had been hold- ing a revival for a few weeks; one said to the other that he thought it time to take up a collection. When the hat was returned he found in it pieces of slate pencils and nails and buttons, but not a single solitary cent (laughter) not one and his brother minister got up and looked at the contribu tion, and he said, "Let us thank God!" (Laughter.) And the owner of the hat said, "What for?" And the brother re plied, " Because you got your hat back." (Roars of laugh ter and applause.) If we trust the South we won't get our hat back. (Laughter and cheers.) HONEST MONEY AND AN HONEST NATION. I am next in favor of honest money. I am in favor of gold and silver, and paper with gold and silver behind it. (Applause.) I believe in silver, because it is one of the greatest of American products, and I am in favor of any thing that will add to the value of American product. (Applause.) But I want a silver dollar worth a gold dol lar, even if you make it or have to make it four feet in diameter. (Great laughter.) No Government can afford to be a clipper of coin. (Applause.) A great Eepublic can not afford to stamp a lie upon silver or gold. (Great ap plause.) Honest money, an honest people, an honest Na tion. (Renewed applause.) When our money is only worth 80 cents on the dollar, we feel 20 per cent, below par. (Great laughter.) When our money is good we feel good. When our money is at par that is where we are. (Applause and laughter.) I am a profound believer in the doctrine that for nations, as well as men, honesty is the best, always, everywhere and forever. (Tremendous applause.) What section of this country, what party will give us honest money honor bright honor bright? (Laughter.) GREAT SPEECHES. 147 1 have been told that during the war we had plenty of money. I never saw it. I lived years without seeing a dollar. I saw promises for dollars, but not dollars. (Ap plause.) And the greenback, unless yon have the gold be hind it, is no more a dollar than a bill of fare is a dinner. (Great laughter.) You can not make a paper dollar with out taking a dollar's worth of paper. We must have paper that represents money. I want it issued by the Govern ment, and I want behind every one of these dollars either a gold or silver dollar, so that every greenback under the flag can lift up its hand and swear, "I know that my redeemer liveth." (Great laughter.) When we were running into debt, thousands of people mistook that for prosperity, and when we began paying they regarded it as adversity. (Laughter.) Of course we had plenty when we bought on credit. No man has ever starved when his credit was good, if there were no famine in that country. (Laughter.) As long as we buy on credit we shall have enough. The trouble commences when the pay-day arrives. (Laughter.) And I do not wonder that after the war thousands of people said, " Let us have another inflation." What party said, "No, we must pay the prom ise made in war?" (Great applause.) Honor bright 1 The Democratic party had once been a hard money party, but it drifted from its metallic moorings and floated off in the ocean of inflation, and you know itl (Laughter.) They said, "Give us more money," and every man that had bought on credit and owed a little something on what he had pur chased, when the property went down, he commenced cry ing, or many of them did, for inflation. I understand it. A man, say, bought a piece of land for $6,000; paid $5,000 on it; gave a mortgage for $1,000, and suddenly, in 1873, found that the land would not pay the other thousand. The 148 COL. INGERSOLL'S land had resumed. (Much laughter.) And then he said, looking lugubriously at his note and mortgage, " I want another inflation." And I never heard a man call for it that did not also say, " If it ever comes, and I don't unload, vou may shoot me." (Great laughter.) It was very much as it is sometimes in playing poker, and I make this comparison, knowing that hardly a person here will understand it. (Great laughter. A voice, " Honor bright!" Kenewed laughter.) I have been told (laughter) that along toward morning (laughter) the man that is ahead suddenly says, " I have got to go home. (Great laughter.) The fact is, my wife is not well." (Great laughter.) And the fellow who is behind says, "Let us have another deal." (Laughter.) I have my opinion of a fellow that will jump the game. And so it was in the hard times of 1873. They said: "Give us an other deal; let us get our driftwood back into the center of the stream." And they cried out for more money. But the Republican party said: " We do want more money, but no more promises. We have got to pay this first, and if we start out again upon that wide sea of promise we may never touch the shore." (Applause.) THE FALLACY AND FOLLY OF FIAT DOLLARS. A thousand theories were born of want; a thousand theories were born of the fertile brain of trouble; and these people said after all: " What is money? why it is nothing but a measure of value, just the same as a half bushel or yardstick." True. And consequently it makes no differ ence whether your half bushel is of wood, or gold, or silver or paper; and it makes no difference whether your yardstick is gold or paper. But the trouble about that statement is this : A half bushel is not a measure of value; it is a measure of GREAT SPEECHES. 149 quantity, and it measures rubies, diamonds and pearls pre cisely the same as corn and wheat. The yardstick is not a measure of value; it is a measure of length, and it measures lace, worth $100 a yard, precisely as it does cent tape. And another reason why it makes no difference to the pur chaser whether the half bushel is gold or silver, or whether the yardstick is gold or paper, you don't buy the yardstick; you don't get the half bushel in the trade. And if it was so with money if the people that had the money at the start of the trade, kept it after the consummation of the bargain then it wouldn't make any difference what you made your money of. But the trouble is the money changes hands. And let me say to-night, money is a thing it is a product of nature and you can no more make a "fiat" dollar than you can make a fiat star. I am in favor of honest money. Free speech is the brain of the Republic; an honest ballot is the breath of its life, and honest money is the blood that courses through its veins. (Applause.) If I am fortunate enough to leave a dollar when I die, I want it to be a good one; I don't wish to have it turn to ashes in the hands of widowhood, or become a Democratic broken promie in the pocket of the orphan; I want it money. I saw not long ago a piece of gold bearing the stamp of the Roman Empire. That Empire is dust, and over it has been thrown the mantle of oblivion, but that piece of gold is as good as though Julius Caesar were still riding at the head of the Roman Legion. (Applause.) I want money that will outlive the Democratic party. They told us and they were honest about it they said, " When we have plenty of money we are prosperous." And I said: "When we are prosperous then we have credit, and credit in flates the currency. Whenever a man buys a pound of sugar, and says, "Charge it," he inflates the currency; 150 COL. INGERSOLL'S whenever he gives his note he inflates the currency; when ever his word takes the place of money he inflates the cur rency. The consequence is that when we are prosperous credit takes the place of money, and we have what we call "plenty." But you can not increase prosperity simply by using promises to pay. Suppose you should come to a river that was about dry, and there you would see the ferry boat, and the gentleman who kept the ferry, high on the sand, and s the cracks all opening in the sun filled with loose oakum, looking like an average Democratic mouth listen ing to a Constitutional argument, and you should say to him: "How is business?" (Applause and laughter.) And he would say, " Dull." And then you would say to him, u Now, what you want is more boat." He would probably answer, " If I had a little more water I could get along with this one." (Laughter.) But I want to be fair (laughter), and I wish to-night to return ray thanks to the Democratic party. You did a great and splendid work. You went all over the United States, and you said upon every stump that a greenback was better than gold. You said, " We have at last found the money of a poor man. Gold loves the rich; gold haunts banks and safes and vaults; but we have got money that will go around inquiring for a man that is dead broke. (Great laughter.) We have finally found money that will stay in a pocket with holes in it. (Laughter.) But after all, do you know that money is the most social thing in this world? (Laughter.) If a fellow has got $1 in his pocket, and he meets another with two, do you know that dollar is absolutely homesick until he gets where the other two are? (Laughter.) And yet the Greenbackers told us that they had finally invented money that would be the poor man's friend. They said, " It is better than gold, bet- GREAT SPEECHES. 15! ter than silver," and they got so many men to believe it that when we resumed, and said, " Here is your gold for your greenback," the fellows who had the greenback said, "We don't want it. The greenbacks are good enough for us." Do you know, if they had wanted it we could not give it to them? (Laughter.) And so I return my thanks to the Greenback party. But allow me to say in this connec tion, the days of their usefulness have passed forever. Now, I am not foolish enough to claim that the Repub- lican party resumed. I am not silly enough to say that John Sherman resumed. But I will tell you what I do say. I say that every man who raised a bushel of corn or a bushel of wheat or a pound of beef or pork helped to resume. (Ap plause.) I say that the gentle rain and loving dew helped to resume. The soil of the United States impregnated by the loving sun helped to resume. The men that dug the coal and the iron and the silver and the copper and the gold helped to resume. And the men upon whose foreheads fell the light of furnaces helped to resume. And the sailors who fought with the waves of the seas helped to resume. I admit to-night that the Democrats earned their share of the money to resume with. All I claim in God's world is that the Republican party furnished the honesty to pay it over. (Great applause.) That is what I claim; and the Republican party set the day, and the Republican party worked to fill the promise. That is what I say. And had it not been for the Republican party this Nation would have been financially dishonored. (Applause.) I am for honest money, and I am for the payment of every dollar of our debt, and so is every Democrat now, I take it. But what did you say a little while ago? Did you say we could re sume? No; you swore we could not, and yon swore our bonds would be worthless as the withered leaves of winter. COL. INGERSOLL'S And now, when a Democrat goes to England and sees an American four per cent, quoted at 110 lie kind of swells up (laughter), and he says: " That's the kind of a man I am." (Great laughter.) In that country he pretends he was a Republican in this. And I don't blame him. And I don't begrudge him enjoying respectability when away from home. (Laughter.) The Republican party is entitled to the credit for keeping this Nation grandly and splendidly honest. (Ap plause.) I say, the Republican party is entitled to the credit of preserving the honor of this Nation. (Applause.) THE STRUGGLE AFTER THE PANIO. In 1873 came the crash, and all the languages of the world can not describe the agonies suffered by the Ameri can people from 1873 to 1879. A man who thought he was a millionaire came to poverty; he found his stocks and bonds ashes in the paralytic hand of old age. Men who expected to have lived all their lives in the sunshine of joy found themselves beggars and paupers. The great factories were closed, the workmen were demoralized, and the roads of the United States were filled with tramps. In the hovel of the poor and the palace of the rich came the serpent of tempta tion and whispered in the American ear the terrible word "Repudiation." But the Republican party said, "No, we will pay every dollar. (Applause.) No; we have started toward the shining goal of resumption, and we never will turn back." (Applause.) And the Republican party struggled until it had the happiness of seeing upon the broad shining forehead of American labor the words " Financial Honor." (Applause.) The Republican party struggled until every paper prom ise was as good as gold. (Applause.) And the moment we got back to gold then we commenced to rise again. We GREAT SPEECHES. 153 could not jnmp np until our feet touched something that they pressed against. A'vl from that moment to this we have been going, going, going higher and higher, more prosperous every hour. (Applause.) And now they say, " Let us have a change." (Laughter.) When I am sick I want a change; when I am poor I want a change; and if I were a Democrat I would have a personal change. (Laugh ter.) We are prosperous to-day, and must keep so. We are back to gold and silver. Let us stay there; and let us stay with the party that brought us there. ("Goodl" " Goodl " and applause.) A NATION NOT A OONFEDEKAOT. Now, I am not only in favor of free speech and an hon est ballot-box and an honest collection of the revenue of the United States, and an honest money, but I am in favor of the idea of the great and splendid truth that this is a Nation one and indivisible. (Great applause.) I deny that we are a confederacy bound together with ropes of cloud and chains of mist. This is a Nation, and every man in it owes his first allegiance to the grand old flag for which more brave blood was shed than for any other flag that waves in the sight of heaven. (Great ap plause.) The Southern people say this is a confederacy and they are honest in it They fought for it, they believed it. They believe in the doctrine of State Sovereignty, and many Democrats of the North believe in the same doctrine. No less a man than Horatio Seymour standing, it may be, at the head of Democratic statesmen said, if he has been cor rectly reported, only the other day, that he despised the word u Nation." 1 bless that word. (Applause.) I owe my first allegiance to that Nation, and it owes its first protec- COL. INGERSOLL'S tion to me. (Great applause.) I am talking here to-night, not because I am protected by the flag of New York. 1 would not know that flag if 1 should see it. (Laughter.) I am talking here and have the right to talk here because the flag of my country is above us. (Applause.) I have the same right as though I had been born upon this very plat form. I am proud of New York because it is a part of my country. I am proud of my country because it has got such a State as New York in it (great applause), and I will be prouder of New York on a week from next Tuesday, than ever before in my life. (Great cheering.) I despise the doctrine of State Sovereignty. I believe in the rights of the States, but not in the sovereignty of the States. States are political conveniences. Rising above States as the Alps above valleys are the rights of man. Rising above the rights of the Government even in this Nation are the sublime rights of the people. (Loud applause.) Gov ernments are good only so long as they protect human rights. But the rights of a man never should be sacrificed O CD upon the altar of the State or upon the altar of the Nation. (Applause.) STATE SOVEREIGNTY AND HUMAN 8LAVEBY. Let me tell you a few objections that I have got to State Sovereignty. That doctrine has never been appealed to for any good. The first time it was appealed to was when our Constitution was made. And the object then was to keep the slave trade open until the year 1808. The object then was to make the sea the highway of piracy the object then was to allow American citizens to go into the business of selling men and women and children, and feed their cargo to the sharks of the sea, and the sharks of the sea were as merciful as they. That was the first time that the appeal GREAT SPEECHES. 155 to the doctrine of State Sovereignty was made, and the next time was for the purpose of keeping alive the inter-state of -lave trade, so that a gentleman in Virginia could sell his slave to the rice and cotton plantations of the South. Think of it I It was made so they could rob the cradle in the name of law. Think of it! Think of itl And the next time they appealed to the doctrine of State Sovereignty was in lavor of the Fugitive Slave Law a law that made a blood hound of every Northern man; that made charity a crime. A law that made love a State prison offense; that branded the forehead of charity as if it were a felon. Think of it! A law that, if a woman ninety -nine one hundredths white had escaped from slavery, had traversed forests, had been torn by briars, had crossed rivers, had traveled at night and in darkness, and had finally got within one step of free soil with the whole light of the North star shining in her tear- filled eyes, with her little babe on her withered bosom a law that declared it the duty of Northern men to clutch that woman and turn her back to the domination of the hound and lash. (Tremendous applause.) I have no re spect for any man living or dead who voted for that law. I have no respect for any man who would carry it out. I never had. The next time they appealed to the doctrine of State Sov ereignty was to increase the area of human slavery, so that the blood-hound with clots of blood dropping from hie loose and hanging jaws, might traverse the billowy plains of Kansas. Think of itl The Democratic party then said the Federal Government had a right to cross the State line. And the next time they appealed to that infamous doctrine was in defense of secession and treason; a doctrine that cost us six thousand millions of dollars; a doctrine that cost four hundred thousand lives; a doctrine that filled our country 156 COL. INGERSOLL'S with widows, our homes with orphans. And I tell yon thf doctrine of State Sovereignty is the viper in the bosom of this Republic, and if we do not kill this viper it will kill ua. (Long continued applause.) The Democrats tell us that in the olden time the Federal Government had a right to cross a State line to put shackles upon the limbs of men. It had a right to cross a State line to trample upon the rights of human beings, but now it has no right to cross those lines upon an errand of mercy or justice. We are told that now, when the Federal Govern ment wishes to protect a citizen, a State line rises like a Chinese wall, and the sword of Federal power turns to air the moment it touches one of those lines. I deny it and I despise, abhor and execrate the doctrine of State Sover eignty. (Applause.) The Democrats tell us if we wish to be protected by the Federal Government we must leave home. (Laughter.) I wish they would try it (applause) for about ten days. (Great laughter.) They say the Fed eral Government can defend a citizen in England, France, Spain, or Germany, but can not defend a child of the Re public sitting around the family hearth. I deny it. A Government that cannot protect its citizen at home is unfit to be called a Government. (Applause.) I want a Gov ernment with an arm long enough and a sword sharp enough to cut down treason wherever it may raise its ser pent head. (Applause.) I want a Government that will protect a freedman, standing by his little log hut, with the same efficiency that it would protect Vanderbilt living in a palace of marble and gold. (Applause.) Humanity is a sacred thing, and manhood is a thing to be preserved. Let us look at it. For instance, here is a war, and the Federal Government says to a man, " We want you," and he says, " Ko, I don't want to go," and then they put a lot of pieces GREAT SPEECHES. 157 of paper in a wheel and on one of those pieces is his name and another man turns the crank, and then they pull it out and there is his name, and they say, " Come," and so he goes. (Laughter.) And they stand him in front of the brazen throated guns; they make him fight for his native land, and when the war is over he goes home and he finds the war has been unpopular in his neighborhood, and they tramp upon his rights, and he says to the Federal Govern ment, " Protect me." And he says to that Government, " I owe my allegiance to you. You must protect me." What will you say of that Government if it eays to him, "You must look to your State for protection." " Ah, but," he says, " my State is the very power trampling upon me," and, of course, the robber is not going to send for the po lice. (Applause.) It is the duty of the Government to defend even its drafted men; and if that is the duty of the Government, what shall I say of the volunteer, who for one moment holds his wife in a tremulous and agonized em brace, kisses his children, shoulders his musket, goes to the field, and says, " Here I am, ready to die for my native land." (A voice, " Good.") A nation that will not defend its volunteer defenders is a disgrace to the man of this world. A flag that will not protect its protectors is a dirty rag that contaminates the air in which it waves. (Applause.) This is a Nation. Free speech is the brain of the Republic; an honest ballot is the breath of its life; honest money is the blood of its veins; and the idea of nationality is its great beating, throbbing heart. (Applause.) I am for a Nation. And yet the Democrats tell me that it is dangerous to have centralized power. How would you have it? I believe in the localization of power; I believe in having enough of it localized in one place to be effectively used; I believe in a localization of brain. I suppose Democrats would like to i $8 COL. INGERSOLL'S have it spread all over your body (applause and laughter), and they act as though theirs was. PBOTEOTING AMERICAN LABOB. There is another thing in which I believe; I believe in the protection of American labor. The hand that holds Aladdin's lamp must be the hand of toil. This Nation rests upon the shoulders of its workers, and I want the American laboring man to have enough to wear; I want him to have enough to eat; I want him to have something for the ordinary misfortunes of life; I want him to have the pleasure of seeing his wife well dressed; I want him to see a few blue ribbons fluttering about his children; I want him to see the flags of health flying in their beautiful cheeks; 1 want him to feel that this is his country, and the shield of protection is above bis labor. (Applause.) And I will tell you why I am for protection, too. If we were all farmers we would be stupid. If we were all shoe makers we would be stupid. If we all followed one busi ness, no matter what it was, we would become stupid. Pro tection to American labor diversifies American industry, and to have it diversified touches and develops every part of the human brain. Protection protects integrity; it pro tects intelligence; and protection raises sense; and by pro tection we have greater men and better looking women and healthier children. (Applause.) Free Trade means that our laborer is upon an equality with the poorest paid labor of this world. And allow me to tell you that for an empty stomach, "Hurrah for Hancock" is a poor consolation- (Laughter.) I do not think much of a government where the people do not have enough to eat. (Applause.) I am a materialist to that extent; I want something to eat. I have been in countries where the laboring man had meat OE.CP % GREAT SPEECHES. 1 59 year; sometimes twice Christmas and Easter. And I have seen women carrying upon their heads a burden that no man in the audience could carry, and at the same time knit ting busily with both hands, and those women lived with out meat; and when I thought of the American laborer, I said to myself, " After all, my country is the best in the world." (Applause.) And when I came back to the sea and saw the old flag flying in the air, it seemed to me as though the air from pure joy had burst into blossom. (Ap plause.) Labor has more to eat and more to wear in the United States than in any other land of this earth. (Applause.) I want America to produce everything that Ainerisans need. I want it so if the whole world should declare war against us, so if we were surrounded by walls of cannons and bay onets and swords, we could supply all our human wants in and of ourselves. (Applause.) I want to live to see the American woman dressed in American silk; the American man in everything from hat to boots produced in America (applause), by the cunning hand of the American toiler. I want to see workingmen have a good house, painted white, grass in the front yard, carpets on its floor, pictures on the wall. (Applause.) I want to see him a man feeling that he is a king by the divine right of living in the Republic. (Ap plause.) And every man here is just a little bit a king, you know. Every man here is a part of the sovereign power. Every man wears a little of purple; every man has a little of crown and a little of scepter; and every man that will sell his vote for money or be ruled by prejudice is unfit to be an American citizen. (Applause.) I believe in American labor, and 1 tell you why. The other day a man told me that we had produced in the Uni ted States of America one million tons of rails. How 160 COL. INGERSOLL'S ranch are they worth? Sixty dollars a ton. In other words, the million tons are worth $60,000,000. How much is a ton of iron worth in the ground? Twenty-five cents. American labor takes twenty-five cents' worth of iron in the ground and adds to it $59.75. (Applause.) Oue mill ion tons of rails, and the raw material not worth $24,000. We build a ship in the United States worth $500,000, and the value of the ore in the earth, of the trees in the great forest, of all that enters into the composition of that ship bringing $500,000 in gold, is only $20,000; $480,000 by American labor, American muscle, coined into gold; American brains made a legal tender the world around. (Applause.) SOURCE OF THE FEEE TRADE DOCTRINE. I propose to stand by the Nation. I want the furnaces kept hot. I want the sky to be filled with the smoke of American industry, and upon that cloud of smoke will rest forever the bow of perpetual promise. ("Good," "good"; great cheers.) That is what I am for. (A voice, " So are we all.") Yes, sir. (Laughter.) Where did this doctrine of a tariff for revenue come from ? From the South. The South would like to stab the prosperity of the North. They had rather trade with Old England than with New Enw- tJ ~ land. They had rather trade with the people who were will ing to help them in war than those who conquered the re bellion. (Great cheers.) They knew what gave us our strength in war. They knew that all the brooks and creeks and rivers of New England were putting down the rebell ion. They knew that every wheel that turned, every spin dle that revolved, was a soldier in the army of human prog ress. It won't do. (Great applause.) They were so lured by the greed of office that they were willing to trade upon the misfortunes of a Nation, It won't do. I don't wish GEEAT SPEECHES. I&l to belong to a party that succeeds only when my country falls. I don't wish to belong to a party whose banner went up with the banner of rebellion. I don't wish to belong to a party that was in partnership with defeat and disaster. I don't. (Applause.) And there isn't a Democrat here but what knows that a failure of the crops this year would have helped his party. (Applause.) You know that an early frost would have been a God-send to them. (Applause.) You know that the potato-bug could have done them more good than all their speakers. (Great applause.) 1 wish to belong to that party which is prosperous when the country is prosperous. I belong to that party which is not poor when the golden billows are running over the seas of wheat. I belong to that party that is prosperous when there are oceans of corn, and when the cattle are upon the thousand hills. 1 belong to that party which is prosperous when the furnaces are aflame; and when you dig coal and iron and silver; when everybody has enough to eat; when everybody is happy; when the children are all going to school (applause); and when joy covers my Nation as with a garment. (Applause.) That party which is prosperous, then, that is my party. Now, then, I have been telling you what I am for I am for free speech, and so ought you to be. I am for an hon est ballot, and if you are not you ought to be. I am for the collection of revenue. I am for honest money. I am for the idea that this is a Nation forever. (Great applause.) I believe in protecting American labor. (Great applause.) I want the shield of my country above every anvil, above every furnace, above every cunning head and above every deft of American labor. (Applause.) Now, then, what section of this country will be the more apt to carry these ideas into execution? What party will II 1 62 COL. INGERSOLL'S ba the more apt to achieve these errand and splendid things? Honor bright? (Laughter.) Now we have not only to ci loose between sections of the country we have to choose between parties. Here is the Democratic party and I ad mit that there are thousands of good Democrats who went to the war, and some of those that stayed at home were good men and I want to ask you, and I want you to tell me in reply, what that party did during the war when the war Democrats were away from home. What did they do? That is the question. I say to you that every man who tried to tread our flag out of heaven was a Democrat. (Ap plause.) The men who wrote the ordinances of secession, who fired upon Fort Sumter; the men who starved our sol diers, who fed them with the crumbs that the worms had devoured before they were Democrats. The keepers of Libby, the keepers of Andersouville, were Democrats Lib- by and Andersonville, the two mighty wings that will bear the memory of the confederacy to eternal infamy. And when some poor, emaciated Union patriot, driven to insan ity by famine, saw in an insane dream the face of his moth er, and she beckoned him and he followed hoping to press her lips once again against his fevered face, and when he stepped one step beyond the dead line, the wretch that put the bullet through his loving, throbbing heart was a Dem ocrat. (Great applause.) The men who wished to scatter yellow fever in the North, and who tried to fire the great cities of the North, knowing that the serpents of flame would devour the women and babes they were all Demo crats. (Applause.) He who said that the greenback never would be paid, and he who slandered sixty cents out of ev ery dollar of the Nation's promise?, were Democrats. Who were joyful when your brothers and your sons and fathers lay dead on the field of battle that the country has lost! GREAT SPEECHES. 163 They were Democrats. The men who wept when the old flag floated in triumph above the ramparts <3f rebellion they were Democrats. You know it. The men who wept- when slavery was destroyed, who believed slavery to be a divine institution, who regarded blood-hounds as apostles and missionaries, and who wept at the funeral of that in fernal institution they were Democrats. Bad company bad company 1 (Laughter and applause.) And let me implore all the young men here not to join that party. Do not give new blood to that institution. The Democratic party has a yellow passport. On one side it says " dangerous." They imagine they have not changed, and that is because they have not intellectual growth. That party was once the enemy of my country, was once the en emy of our flag, and more than that it was once the enemy of human liberty, and that party to-night is not willing that the citizens of the Republic should exercise all their rights irrespective of their color. And allow me to say right here that I am opposed to that party. (Loud ap plause.) CANDIDATES OF THE TWO PARTIES. We have not only to choose between parties, but to choose between candidates. The Democracy have put for ward as the bearers of their standard General Hancock and William H. English. (Hisses, "No, no, no.") They will soon be beyond hissing. (Roars of laughter.) But let us treat them respectfully. When I am by the side of the dying, I never throw up their crimes. I feel to-night as though standing by the open grave of the Democratic party (great laughter), and allow me to say, that I feel as well as could be expected. (Much laughter.) That party has nominated General Winfield S. Han cock, and I am told that he is a good soldier. I admit it. I 164 COL. INwiJRSOLI/S t lon't know whether he is or not. I admit it. (Laughter.) That \v:is hi^ reputation before he was nominated, and I am willing to let him have the advantage of all he had before he was nominated. He had a conversation with General Grant. (Great applause.) It was a time when he had been appointed at the head of the Department of the Gulf. In that conversation he stated to General Grant that he was opposed to "nigger domination." Grant said to him, " "We mnst obey the laws of Congress. (Applause.) We are sol diers." And that meant, the military is not above the civil authority. (Applause.) And 1 tell you to-night that the army and the navy are the right and the left hands of the civil power. (Applause.) Grant said to him: "Three or four million ex-slaves, without property and without ed ucation, cannot dominate over thirty or forty millions of white people, with education and with property." Gen eral Hancock replied to that: " I am opposed to 'nigger domination.'" Allow me to say that I do not believe any man fit for the Presidency of this great Republic, who is capable of insulting a down-trodden race. (Great applause.) I never meet a negro that I do not feel like asking his for giveness for the wrongs that my race has inflicted on his. (Applause.) I remember that from the white man he re ceived for 200 years agony and tears; I remember that my race sold a child from the agonized breast of a mother; I remember that my race trampled with the feet of greed upon all the holy relations of life; and I do not feel like in sulting the colored man; I feel rather like asking the for giveness of his race for the crimes that my race have put upon him. " Nigger domination." What a fine scabbard that makes for the sword of Gettysburg. It won't do. (Laughter.) What is General Hancock for, beside* the Presidency I GREAT SPEECHES. 165 (Laughter.) How does he stand upon the great questions affecting American prosperity? (Cries of "Give it up," " Give us an easier one." Laughter.) He told us the other day that the tariff is a local question. The tariff affects every man and woman that has a back to be covered or a stomach to be filled, and yet he says it is a local question. (Laughter.) So is death. (Laughter.) He also told us that he heard that question discussed once in Pennsylvania. (Great laughter.) He must have been " eavesdropping." (Great laughter.) And he tells us that his doctrine of the tariff will continue as long as Nature lasts. (Langhter.) Then Senator Randolph wrote him a letter. I don't know whether Senator Randolph answered it or not (laughter); but that answer was worse than the first interview, and I understand now that another letter is going through a period of incubation at Governor's Island, upon the great subject of tariff. It won't do. (Applause and laughter.) They say one thing they are sure of, lie is opposed to pay ing Southern pensions and Southern claims. He says that a man that fought against this Government has no right to a pension. Good! I say a man that fought against this Government has no right to office. (Loud and prolonged applause.) If a man cannot earn a pension by tearing our flag out of the sky, he cannot earn power. (A voice " How about Longstreet?") Longstreet has repented of what he did. Longstreet admits that he was wrong. And there was no braver officer in the Southern Confederacy. (Applause.) Every man of the South who will say, " I made a mistake," I don't want him to say that he knew he was wrong all I ask him to say is that he now thinks he was wrong, and every man of the South to-day who says he was wrong, and who says from this day forward, henceforth and forerer, he is for this being a nation, I will i66 COL. INGERSOLL'S take him by the hand. (Renewed applause.) But while he is attempting to do at the ballot-box what he failed to accomplish upon the field of battle, I am against him; while he uses a Northern General to bait a Southern "trap I won't bite. I will forgive men when they deserve to be forgiven ; but while they insist that they were right, while they insist that State Sovereignty is the proper doctrine, I am opposed to their climbing into power. Hancock says that he will not pay these claims; he agrees to veto a bill that his party may pass; he agrees in advance that he will defeat a party that he expects will elect him; he, in effect, says to the people, " You can't trust that party, bnt you can trust me." He says, "Look at them; I admit they are a hungry lot; I admit that they haven't had a bite in twenty years; I admit that an ordinary famine is satiety compared to the hunger they feel. But be tween that vast appetite known as the Democratic party, and the public treasury I will throw the shield of my veto." (Applause.) No man has a right to say in advance what he will veto, any more than a judge has a right to say in advance how he will decide a case. (Applause.) The feto power is a distinction with which the Constitution has clothed the Executive, and no President has a right to say that he will veto until he has heard both sides of the ques tion. (Applause.) But he agrees in advance. (Laughter.) I would rather trust a party than a man. Death may veto Hancock, and death has not been a successful politi cian in the United States. (Laughter.) Tyler, Fillmore. Andy Johnson (laughter) I don't wish Death to elect any more Presidents; and if he does, and if Hancock is elected, "William H. English becomes President of the United States. (Hisses, "No, no, no I") All I need to say about him is simply to pronounce his name (laughter); thafr ii GREAT SPEECHES. 1 6? all. Ton don't want him. Whether the many stories that have been told about him are true or not I don't know, and I will not give currency to a solitary word against the rep utation of an American citizen unless I know it to be true. (Applause and cries of " Good ! ") What I have got against him is what he has done in public life. When Charles Sumner (loud applause), that great and splendid publicist-, Charles Sumner, the great philanthropist, one who spoke to the conscience of the time and to the history of the future; when he stood up in the United States Senate and made a great and glorious plea for human liberty, there crept into the Senate a villain and struck him down as though he had been a wild beast. That man was a member of Congress and when a resolution was introduced in the House to ex pel that man William H. English voted No. (Hisses.) All the stories in the world could not add to the infamy of that public act. (Applause.) That is enough for me, and what ever his private life may be, let it be that of an angel, never, never, never will I vote for a man that would defend the assassin of free speech. (Applause.) General Hancock, they tell me, is a statesman (laughter); that what little time he has to spare from war he has given to the tariff (laughter), and what little time he could spare from the tariff he has given to the Constitution of his country; show ing under what circumstances a Major-General can put at defiance the Congress of the United States. It won't do. But while I am upon that subject it may be well for me to state that he never will be President of the United States. (Loud applause.) Now, I 'say that a man who in time of peace prefers peace, and prefers the avocations of peace; a man who in the time of peace would rather look at the corn in the air of June, rather listen to the hum of bees, rather sit i68 COL. INGERSOLL'S by his door with his wife and children; the man who in time of peace loves peace, and yet when the blast of war flows in his ears shoulders the musket and goes to the field of war to defend his country, and when the war is over goes home and again pursues the avocation of peace that man is just as good, to say the least of him, as a man who in a time of profound peace makes up his mind that he would like to make his living killing other folks. To say the least of it, he is as good. THE REPUBLICAN STANDARD BEARERS. The Republicans have named as their standard bearers James A. Garfield (tremendous cheers, again and again re newed, the men standing up, waving their hats and the Wies their handkerchiefs) James A. Garfield (cheers) and Chester A. Arthur (great cheers and applause). James A. Garfield was a volunteer soldier, and he took away from the field of Chickamanga as much glory as any man could carry. (Great applause.) He is not a soldier, he is a statesman. (Applause.) He has studied and discussed all the great ques tions that affect the prosperity and well-being of the Ameri can people. His opinions are well known, and I say to you to-night that there is not in this Nation, there is not in this Republic, a man with greater brain and greater heart than James A. Garfield. (Great cheers.) I know him and like him. (Applause.) I know him as well as any other public man, and I like him. The Democratic party say that he is not honest. I have been reading some Democratic papers to day, and you would say that every one of their editors had a private sewer of his own (laughter) into which had been emptied for a hundred years the slops of helL (Laughter and applause.) They tell me that James A. Garfield is not honest. Are you a Democrat? Your party tried to steal GREAT SPEECHES. 169 PRESIDENT GARFIELD. nearly half this country. (Applause.) Your party stole the armament of a nation. Your party was willing to live upon the unpaid labor of four millions of people. You have no right to the floor for the purpose of making a mo tion of honesty. (Applause.) Sit down. (Laughter and applause.) ' James A. Garfield has been at the head of the most important committees of Congress; he is a member of the most important one of the whole House. He has no peer in the Congress of the United States. (Applause.) And you know it. He is the leader of the House. With one wave of his hand he can take millions from the pocket of one industry and put it into the pocket of another; with a motion of his hand he could have made himself a man 170 COL. INGERSOLL'S of wealth, but he is to-night a poor man. (Applause.) But he is rich in honor (applause), in integrity he is wealthy (applause), and in brain he is a millionaire. (Great applause.) I know him and I like him. (Cheers.) He is as genial as May and he is as generous as Autumn. (Applause.) And the men for whom he has done unnumbered favors, the men whom he had pity enough not to destroy with an ar gument, the men who, with his great generosity, he has allowed, intellectually, to live, are now throwing filth at the reputation of that great and splendid man. (Cheers.) Several ladies and gentlemen were passing a muddy place around which were gathered ragged and wretched irchins. Arid these little wretches began to throw mud at them; and one gentleman said, "If you don't stop I will throw it back at yon." And a little fellow said, " You can't do it without dirtying your hands." (Laughter and applause.) " And it doesn't hurt us, anyway." (Renewed laughter.) I never was more profoundly happy than on the night of that 12th day of October when I found that between an honest and a kingly man and his maligners, two great States had thrown their shining shields. (Great applause.) When Ohio said, " Garfield is my greatest son, and there never has been raised in the cabins of Ohio a grander man " (tre mendous and prolonged applause and cheers); and when Indiana (loud cheers) and when Indiana held up her hands and said, " Allow me to endorse that verdict," I was pro foundly happy, because that said to me, '* Garfield will carry every Northern State," that said to me, " The Solid South will be confronted by a great and splendid North." (Cheers.) I know Garfield. I like him. (Laughter and cheers.) Some people have said, " How is it that you support Garfield when he was a minister?" (Laughter.) "How is it tl-.:. f GREAT SPEECHES. I/ 1 /ou support Garfield when he is a Christian?" I will tell you. There are two reasons. The first is, I am not a beg gar; and secondly, James A. Garfield is not a beggar. He believes in giving to every other human being every right he claims for himself. He believes in an absolute divorce between Church and State. He believes that every religion should rest upon its morality, upon its reason, upon its per suasion, upon its goodness, upon its charity, and that love should never appeal to the sword of civil war. He disagrees with me in many things, but in the one thing, that the air is free for all, we do agree. I want to do equal and exact justice everywhere. I want the world of thought to be without a chain, without a wall. James A. Garfield, be lieving with me as he does, disagreeing with me as he does is perfectly satisfactory to me. I know him, and I like him. Men are to-day blackening his reputation, who are not fit to blacken his shoes. (Applause.) He is a man of brain. Since his nomination he must have made forty or fifty speeches, and every one has been full of manhood and genius. He has not said a word that has not strengthened him with the American people. He is the first candidate who has been free to express himself and who has never made amis- take. (Great applause.) I will tell you why he don't make a mistake; because he spoke from the inside out. (Ap plause.) Because he was guided by the glittering Northern star of principle. Lie after lie has been told about him. Slander after slander has been hatched and put in the air with its little short wings, to fly its dirty day, and the last lie is a forgery. (Great applause.) I saw to-day the fac-simile of a letter that they pretend he wrote upon the Chinese question. I know his writing; I know his signature; I am well acquainted with his writ- 173 COL. INGERSOLL'S * ing; I know handwriting, and I tell you to-night that letter and that signature are forgeries. (Long and continued ap plause.) A forgery for the benefit of the Pacific States; a forgery for the purpose of convincing the American work- ingman that Garfield is without heart I tell you, my fel low-citizens, that cannot take from him a vote. (Ap plause.) But Ohio pierced their center and Indiana rolled up both flanks and the rebel line cannot reform with a forgery for a standard. (Applause.) They are gone. (Laughter.) NOT PREACHING A GOSPEL OF HATS. Now some people say to me, " How long are you going to preach the doctrine of hate?" I never did preach it. In many States of this Union it is a crime to be a Republic an. I am going to preach my doctrine until every Amer ican citizen is permitted to express his opinion and vote as he may desire in every State of the Union. (Applause.) I am going to preach my doctrine until this is a civilized country. That is all. I will treat the gentlemen of the South precisely as we do the gentlemen of the North. Iwant to treat every section of the country precisely as we do ours. I want to improve their rivers and their harbors; I want to fill their laud with commerce; I want them to prosper; I want them to build school houses; I want them to open the lands to immigration to all people who desire to settle upon their soil. I want to be friends with them; I want to let the past be buried forever; I want to let bygones be bygones, but only upon the basis that we are now in favor of absolute liberty and eternal justice. (Great applause.) I am not willing to bury nationality or free speech in the grave for the purpose of being friends. Let us etand by our colors; let the old Republican party that has made this a Nation GREAT SPEECHES. 1/3 the old Republican party that has saved the financial honor of this party let that party stand by its colors. Let that party say, "Free speech forever!" Let that party say, " An honest ballot forever 1 " Let that party say, " Honest money forever; the Nation and the flag forever 1 " And let that party stand by the great men carrying her ban ner, James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur. (Applause.) I had rather trust a party than a man. If General Gar- field dies, the Republican party lives. If General Garfield dies, General Arthur will take his place a brave and hon est and intelligent gentleman, upon whom every Repub lican can rely. (Applause.) And if he dies, the Republican party lives, and as long as the Republican party does not die, the great Republic will live. As long as the Republican party lives this will be the asylum of the world. Let me tell you, Mr. Irishman, this is the only country on the earth where Irishmen have had enough to eat. Let me tell you Mr. German, that you have more liberty here than you had in the Fatherland. Let me tell you, all men, that this is the land of humanity. Oh! I love the old Republic, bound by the seas, walled by the wide air, domed by heavSn's blue, and lit with the eternal stars. I love the Republic; I love it because I love liberty. Liberty is my religion, and at its altar I worship and worship. (Long continued applause.) A PAIR IN A BOAT, GREAT SPEECHES. 1/5 Speech at New York, October 28, 1880. An immense meeting of business men was held on Thurs day afternoon in front of the New York Sub-treasury in Wall street, under the direction of the Bankers' & Brokers' Re publican Club. The Produce Exchange Club and the Dry Goods C'nb took part in the meeting. Jackson S. Schultz presided, and Col. Robert G. Ingersoll made a brilliant and effective speech, which was received with unbounded en thusiasm. Many prominent bankers and merchants were in the audience. COL. IXOERSOLL'S ADDRESS. Fellow-citizens of the great city of New York: This is the grandest audience I ever saw. (Great applause.) This audience certifies that Gen. James A. Garfield (tremend ous cheers) that James A. Garfield is to be the next President of the United States. (Renewed cheers.) This audience certifies that a Republican is to be the next mayor of the city of New York. (Great cheers.) This audience certifies that the business men of New York understand their interests, and that the business men of New York are not going to let the country be controlled by the Rebel South and the Rebel North. (Cheers.) In 1860 the Dem ocratic party appealed to force, now it appeals to fraud. (Applause.) In 1860 the Democratic party appealed to the sword; now it appeals to the pen. (Tremendous cheers and laughter.) It was treason then; it is forgery now. (Great cheers.) The Democratic party cannot be trusted (A voice, "No, no, it cannot!") with the property or with the honor of the people of the United States. (Ap plause.) The city of New York owes a great debt to the 176 COL. INGERSOLL'S country. Every man that has cleared a farm has helped to build New York; every man who helped to build a railway helped to build up the palaces of this city. (Applause.) Where I am now speaking are the termini of all the rail ways in the United States. They all come here. New York has been built up by the labor of the country (ap plause), and New York owes it to the country to protect the best interest of the country. (Applause.) The farm ers of Illinois depend upon the merchants, the brokers and the bankers, upon the gentlemen of New York, to beat the rabble of New York. (Great cheers.) You owe to your selves, you owe to the Republic, and this city that does the business of a hemisphere, this city that will in ten years be the financial center of this world (applause), owes it to itself to be true to the great principles that have allowed it to exist and flourish. (Great applause.) The Republicans of New York ought to say that this shall be forever a free country. The Republicans of New York ought to say that free speech shall forever be held sacred in the United States. (Applause.) The Republic ans of New York ought to see that the party that de fended the Nation shall still remain in power. (Applause.) The Republicans of New York should see that the flag is safely held by the hands that defended it in war. (Ap plause.) The Republicans of New York know that the prosperity of the country depends upon good government, and they also know that good government means protection to the people, rich and poor, black and white. (Applause.) The Republicans know that a black friend is better than a white enemy. ("Good! good! "and cheers.) They know that a negro while fighting for the Government is better than any white man who will fight against it. (Great cheers.) The Republicans of New York know that the col- GREAT SPEECHES. 177 ored party in the South, which allows every man to vote as he pleases, is better than any white man who is opposed to allowing a negro to cast his honest vote. (Applause.) A black man in favor of liberty is better than a white man in favor of slavery. (Applause.) The Republicans of New York must be true to their friends. (Applause.) This Gov ernment means to protect all its citizens, at home and abroad, or it becomes a by-word in the mouths of the nations of the world. Now what do we want to do? (A voice, "Vote for Gar- field." Great cheers and laughter.) Of course. We are going to have an election next Tuesday, and every Repub lican knows why he is going to vote the Republican ticket; while every Democrat votes his without knowing why. (Great laughter.) A Republican is a Republican because he loves something; a Democrat is a Democrat because he hates something. (Great applause.) A Republican be lieves in progress; a Democrat in retrogression. A Demo crat is a " has been." He is a " used to be." (Great laughter.) The Republican party lives on hope; the Dem ocratic on memory. (Renewed laughter.) The Democrat keeps his back to the sun and imagines himself a great man because he casts a great shadow. (Laughter.) Now, there are certain things we want to preserve, that the business men of New York want to preserve, and, in the first place, we want an honest ballot. (Applause.) And where the Democratic party has power there never has been an honest ballot. You take the worst ward in this city, and there is where you will find the greatest Democratic majority. (Applause.) You know it (laughter,) and so do I. (Laughter.) There is not a university in the North, East or West that has not in it a Republican majority. (Applause.) There is not a penitentiary in the United 12 178 COL. INGERSOLL'S States (tremendous laughter and cheers; cries of "Good! Good!") how did yon know what I was going to say? (great cheers and laughter,) there is not a penitentiary, I say, (great cheers,) in the United States that has not in it a Democratic majority, (outbursts of laughter,) and they know it. (Great laughter.) Two years ago about 283 con victs were in the penitentiary of Maine. Out of that whole number there was one Republican, (laughter,) and only one. (A voice, " Who was the man? ") "Well, I don't know, but he broke out. (Great laughter.) He said he didn't mind being in the Penitentiary, but the company was a little more than he could stand. (Renewed laughter.) THE PAKTT THAT NEEDS THE " CHANGE." You cannot rely upon that party for an honest ballot. Every law that has been passed in this country, in the last twenty years, to throw a safeguard around the ballot box, has been passed by the Republican party. (Applause.) Every law that has been defeated has been defeated by the Demo cratic party. (Applause.) And you know it. (Laughter.) Unless we have an honest ballot the days of the Republic are numbered, and the only way to get an honest ballot is to beat the Democratic party forever. (Cheers.) And that is what we are going to do. (Applause.) That party can never carry its record; that party is loaded down with the infamies of twenty years; yes, that party is loaded down with the infamies of fifty years. (Applause.) It will never elect a President in this world. I give notice to the Democratic party to-day that it has got to change its name before the people of the United States will change the Administration- (Cheers.) You will have to change your names (applause); you will have to change your personnel ; and you will have to get enough Republicans to join you and tell you how to run GREAT SPEECHES. 1 79 a campaign. (Applause.) If you want an honest ballot and every honest man does, then you will vote to keep the Republican party in power. (Applause.) "What else do you want? You want honest money (applause), and I say to the merchants and to the bankers and to the brokers, the only party that will give you honest money is the party that resumed specie payments. (Applause.) The only party that will give you honest money is the party that has said a greenback is a broken promise until it is redeemed with gold. (Cheers.) You can only trust the party that has been honest in disaster. (Applause.) From 1863 to 1879 sixteen long years the Republican party was the party of honor and principle, and the Republican party saved the honor of the United States. (Cheers.) And you know it. (Applause.) During that time the Democratic party did what it could to destroy our credit at home and abroad. (Applause.) We are not only in favor of free speech and an honest ballot, and honest money, but we go in for law and order. (Applause.) What partof this coun try believes in free speech the South or the North? (A voice, " The North.") The South would never give free speech to the country ; there was no free speech in the city of New York until the Republican party got into power. (Applause.) The Democratic party has not intelligence to know that free speech is the germ of this Republic. (Applause.) The Democratic party cares little for free speech because it has no argument to make. (Laughter.) No reasons to offer. (Applause.) Its entire argument is summed up and ended in three words, " Hurrah for Hancock." (Great laughter.) The Republican party be lieves in free speech because it has got something to say; because it believes in argument; because it believes in moral suasion; because it believes in education. (Great applause.) i8c COL. INGERSOLL'S Any man t'.at does not believe in free speech is a bar barian. (Applause.) Any State that does not support it is not a civilized State. WHAT KEPDBLICANISM MEANS. I have a right to express my opinions and the right in common with every other human being, and I am willing to give to every other human being the right that I claim for myself. (Applause.) Republicanism says that out upon the great intellectual sea there is room for every sail; Republicanism says that in the intellectual air there is room enough for every wing. (Applause.) Republicanism means justice in politics. Republicanism means progrese in civilization. (Applause.) Republicanism means that every man shall be an educated patriot and a gentleman (Applause.) And I want to say to you to-day that the Re publican party is the best that ever existed. (Applause.) I want to say to you to-day that it is an honor to belong to it (Applause.) It is an honor to have belonged to it for twenty years; it is an honor to belong to the party that elected Abraham Lincoln President. (Great applause.) And let me say to you that Lincoln was the greatest, the best, the purest, the kindest man that has ever sat in the Presidential chair. (Great applause.) It is an honor to belong to the Republican party that gave 4,000,000 of men the rights of freemen; it is an honor to belong to the party that broke the shackles from 4,000,000 of men, women and children. (Great applause.) It is an honor to belong to the party that declared that blood-hounds were not the mis sionaries of civilization. (Applause.) It is an honor to be long to the party that said it was a crime to steal a babe from its mother's breast. (Applause.) It is an honor to belong to the party that swore that this is a Nation for- GREAT SPEECHES. l8l ever, one and indivisible. (Great applause.) It is an honor to belong to the party that elected U. S. Grant President of the United States. (Tremendous cheers.) It is an honor to belong to the party that issued thousands and thousands of millions of dollars in promises that issued promise? until they became so thick as the withered leaves of winter; an honor to belong to the party that issued them to put down a rebellion; an honor to belong to the party that put it down ; an honor to belong to the party that had the moral courage and honesty to make every one of the promises made in war, in peace, as good as shining, glittering gold. (Great applause.) And I tell you that if there is another life, and if there is a day of judgment, all you need say upon that solemn occasion is, "I was in life, and in my death, a good square Republican." (Hoars of laughter and great applause.) THE DOCTRINE OP STATE EIGHTS. I hate the doctrine of State sovereignty because it fos tered State pride; because it fostered the idea that it is more to be a citizen of a State than a citizen of this glorious coun try. (Applause.) I love the whole country. I like New York because it is a part of the country; and I like the country be cause it has got New York in it. (Great applause.) I am not standing here to-day because the flag of New York floats over my head, but because that flag for which more heroic blood has been shed than for any other flag that is kissed by the air of heaven waves forever over my head. (Great applause.) That is the reason I am here. The doctrine of State sovereignty was appealed to in defense of the slave trade; the next time in defense of the slave trade as between the States; the next time in favor of the Fugitive Slave law; and, if there is a Democrat in favor of the 1 82 COL. INGERSOLL'S Fugitive Slave law, he should be ashamed (applause) if not of himself of the ignorance of the time in which he lived. (Laughter.) That Fugitive Slave law was a com promise, so that we might be friends of the South. They said in 1850-'52: " If you catch the slave we will be your friend; " and they tell us now: " If you let us trample upon the rights of the black man in the South, we will be your friend." I don't want their friendship on such terms. (Applause.) I am a friend of my friend and an enemy of my enemy. (Applause.) That is my doctrine. We might as well be honest about it. (Laughter.) Under that doctrine of State rights, such men as I see before me bankers, brokers, merchants, gentlemen were expected to turn themselves into hounds and chase the poor fugitive that had been lured by the love of liberty and guided by the glittering Northern star. (Great applause.) The Democratic party wanted you to keep your trade with the South, no matter to what depths of degradation you had to sink, and the Democratic party to-day says, if you want to sell your goods to the Southern people, you must throw your honor and manhood into the streets. (Applause. Cries of " No; never.") The patronage of the splendid North is enough to support the city of New York. (Applause.) IN FAVOR OF PROTECTION. There is another thing. Why is the city here filled with palaces covered with wealth? Because American labor has been protected. (Great applause.) I am in favor of protec tion to American labor everywhere. (Applause.) I am in favor of protecting American brain and muscle; I am in favor of giving scope to American ingenuity and American skill. (Great cheers.) We want a market at home, and GREAT SPEECHES. 183 the only way to have it is to have mechanics at home, and the only way to have mechanics is to have protection; and the only way to have protection is to vote the Republican ticket. (Great cheers.) You business men in New York know that General Garfield (tremendous cheers,) under stands these great (A voice, " Three cheers for Gen. Gar- field ! " These were given with vigor.) I was going to say that he knows what the tariff means; he understands the best interests, not only of New York, but the entire country. (Applause.) And you want to stand by the men who will stand by you. What does a simple soldier know about the wants of the city of New York? What does he know about the wants of this great and splendid country? If he does not know more about them than he knows about the tariff, he doesn't know much. (Great laughter.) I don't like to hit the dead. (Renewed laughter.) My hatred stops with the grave, and we are going to bury the Demo cratic party next Tuesday. (Cheers.) The pulse is feeble now (laughter,) and if that party proposes to take advantage of the last hour, it is time that it goes into the repenting business. (Great laughter.) Nothing pleases me better than to see the condition of that party to-day. What do the Democrats know on the subject of the tariff? They are frightened; they are ratting. (Great laughter.) They swear their plank and platform meant nothing. They say in effect: "When we put that in we lied; and now, hav ing made that confession, we hope you will have perfect confidence in us from this out." (Great cheers and laughter.) Hancock says that the object of the party is, to get the tariff out of politics. That is the reason, I suppose, why they put that plank in the platform. (Laughter.) I pre sume he regards the tariff as a little local issue, but I tell you to-day that the great question of protecting Americar 184 COL. INGERSOLL'S labor never will be taken out of politics. (Applause.) As long as men work, as long as the laboring man has a wife and family to support; just so long will he vote for the man that will protect his wages. (" Good, good," and cheers.) And you can no more take it out of politics than you can take the question of Government out of politics. (Cheers.) I don't want any question taken out of politics. (Applause.) I want the people to settle these questions for themselves and the people of this country are capable of doing it. (Great cheers.) If you don't believe it, read the returns from Ohio and Indiana. (Great cheers.) There are other persons who would take the question of office out of politics. (Great laughter.) Well, when we get the tariff and office both out of politics, then, I presume, we will see two parties on the same side. It won't do. (Laughter.) David A. Wells has come to the rescue of the Democratic party on the tariff, and shed a few pathetic tears over scrap iron. But it won't do. (Laughter.) You can not run this country on scraps. (Laughter.) We believe in the tariff be cause it gives skilled labor good pay. We believe in the tar iff because it allows the laboring man to have something to eat. We believe in the tariff because it keeps the hands of the producer close to the mouth of the devourer. (Ap plause.) We believe in the tariff because it developed Amer ican brain; because it builds up our towns and cities; be cause it makes Americans self-supporting; because it makes us an independent Nation. (Applause.) And we believe in the tariff because the Democratic party don't. (Laughter.) That plank in the Democratic party was intended for a dag ger to assassinate the prosperity of the North. The North ern people have become aroused, and that is the plank that is broken in the Democratic platform; and that plank was wide enough when it broke to let even Hancock through. (Laughter.) GREAT SPEECHES. 185 DESPERATE EESOKTS OF THE DEMOCRATS. Gentlemen, they are gone. (" Honor brightl ") They are gone honor bright. (Laughter.) Look at the desper ate means that have been resorted to by the Democratic party, driven to the madness of desperation. .Not satisfied with having worn the tongue of slander to the very tonsils, not satisfied with attacking the private reputation of a splendid man not satisfied with that, they have appealed to a crime; a deliberate and infamous forgery has been com mitted. (Loud applause " Hit him hard.") That forgery has been upheld by some of the leaders of the Democratic party; that forgery has been defended by men calling them selves respectable. (" Give it to them.") Leaders of the Democratic party have stood by and said that they were acquainted with the handwriting of James A. Garfield, and that the handwriting in the forged letter was his, when they knew that it was absolutely unlike his. They knew it, and no man has certified that it was the writing of James A. Garfield who did not know that in his throat of throats he told a falsehood. (Applause.) Every honest man in the city of New York ought to leave such a party if he belongs to it. (" Go for Hewitt.") Ev ery honest man (repeated cries of " Go for Hewitt.") ought to refuse to belong to the party that did such an infamous crime. (" Go for Hewitt") What is the use of going for Hewitt when all New York is going for Hewitt? (Laugh ter.) And there is no man in this city going for Hewitt like Hewitt himself. Senator Barnum, Chairman of the Democratic Committee, has lost control. He is gone, and I will tell you what he puts me in mind of. There was an old fellow used to come into town every Saturday and get drunk. Ho had a little 1 86 COL. INGERSOLL'S yoke of oxen, and the boys, out of pity, used to throw him into the wagon and start the oxen for home. Just before he got home they had to go down a long hill, and the oxen when they got to the brow of it, commenced to run. Now and then the wagon struck a stone and gave the fellow an awful jolt, and that would wake him up. After he had looked up and had one glance at the cattle, he would fall helplessly back to the bottom, and always say, " Gee a lit tle, if anything." (Laughter.) And that is the only order that Barnurn has been able to give for the two weeks u Gee a little, if anything." (Laughter.) I tell you now that forgery makes doubly sure the election of James A. Garfield. (Applause.) The people of the North believe in honest dealing; the people of the North believe in free speech and in an honest ballot. (Applause.) The people of the North believe that this is a Nation; the people of the North hate treason; the people of the North hate forgery (tremendous cheering); the people of the North hate slander. The peo ple of the North have made up their minds to give to Gen. Garfield a vindication of which any American may be for ever proud. (Loud applause.) GEN. GAEFIELD'S CAREER. I will tell you why I am for Garfield. (Laughter.) I know him, and I like him. ("Good enough.") No man has been nominated for the office since I was born, by either party, who had more brains and more heart than James A. Garfield. (Loud applause.) He was a soldier, he is a statesman. In time of peace he preferred the avocations of peace; when the bugle of war blew in his ears he withdrew from his work and fought foi the flag (cheers), and then he went back to the avocation of peace. And I say to-day that a man who, in a time of profound peace, makes up his REAT SPEECHES. mind that he would like to kill folks for a living (laughter) is no better, to say the least of it, than the man who loves peace in the time of peace, and who, when his country is attacked, rushes to the rescue of her flag. (Loud cheers.) James A. Garfield is to-day a poor man, and you know that there is not money enough in this magnificent street to bny the honor and manhood of James A. Garfield. (En thusiastic applause.) Money cannot make such a man ? and I will swear to you that money cannot buy him. (Re newed applause.) James A. Garfield to-day wears the glo rious robe of honest poverty. He is a poor man, but I like to say it here in Wall street; 1 like to say it surrounded by the millions of America; I like to say it in the midst of banks, and bonds and stocks; I love to say it where gold is piled, that, although a poor man, he is rich in honor, in integrity he is wealthy, and in brain he is a millionaire. (Loud applause.) I know him, and I like him. (" So do we," and renewed applause.) So do you all, gentlemen. Garfield was a poor boy; he is a certificate of the splendid form of our Government. Most of these magnificent build ings have been built by poor boys; ("That's so.") most of the success of New York began almost in poverty You know it. The kings of this street were once poor, and they may be poor again (laughter); and if they ar.e fools enough to vote for Hancock they ought to be. (Loud laughter and cheers.) Gartield is a certificate of the splendor of our Gov ernment, that says to every poor boy: "All the avenues of honor are open to you." I know him, and I like him. He is a scholar; he is a statesman; he was a soldier; he is a patriot; and above all, he is a magnificent man (loud cheers); and if every man in New York knew him as well as I do, Garfield would not lose a hundred votes in this city. (" We will all be true to him," and cheers.) And yet this is the 1 88 COL. INGERSOLL'S man against whom the Democratic party has been howling its filth; this is the great and good man whom the Demo crats have slandered from the day of his nomination until now; this, the statesman, the soldier, the scholar, the patriot is the man against whom the Democratic party was willing to commit the crime of forgery. Compare him with Hancock, and then compare Gen. Ar thur with William H. English. (" Ohl " " Oh ! and laugh ter.) If there ever was a pure Republican in this world, Gen. Arthur is one. (Cheers.) Now, gentlemen, (" Give us something about English,") there is no use my talk ing about English. I have made up my mind to avoid un pleasant subjects. (Laughter.) WHAT WOULD FOLLOW HANCOCK'S ELECTION. You know in Wall street there are some men always prophesying disaster; there are some men always selling " short." (Laughter.) That is what the Democratic party is doing to-day. You know as well as I do that if the Democratic party succeeds, every kind of property in the United States will depreciate. ("That's so." "True enough.") You know it. There is not a man on the street who, if he knew Hancock was to be elected would not sell the stocks and bonds of every railroad in the United States* " short." (Laughter.) I dare any broker here to deny it There is not a man in Wall or Broad streets, or in New York, but what knows the election of Hancock will depreci ate every share of railroad stock, every railroad bond, every Government bond, in the United States of America. And if you know that, I say it is a crime to vote for Hancock and English. (Loud cheers.) I belong to a party that is prosperous when the country is prosperous. That's me. (Laughter.) I belong to the GREAT SPEECHES. 189 party that believes in good crops; that is glad when a fel low finds a gold mine; that rejoices when there are forty bushels of wheat to the acre; that laughs when every rail road declares dividends; that claps both of its hands when every investment pays; when the rain falls for the farmer, when the dew lies lovingly upon the grass. I belong to the party that is happy when the people are happy; when the laboring man gets $3 a day; when he has roast beef on his table (laughter); when he has a carpet on the floor; when he has a picture of Garfield on the wall. (Laughter and applause.) I belong to the party that is happy when everybody smiles; when we have plenty of money, good horses ("That's you "), good carriages; when our wives are happy and our children feel glad. (Loud applause.) I be long to the party whose banner floats side by side with the great flag of the country; that does not grow fat on defeat. (Laughter.) The Democratic party is a party of famine; it is a good friend of an early frost (laughter); it believes in the Colorado beetle and in the weevil. (Renewed laugh ter.) When the crops are bad the Democratic mouth opens from ear to ear with smiles of joy; it is in partnership with bad luck; a friend of empty pockets; rags help it. I am on the other side. The Democratic party is the party of darkness. I belong to the party of sunshine, and to the party that even in darkness believes that the stars are shin ing and waiting for us. (Applause.) WHY THE REPUBLICAN PARTY SHOULD BE SUPPORTED. Now, gentlemen, I have endeavored to give you a few reasons for voting the Republican ticket; and I have given enough to satisfy any reasonable man. And you know it. (Laughter.) Don't you go with the Democratic party, young man. You have got a character to make. You can 190 COL. INGERSOLL'S not make it, as the Democratic party does, by passing a reso lution. (Laughter.) If your father voted the Democratic ticket, that is disgrace enough for one family. (Roars of laughter.) Tell the old man that you can stand it no longer. Tell the old gent that you have made up your mind to stand with the party of human progress; and if he asks you why you cannot vote the Democratic ticket, yoi\ tell him: "Every man that tried to destroy the Govern ment, every man that shot at the holy flag in heaven, every man that starved our soldiers, every keeper of Libby, An- dersonville and Salisbury, every man that wanted to burn the negro, every one that wanted to scatter yellow fever in the North, every man that opposed human liberty, that re garded the auction -block as an altar and the howling of the bloodhound as the music of the Union, every man who wept over the corpse of slavery, that thought lashes on the naked back were a legal-tender for labor performed, every one willing to rob a mother of her child every solitary one was a Democrat." (Applause.) Tell him you can not stand that party. Tell him you have to go with the Republican party, and if. he asks you why, tell him it destroyed slavery; it preserved the Union; it paid the National debt; it made our credit as good as that of any nation on the earth. ("Better," and applause.) Tell him it makes a four per cent, bond worth $1.10; that it satisfies the demands of the highest civilization; that it made it possible for every greenback to hold up its hand and swear, " I know that my redeemer liveth." (Laughter and applause.) Tell the old man that the Republican party preserved the honor of the Nation ; that it believes in edu cation; that >t looks upon the school house as a cathedral. (Applause.) Tell him that the Republican party believes in absolute intellectual liberty, in absolute religious free- GREAT SPEECHES. IQI dom, in human rights, and that human rights rise above States. Tell him that the Republican party believes in humanity, justice, human equality, and that the Republican party believes this a Nation for ever and ever (applause); that an honest ballot is the breath of the Republic's life ("Good, good "); that honest money is the blood ol the Re public, and that Nationality is the great throbbing beat of the heart of the Republic. (Great cheers.) Tell him that; and tell him that you are going to stand by the flag that the patriots North carried upon the battle-field of death. (Cheers.) Tell him that you are going to be true to the martyred dead; that you are going to vote exactly as Lin coln would have voted were he living. (" Good ! " " Good ! " and cheers.) Tell him that every traitor dead, were he liv ing now, there would issue from his lips of dust, " Hurrah for Hancock" (laughter); that could every patriot rise be would cry for Garfield and liberty (cheers), for union and for human progress everywhere. (Great cheers.) Tell him that the South seeks to secure by the ballot what it lost by the bayonet ("No, no, never"); to whip by the ballot those who fought it in the field. But we saved the country, and we have got the heart and brains to take care of it. (Cheers.) I will tell you what we are going to do. We are going to treat them in the South just as well as we treat the people in the North. (Great cheers.) Victors cannot afford to have malice. (Cheers.) The North is too magnanimous to have hatred. (Cheers.) We will treat the South precisely as we treat the North. (Applause.) There are thousands of good people there. ("Good!'' " Good! " and cheers.) Let us give them money to improve their rivers and harbors; I want to see the sails of their commerce filled with the breeze of prosperity (cheers); their fences rebuilt (applause); their houses painted. ("Goodl " 192 COL. INGERSOLLS Good! ") I want to see their towns prosperous; I want to see sehoolhouses in every town ("Good!" "Good! "and cheers); I want to see books in the hands of every child, and papers and magazines in every house (chee:s); I want to see all the rays of light of the civilization of the nine teenth century enter every home of the South (cheers); and in a little while you will see that country full of good He- publicans. (Roars of laughter.) "We can afford to be kind; we cannot afford to be unkind. (Cheers.) I will shake hands cordially with every believer in human liberty; I will shake hands with every believer in Nationality. (Ap plause.) I will shake hands with every man who is a friend of the human race. (Cheers.) That is my doctrine. I believe in the great Republic, in this magnificent country of ours. (Cheers.) I believe in the great people of the United States. (Cheers.) I believe in the muscle and brain of America, in the prairies and forests. I believe in New York. (Cheers.) I believe in the brain of 3 r our city. I believe that you know enough to vote the Republican ticket. (Great applause.) I b >iieve that you are grand enough to stand by the country that has stood by you (Cheers.) But whatever you do, I shall never cease to thank you for the great honor you have conferred upon me this day. (Great and long-continued cheering.) SUNSET. 194 COL. INGERSOLL'S Speech in Cooper Institute, New York, Sept 11, 1876. . (Chicago Evening Journal.') LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : I am just on my way home from the gallant State of Maine, and there has followed me a telegraphic dispatch which I will read to you. If it was not good you may swear I would not read it. " Every Congressional district, every county in Maine, Republican by a large majority. (Cheers and cries of "That is reform!") The victory is overwhelming, and the majority will, 1 think, exceed 15,000." That dispatch i - signed by that knight-errant of political chivalry, James G. Elaine. THE TWO PARTIE^ COMPARED. My friends, two political parties are asking the votes of the people; the one wishes to retain power that it has held for sixteen years, the other wisiies office. The Democratic party, with the hungry, starving eyes of a wolf, has been looking in at the National Capitol and scratching at the doors of the White House for sixteen years. Occasionally it has retired to some congenial eminence and lugubriously howled about the constitution. The Republican party comes to you with its record open, and asks every man. woman and child in this broad country to read its every word; and 1 say to you, there is not a line, a paragraph, or a page in that record that is not only an honor to the Re publican party, but to the human race. On every page of that record is recorded some great and glorious action, done either for the liberty of man or the preservation of our com mon country. We ask everybody to read its every word. GREAT SPEECHES. 195 The Democratic party comes before you with its record closed, a record of blot and blur, and stain and treason, and slander and malignity, and asks you not to read a soli tary word of what it has done, but be kind enough to take its infamous promise for what it will do. Allow me to say here that character good character, rests upon a record and not upon a prospectus. A man has a good or a bad character, by what he has really done, by what he has really accomplished, and not by what he promises to do. If promises would make a good reputation, Samuel J. Tilden and the Democratic party would have one in twenty-four hours. I propose to tell you this evening, my friends, a little of the history of the Republican party, a little of the history of the Democratic party, and first the Republican party. THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. The United States of America is a free country; it is the only free country on this earth; it is the only republic that was ever established among men. We have read we have heard of the Republic of Greece, of Egypt, and of Venice. We have heard of the free cities of Europe. There never was a republic in Venice, there never was a republic in Rome, there never was a republic in Athens, there never was a free city in Europe, there never was a government not cursed with caste, there never was a govern ment not cursed with slavery, there never was a government not cursed with almost every infamy until the Republican party of the United States made this a free Nation. I want no grander, no higher title or nobility than this, that I belong to the Republican party, and did a little towards making the Republican party a fact. In order for you to ascertain what the Republican party did for us for us (I mean to 196 COL. INGERSOLL'S refresh ourselves, for we all know it, but it is well enough to say it now and then in order to refresh ourselves,) in or der to understand what this great party has accomplished, let us for a moment consider the state of the country when the Republican party was born. When the Republican party was born there was on the statute book of the United States of America a law known as the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, under the provisions of which every man in the State of New York was made by law a bloodhound, and could be set, could be hissed, upon a negro who was sim ply attempting to attain his birthright of freedom, the same as you would hiss a dog upon a wild beast. That was the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. It made every man, every Northern man, a dog; it put round his neck a collar, and they did not have the decency to put a man's name on the collar, but they put the name of his master. I have said it in the State of Maine several times, and I expect to say it several times again, although I heard I outraged the relig ious sentiment of the Democratic party and shocked the piety of that organization by say ing it. I did say there, and now I Bay here: THE FUGITIVE LAW OP 1850 would have disgraced hell in her palmiest days. At the same time in nearly all of the Western States there was a law by virtue of which hospitality became an indictable offense. There was a law by virtue of which charity became a crime, and a man, simply for an act of kindness exercised, could be indicted, imprisoned, and fined. It was the law of Illi nois, of my State, that if I gave a drop of cold water, or a crust of bread, to a poor fugitive from slavery, I could be in dicted, fined and imprisoned. Under the infamous Slave Law of 1850, under the infamous Black laws of the Western States GREAT SPEECHES. 197 when the Republican party was born, if a woman, ninety- nine one hundred the white, had escaped from slavery carry ing her child in her arms, had gone through wilderness and tangle and swamp and river, and finally got within one foot of free soil, with the light of the North star beckoning her to freedom, it would hav-e been an indictable offense to have given her a drop of water and a crust of bread. And under the Fugitive Slave law it would have been the duty of a Northern citizen claiming to be a freeman, to clutch that woman and hand her back to the dominion of the hound, the Democrat, and the lash. What more? The in stitution of slavery had polluted and corrupted the church not only in the South, but a large proportion of the church in the North, so that ministers stood up in their pulpits here and in New England, and defended the very laws that I have mentioned. Not only so, but the Presbyterian Church South, in 1863, met in General Synod and passed three resolutions, two of which were: " fiesolved, That slavery is a divine institution; Resolved, That God raised up the Presbyterian Church South to protect and perpetuate that institution." All I have to say is, that if God did it, He never chose a more infamous instrument to carry out a more diabolical object. What more had slavery done? It had corrupted our courts so that, in nearly every State of the Union, if a Democrat had gone to the hut of a poor negro, and shot down his wife and children before his very eyes, and strangled the babe in the cradle, his testimony was valueless, and he was not allowed to appear before the Grand Jury and prosecute the wretch. Justice to him was not only blind, but was deaf, and that was the idea of justice in the United States when the Republican party was born. When that party wag boro 198 COL. INGERSOLL'S THE BAT OP THE BLOODHOTTND was the music of the Nation. The dome of the Capitol at "Washington cast its shadow upon slave pens in which crouched and shuddered mothers from whose breasts babes had been torn by wretches who are now for honesty and reform. Then, if a poor negro had tilled a farm and watered it with the sweat of honest labor, and if a Democrat came along and seized upon the results of his labor, the courts of the United States did not know to whom that corn be longed. And when that question came to be tried, the learned judges read all the books and the platforms of the Democratic party, and pushed their spectacles back on their noble and expansive foreheads, and came to the conclusion that the Democrats owned that corn. At the time the Re publican party came into existence, slavery was not satis fied with being local, but endeavored to use its infamous leprosy, as it were, for pushing it into every Territory of the United States. Recollect the condition of the country at that time. Boats went down the Missouri river loaded with wives torn from their husbands, with children torn from the breasts of their mothers, while the same men who did this are now shouting for Tilden and reform. -At that time we were a nation of hypocrites. We pretended to be a free Government It was a lie. We pretended to have a free constitution. It was a lie. We pretended to have justice in our courts. It was a lie. Above all our pretenses, and above all our hypocrisies, rose the crime of slavery like Chimborazo above the clouds. The Repub lican party came into existence in I860, when it elected GREAT SPEECHES. 199 ABRAHAM LINCOLN, the greatest man that was ever President of the United States. As soon as he was elected the South said: " "We will not stay in the Union." The South said: "You have no right to elect a man opposed to the extension of human slavery," and James Buchanan said that they had a right to go out of the Union, and there was another little man who said, " I saj so, too," and his name was Samuel J. Tilden. He read the constitution of the United States and several Democratic platforms, and decided that the Government had no right to do anything except to defend slavery. Recollect that James Buchanan was an old bachelor not only, but a Democrat. Recollect that, and say to your selves, " Why should we ever trust a man or elect him President of the United States, who prefers the embraces of the Democratic party to the salvation of the country?" Now, in view of this fact, I want every man to swear that he will never vote for an old bachelor again. The Demo crat claimed that this was not a nation. It was simply a confederacy, and that the old banner of the stars represented a contract commencing with, "Know all men by these presents, that this don't represent a great and glorious and sublime people, but it represents a confederacy." That was the doctrine of the Democratic party South. It was the doctrine of the Democratic party North. It is still the doctrine of the Democratic party North and South. The Democratic party in the South collected themselves together for the purpose of breaking up this Union. The Repub lican party said to them, " You try and break up this Union and we will break your necks," and they did it The Re publican party came into power on the heels of the Bu chanan administration. The treasury was empty of coin a 2 COL. INGERSOLL'S the Democratic party was of patriotism and honor. We had to borrow money of whom we could. "VTe had to issue BONDS AKD GREE>~BACKS. What for! Why, to buy shot and shell and muskets to shoot enough Demo-rats to save the Union. There was a division then forced upon the people of the country, not into Democrats and Republicans, but into patriots and traitors; and thousands and thousands went out of the Democratic party to aid the Government to put down the rebellion. But every one who thus went into the service of the country, was then known as a Republican, and those who were against the Government were known as Demo crats. These Democrats went into the markets of the world, and they maligned and they slandered these efforts to raise money to sustain the Government in its time of trial. They said, "Your bonds can never be paid, and your greenbacks are unconstitutional;" and to such an extent did they so slander and malign and calumniate the Gov ernment that at one time gold was 290, which meant that a greenback was 34 cents on the dollar. Where were the other 66 cents? They were slandered and calumniated out by the Democratic party of the North, and every time you workingmen blister your hands to pay a debt, take off the blister and under it yon will find a Democratic lie. The Republican party has done nothing for sixteen years that it has not been proud oi The Democratic party has done nothing for sixteen years that it is not ashamed o Phe Republican has not done one thing that was not for the public interests of the government for sixteen ve&rs. The history of the Democratic party i* GREAT SPEECHES. JOI AS EPITAPH. The Democratic party to-day is searching around in the old political cemetery of the by-gone ages for a standard-bear er. They have raised np in Massachusetts that old ceme tery reminiscence, Charles Francis Adams, who had his henchmen at Cincinnati, hoping that he would get the nom ination from the Republican party there, and who was equally willing to take it at St. Louis, and who was also willing to be the Republican nominee in Massachusetts, but finally the Democratic party, wishing for some evidence of respectability, and knowing that no live man would lend his name to them for a moment, have groped in this old ceme tery and have fished out Mr. Adams. The law against vio lating the sacredness of the tomb ought to be enforced. The Democratic party was not willing that this conn, try should be saved unless slavery should be saved with it There was never a Democrat North or South and by that I mean those who were opposed to the Union who did not think more of the existence of slavery than of the government of the United States. They made a breast work of the constitution for rebels to get behind and shoot loyal men. The next thing they did was to discourage en listments in the North. They did all in their power to pre vent men from going into the army, and that great states man, Samuel J. Tilden, gave it as his opinion that the South could sue and that every soldier that put his foot on the sacred soil of the South would be a trespasser, and could be sued before a Justice of the Peace. They de nounced the war as an Abolition war in their conventions, and they denounced Abraham Lincoln as a tyrant. Of all the men on earth who had been clothed with almost abso lute power, Abraham Lincoln was one, and I know of no 2O2 COL. INGERSOLL'S other man living or in history, who used that power without abusing it except on the side of mercy. They said to the rebels, " Hold on; hold hard; fight on until we get political possession of the North, and then you can go in peace." There was a man by the name of Jacob Thompson, a very nice man and a good Democrat. This man had the misfortune to be a very vigorous Democrat, and I mean by that that during the war a Democrat who had a musket was a rebel, and a rebel that did not have a musket was a Dem ocrat. I call Mr. Thompson a vigorous Democrat, because he did have a musket. He was sent by the rebel Govern ment as their agent to Canada. When he went there he took with him between seven and eight thousand dollars in money for the purpose of assisting the Northern Dem ocracy. He got himself acquainted with the Democratic party in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The vigorous Demo crats or real Democrats of those cities had organized them selves under the heads of "SONS OP LIBERTY," " Knights of the Golden Circle," " Order of the Star," and various other names. They held meetings in Chicago, In dianapolis and St. Louis, their object being to raise fires in those places; in other words, to burn down the homes of Union soldiers while they were in the field fighting for the preservation of the country. This was their object, and they immediately put themselves in communication with Jacob Thompson. On the 6th of August, 1864, they held a meeting in Peoria, and there were Democrats there from every part of the State. In that meeting a letter was read, received from the Hon. Fernando Wood, of New York, of whom I think you have heard,in which he said that,although not present in the body, he was there in spirit George Pen- GREAT SPEECHES. dleton, George E. Pugh, and other prominent gentlemen, sent their apologies and regrets. I was at that meeting and read some of the apologies. They denounced the war as an Abolition war; they denounced Americans as tyrants. They said, " Rouse brothers and hurl the tyrant Lincoln from his throne." The men who made speeches at that meeting are now running for the most important political offices in Illi nois to-day on the ticket of " Honesty and Reform." Jacob Thompson wrote home and we found his letter in the rebel archives, and he describes the meeting and says that he fur nished the money to pay the expenses of that Democatic meeting. The expenses of that meeting were paid by rebel gold by Jacob Thompson, and he has got filed a voucher or receipt from these Democrats, who are now in favor of Til- den and Hendricks. They held their next meeting in Springfield, the next in Indianapolis, all the expenses of which were paid by this rebel agent. They went further and shipped to these towns arms for these rebels in boxes marked Sunday-School books. I said the expenses of these Democratic meetings were paid for by rebel money, and their object was to burn the homes of soldiers while they were battling for the equality of human lives. This rebel agent hired another rebel agent by the name of Churchill. He tried to burn Cincinnati and is now a good Democrat. At Indianapolis a man by the name of Dodge was made a leader of their party, and he became so sound that they were obliged to put him in Fort La Fayette. The Democrats then met in Chicago and among other things declared the WAR TO BE A FAILURE. There never was, friends, a more infamous lie told on the face of this earth. It was only a few days afterward that the gnns of Farragut and the achievements of the men in 204 COL. INGERSOLL'S the field said they lied. Soldiers who fell in support of this country, rise from your graves and lift your skeleton hands on high, and swear that when the Democratic party uttered these words they lied. We then grew magnanimous and let Dodge out of Fort La Fayette. Where do you suppose Dodge is now? He is in Wisconsin. What do you suppose he is doing? Making speeches. Who for and what for? Tilden, Hendricks, hon esty and reform. This same Jacob Thompson whom the Democratic party shielded this same man hired men to- burn down the city of New York. Right in this great and splendid city of New York, that sits so like a queen on the Atlantic, men rose up in mobs to burn down asylums sim ply because their walls sheltered the offspring of another race. Every one who raised his hand against these institu. tions should have had his brains crushed to atoms. It was a disgrace to humanity itself. Every man that was in that mob is to-night for Tilden, honesty and reform. Recollect, my friends, that it was the Democratic party that did these devilish things when the great heart of the North was filled with agony and grief. Recollect that they did these things when the future of your country and mine was trembling in the balance of war; recollect that they did these things when the question was liberty, or slavery and perish; recollect that they did these things when your brothers, husbands and dear ones were bleeding or dying on the battle-fields of the South, lying there alone afnight, the blood slowly oozing through the wounds of death; when your brothers, husbands and sons were lying in the hospi tals dreaming of home pictures they loved. Recollect that the Democracy did these things when those dear to you were in the prison pens, with no covering by night except the sky, with no food but what the worms refused, with no friends except insanity and death. GREAT SPEECHES. THE REPUBLICAN PLATFOBM. Now, my friends, I have said a few things to yon abont the Republican party, and a few things abont the Demo cratic party. With a few more words I will quit thif branch of the subject. Allow me to say that the platform of the Republican party is as broad as humanity itself. Il ask all to come and help and to join it who are in favor of human advancement. It is broad enough for Catholic, foi Old School Presbyterians, for Methodists and for infidels, provided they are in favor of the eternal equality of human rights; and the Republican party in its magnanimity goes even further; it is willing that the Democrat should vote its ticket. Beyond that, magnanimity cannot go. The Republicans believe in giving to every man the re sult of the labor of his own hands; will allow every man to do his own thinking and express his own thoughts, what ever they may be. In the Republican way there is room for every one. Now then, my friends, the first question which is upon us is about PAYING THAT DEBT which we contracted for powder with which to shoot these Democrats, and the next is about protecting the citizens of this country, both white and black. "We owe a large debt, two thirds of it, as I tell you, caused by the action and measures of the Democratic party. Recollect that always. There are some people who have an idea that we can defer the fulfillment of a promise so long that it will amount to a fulfillment. There are some people who have an idea that the Government can make money by stamping its sov ereignty upon a piece of paper. The Government of the United States is a perpetual pauper. It passes the hat all 206 COL. INGERSOLL'S the time, and it has a musket behind the hat. But at the same time it produces nothing itself. The Government don't'plow the land; the Government don't make the bricks; the Government don't chop down the trees and saw them into lumber. The Government is a perpetual pauper, and the Government cannot support the people, but the people have to support the Government. The idea that the Gov ernment can issue money for the people to live upon is the same as the idea that my hired man can issue certificates of my indebtedness to him for me to live on. The United States got broke. It had no money. I have been, I think, fixed that way a hundred times. Then it did as I did. It had to go and borrow money, and every green back was a forced loan. The only difference between that of the United States and mine is that mine is not a legal tender. If I had the power I would have made them so. We borrowed the money and we have got to pay it, and the people have got to pay it. And the debt represents the loss inflicted upon the country by the war. That is all by the war. All the powder burned, all the shots thrown, all the horses, guns and everything in the aggregate is rep resented by our debt as so much loss, and we will never be a solvent people until our net profits since the war shall amount to as much as we lost during the war. Then we are a square, solvent people. The man that can't under stand that, there is no use of talking to on any subject. This debt is to be paid. As a matter of fact we ought to make the Democratic party pay it. They lost the case. They ought to pay for it. All we ask is that they pay their share, and I tell you it is going to be paid. There is, in the first place, to secure that debt, a mortgage on a conti nent of land. There is a mortgage on the Republican par ty. Also every blade of grass growing in the United States GREAT SPEECHES. 2O/ is a guarantee that the debt shall be paid. Every ear of corn is a guarantee that the debt shall be paid. Every pine tree growing in the somber forest is a guarantee that the debt shall be paid. Every thought is a guarantee that the debt shall be paid. All the coal put away in the ground by that old miser, the sun, is a guarantee that the debt shall be paid. And all the gold and silver in the Sierra Nevadas waiting for the miner's pick is a guarantee that the debt shall be paid; and every good man and every good woman and every babe in the cradle, and all the boys and girls bending over their books at school, and every chap who is going to vote the Republican ticket, is a guarantee that the debt shall be paid. A TELEGRAM FROM ELAINE. Why, don't you see, it keeps coming it keeps coming (as a telegram was handed to him). 1 have been in that country. I have been talking to this people: "We have triumphed by an immense majority, carrying every congressional district and every county in our State; something we have not achieved since 18681" (The audience then gave three rousing cheers and a tiger for James G-. Blaine, by whom the dispatch was signed.) And this dispatch is signed by that man who clutched the Confederate Congress by the throat and held them until their foreheads became as black as their records, and until their tongues spoke out like flags of truce. This is signed by James G. Blaine. Now, then, the question is, who is most apt to fulfill this National debt, the party who made it and swore it was constitutional and legal, or the party that swore it was not constitutional? Every time a Democrat or a rebel sees a greenback it says to him, " I am one of the host that 20 8 COL. INGERSOLL'S vanquished you;'* and every time a Republican sees a greenback it says to him, "You and I put the rebellion down." TILDEN'S ESSAY ON FINANOB. Now, there is a gentleman of the name of Tilden, who has written an essay on finance. Some people call it a let ter of acceptance. Let me say here that under the circum stances I don't think it proper to say any thing of Mr. Til- den personally. He is under the shadow, as I understand it, of a great grief and sorrow; his brother has recently died, and I shall only speak of his political action. "With Samuel J. Tilden as a man I sincerely sympathize; with Samuel J. Tilden as a politician, I do not. Now, we have been told in this essay that one of the great preventatives of paying this debt is having a time fixed when to pay it. I have never taken any notes that I recollect of that there was not something said in the note about when it was to be paid; and I had always supposed that it was an exceedingly important part of the note that there be at least an indi rect allusion to some age or epoch at which the maker thereof proposed to liquidate the aforesaid note. But I find all this time I have been mistaken, and that nothing in the world will prevent it being paid so quick as to have the date fixed when it is to be paid. Tilden says the reason of this is that you cannot pay a note without wise preparation, and a wise system of preparation, and to have a date fixed plays the very devil with a wise preparation. He also tells us that it is necessary to have a central reservoir of coin, and that if you fix the date the reservoir is an impossibil ity. He also tells us that you must approach this thing by a slow and gradual process, and that if you have a day fixed you cannot make your process gradual enough. Now let GREAT SPEECHES. 209 me read what he says: "How shall the Government make these notes (greenbacks) at all times as good as speciel" Well, in my humble view, I had supposed the way to do was to be ready to redeem. I had, really. Tilden says: u It has to provide in reference to the mass which would be kept in use by the wants of business, a central reservoir of coin, adequate to the adjustment of the temporary fluctua tions of the international balance." 1 would like to say to the gentleman who gave me a note, I want the date, and I will tell you why: "I have to pro- Tide, sir, in reference to the mass which would be kept in use by the wants of business, a central reservoir of coin, ad equate to the adjustment of the temporary fluctuations of the international balance." But Mr. Tilden did not entirely disgorge his mind on this subject, so he says: " as a guaranty against transient drains, artificially created by panic or by speculation. It has also to provide for the payment in coin of such fractional currency as may be presented for redemption, and such inconsiderable por tion of legal tenders as individuals may from time to time desire to convert for special use, or in order to lay by in coin their little store of money. If wisely planned and dis creetly pursued, it ought not to cost any sacrifice to the business of the country. It should tend, on the contrary, to the revival of hope and confidence. "The proper time for the resumption is the time when wise preparation shall have ripened into perfect ability to accomplish the object with a certainty and ease that will in spire confidence and encourage the revival of business. The earliest time in which such a result can be brought abont is best." And then he tells you how to do it: " The specific meas- 14 2io COL. INGERSOLL'S ure and actual date are matters of details having reference to ever-changing conditions." That is what I tell the fellow about paying my note. u They belong to the domain of practical, administrative statesmanship. The captain of a steamer, about starting from New York to Liverpool, does not assemble a council over his ocean craft, and fix an angle by which to lash the rudder for the whole voyage." Mr. Tilden then speaks about going to Liverpool. " A human intelligence must, be at the helm to discern the shifting forces of water and wind." Especially the wind, I take it. Then speaking of legislation on the subject, he says: "They are a snare and a delusion to all who trust them." I will read a little more and then I will stop. He says that it is impossible to fix the day, because you can not know what the fluctuating balances of Europe will be; you can't tell how the water will be nor how the wind blows; you must let it remain unfixed. I want to know if the Republican Congress did not know that they could re deem on the 1st of January, 1879, how did the Democratic convention know they could not? How did they find out so much of water and wind and the fluctuating balances be tween this and Europe? How did they ascertain so much about the central reservoir of coin ? How did they ascer tain these when it was impossible for us to ascertain any thing about it? If the Democratic party can say it can't be done in January, 1879, it seems to me that the Repub lican Congress could easily know enough to know it can be done. Mr. Tilden spoke of the gradual and safe process of resumption, but he did not tell us what it must be. Pie simply says he can't tie a rudder to a particular angle. He says you must trust to " human intelligence," the human intelligence being Tilden, and in case of his demise, Hen- GREAT SPEECHES. ail dricks,and they won't tell a thing until thecrisis arrives. This is what he says. Now, suppose I read this letter, and, af ter having read it, got at the atmosphere, en rapport you know what I mean that I was full of it, and that I wrote in the same vein. Suppose I should, in the most solemn and impressive manner, tell you that the fluctuations caused in the vital stability of shifting financial operations, not to say speculations of the wildest character, cannot be rendered instantly accountable to a true financial theory, based upon the great law that the superfluous is not a ne cessity, except in the vague thoughts of persons unac quainted with the exigencies of the hour, and cannot, in the absence of a central reservoir of coin with a human intel ligence at the head, hasten by any system of convertible bonds, the expectation of public distrust; no matter how wisely planned and discreetly pursued, failure is assured, whatever the real result may be. HARD MONET. If that is not just like it, I don't know what the differ ence is. Why, if anybody in the world came to you with a note upon which the date of payment was not fixed, yon would say he was either insane or was a rascal. And you would say to -any man in the Union who says he is for specie resumption, and counts the date out, that he is polit ically dishonest. But the Republican party propose re sumption in 1879. Hard money is economy; paper money is extravagance; hard money means economy and national prosperity; we have touched hard-pan in all the business of the country, and now we want hard money to do business on hard-pan with. The Republican party will redeem on the 1st of January, 1879, or if it fails, it will fail as the sol- dier fails to take a fort high up on the rampart with the flag in his hand. 212 COL. INGERSOLL'S PROTECTION OF CITIZENS. The next question is about the protection of our citizens. The Nation that can not protect its citizens at home and abroad ought to be swept from the map of the world. The Democratic party tells us that the United States of Amer ica can protect all of its citizens when they are away from home, but those who are citizens of Louisiana or Missis sippi or any State under our flag, the Government is powerless to protect them. I deny it. I say the Govern ment of the United States not only has the power and un less it does it, it is infinitely dishonorable to protect every citizen at home as well as abroad, but the Government has the right to take its soldiers across any State line or into any city, county, or ward, for the purpose of protecting every man, whether white or black. (Prolonged applause.) The doctrine of the Democratic party is the. old doctrine of secession in disguise that the State of South Carolina or Mississippi must protect its own citizens, but that the Government has nothing to do with it unless the Governor or the Legislature of the State calls upon the General Gov ernment. This is infamous. The United States claims the right to draft every citizen into the army. It claims the right to stand every able-bodied man in front of a cannon in time of war; and now to say that when peace has spread her beautiful wings over our land, when some citizen is struck down, that the United States cannot protect him, when the United States will make him protect it, is infa mous. (Applause and cries of "Good, good.") The flag that will not protect its protectors is a dirty rag. It contam inates the air in which it waves, and if that is the true theory of our Government, I despise it. It is the duty of this Government to see to it that each and everj American GREAT SPEECHES. 213 citizen has all his rights in every State of the Union, peace ably if we can, forcibly if we must. The Kepublican party made the black men of this country citizens. It put the ballot in their hands, and it is the duty of the Republican party to see to it that they have a peaceable opportunity to cast their ballots. There are plenty of men in the South who fought against the Government and who were satisfied with the arbitrament of the war, and who laid down their arms and are Union men to-day. I want the Government to protect them, too. As a general rule, however, the pop ulation of the South is turbulent, and the best men cannot control it, and men are SHOT DOWN FOB OPINION'S 8AKB. It ought to be stopped. It is a disgrace to American civilization. They tell us that the colored men are treated very well! Oh, yes, very well! I read every little while of two peaceable white men going along not thinking of anything, as harmless and inoffensive as lambs, and they are approached by ten or twelve negroes, and the ten or twelve negroes are shot, but the two peaceable white men don't get a scratch. The negroes are the ones to bite the dust; it is infamous. The Democratic party don't care. SamuelJ. Tilden don't care. He knows that many South ern States are to be carried by assassination and murder. He knows that if he is elected President of the United States it will be by assassination and murder, and he is willing that they should go on. It is infamous beyond the expression of language. What party will be most apt to preserve the liberty of the negro, the party that gave it or the party that denied it? Who will be most likely to preserve the liberties of the loyal white men of the South, the men that fought for them or the men that fought against them! 214 COL. INGERSOLL'S TILDEN AND TAMMANY. The Democratic party have as their candidate for the Presidency, Samuel J. Tilden. It is enough for me to say of him that he is a Democrat. He belongs to the Demo cratic party of the city and State of New York. The Democratic party of the city of New York, as I understand it, and we have heard of it out West, never had but two objects, grand and petit larceny. We have always heard out West that Tammany Hall bears the same relation to the penitentiary that a Sunday-school does to the church. I understand that the Democratic party of the city of New York got control of the city when it didn't owe a dollar, and that it has managed to steal until now it owes about one hun dred and sixty millions. I understand that every contract ever made by the Democratic party of the city of New York was larceny in disguise. I understand that every election they ever had was a fraud. I understand that they stole everything they could lay their hands upon, and oh, what hands 1 They grasped and clutched all that it was possible for the people to pay interest upon, and then, clapping their enormous hands to their bursting pockets, they began yelling for honesty and reform. (Laughter and applause.) I understand that Mr. Tilden was a pupil in that school, and that he is now a teacher in that school. I understand that when the war commenced he said that he would never aid in the prosecution of that outrage. I un derstand that he said in 1860 and 1861 that the Southern States could snap the tie of confederation as a nation would break a treaty, and that they could repel coercion as a nation would repel invasion. I understand that during the entire war he was opposed to its prosecution, that he was opposed to the proclamation of emancipation, and demanded that GREAT SPEECHES. 2*5 the document be taken back. I understand that he regret ted to see the chains fall from the Jimbs of the colored man. I understand that he regretted when the constitu tion of the United States was elevated and purified, pure as the driven snow. I understand that he regretted when the stain was wiped from our flag and we stood before the world the only pare Republic that ever existed. It is enough for me to say about him, and since the news from Maine you need not waste your time in talking of him. HAYES AND WHEELER. On the other side there is another man, Rutherford B. Hayes. I want to tell you something about this man. In the first place, he is an honest man, a patriotic man, and when this war commenced Rutherford B. Hayes said: " I would rather go into the war and be killed in the cause of it than live through it and take no part in it." Com pare, if you please, that with Mr. Tilden's refusal to sign h call for a Union meeting in this city of New York, headed by that honored man, who was, at that time, a staunch Dem ocrat, John A. Dix. Rutherford B. Hayes is, as I said, a pa. trioticman; he went and dispersed rebel meetings when Mr. Tilden refused to disperse these meetings. He bears now three wounds in his flesh received while helping his country in this manner. He is also a man of good character, and, as I said before, good character cannot be made in a day; good character is made up of all good things; all the enno bling things accomplished go into 'this grand thing called character, and the character of Rutherford B. Hayes rises be fore the people to-day like a dome of honor, of patriotism and integrity. All the Democratic snakes, with their poison. OUB tongues thrust out, cannot find a crevice in the char, acter of Mr. Hayes into which to deposit their malignity. 216 COL. INGERSOLL'S Imagine a man so good that the Democratic men cannot He about him. I would also say that William A. Wheeler is also as staunch a Republican as ever there was in the party. There is no one a greater advocate of reform than he. DEMOCRATIC MEANNESS. I have told you a little about the condition of the cotmtry when the Republican party was born, what it achieved, and a little about the Democratic party, and a little about Mr. Tilden, and now I am going to wind this thing np. I want you all to recollect that the very men who fought for this Union, with very few exceptions, were Republicans. There were some Democrats, but I cannot tell why they were there. With these exceptions, the Democratic party is made up of the worst elements of society. The worst wards in New York are the ones that will give the largest Democratic majority. There is not a penitentiary in the United States that Tilden and Hendricks cannot carry five to one. In the Democratic party can be found the vicious and foul. The man who wishes to answer an argument with blows, he is in the Democratic party. All men who sympathized with the South in its efforts to destroy this Government are now in the Democratic party; all the men who shot our soldiers at the dead-mark are now for honesty and reform, and if Tilden should be elected President of the United States all these men would be found shouting for Tilden and Hendricks. Now, my friends, keep out of the Demo cratic party; do not vote that ticket; any young man who ie going to cast his first vote, do not place your future in the hands of that party. The Republican party, on the other hand, is the party of reason, of progression and educa tion. The Republican party is the one that believes in the GREAT SPEECHES. equality of human rights. I believe it I am willing to give to every human being every right that I claim for my self. Every man who won't do that is a rascal FREEDOM AND PROGRESS. My friends, I believe the world is going to get better, I do. I believe we are getting better all the time. Samuel J. Tilden says we are a nation of thieves and robbers. I don't believe it. If we were, he ought to be President. I believe we are getting better, and every day the Republican party is in power we will be getting better. And how? By free labor and free thought. Free labor will give us wealth. Free thought will give us truth. Free labor has done ev erything that has been done in the United States, because the problem of free labor is to do the most work in the least time, and slave labor is to do the least work in the most time. (A voice: " How about free schools?") I want free schools, and I want them divorced from sectarian influence. (Tremendous applause and cheers.) I want every school- house to be a true temple of science in which shall be taught the laws of nature, in which the children shall be taught actual facts; and 1 don't want that school-house touched, or that institution of science touched by any su perstition whatever. Leave religion with the church, with the family, and more than all, leave religion with each indi vidual heart and man. Let every man be his own Bishop, let every man be his own Pope, let every man do his own thinking, let every man have a brain of his own. Let every man have a heart and conscience of his own. We are growing better, and truer, and grander. And let me say, Mr. Democrat, we are keeping the country for your children. We are keeping education for your children. We are keeping the old flag floating for your children; and let 218 COL. INGERSOLL'S me say, as a prediction, that there is only air enough on this continent to float that one flag. "Well, you. have heard from Maine, and yon will hear from Ohio and Indiana, and those three silver bugle son nds, Hayes and Wheeler, and the nation hearing those, next No vember, will say that the men who saved our country shall rule; will say that the men who saved the Ship of State shall sail it. And now, ladies and gentlemen, I thank yon again and again. (Loud and long applause.) THE NATIONAL LINCOLN MONUMENT. In Oak Ridge Cemetery i at Springfield, 111. The base of this monument is 72}4 ft. square, and with the circular projection of the catacomb on the north, and memorial hall on the south, the extreme length on the ground from north to south is 119% ft. Height of terrace 15 ft. and 10 in. From the terrace to the apex of the obelisk, 82 ft. 6^ in. From the grade line to the top of the four round pedestals, 28 ft. 4 in., and to the top of the pedastal of the Lincoln Statue, Z5 1 A ft. Total height from ground lin* to apex of obelisk, 98 ft. 4% in. Total expense of erection, about $200,000. 22O COL. INGERSOLL'S Oration at a Child's Grave. (Chicago Tribune, Jam,. 13, WASHINGTON, D. C., Jan. 9tl In a remote corner of the Congressional Cemetery yesterday afternoon, a small group of people with uncovered heads were ranged around a newly- opened grave. They included Detective and Mrs. George O. Miller and family and friends, who had gathered to wit. ness the burial of the former's bright little son Harry, a re cent victim of diphtheria. As the casket rested upon the trestles there was a painful pause, broken only by the moth er's sobs, until the undertaker advanced toward a stout florid-complexioned gentleman in the party and whispered to him, the words being inaudible to the lookers-on. This gentleman was COL. ROBERT G. INGERSOLL, a friend of the Millers, who had attended the funeral at their request He shook his head when the undertaker first addressed him, and then said suddenly, " Does Mrs. Miller desire it? " The undertaker gave an affirmative nod. Mr. Miller looked appealingly toward the distinguished orator, and then Col. Ingersoll advanced to the side of the grave, made a motion denoting a desire for silence, and, in a voice of ex quisite cadence, delivered one of his characteristic eulogies for the dead. The scene was intensely dramatic. A fine drizzling rain was falling, and every head was bent, and ev ery ear turned to catch the impassioned words of eloquence and hope that fell from the lips of GREAT SPEECHES. 221 THE FAMED ORATOB. Col. Ingersoll was unprotected by either hat or nmbrella, and his invocation thrilled his hearers with awe; each eye that had previously been bedimmed with tears brighten ing and sobs becoming hushed. The Colonel said: MY FRIENDS: I know how vain it is to gild a grief with words, and yet I wish to take from every grave its fear. Here in this world, where life and death are equal kings, all should be brave enough to meet what all have met. The future has been filled with fear, stained and polluted by the heartless past. From the wondrous tree of life the buds and blossoms fall with ripened fruit, and in the common bed of earth patriarchs and babes sleep side by side. Why should we fear that which will come to all that is? "We cannot tell. We do not know which is the greatest blessing, life or death. We cannot say that death is not good. We do not know whether the grave is the end of this life or the door of another, or whether the night here is not somewhere else a dawn. Neither can we tell which is the more fortunate, the child dying in its mother's arms before its lips have learned to form a word, or he who journeys all the length of life's uneven road, painfully taking the last slow steps with staff and crutch. Every cradle asks us "Whence?" and every coffin " Whither? " The poor barbarian weeping above his dead can answer the question as intelligently and satisfactorily as the robed priest of the most authentic creed. The tearful ignorance of the one is just as consol ing as THE LEARNED AND UNMEANING WORDS of the other. No man standing where the horizon of a life has touched a grave has any right to prophesy a future filled with pain and tears. It may be that death gives all 3i COL. INGERSOLL'S there is of worth to life. If those who press and strain against our hearts could never die, perhaps that love would wither from the earth. May be a common faith treads from out the paths between our hearts the weeds of selfishness, and I should rather live and love where death is king than have eternal life where love is not. Another life is naught, unless we know and love again the ones who love us here. They who stand with breaking hearts around this little grave need have no fear. The largest and the nobler faith in all that is, and is to be, tells us that death, even at its worst, is only perfect rest. We know that through the com mon wants of life, the needs and duties of each hour, their grief will lessen day by day until at last these graves will be to them a place of rest and peace, almost of joy. There is for them this consolation: The dead do not suffer. If they live again their lives will surely be as good as our?. We have no fear; we are all children of the same mother and the same fate awaits us all. We, too, have our relig ion, and it is this: "Help for the living, hope for thedead.'* At the conclusion of the eloquent oration the little coffin was deposited in its last resting place covered with flowers. I I 224 COL. INGERSOLLS " The Democratic party is a wolf which has been starv ing at the door of this Nation for nearly a score of years. The wolf wants office, and it will keep on wanting." "We are fighting to-day the same party that we fought in all the terrible years thatjbllowed 1860. We are fight ing Democrats, and in the time to which I refer every Democrat with a musket was a rebel, and every rebel with out a musket was a Democrat." " In the hour of their trial the loyal people of the United States wanted money. They wanted money to buy mus kets, and cannon, and shot and shell to kill Democrats with. To get this money they issued promises to pay, and the belief that these promises would be kept was so strong that they got the money they wanted, and they killed Demo crats enough to put a stop to the war and save their coun try." " Naturally the Democrats don't like the promises to pay which did them so much harm, and they would repudiate them if they could, but they cannot. Our debt must be paid, and the Republican party will stay in power until it is paid. In the meantime let all nations know that every blade of corn, every head of golden wheat, all the gold and silver, all the cattle roaming over pastures, prairies and plains, all the coal put away millions of years ago by that old miser the sun, every child in his cradle, every honest man and woman in the United States, is guarantee that the Republican party will keep faith with the men that trusted it when it most needed trust." " Who is Samuel J. Tiiden? Samuel J. Tilden is an at- GREAT SPEECHES. 225 torney. He never gave birth to an elevated or noble senti ment in his life. He is a kind of legal spider watching in a web of technicalities for victims. He is a compound of cunning and heartlessness, of beak and claw and fang. He is one of the few men who can grab a railroad and hide all the deep cuts, tunnels, bridges and culverts in a single night. He is a corporation wrecker. He is a demurrer filed by the Confederate Congress. He waits on the shores of the sea of bankruptcy to clutch the drowning by the throat. He would not save his country if he could. He swore he paid his income tax and he swore to a lie. He knew it. He was never married. Tammany was the only maiden he ever clasped to his withered and heartless breast. He courted men because women cannot vote, and he has adopted a rag baby that really belongs to a person whose name is Hendricks alias ' reform.' At present his princi pal business is explaining or trying to explain, how he came to adopt that child." 15 . PARKS OF CHICAGO. GREAT SPEECHES. 22? INGERSOLL'S PLEA FOR HONEST MONEY. The Fallacies of the Fiat Agitation Exposed in a Characteristic Speech at Malone, N. Y., Oct. 4, 1878. Greenbacks Backed by Gold the Currency for the Country. Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, in his address before the Coun ty Fair Association, spoke as follows upon the financial is sue: We have had in our country a magnificent inflation. We have built within twenty-five years some 75,000 miles of railroad, and in order to build that we spent about $5,000,000,000. Well, there was work for everybody. We had everything growing and there was prosperity all over the land. Everybody worked for everybody, everybody wanted to employ somebody else. In the meantime the war came upon our hands, and in that we spent $10,000,- 000,000. What for? To build up? No; to tear down and destroy. Every single solitary dollar that was spent was wasted by us. But as a matter of fact, we didn't spend the money, we only agreed to. We scattered all over the country certain notes which we agreed to pay, and we have not got them paid yet. In my judgment, it did not take as much patriotism to put down the Rebellion as it will take to pay the debt. A man can bo brave for a few min utes when he is right in the line of battle, and when he looks and sees that nobody else runs. It is comparatively easy to do that, and be shot down at the post of glory. It is comparatively easy to die for a principle. But it is mighty hard to live for it. is hard work to get up at 4 228 COL. INGERSOLL'S o'clock in the morning and work until the sun goes down, and do that for a lite. I say we spent all of this money, and we had what they call prosperity, and while that was going on the young men left the farms, and said they didn't want to be farmers. They said: " "We won't farm It; we will go to the city." Every man that could get $500 worth of goods on trust be came a merchant. They wanted to be dentists, lawyers, doctors, something that there was no work in. When they could not do that they would start an insurance associa tion. Then they sent their agents all over the country to get your property insured, and every moment you would have a picture of a coffin thrust in your face to see if you wouldn't insure. And those agents would come and sit down by you and talk about your last struggle with that monster death. They got a certain share of the premium, and they insured anybody. They insured consumption in its last hemorrhage, and the money flowed into the society. As soon as the fellows began to die the company closed its doors. Then they had fire-insurance companies. The agents of these also had a share of the premiums, and I tell you that for six, eight or ten years they would have insured an iceberg in perdition. Then the merchants filled all the cars and all the hotels and bars with runners and drummers. Every man that you met had three carpet-sacks filled with samples. And in the meantime we had the bankrupt law, so that every man who couldn't pay his debts might take the benefit of this law. Then it all went to the clerks, etc., of the courts. I never heard of anybody getting more than 3 per cent, on any claim in my life. THE CRASH. All at onc& in 1873 there came a crash, and the broth er that had staid at home and worked on the farm saw in GREAT SPEECHES. 229 the paper that his brother, who was president of a life in surance company, was a vagrant and a vagabond. He read, too, that the railroad had failed, and that its bonds were as worthless as the first autumn leaves that grew on this earth. Then he began to think that he was doing well him- self; and the fact is that the men who cultivate the soil are to-day the richest, on the average, of any class of men un der our flag. Then we got hard times. Everybody who had a mortgage as an adornment to his property has suffered. Now they say the way to get back the way to have pros perous times again is to again go in debt. Suppose I bought a farm for $5,000, and gave my note for it; and then I bought horses and wagons and gave my note; and then I bought a piano for Mary and gave my note, and sent James to school and gave my note, and they all run a year. What a magnificent time I could have for that year! Then when they came around aud wanted me to pay the note, 1 would say, "I will give you little notes for the interest, and let them run another year." What a splendid time I could have for another yearl Finally when they come and say they have got to have the money, what would you think if I were to say to them, " I never had a better time in my life than when I was giving those notes. All that is nec essary for universal happiness and peace is to let me keep right on giving my notes." I say to them the reason of hard times is because they have lost confidence in me, They say the reason they have lost confidence is that I havs not got the money. " FTAT n MOITET. Now, it is precisely the same way with an individual that it is with the Government. I say that he can't make something out of nothing. The United States Government ean't make money. It can make what it calls money. It 230 COL. INGERSOLL'S has not the power to make it; it has the power to make you take it. In other words it has the power to make every creditor take it, and nobody else. If you go to buy a bush el of wheat, and you have got "fiat " money, the man can say, " I will take $1 in gold for that wheat, but I want $5 if yon pay in 'fiat' money." How are you going to prevent him? The money you have got is good simply because it promises to pay. Now it is proposed to have money that we will promise not to pay. If nonsense can go beyond that, I cannot conceive the route or path that it will take. Then if Congress says you must take it, Congress must fix the price of everything. It must fix the price of wheat; it must fix the price of making a speech in a lawsuit; it must fix the price of every article, or else it cannot make its money good. GOVERNMENT TAXES. But some gentlemen say that Congress has the pow er to make money, and I want to ask them one question; I want you to think about it. If this Gov ernment has the power to make money, why should it collect taxes from us? Why don't they make it and let us alone? If this Government can make a dollar or a thousand dollar bill just that quick (slapping his hands together), why should they make us labor day and night, and make us pay taxes to support them? If the govern ment can make money, let them make it and let us alone. But instead of that this great Government comes up here into this country with the bayonet and compels you to pay taxes. It is like the ocean trotting around to borrow a little salt water, or like the sun trying to get the loan of a candle from some poor devil that has worked weeks to make that candle. So I say to them, if they can do it, let them do it GREAT SPEECHES. 331 Very well, if the Government can make money, how much can it make? How will I get my share? How much is it going to issue? Some say, "Enough to produce prosperity." But how much, they can't tell. Some say they are going to pay up the bonds and bring money in that way into circulation, and then business will be prosperous. But I say business will be prosperous when THE COUNTRY IS PROSPEROUS. But if you get too much paper and it goes down, who loses it? The man who has earned it and happens to have it in his possession that is the man who loses it. Yon need not be afraid but what the smart people the people on Wall street will take care of themselves. They re quire their toll from every man that goes by their way; but the farmer the laboring man that has worked and has been given some of that money he loses his labor unless that money is worth as much as it was the day he received it. But they say there is not money enough. I say there is plenty plenty; I wish I could get it. We don't lack money. The banks have got plenty of money; a certain portion of the people have money. We are lack ing collaterals, that is what we are lacking. You can get all you want on call in New York at 1 and 2 per cent; and do you know why you don't go and get it? Because you haven't got the collaterals; and if we are going to pass a law on this subject I would like to have Congress pass a law furnishing us collaterals. But it will not do; there is no foundation to it. When the money gets out il has all got to be paid. 232 COL. INGERSOIX'S GOOD MONET. Call it " fiat* 1 money call it what yon please; the reason that a gold dollar is worth a dollar is, because yon can buy the results of the same amount of labor that it took to dig that gold dollar and to mint it, including all the fellows that hunted and didn't find it. If you take a piece of paper and say that it represents $5 or $10, it only represents it because there is a promise to pay that money it is only good when you believe that the man or Government that made the promise is good, and you can't go beyond it Suppose you could blot from your mind, and there was no such thing as gold and silver what is a dollar, just leaving gold and silver entirely out? You have got a " fiat" bill that says it ip $10, and is valuable because it never will be redeemed. Gold and silver is valuable of itself. When I take a $10 gold piece and go to England, I have to sell it the same as I would a bushel of corn, and all that spread- eagle nonsense doesn't add one solitary farthing to its value. And when a sovereign comes here from England, we don't care anything about the beautiful picture of Queen Victoria or any other girl. It is worth so much and no more. But they say it is the stamp of the government that makes it valuable. Why not stamp them tens, thousands, or millions, and let us all be millionaires? It won't do! We will never get prosperity in that way. Slowly, slowly, steadily and surely, our money has advanced, slowly, steadily and surely the world has had more and more confidence in the industry, the honesty and the integrity of the American people, and to that extent our money has advanced until it has finally clasped hands upon an equality with the precious metals. We are just inside of port. We came in tempest- tossed, GREAT SPEECHES. every sail torn and rent, and every mast by the side; and these wreckers stand on the shore and say, " If yon want prosperity, put out to sea once more." We don't want to we want honest methods. No man lives in a country whose money is under par, that he does not feel a little un der par himself. I never took out a bill that was at 2 or 3 per cent, discount that I did not feel a little that way, too. This great and splendid Republic, with the most intelligent and the best people in the world, and I say the most hon est, I want its promise to be as good in every part of the world as the promise of any other nation. I want the green back to be preserved; I want to have gold and silver be hind it; I want it so that if I should go into the furthest" isle of the Pacific and should take out a green back a savage would look at it and his eyes would glitter as if he looked at gold. Then you feel like } r ou are somebody; like yon had a great and splendid nation, and even that old flag would look better if every promise of the United States had been redeemed. And you never know how much you feel like that until you go to a foreign country. When I was there a' few days ago, I just happened to see that old flag; it looked to me as if the air had just blossomed out. 1 want to feel that man is capable of governing himself, and that a republican government is the ^ery acme and hight of national honor. THE SKYLARK. GREAT SPEECHES, 235 Speech in Boston Music Hall, October 21, 1878. (Boston Journal, Oct. 2%, 1878.) Col. Robert GL Ingersoll spoke last evening in Music Hall to an immense audience. Every seat was sold the day before, and, counting those who crowded the platform and open spaces about the hall, there must have been nearly 3,500 persons present. Col. Ingersoll said he considered the gathering of an audience of so great size and intelli gence as the greatest compliment of his life. His subject was: "Hard Times and the Way Out," and its discussion gave him a grand opportunity of dealing with the great questions which are now agitating the country. He de scribed the circumstances which led to the crash of 1873, defined with admirable clearness and simplicity the nature and properties of money, demolished the fiat-money theory, and pointed the plain, manly way out of the troubles which now beset the Nation. The reception of the lecture was all that any man could desire, and everybody who heard it must have gone away with clearer conceptions of national honor and a firmer purpose to do all he could to defend it THE SPEECH. The lovers of the human race, the philanthropists, the dreamers of grand dreams, all predicted and all believed that when man should have the right to govern himself, when ev ery human being should be equal before the law, they be lieved, they prophesied that pauperism, crime and want would exist only in the history of the past. They accounted for misery in their time by the rapacity of kings and the cru elty of priests. Here in the United States man at last is free; here man makes the laws and all have an equal voice. The 236 COL. INGERSOLL'S rich cannot oppress the poor, the poor are in a majority; the laboring men, those who in some way work for their living, can elect every Congressman and every Judge; they can make and interpret the laws, and if labor is oppressed in the United States by capital, labor is simply itself to blame. The cry is now raised that capital, in some mysterious way, oppresses industry; that the capitalist is the enemy of the man who labors. WHAT re A CAPITALIST! Every man who has good health is a capitalist; every one with good sense, every one who has had his dinner and has enough left for supper, is to that extent a capitalist. Everyman with a good character, who has the credit to bor row a dollar or to buy a meal is a capitalist; and nine out of ten of the capitalists in the United States are simply successful workingmen. There is no conflict, and can be no conflict, in the United States between capital and labor, and the men who endeavor to excite the envy of the unfor tunate, the malice of the poor, such men are the enemies of law and order. HOW WEALTH IS ACCUMULATED. As a rule wealth is the result of industry, economy, at tention to business; and, as a rule, poverty is the resnlt of idleness, extravagance, and inattention to business, though to these rules there are thousands of exceptions. The man who has wasted his time, who has thrown away his oppor tunities, is apt to envy the man who has not For instance, here are six shoemakers working in one shop. One of them, attends tohis business; you can hear the music of his hammer late and early; he is in love, it may be, with some girl on the next street; he has made up his mind to be a man ; to succeed, to make somebody else happy, to have a GREAT SPEECHES 237 home; and while he is working, in his imagination, he ..can see his own fireside with the light falling upon the faces of wife and child. The other five gentlemen work as little as they can, spend Sunday in dissipation, have the headache Monday, and, as a result, never advance. The industrious one, the one in love, gains the confidence of his employer, and in a little while he cuts out work for these other fellows. The first thing you know he has a shop of his own, the next a store, because the man of reputation, the man of character, the man of known integrity, can buy all he wishes in the United States upon a credit. The next thing you know he is married, and he has built him a house, and he is happy, and his dream has been realized. After a while the same five shoemakers, having pursued the old course, stand on the corner some Sunday when he rides by. H^e has got a carriage; his wife sits by his side, her face covered with smiles, and they have got two children, their faces beaming with joy, and the blue ribbons fluttering in the wind. And thereupon these five shoemakers adjourn to some neighbor ing saloon and pass a resolution that there is an irre pressible conflict between capital and labor. NO OPPRESSION OF LABOR IN THE UNITED STATEa There is, in fact, no such conflict, and the laboring men of the United States have the power to protect themselves. In the ballot-box, the vote of Lazarus is on an equality with the vote of Dives; the vote of a wandering pauper counts the same as that of the millionaire. In a land where the poor, where the laboring men have the right and have the power to make the laws, and do in fact make the laws, cer tainly there should be no complaint. In our country the peo ple hold the power, and if any corporation in any State 10 238 COL. INGERSOLL'S devouring the substance of the people, every State has re tained the power of eminent domain under which it can confiscate the property and franchise of any corporation by simply paying to that corporation what such property is worth. And yet thousands of people are talking as though there existed a widespread conspiracy against industry, against honest toil, and thousands and thousands of speeches have been made and numberless articles have been written to fill the breasts of the unfortunate with hatred. THE PERIOD OF INFLATION. "We have passed through a period of wonderful and un precedented inflation. For years we enjoyed the luxury of going into debt; we enjoyed the felicity of living upon a credit. We have in the United States about 80,000 miles of railway, more than enough to make a treble track around the globe. Most of these miles were built in a period of twenty -five years and at a cost of at least five thousand millions of dollars. Think of the ore that had to be dug, of the iron that was melted ; think of the thousands em ployed in cutting bridge timber and ties, and giving to the wintry air the music of the ax; think of the thousands and thousands employed in making cars, in making locomo tives, those horses of progress with nerves of steel and breath of steam; think of the thousands and thousands of workers in brass, steel, and iron; think of numberless in dustries that thrived in the construction of 80,000 miles of railway; of the streams bridged, of the mountains tun neled, of the plains crossed, and think of the towns and cities that sprang up, as if by magic, along these highways of iron. During the same time we had a war in which we expended thousands of millions of dollars, not to create, not to construct, but to destroy. GREAT SPEECHES. 239 All this money was spent in the work of demolition, and every shot, and every shell, and every musket, and every cannon was used simply to destroy. All the time of every soldier was simply lost. An amount of property incon ceivable was destroyed, and some of the best and bravest were sacrificed. During these years the productive power of the North was strained to the utmost; every wheel was in motion; there was emploj-ment for every kind and de scription of labor, for every mechanic there was a constantly rising market, speculation was rife, it seemed almost im possible to lose. As a consequence, the men who had been toiling upon the farms became tired; it was too slow a way to get rich. They heard of their neighbor, of their brother who had gone to the city and had suddenly become a mil lionaire. They became tired with the slow methods of ag riculture. The young men of intelligence, of vim, of nerve, became disgusted with the farms. On every hand fortunes were being made, a wave of wealth swept over the United States, huts became houses, houses became palaces, tatters became garments, and rags became robes; walls were cov ered with pictures, floors with carpets, and for the first time in the history of the world the poor tasted of the luxuries of wealth. We began to wonder how onr fathers endured life. Every kind of business was pressed to the very sky line. OLD LIFE-INSURANCE ASSOCIATIONS had been successful, new ones sprang up on every hand. The agents filled every town. These agents were given a portion of the premium. You could hardly go out of your house without being told of the uncertainty of life and the certainty of death. You were shown pictures of life-insur ance agents emptying vast bags of gold at the feet of a dis consolate widow. You saw your own fatherless children 24O COL. INGERSOLI/S m imagination wiping away the tears of grief, and smiling vith joy. These agents insured everybody and everything. They would have insured a hospital, or consumption in ita last hemorrhage. Fire-insurance was managed in precisely the same way. The agents received a part of the premium, and they insured anything and everything, no matter what its danger might be. They would have insured powder in perdition or icebergs under the torrid zone, with the same alacrity. And then there were accident companies, and you could not go to the station to buy your ticket without being shown a picture of disaster. You would see there four horses running away with a stage, and old ladies and children being thrown out; you would see a steamer blown up on the Mississippi, legs one way and arms the other, heads one side and hats the other; locomotives going through bridges, good Samaritans carrying off the wounded on stretchers. MERCHANTS AND DRUMMERS. The merchants, too, were not satisfied to do business in the old way. It was too slow; they could not wait for cus tomers. They filled the country with drummers, and these drummers convinced all the* country merchants that they needed about twice as many goods as they could possibly sell, and they took their notes on sixty and ninety days, and renewed them whenever desired, provided the parties renewing the notes would take more goods. And these country merchants pressed the goods upon their customers in the same manner. Every body was selling, everybody was buying, and nearly all was done upon a credit. No one believed the day of settlement ever would or ever could come. Towns must continue to grow, and, in the imagina tion of speculators, there were hundreds of cities number- GREAT SPEECHES. 24! ing their millions of inhabitants. Land, miles and miles from the city, was laid out in blocks and squares, and parks, land that will not be occupied for residences probably for hundreds of years to come, and these lots were sold, not by the acre, not by the square mile, but by so much per foot. They were sold on credit, with a par tial payment down and the balance secured by a mortgage. These values, of course, existed simply in the imagination, and a deed of trust upon a cloud or a mortgage upon a last year's fog would have been just as valuable. Everybody advertised, and those who were not selling goods and real estate were in the medicine line, and every rock beneath our flag was covered with advice to the unfortunate; and I have often thought that if some sincere Christian had made a pilgrimage to Sinai, and had climbed its venerable crags and in a moment of devotion dropped upon his knees and raised his eyes toward heaven, the first thing that would have met his astonished gaze would in all probability have been " St. 1860 X Plantation Bitters." THE CRASH. Suddenly there came a crash. Jay Cooke failed and I have heard thousands of men account for the subsequent hard times from the fact that Mr. Cooke did fail. As well might you account for small-pox by saying that the first pnstnle was the cause of the disease. The failure of Jay Cooke & Co. was simply a symptom of the disease univer sal. No language can describe the agonies that have been endured since 1873. No language can tell the sufferings of the men that have wandered over the dreary and deso late desert of bankruptcy. Thousands and thousands sup posed they had enough, enough for their declining years, enough for wife and children, and suddenly found them- 16 242 COL. INGERSOLLS selves paupers and vagrants. During all these years the Bankruptcy Law was in force, and whoever failed to keep his promises had simply to take the benefit of this law. As a consequence there could be no real, solid foundation for business. PBOPEETT COMMENCED TO DECLINE, that is to say, it began to be rated at its real instead of its speculative value. Land is worth what it will produce and no more. It may have a speculative value, and, if the prophecy is fulfilled, the man who buys it may become rich, and if the prophecy is not fulfilled, then the land is simply worth what it will produce. Lots worth from $5,000 to $10,000 apiece suddenly vanished into farms worth $25 per acre. These lots resumed ; the farms that before that time had been considered worth $100, that are now worth $20 or $30, have simply resumed. Magnificent resi dences, supposed to be worth $100,000, that can now be pur chased for $25,000, they have simply resumed. The prop erty in the United States has not fallen in value, but its real value has been ascertained. The land will produce as much as it ever would, and is as valuable to-day as it ever was; and every improvement, every invention that adds to the productiveness of the soil or to the facilities for getting that product to market, adds to the wealth of the nation. As a matter of fact, the property kept pace with what we were pleased to call our money. As the money depreciated, property appreciated; as the money appreciated, property depreciated. The moment property began to fall specula tion ceased. There is but little speculation on a falling market. The stocks and bonds, based simply upon ideas, became worthless, the collaterals became, so to speak, dust and ashes. At the close of the war, when the Government ceased to be such a vast purchaser and consumer, many of GREAT SPEECHES. 843 the factories had to stop. When the crash came the men stopped digging ore, they stopped felling the forest, the fires died out in the furnaces, the men who had stood in the glare of the forge were in the gloom of despondency. There was no employment for them. The employer could not sell his product, business stood still, and then came what we call the hard times. Our wealth was a delusion and illusion, and we simply came back to reality. Too many men were doing nothing, too many men were traders, brokers, speculators. There were not enough producer* of the things needed, there were too many producers of the things no one wished. FIAT MONET. Many remedies have been proposed and chief among these is the remedy of fiat money. Probably no subject in the world is less generally understood than that of money. So many false definitions have been given, so many strange, conflicting theories have been advanced, that it is not at all surprising that men have come to imagine that money is something that can be created by law. The defini tions given by the hard money men have been used as argu ments by those who believe in the power of Congress to cre ate wealth. We are told that gold is an instrumentality or a device to facilitate exchanges. We are also told that gold is a measure of value. Let us examine these definitions. " Gold or money is an instrumentality or device to facil itate exchanges." That sounds well, but I do not believe it is correct. Gold and silver are commodities. They are the products of labor. They are not instrumentalities or devices to facilitate exchanges; they are the things ex changed for something else, and other things are exchanged for them. The only device about them is the coining of these metals, so that you can truthfully say, that coining of 244 COL - INGERSOLL'S gold and silver is a device to facilitate exchanges and the ex changes are facilitated in this way: whenever the Government or any Government certifies that in a certain piece of gold or silver there are a certain number of grains of a certain fineness, then he who gives it knows that he is not giving too much, and he who receives, that he is receiving enough; so that I will change the definition to this: The coining of the precious metals is a device to facilitate exchanges; but the precious metals themselves are property; they are mer chandise, they are commodities, and whenever one com modity is exchanged for another, it is barter, and gold and silver are the last refinement of barter. THE SECOND DEFINITION is: " Gold and silver are the measures of value." We are told by those who believe in fiat money that gold is a meas ure of value just the same as a half-bushel or a yard-stick. I deny that gold is a measure of value. It is a measure of value precisely as a half-bushel is, or a yard-stick is, but no other way. The yard-stick is not a measure of value, it is simply a measure of quantity. It meas ures cloth worth $50 a yard precisely as it does cal ico worth four cents; it measures $100 lace exactly as it does cent tape, and in no other way. It is there fore not a measure of value, and consequently this yard-stick can be made of silver, or gold, or wood. It measures simply quantities. The same with the half- bushel. The half-bushel measures wheat precisely the same, whether that wheat is worth $3 or $1. It simply measures quantity, not quality, not value. The yard-stick, the half-bushel and the coining of money are all devices to facilitate exchanges. The yard-stick assures the man who buys that he has received enough; and in that way it GKEAT SPEECHES. facilitates exchanges. The coining of money facilitates exchange, for the reason that were it not coined, each man who did business would have to carry a pair of scales and be a chemist. If gold and silver are not the measures of value, what is? I answer, intellectual labor. Gold gets its value from labor. Of course, I cannot account for the fact that mankind have a certain fancy for gold or for diamonds, neither can I account for the fact that we like certain things better than others to eat. These are simply facts in nature, and they are facts, whether they can be explained or not, which cannot be disregarded. The dollar in gold represents on the average the labor that it took to dig and mint it, together with all the time of the men who looked for it without finding it. The dollar in gold, on the average, will buy the product of the same amount of labor in any other direction. Nothing ever has been money, from the most barbarous to the most civilized, unless it was a product of nature and a something to which the people among whom it passed as money attached a cer tain value, a value not dependent upon legislation in any de gree. Nothing has ever been considered money that man could produce. A bank-bill is not money, neither is a check nor a draft. These are all devices simply to facilitate business, but in and of themselves they have no value. THE GOVERNMENT A PAUPER. We are told, however, that the Government can create money. This I deny. The Government produces nothing, it raises no wheat, no corn, it digs no gold, no silver. It is not a producer, it is a consumer. The Government is a per petual pauper that has to be supported by the people. It is constantly passing the contribution-plate; the man who passes it I admit has a musket with him, but at the same time the Government is supported by these contributions. 246 COL. INGERSOLL'S Yon cannot live upon the promise of your own Govern- ment any more than you could live upon the notes of your hired man, any more than you could live upon bonds is sued by occupants of the County Poor-House. You cannot live upon that which you to have support. The Govern ment cannot by law create wealth. And right here I wish to ask one question, and I would like to have it answered some time. If the Government can make money, if it can create money, if by putting its sovereignty upon a piece of paper it can create absolute money, why should the Govern ment collect taxes? We have in every district assessors and collectors; we have at every port custom-houses, and we are collecting taxes day and night for the support of this Gov ernment We are making those who are hardly able to pay, contribute. Now, if the Government can make money it self, why should it collect taxes even from the poor? Here is a man cultivating a farm he is working among the stones and roots and digging; why should the Government go to that man and make him pay $20 or $30 or $10 taxes when the Government, according to the theory of these gentlemen, could make a $1,000 note quicker than that man could wink? Why impose on industry in that manner? Why should the sun borrow a candle? And if the Govern ment can create money, how much should it create? And if it should create it, who will get it? MONEY HAS A QKEAT LIKING FOB MONET. A single dollar in the pocket of a poor man is lonesome; it never is satisfied until it has found its companions. Money gravitates toward money, and issue as much as you may, as much as you will, the time will come when that money will be in the hands of the industrious, in the hands of the economical, in the hands of the shrewd, in the handt GREAT SPEECHES. 247 of the cunning; in other words, in the hands of capitalists. Another thing: If the Government can create money sim ply by stamping what they are pleased to call its sover eignty upon a piece of paper, why should it waste that sov ereignty upon a one-dollar bill; why not create a ten-dollar bill, a hundred, a thousand, a million? Why should we stop? The other day I had a conversation with ooe of the principal gentlemen on that side and I told hfm, " When ever you can successfully palm off on a man a bill of fare for a dinner, I shall believe your doctrine; and when I can satisfy the pangs of hunger by a cook-book, I shall join your party. Only that is money which stands for labor." Only that is money which will buy in all other directions the result of the same labor expended in its production. As a matter of fact, there is money enough in the country to transact the business of the country. As a matter of fact, there is more money than is needed to transact the business. Never before in the history of our Government was money so cheap, that is to say, was interest so low, never. There is plenty of money, and we could borrow all, all we wish, had we the collaterals. We could borrow all we wished if there was some business in which we could embark that promised a sure and reasonable return. If we should come to a man who kept a ferry and find his boat on a sand-bar and the river dry, what would he think of us should we tell him he had not enough boat? He would probably reply that he had plenty of boat but not enough water. We have plenty of money, not enough business. The reason we have not enough is, we have not enough con fidence, and the reason we have not enough confidence is that the market is slowly falling, and the reason it is slowly falling is that it has not yet quite resumed, that we have not yet quite touched the absolute bed-rock of valua- 248 COL. INGERSOLL'S tion. Another reason is because those that left the culti vation of the soil have not jet all returned, and they are living, some upon their wits, some upon their relatives, some upon charity, and some upon crime. INFLATION AND CONTRACTION. The next question is, Suppose the Government should issue a thousand millions of fiat money, how would it reg- v.late the value thereof ? Every creditor could be forced to take it, but nobody else. If a man was in debt $1 for a bushel of wheat, he could compel the creditor to take the fiat money, but if he wished to buy the wheat, the owner could say: "I will take $1 in gold or $50 in fiat money, or I will not sell it for that money at any price." What will Congress do then ? In order to make this fiat money good it will have to fix the price of every conceivable commodity; the price of painting a picture, of trying a lawsuit, of chis eling a statue, the price of a day's work, in short, the price of every conceivable thing. This, even, will not be- suf ficient. It will be necessary to provide by law that the prices fixed shall be received and that no man shall be allowed to give more for anything than the price fixed by Congress. Now I do not believe that any Congress has sufficient wisdom to tell beforehand what will be the relative value of all the products of labor. When the volume of currency is inflated it is at the expense of the creditors class. When it is contracted it is at the expense of the debtor class. In other words, inflation means going into debt, contraction means the payment of the debt. LET THE MONET FADE OUT. Another remedy has been suggested by the same persons who advocate fiat money. With a consistency perfectly charming, they say it would have been much better had we GREAT SPEECHES. 249 allowed the treasury notes to fade out. Why allow fiat money to facie out when a simple act of Congress can make it as good as gold? When greenbacks fade out the loss falls upon the chance holder; upon the poor, the industrious, and the unfortunate. The rich, the cunning, the well-informed manage to get rid of what they happen to hold. When, however, the bills are redeemed they are sold by the wealth and property of the whole country. To allow them to :ade out is universal robbery, to pay them is universal justice. The greenback should not be allowed to fade away in the pocket of the soldier, or in the hands of his widow and children. It is said that the continental money faded away, and it was and is a disgrace to our forefathers. When the greenback fades away, there will fade with it honor from the American heart, brain from the American Lead, and our flag from the air of heaven. BONDHOLDERS. A great cry has 'been raised against the holders of bonds. They hare been denounced by every epithet that malignity can coin. During the war our bonds were offered for sale, and they brought all that they then appeared to be worth. They had to be sold, or the rebellion was a success. To the bond we are indebted as much as to the greenback. The fact is. however, we are indebted to neither; we are in debted to the soldiers. But every man who took a green back at less than gold committed the same crime, and no other, as he who bought the bonds at less than par in gold. These bonds have changed hands thousands of times. They have been paid for in gold again and again. They have been bought at prices far above par, they have been laid away by loving husbands for wives^ by toiling fathers for children, w4 the man who seeks to repudiate them now, or to pay 250 COL. INGERSOLL'S them in fiat rags, is unspeakably cruel and dishonest. If the government has made a bad bargain, it mnst live up to it. If it has made a foolish promise, the only way is to fulfill it A dishonest government can exist only among dishon est people. When our money is below par, we feel below par. We cannot bring prosperity simply by adding to the volume of a worthless currency. If the prosperity of a country depends upon the volume of its currency, and if anything is money that people can be made to think is money, then the successful counterfeiter is a public bene factor. The counterfeiter increases the volume of currency, he stimulates business, and the money issued by him will not be hoarded and ^taken from the channels of business. THE WAY OUT. During the war, during the inflation that is to say, during the years that we were going into debt, fortunes were made so easily that the people left the farms, crowded to the towns and cities. Thousands became speculators, traders and merchants; thousands embarked in every pos sible and conceivable scheme. They produced nothing, they simply preyed upon labor, and dealt with imaginary values. These men must go back; they must become pro ducers, and every producer is a paying consumer. Thou sands and thousands of them are unable to get back. To a man who begs of you a breakfast you cannot say: "Why don't you get a farm!" You might as well say, "Why don't you start a line of steamers? " To him both are im- possilities. They must be helped. We shall all remember that society must support all of its members, all of its rob bers, thieves and paupers. Every vagabond and vagrant has to be fed and clothed, and society must support in some way all of its members. It can support them in jails, in GREAT SPEECHES. 2$ I asylums, in hospitals, in penitentiaries, but it is a very costly way. We have to employ judges to try them, juries to sit upon their cases, sheriffs, marshals and constables to ar rest them, policemen to watch them, and it may be at last a standing army to put them down. It would be far cheaper, probably, to support them at some first-class hotel. We must either support them, or help them support themselves. They let us go upon the one hand simply to take us by the other, and we can take care of them as paupers and crimi nals, or by wise statesmanship help them to be honest and useful men. Of all the criminals transported by England to Australia and Tasmania, the records show that a very large per cent, something over 90, became useful and de cent people. In Australia they found homes; hope again spread its wings in their breasts. They had different am bitions; they were removed from vile and vicious associa tions. They had new surroundings, and, as a rule, man does not improve without a corresponding improvement in his physical condition. One biscuit with plenty of butter is worth all the tracts ever issued. THE CHARITY OF EXTRAVAGANCE. Whenever the laboring men are out of employment they begin to hate the rich. They feel that the dwellers in pal aces, the riders in carriages, the wearers of broadcloth, silk and velvet, have in some way been robbing them. As a matter of fact, the palace-builders are the friends of labor. The best form of charity is extravagance. When you give a man money, when you toss him a dollar, although you get nothing, the man loses his manhood. To help others help themselves is the only real charity. There is no use boosting a man who is not climbing. Whenever I see a splendid home a palace a magnificent block I think of the thousands who were fed, of the women and children COL. INGERSOLLS clothed, of the firesides made happy. A rich man living up to his privileges, having the best house, the best furni ture, the best horses, the finest grounds, the most beautiful flowers, the best clothes, the best food, the best pictures, and all the books that he can afford, is a perpetual blessing. The prodigality of the rich is the providence of the poor. The extravagance of wealth makes it possible for the poor to save. The rich man who lives according to his mea:i>, who is extravagant in the best and highest sense, is not the enemy of labor. The miser who lives in a hovel, wears rags, and hoard> his gold, is a perpetual curse. He is like one who dams a river at its source. The moment hard times come, the cry of economy is raised. The press, the platform, and the pulpit unite in recommending economy to the ; rich. In consequence of this cry the man of wealth discharges servants, sells his horses, allows his carriage to become a hen-roost, and, after taking employment from as many as he can, con gratulates himself that he has done his part toward restor ing prosperity to the country. In that country where the poor are extravagant and the rich economical will be found pauperism and crime, but where the poor are economical and the rich are extrava gant, that country is filled with prosperity. LABOR-SAVING MACHINERY. Every man ought to be willing to pay for what he gets. lie ought to desire to give full value received. The man uho wants $2 worth of work for $1 is not an honest man. The man who wants others to work to such an extent that their lives are burdens is utterly heartless. The toil of the world should continually decrease. Of what use are your GREAT SPEECHES. 253 inventions if no burden is lifted from industry! If no ad ditional comforts find their way to the home of labor? "Why should labor fill the world with wealth and live in want? Every labor-saving machine should help the whole world. Every one should tend to shorten the hours of labor. Reasonable labor is a source of joy. To work for wife and child, to toil for those you love is happiness, provided you can make them happy. But to work like a slave, to see your wife and children in rags, to sit at a table where food is coarse and scarce, to rise at four in the morning, to work all day and throw your tired bones upon a miserable bed at night, to live without leisure, without rest, without making those you love comfortable and happy, this is not living, it is dying, a slow, lingering crucifixion. The hours of labor should be shortened. With the vast and wonderful improvements of the nineteenth century there should be not only the necessaries of life for those who toil, but comforts and luxuries as well. What is a reasonable price for labor ? I answer: Such a price as will enable the man to live; to have the comforts of life; to lay by something for his declining years; so that he can have his own home, his own fireside, so that he can preserve the feelings of a man. I sympathize with every honest effort made by the chil dren of labor to improve their condition. That is a poorly- governed country in which those who do the most have the least. There is something wrong when men are obliged to bog for leave to toil. We are not yet a civilized people. When we are, pauperism and crime will vanish from our land. 254 COL - INGERSOLL'S THE POOR HAVE A CHANGE. There is one thing, however, of which I am glad and proud, and that is, that society is not, in our country, pet rified; that the poor are not always poor. The children of the poor of this generation may and probably will be the rich of the next. The sons of the rich of this generation may be the poor of the next; so that, after all, the rich fear and the poor hope. It is the glory of the United States that the poor man can take his boy upon his knee and say: " My son, all the avenues to distinction are open to you. You can rise. There is no station, no position, to which you may not aspire. The poverty of your father will not be a mill-stone about your neck. The public schools are open to you. For you there are education, honor, fame, and prosperity." These thoughts render holy every drop of sweat that rolls down the face of honest toil. TEAMP8. I sympathize with the wanderers, with the vagrants ont of employment, with the sad and weary men who are seek ing for work. When I see one of these men, poor and friendless no matter how bad he is, I think that some body loved him once that he was once held in the arms of a mother that he slept beneath her loving eyes and wakened in the light of her smile. I see him in the cradle, listening to lullabies, sung soft and low, and his little face is dimpled as though touched by the rosy fingers of joy. And then I think of the strange and winding paths the weary roads he has traveled from that mother's arms to vagrancy and want. There should be labor and food for all. We inv nt We take advantage of the forces of nature. We enslave GREAT SPEECHES. 2$$ the winds and waves. "We put shackles upon the unseen powers. These slaves should release from bondage all the sons of men. CONCLUSION. Now, I have said nothing to-night about the politics of your State. It is nothing to me. The people of Massa chusetts have ability enough to attend to their own affairs, and any one of the gentlemen running, no doubt, if he is elected Governor, has plenty of genius to attend to the pardoning of criminals in this State and the other routine duties of Governor. I have nothing to say about that; but I implore you do not imagine wealth can be created by law; I implore you do not preach the heresy that you can pay one promise by making another that you take your oath never to fulfill. Do not, I implore you, teach the people that the rich have conspired to trample them in tiie dust. Since 1873 thousands of millions of articles have been made that could not be sold, and I may say that a majority of the men who have been employed are bankrupts to-day. Let us be honest, let us teach others to be honest, and let us tell these men not to envy the man who lias been success ful. That is not right; there is no sense in that. Let each one rely upon himself and help others all he can, and let all understand that we are entering upon an era of prosperity such as America never knew before. We are a great people; we are a free people; we make our own laws; we have the power in our own hands; we can protect ourselves, and I beg the laboring men to see that the laws are all enforced. We want honest money, so that a man who gets a little laid by for wife and children when he is dead, that it will be a consolation to him, so that he COL. INGERSOLL'S will know it will stay good after he is Jead; that it will in some degree take his place and buy food and clothing, so that he will not be compelled to close his eyes on fiat money. If it is ever issued, it will never be redeemed. If it is ever issued it will bring about inflation, that will bring about universal repudiation. It will end in National dis honor. If there is any State in the Union that will help save our country from the crime of repudiation, it is the glorious old Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 2$ 8 COL. INGERSOLL'S Speech at Lewiston, Me., Aug. 21, 1876, An immense mass-meeting of .Republicans was held in Lewiston, Me., August 21, 1876, when speeches were made by Gov. Connor and Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, of Illinois. There was great curiosity to hear the latter gentleman, and his appearance was greeted with loud applause. It is safe to say no one was disappointed. He kept the audience in a perpetual roar of laughter for nearly two hours. The main portions of his speech are given below, taken from the Lewiston Journal: THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND THE SLAVES. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I belong to the Republican party, and I am glad of it, and I will give you a few reasons why I am glad of it. The Republican party is the conscience of the nineteenth century. What was the con dition of the country when the Republican party came into power? I know there are those with envenomed tongue who denounce this party; men who, if they had their own way, would not have allowed us to have a country to-day. The Democratic party made it the duty of every citizen to hunt fugitive slaves seeking liberty. Such a law would disgrace the statute-books of hell. (Laughter.) No man ever voted for such a law who was not a rascal. I intend to tell the truth if I am strong enough, and I tell you I have an excellent constitution. (Laughter.) This crime crept up into the Supreme Court. That Court was a farce. I know all about it. In 1861, if a negro had planted corn and the crop was ready for harvest, and a Democrat had come along to steal it, the Supreme Court would hav> decided with their spectacles pusla-d GREAT SPEECHES. 259 back on their bald pates, that the corn belonged to the Democrat. (Loud applause.) This was the spirit of the good old party of reform. (Loud applause.) Imagine the condition we were in when the Republicans came into power. Justice and mercy were vagrants. At the North the Democrats were willing to give anything for an office. The Southern States took up arms, took up arms for what? Why, for the right to steal from four millions of people of different color. I believe I am superior to the black man and so superior that I can get my living with out robbing him. (Laughter.) The Democratic party commenced the war against the Union. The question was. Are you for or against the Union? The Republican party offered all that it could, it almost got into the dirt, but the South rushed to war. The great Republican party and every Union-loving Democrat in the North struck hands to fight for the Union. Are you sorry the Republican party won in 1860? Are you sorry the great Lincoln was elected President? He was almost the only man who, having absolute power, never abused it except OD the side of mercy. BBWABB OF BACHELORS. Then there's Buchanan; an old bachelor, and, for God's sake, never trust another. I wouldn't trust a man who don't love a wife better than politics. (Great laughter.) Buchanan said, " I can't do anything." He fell back on State Rights. Now, I claim nobody ever urged that doc trine who didn't want to steal something from somebody. (Laughter.) It was called up when the South wanted to secede. Buckle up your coat when they talk State Rights, your pocket-book is in danger. They believe the United States is a simple partnership, and that when any member 260 COL. INGERSOLL'S of the firm wants to set up business on his own account he may go ouf. Now, what has the Democratic party been doing all these years"? The Republican party has its book open. The Democratic party says: "For God's sake, let our pedigree alone." (Laughter.) I say let's examine the pedigree. The Democratic party was opposed to the war; that ought to damn them eternally. I would be willing to let them end a little short, but politically eternally. (Laughter.) The Democratic party opposed the means to put the war down ; they swore the debt never ought to be paid. They tried to impair the National credit. The Democratic party said: " Don't buy a bond; the South will succeed." If the Democratic party had had its way, the soldiers in the field would not have been paid. They ought (politically) to be damned for that. (Laughter.) How many Democrats were delighted every time the Union army was defeated! (Voice, "That's so.") That's a fact I don't tell it as news (laughter), but simply to refresh your memories. WHAT MORE? The Democratic party tried to get up a fire in the rear of Canada. Jake Thompson had $700,000 from the Confed eracy to operate in Canada in conjunction with Northern Democrats. The Knights of the Golden Circle in Indiana and Illinois received money from Jake Thompson. He hired men to fire New York and Cincinnati. He furnished pistols to those men in boxes marked " Sunday-school books." I have right here a copy of Jake Thompson's letter in which he speaks of the danger of his letters falling into loyal hands; for, says he, they will implicate leading men in the North. What kind of leading men! Northern Democrats, friends of honesty and reform, gentlemen. (Laughter and tremendous cheering.) GREAT SPEECHES. 26 1 AN EXTRACT FROM DEMOCRATIC PEDIGREE. I was at Peoria, 111., when the Democrats held their con vention. " Brothers," they said, " let us put down that ty rant, Lincoln." They were for peace, they said, and all the time they had Jake Thompson's pistols in their pockets. (Laughter.) That was the first meeting held in the interest of an uprising to aid the South. But Yallandigham told them, " We'll elect McClellan and that'll accomplish by ballot what is proposed to do by force." Jake Thompson laments the failure of his attempt to burn New York with Greek fire. That's what the Democrats were doing in 1864. Recollect when I speak of the Democratic party I mean the men who did these things. I am sorry to see men good and true, and loyal, who are with the Democrats still, and who are trying to make them respectable. My voice has no word against those men, do whatever they do, who faced shot and shell for the Union. I do not stigmatize them. I do not allude to the true and loyal Democrats, but to those Democrats who are Democrats from mere cussedness. (Laughter.) How came it to this? Is a man to be ashamed for having fought the Democratic party with shot and shell? Will the time ever come when these scars worn by Gov. Connor shall be a disgrace to him ? Shall the time come when we shall not men tion the struggles of our boys and defend their scars? It never can cornel But I say if the Democratic party gets the power, the Union soldier will have to hide his scars. If Samuel J. Tilden is elected President, he will be the tool and instrument of the Southern Democracy. Did the Southern Democracy ever allow the Northern Democracy to manage? They never did and they never will. After the war was over the Republicans told the negro he was free, and 262 COL. INGERSOLL'S he canst be a citizen and have the ballot. The Democrat ic party voted against all these measures. Mr. Hendricks spoke in the United States Senate, and said there was no power in the people to change the constitution and make the slave free. He to-day believes these persons were un lawfully deprived of their property, and he will vote to pay them for their property. RESPONSIBILITY FOB THE HARD TIMES. It is some trouble to get up a Republican. You've got to build school-houses. If you want to make Democrats, tear them down. If you want to make a Democrat, appeal to prejudices or appeal to hard times. A Democrat in Illinois thinks the chinch-bug comes of the Republican administration. Who made the times hard? Who made it necessary for the United States to borrow money? The Democratic party, North and South. And now they say we ought to have whipped for less. Hard times! You will see what hard times mean if you get the Democratic party into power. We've got down to hard-pan. And we are already in the light of the dawn of a revived business. Why? Because the Republican party is bent on seeing a gold dollar and in resuming specie payment at the ap pointed time. The Republican pa^ty, I say, will pay the debt, and protect all men. The Democratic party can find no flaw in the RECORD OF MR. HATES. He will carry out the doctrines of the Republican party. If Tilden is elected, he will be controlled by the Demo cratic party. Which party will you trust? I tell you, gen tlemen, you must stand by the Republican party. What was Mr. Tilden doing when Mr. Hayes was fighting for his country! Mr. Tilden was resolving the war a failure. GREAT SPEECHES. 263 What is Mr. Tilden to-day? An attorney-at-law; an old bachelor. There is no more flesh and blood on him than on an old umbrella. (Great merriment.) He is one of those oily attorneys you see depicted on the stage. He is a demurrer. (Great laughter.) He never courted a woman because women can't vote. (Merriment.) Lately he has adopted a rag-baby that really belongs to Hendricks. (Prolonged laughter.) He is now spending his time ex plaining how he adopted it. (Laughter.) PLAIN TRUTHS FOB THE DEMOCRATS. I know the State in which an audience like this can col lect can never elect a Democrat for Governor. I know you will re-elect Gov. Connor by a rousing majority. (Ap plause.) There is not a State prison in this country but votes for Tilden and Hendricks. In the State prison of Maine last year there was but one convict who ever voted anything but the Democratic ticket, and I'll bet* a thousand dollars he was wrongfully sent up. (Loud laughter and ap plause.) The weeds will grow even in the streets,but the corn needs care. The weeds are hard to kill. And it's hard to kill the Democrats. They can only be exterminated by education and thought. "When a man begins to grow con tinental in thought and have sympathy, then he says he will give every other man the same chance in the world that he asks for himself. Nature has made inequalities enough. Some people are born with few brains some of them you can find in the Democratic party by close inspec tion. (Laughter.) Why should men add artificial ine qualities? All men are of the same race. All men who are for other men must stand together. Governments should be for all, and should protect white and black alike. Kow, don't forget to tell the Democrats the whole truth 264 COL. INGEK5OLLS tell them in a Christian spirit, jnst as I do. When they tell you let by-gones be by-gones, don't do it. They have copied our platform, but don't trust it; it hasn't the right signature. It makes all the difference whether a bankrupt or a banker signs a note. The Republican party has done what it could. Tell the Democrats the truth. I'm afraid you will Ibr^et it. (Laughter.) The Republican party will pay the debt and protect all men. Remember that, too. I want every man here to recollect Tilden is half a man, half a pair of scissors. (Laughter.) Where would we have been if we'd all been old bachelors? (Loud laughter and applause.) I am glad that we have a party on whose brow is the eternal sunrise; that we have a party of freedom, pledged to the progress and elevation of the human race, and pledged to stand by the divine rights of man. 265 'FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD." 266 COL. INGERSOLL'S Speech at Rockford, 111., Sept. 28, 1880. (Chicago Tribune, Sept. 9, 1880.) The Republicans of Rockford, or rather of W'innebago and the adjoining counties, gathered to the number of 6,000 on the fair-grounds to listen to a speech bj Col. R. G. Ingersoll. In addition to a general outpour of the citizens of that place, there were large delegations from Belvidere, Elgin, Aurora, Rochelle, Pecatonica, Freeport, Sycamore, Dixon, Janesville and Beloit. Col. R. G. In gersoll arrived at 2 o'clock, and was escorted to the depot by the Committee of Arrangements. After some songs by the Illinois Campaign Glee Club, of Chicago, Col. Inger soll was introduced by R. G. Crawford, the presiding officer, and talked for two and a quarter hours, making a brilliant speech, which was perpetually interrupted by the laughter and applause of his hearers. ME. INGERSOLL SPOKE AB FOLLOWS! LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: In the first place I wish to ad mit that Democrats and Republicans have an equal in terest in this country; that it belongs to us all, and that they are as deeply interested in the preservation of this form of government as we can be. I admit, too, that most of them are honest in their convictions, and I do not wish to address myself to a Democrat who is not honestly one. There is no reason in wasting reasons upon a man who is dishonest, not the slightest. (Cheers.) Neither do I be lieve it is possible to make a vote in any civilized country by misrepresenting the facts. Neither do I believe it ia possible to influence a solitary man who has got any sense, by slander or vituperation. That time has gone by, and J GREAT SPEECHES. 167 do not iatend to say one word that every Democrat present will not be willing to say is true. (Applause.) 1 do not intend to-day to express a solitary sentiment that every Democrat will not give three cheers for in his heart (" Hear I " " Hear! ") We are all, I say, equally interested Democrats, and Republicans, and Greenbackers alike. We all want a good Government. If we do not, we should have none. We all want to live in a land where the law is supreme. We desire to live beneath a flag that will protect every citizen beneath its fold. We desire to be citizens of a Government so great and so grand that it will command the respect of the civilized world. Most of us are convinced that our Government is the best upon this earth. It is the only Government where manhood, and manhood alone, is not made simply a condition of citizenship, but where man hood, and manhood alone, permits its possessor to have his e^nal share in control of the Government. (Cheers.) It is the only country in the world where poverty is upon an ex act equality with wealth, so far as controlling the destinies of the Republic is concerned. It is the only Nation where a man clothed in a rag stands upon equality with the one wearing purple. It is the only Government in the world where, politically, the hut. is upon an equality with the palace. (Cheers.) MANLY VOTING. For that reason every poor man should stand by that Government, and every poor man who does not is a traitor to the best interests of his children; every poor man who does not is willing that his children should bear the badge of political inferiority; and the only way to make this Gov ernment a complete and perfect success, is for the poorest man to think as much of his manhood as the millionaire 268 COL. INGERSOLL'S does of his wealth. (Applause.) A man does not vote in this country simply because he is rich; he does not vote in this country simply because he has an education; he does not vote simply because he has talent or genius; we say that he votes because he is a man, and that he has his manhood to support; and we admit in this country that nothing can be more valuable to any human being than hig manhood. (Loud applause.) And for that reason we put poverty on an equality with wealth. "We say in this coun try manhood is worth more than gold. We say in this country that without liberty the Nation is not worth pre serving. (Applause.) Now, I appeal to every poor man; I appeal to-day to every laboring man, and I ask him, Is there another country on this globe where you can have your equal rights with others? (Cries of "No.") Now, then, in every country, no matter how good it is, and no matter how bad it is in every country there is something worth preserving, and there is something that ought to be destroyed. Now, recollect that every voter is in his own right a king; every voter in this country wears a crown; every voter in this country has in his own hands the scepter of authority; and every voter, poor and rich, wears the pur ple of authority alike. Recollect it; and the man that will sell his vote is the man that abdicates the American throne. The man that sells his vote strips himself of the imperial purple, throws away the scepter and admits that he is less than a man. (Loud applause and cries of "That's so!") More than that, the man that will sell his vote for prejudice or for hatred, the man that will be lied out of his vote, that will be slandered out of his vote, that will be fooled out of his vote, is not worthy to be an American citizen. Now let us understand ourselves. Let us endeavor to do what is right; let us say this country is good we will make it GREAT SPEECHES. 269 better; let us say, if our children do not live in a republic it shall not be our fault. TWO GREAT PARTIES are asking for the control of this country, and it is your business and mine, first, to inquire into the history of these parties. We want to know their character; and, recollect, you cannot make character in a day; you cannot make a reputation by passing a resolution. If you could, you could reform every penitentiary in fifteen minutes in the United States. (Laughter and applause.) The question is, What have these parties been doing? Not, what do they say now? That may help to make them a character twenty years hence; but what have they been doing for the last twenty years, and let us be honest, honor bright? (Laugh ter and applause.) THE DEMOCRATIC RECORD. In 1860 the Democratic party had power. There was a Democratic President of the United States. Every Cabinet officer was a Democrat; every Federal officer was a Demo crat, every one, because that party would never allow anybody but a Democrat to be in office, no matter how small. (Laughter and applause.) In 1860 and 1861 a few of the Southern States said: "We will no longer remain in this Union." What did the Democratic party do? James Buchanan, with Judge Black for his legal adviser, solemnly declared not only that the United States could not coerce a State, but solemnly decided that the Federal Government could not even protect its own property. That was the decision of the highest officer in that administration. In other words, that Democratic administration said 2/O COL. INGERSOLL'i THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ARE DISSOLVED; the great Federal Government is dead forever; the experi ment of our fathers has failed; the blood of the Revolution was shed in vain; and here in 1861, on the jagged rocks of secession, the Ship of State must go down forever. This ia what that party said then. Does anybody wish that party had remained in power? Does anybody to-day wish that the advice of James Buchanan had been followed? Does anybody wish that we at that time had allowed the flag of our fathers to have been torn forever from heaven! (Cries of No.") A WAR COMMENCED. The Republican party said : " The Union must and shall be maintained." Hundreds and thousands of Democrats also said the same thing. I honor them for it, and I never, while I live, will say a word against any man who fought for our flag in the sky never. (Applause.) I admit to day, and I cheerfully admit, that hundreds of thousands of Democrats were better than the party to which they be longed. (Applause and laughter.) I admit that the salt of the party left it. (Applause.) I admit the good, brave young men men with blood in their veins said, " James Buchanan is a traitor." Good Democrats said, " The flag must be preserved, and we will help preserve it." (Ap plause.) And I am willing to admit to-day that, had it not been for these Democrats, the probability is we never could have put down the Rebellion. (Applause.) I want to be nonest about this thing. "What, though, did the Demo cratic party do after the decent men had left it? (Laughter.) When these men who believed in the preservation of the Union had enlisted, when they had gone down to the fields of death and glory, what did the Democrats they had left at GREAT SPEECHES. 2/1 home do in 1864? This Democratic party left at home, j;ist before the dawn of universal victory, met in National Convention and announced that war for the restoration ol the Union was a failure; that is what they did. What did they do in Indiana? They assassinated Federal officers, they shot down Union men, they entered into conspiracies for the purpose of releasing Rebel soldiers; they were sup plied with money from Canada. I know it, and the evi dence is to-day among the Rebel archives at Washington that leaders of the Southern Confederacy furnished money to the Democrats of Illinois and Indiana to hold public meetings for the purpose of influencing public opinion against the Republican party. That is what they did ; re member it; do not forget it. (Laughter.) When the war was over, what did the Democrats do? Now, I will try to tell the exact truth. (Laughter.) EVERY MAN WHO ADVOCATED SECESSION WA8 A DEMOCRAT. Every man who drew a secession ordinance was a Demo crat; every man who swore that this great and splendid Gov ernment was but a " Confederacy bound together by ropes of sand," by chains of mist, was a Democrat; every one who wished to tear the old flag out of the sky was a Democrat; every one who wished to preserve the institution of slavery so that babes could be sold from their mothers' breasts; every one who wished to make a slave by robbing the cradle; every one who wished to breed blood-hounds to pursue fugitive slaves; every one who wanted Northern freemen to become dogs to hunt' slaves; every one who believed that a lash upon a naked back was legal tender for labor performed (laughter and applause); every one waa a Democrat. Every one who wished to create a fire in the rear; all who wanted to release rebel prisoners in the North, that they might burn down the 2/2 COL. INGERSOLLS homes of soldiers then in the front; every one who wanted to scatter disease and pestilence in Northern cities; every one who wished to inflict our homes with yellow fever; every one who wished to set fire to the great cities of the North, knowing that the serpents of flame would destroy women and babes; every one who tried to fire the boats upon our rivers; every one was a Democrat (laughter and applause); and you know it. (Laughter.) Every man who starved our soldiers, every man who shot a Union soldier was a Democrat; every wound that a Union soldier has is a souvenir of the Democratic party; and you know it. (Ap plause and laughter.) Every one who fed our men taken prisoners with A CRUST THAT THE WORMS HAD EATEN BEFORE was a Democrat; every man who shot down our men when they happened to step an inch beyond the dead line, every one was a Democrat; and when some poor, emaciated Union patriot, driven to insanity by famine, saw at home in his innocent dreams the face of his mother, and she seemed to beckon him to come to her, and he, following that dream, stepped one inch beyond the dead line, the wretch who put a bullet through his throbbing, loving heart was a Demo crat (Applause.) "We should never forget these things. (A voice, " That's so.") Every man who wept over the corpse of slavery; every man who was sorry when the chains fell from four millions of people; every man who regretted to see the shackles drop from men, women and children, every one was a Democrat. In the House of Representatives and in the Senate the resolution was submitted to amend the Con stitution so that every man treading the soil of the Repub lic should be forever free, and every man who voted against GREAT SPEECHES. 2/3 it was a Democrat. Every man who swore that greenbacks never would be worth any more than withered leaves, every man who swore we would never pay our bonds, every man who slandered our credit, and prophesied defeat was a Dem ocrat. Now, recollect it. (Laughter.) Do not forget it. (Renewed laughter.) And if there is any young man here who is this fall to cast his first vote, I beg of him, I beseech him, not to join that party whose history for the last twenty years has been a disgrace to this country. (Cheers.) THE REPUBLICAN RECORD. Now, on the other hand, what has the Republican party been doing all this time? Aided and assisted by good Democrats, aided and assisted by honest men, aided and as sisted by the spirit of patriotism in this country, what has the Republican party been doing? In the first place, our party preserved this Government. (" Yes, sir.") Had it not been for the Republican party the United States of America would not still enrich and glorify the map of the world. (" You are right.") Had it not been for the Re publican party the old banner of STARS AND STRIPES would not now be floating in heaven. (Cheers.) The Re publican party issued the money; the Republican pertj swore it was good, and the Republican party swore it shoald be paid. The Republican party issued the bonds made necefe sary by the Democracy, and the Republicans not only said " W ewill whip you," but " "We will pay the costs our selves." (Laughter.) It cost at least six thousand millions of dollars, a pile of gold in the presence of which even ex travagance would stand amazed. Six thousand million's of dollars, and 400,000 lives! What for? Is it possible we did 18 ^74 COL - INGERSOLLS ,il that to put the very party in power that it cost six thou- Rand millions of dollars and 400,000 lives to prevent their destroying this Government? (Cheers.) Think of itl Re member it. Let me ask any Democrat, looked at in the light of history of twenty years, which of these parties has the better reputation? (Laughter.) "Which has the better reputation for patriotism? Which has the better reputa tion for truth and veracity? DEMOCRATIC BLUNDERING. What has the Democratic party done the last twenty years that has been a success? Gov. Morton once said: u The Democratic party, it is like a man riding on the cars backwards: he never sees anything until he has passed it" (Laughter.) What has the Democratic party advocated in the twenty years that has been a success? Now and then they have advocated a good thing, but that has only been when they adopted some Republican idea. (Applause.) I admit that the Republican party has done some wrong things. I admit the great, splendid Republican party, en deavoring to do right, has now and then, by mistake, done wrong; I admit that the great Democratic party, endeavor ing to do wrong, has now and then blundered into the right. Which of these parties are the people of this splen did country of Northern Illinois willing to risk the- Gov ernment with? Well, of course, it is owing to what you want. It is owing to what you want to preserve; it is ow ing to what you wish to destroy. A CHANGE. Some people tell me, we want a change. What for? ' "Well, we want a change." (Laughter.) What for? There never was a time in the history of this country that it was as prosperous as it is to-day. Do you want a change? GREAT SPEECHES. 2? 5 (" No," " No.") This is not only the best country in the world, but we have good houses, we have got more to eat, have got better clothes, and we have got more sense, on the average, than any other people on this globe. (Laughter.) When I say " country," I mean the Northern, Western and Eastern States; that is what I mean. There is no country wherein education is thought so much of as in the United States. There is no country where one man will help an other as quickly. There is no country in which there is as much generosity, on the average, as in the United States. Now we have to preserve something. We do not wish to change for the sake of a change. There never should be a change until a better party than the Republican asks to to take the scepter of authority. When the Democracy, in sackcloth and ashes, will admit that they have been wrong for twenty years; when the Democratic party will say, beating the meantime upon its hollow breast, " I have sinned and wish an opportunity to show that I have sincerely re pented," it will be time enough to trust them then. THE SOLID SOUTH. Now, the question arises, which section of this country had you rather trust? The South or the North? (" The North every time.") Of course. What is the Democratic party to-day without the Solid Southl The Solid South is the Democratic party. The Democrats of the North are the tools of the Solid South. (Cheers.) There are some things in this country that we wish to preserve. Of course, when a man has got nothing he need not be very particular about making his will, and if he does make his will he need not make any fuss about who shall be administrators. We think that we have got something. We think there are things to be preserved in the American Republic. 276 COL. INGERSOLL'S Now, what must we preserve? What do you want pre served? FEKK SPEECH. First of all, yon believe that in a Republic there should be absolute freedom of'opinion ; you believe that in a Re public there should be absplute free speech; you believe that every individual tongue has the right to the general ear; you believe that this Government should rest upon the intelligence, upon the patriotism, and upon the morality of the people, and you believe that every citizen of this Repub lic has a right to tell the rest of the citizens of this Re public what he believes. Of what use can free speech be if it is afterwards to be defeated by force or fraud? Of what use is it to allow the attorney for the defendant to ar gue before the jury, if, upon the jury bringing a verdict of u Not guilty," the defendant is to be hanged by a mob? We believe, then, in free speech; we believe free speech to be the gem of the human brain. Speech is the wing of thought, and if you will not allow free speech, you are not a civilized people. (Applause.) In what part of this coun try has the sacred right of free speech been preserved, in the South or the North? (Cries of " In the North.") If you want free speech preserved in this country the North must do it. (Cries, u That is right") We must do it and we must not put in power the people who do not believe in that sacred right. The South never favored free speech, never. Why? They had there an institution called slavery If they allowed free speech they knew that slavery could not endure, and the consequence was they closed the lips of reason. In other words, for every chain they put upon the limbs of slaves they put a corresponding manacle upon the brain of the white man. (Loud applause.) In order to GREAT SPEECHES. 2f', enslave others they enslaved themselves, and they finally came face to face with one of the great principles of nature. Man cannot enslave another without trampling upon his own manhood; no man can be unjust to another without robbing himself. (Applause.) I believe, then, in free speech. I want the lips of thought to be forever free, and for that reason I am with the North, because the North will protect that sacred right. That is one thing I want, and 1 go with the people that are going farthest my way when I want anything. (Laughter and applause.) I belong to no party. I simply act with the party that comes nearest my views. I am the property of nobody. (Applause.) No human being has got a mortgage upon my brain. (Cries of " "Well done! " " Good! " and loud applause.) I will say my say in spite of principalities and powers as long as I live (cheers and a voice, "We will stand by you"); and I will say what I think. A FREE BALLOT- BOX. We not only wish to preserve free speech, but we wish also to preserve the product of free speech. After jou have thought, after every body has said his say, and thereupon the people of the United States deposit their will in the ballot-box, we want to feel absolutely certain that every vote that goes in there is honest; we want to feel certain that every vote that comes out from there and is counted is a legal vote. That is what we want. Of what use is free speech if fraud is to hold in its slimy hand, the ballot-box of this Nation? There is in this country one king, there is under our flag one emperor, one czar, one supreme power, and that is the legally-expressed will of a majority of our people. (Applause.) That is the king, and any man who will poison the source of authority, any man who will put 278 COL. INGERSOLL'S an illegal vote in a ballot-box, any man who will count an illegal vote after it is put in, any man who will throw out a legal vote after it is put in, is a traitor to the great prin ciple upon which this Government is founded. (Applause.) And the time ought to come when we will hold in supreme detestation, execration and contempt, any man who would put in the ballot-box an illegal vote. Every American citizen should keep his hands pure; every American citi zen should say, " I am willing to abide by the decision of the majority," and when we say that, then we will have a Republic that will endure for countless years. We have got to do something in this country. We are upon the edge, to-day, of Mexicanization; we are upon the edge of chaos. FRAUD IN ELECTIONS. The people are beginning to lose confidence in elections; the people are beginning to say, " Fraud controls, rascality elects," and the moment that suspicion is well lodged in the minds of the people then they will have no respect for the laws made by men elected by fraud. They will have no respect for the decision of judges when they believe the judges were elected by fraud; and then comes the dissolu tion of our form of Government; and then comes the destruction of human liberty for a hundred years. Every Republican should make up his mind to be a perpetual sentinel of the ballot-box; every Republican should make up his mind that, so far as'was in his power, an illegal vote should never again be cast in this country. We fell into it; it took a long time but we got there. In the first place, in the cities no man was allowed to vote who came from a for eign country until he had been here five years. They be gan allowing them to vote when they had been here four, and if the Democratic party did, probably the Whig party GREAT SPEECHES. 2/9 would have done it if the foreigners would have voted the Whig ticket. (Laughter.) But they wouldn't. (Renewed laughter.) After awhile they allowed them to vote in three years, in two years, and it was not long until they met them at Castle Garden and marched from the ship directly to the polls. (Laughter.) All over our country we have had a contest with regard to the removal of county seats, when all the people at one side of a county were for remov al, and all the people on the other side against removal, and the north side would hear that the south side was going to cheat, and the south would hear that the north side was going to cheat, and as a result both cheated. (Laughter.) And thus day by day, little by little, the sanctity of the ballot-box has been destroyed, and that party was consid ered the smartest party that could get in the most illegal votes and get them counted. All that must be stopped, or this country cannot endure, and it is the mission of the Republican party to stop it, and that is another reason WHY I AM A EEPUBLIOAN. That party has thrown every safeguard around the ballot-box in every State of the Union where any safeguard has been thrown. That party has always been in favor of registration; the Democratic party has always opposed it. That party the Republican party has done all it possi bly could do to secure an honest expression of the great will of the people. Every man here who is in favor of an honest ballot-box ought to vote the Republican ticket; every man here in favor of free speech ought to vote the Repub lican ticket. Free speech is the brain of this Republic, and an honest vote is its life-blood. (Applause.) There are two reasons, then, why I am a Republican: First, I believe in free speech; secondly, I want an honest vote. 280 COL. INGEKSOLL'S SOUTHERN TISSUE-BALLOTS AND BHOTUUflB. Can you trust the people of the South with the ballot- box? Are you willing to let Alabama keep that sacred treasure Alabama, that cast in 1876, about 103,000 votes for Tilden, bat only a little while ago cast a Democratic majority of 92,000? (Laughter.) Alabama to-day is a Republican State if every man was freely allowed to vote his sentiments; and you know it (Applause.) Mississippi is to-day a Republican State; North Carolina is a Republican State; South Carolina is a Republican State; Florida is a Republican State; and everybody who knows anything knows what I say is true. (Applause.) How are they kept in the Democratic ranks? Are they kept there by the men who are trying to protect the ballot, box ? They are kept there by the shotgun ; they are kept there by the tissue-ballot; they are kept by force and fraud. Masked murderers in the dead of night ride to the cabin of the freedman and shoot him down regardless of the shriek- ings of his wife and the tears of his babes. That is the way the Southern States are kept solidly Democratic. (Ap plause.) Ah, but they say to me, " Are you willing that the black people should control the South? " If the black people are in favor of liberty, and the white people are op posed, then I want the black people to control. (Applause.) If the black people believe that this is a Nation, and the white people there say it is a simple Confederacy, then I want the black people to control the South. (Applause and cries of " Good! ") If the black people are in favor of onr lowest vote, if the black people are in favor of freedom of speech, if the black people are in favor of absolutely guard ing the ballot-box from fraud, and if the white people are on the other side of these questions, then I say GREAT SPEECHES. S8l LET THE BLACK PEOPLE STTLB that country. (Applause.) I think more of a black friend than I do of a white enemy. (Applause.) I think more of a black man who loves liberty than I do of a white man who hates it. I think more of a black man who upheld our flag in war than of any white man who has tried to tear it down. (Applause.) That is my doctrine. (Ap plause, and cries of "All right 1") I think more of the man trampled down than of the trampler. I think more of the man stolen from than I do of the thief. (Applause, and cries of " Give it to them, Bob.") DEMOCRACY THE GREATEST LUXURY. There is another thing. We have not only got to have free speech, not only got to have an honest ballot, but we have got to raise a revenue in this country. We owe to-day one billion, nine million dollars, a Dem ocratic debt. (Applause and laughter.) Democracy is the greatest luxury we ever afforded. (Applause and laughter ? and cries of " Hit them again 1 ") We have got to pay that debt. Why? If we don't we will be eternally disgraced in the eyes of the civilized world. When our money is only worth 80 cents on the dollar every American falls 20 per cent, below par. (Laughter.) When our money is at par, we are. (Laughter.) When we cannot pay our bonds, we feel that we are a dishonored people, but when our bonds bearing only 4 percent., and are worth 110 in the market^ we feel proud; and when we go to another country and see one of those bonds, that bond certifies that an American is an honest man. (Applause.) Who are you going to trust to pay this debt? that is the question. Whom are you willing to trust with the honor of the United States! The men who defended her flag will defend her honor. (Ap- 282 COL. INGERSOLL'S plause.) The men who tried to tear her flag down will trample America's honor beneath their feet. Who is going to pay? The Democrats solemnly swore that we would never pay. (Laughter.) In the year of grace 1878, stand ing in the center of truth and knowledge, the Democratic party in every solitary State, with exception of two or three of the New England States, in which it held a convention? solemnly resolved that the United States could not resume SPECIE PAYMENTS. "Well, we did. (Applause and laughter. A voice: " They lied.") "We did. (Laughter.) They resolved that the war was a failure, and immediately thereafter we succeeded, and the old flag was carried in glory over every inch of the United States. (Applause.) They have never made a proph esy that was fulfilled. (Laughter.) Their prophesies and their promises are exactly alike. (Laughter and applause.) Whom can we trust to pay this debt? Whom can we trust to give us good money? A greenback to-day is as good as gold. Who made it so? The Democrats in their conven tions solemnly resolved it would never be good. Well, they helped a little, I have no doubt, because everybody knew that what they resolved would not be true. (Great laugh ter.) All you have to do is to copper a Democratic resolu tion. (Applause and laughter.) Now in order to pay this debt, and I will come to the money question, after which we have got to have revenue, it has got to be collected. Will you trust to collect the North or South, the Republican or the Democratic party? Recollect the Democratic party has been fasting for twenty years. (Laughter.) It has suf fered all the agonies of official famine. (Laughter.) Not & bite for twenty years. (Great laughter.) The Democratic party to-day is GREAT SPEECHES. 28$ A VAST AGGBEGATE OFFICIAL APPETITE. (Laughter.) "Who are you going to trust? "Will we trust the Southern States to collect the revenues of the Union? In four years, with the Internal-Revenue Department, we have collected of internal tax, $460,000,000 at a cost of ibout 3 per cent. This in four years. During four years we have captured, destroyed and libeled 3,874 illicit distil leries in Southern States. (Laughter.) Remember it; we have captured and indicted 7,084 Democrats in Southern States, charged with defrauding the revenue of the country. (Laughter.) The Southern people resisting the collectors of Federal tax in the last four years, have shot and killed twenty-five revenue officials, and have wounded fifty-five; and now in the Southern States that is, in many of them every revenue-collector, every officer connected with that branch of Government is provided by the Internal Revenue Department WITH A BBEECH-LOADING EIFLE and a pair of revolvers. (Laughter.) Are they the gentle men to collect our revenue? "Will you depend upon them to pay the interest on $1,400,000,000 and the current ex penses of this Government? It won't do. (Laughter.) I heard a story of a couple of Methodist ministers who had been holding a camp-meeting, and after they had preached a week one said to the other: " Let's take up a subscription." " Good," said he. So he passed his hat, gave it to a brother, and he passed it around, and finally came back and handed it to the preacher, and he turned it over on the pul pit, and there was a lot of old nails, matches, toothpicks, buttons and not one solitary cent (laughter); and the other preacher said, looking at it: " Let us thank God " (laugh ter), and the owner of the hat said, ""What fort " and the 284 COL. INGERSOLL'S other replied, " Because you got your hat back." (Great laughter.) If we depend upon the Southern States to col lect the revenue of this country we won't get oar hat back. (Laughter.) Now, then, my friends, if yon want free speech, if you want an honest ballot, if you want the revenues of the coun try collected, vote the Republican ticket. HONEST MONET. Then there is another thing we want; we want good money; we want honest money. I know there have been a great many theories on money, and I never knew a man that had not a dollar himself who had not a scheme to make somebody else rich. (Laughter.) These theories were pro duced, of course, by the circumstances we went through the war. "We had, as they say, plenty of money, that is to say no money; plenty of promises, but no money; plenty of notes, but no cash; and while we were sailing on a credit, we sailed well, and as long as I can buy all I want on a credit, ray family shall not suffer. (Laughter.) We were going into debt, and as a rule it is an exceedingly prosper ous time in a man's life when he is getting into debt. (Laughter.) As a rule it is an exceedingly hard time when he is paying this debt. (Laughter.) Millions and millions of promises were issued. The result was prices went up just in proportion as the value of the promises went down, and that was at the EXPENSE OP THE CREDITOR CLASS. Expansion is always at the expense of creditors, and when the wheel of fortune takes a turn, and contraction comes, that is always at the expense of the debtor. At the same time, people claimed absolute justice would be done; but the trouble is, creditors do not mean the same. The GREAT SPEECHES. 285 very man who is a creditor, and at whose expense the infla tion came, when contraction comes may be a debtor, and consequently suffer both ways. We had vast and splendid schemes for the future. We began to buy lots, twenty miles from Chicago, that the frogs had held undisputed sway over since the morning stars sang together. On paper we laid this laud out into squares, avenues, boulevards, and were selling what cost $10 an acre for $10 a foot and $50 a foot, and all at once in 1873 the crash came and all these lots re sumed. (Great laughter.) A fellow who had bought on credit, paying two-thirds down, found that the lots would not 'pay the other third. (Laughter.) Hundreds of thou sands of men were ruined, and all at once they said, " What we want is another inflation; we want more money," and I never heard one who was caught speaking on the subject who did not say, " If there ever comes another inflation you may shoot me if I don't unload." (Laughter.) When CONTRACTION came, certain men were left with the bags to hold, and they were the men who got up new financial theories, and I do not blame them. (Laughter.) It is precisely the same as it is in a game of cards, where men have been playing poker all night. I do not believe there is a man here that will understand this campaign. (Laughter.) Along tO' ward morning the fellow who is ahead lias got to go home; his wife is' not very well. The other fellow who is behind says, "No; nobody but a coward will jump the game; let us get another candle, and we will have another deal." And so it was that the Greenback theory started. We want another deal. We have been left high and dry in the brush, miles from the channels. If water can only come once more, if we do not float off it will be our fault. (Laugh ter.) 286 COL. INGKRSOLL'S HARD TIMES AND " REPUDIATION." No man can imagine, all the languages of the world can not express what the people of the United States suffered from 1873 to 1879. Men who considered themselves millionaires found that they were beggars; men living in palaces, supposing they had enough to give sunshine to the winter of their age, supposing they had enough to have all they loved in affluence and comfort, suddenly found that they were mendicants with bonds, stocks, mortgages, all turned to ashes in their trembling hands. The chim neys grew cold, the fires in furnaces went out, the poor families were turned adrift, and the highways of the United States were crowded with tramps. Into the home of the poor crept the serpent of temptation and whispered the ter rible word, " Repudiation." I want to tell you that you can not conceive of what the American people suffered as they staggered over the desert of bankruptcy from 1873 to 1879. We are too near now to know how grand we were. The poor mechanic said, "No;" the ruined manufacturer said "No;" the once millioniare said, "No; we will settle fair, we will agree to pay whether we ever pay or not, and we will never soil the American name with the infamous word 'repudiation.'" Are you not glad? What is the talk? Are you not glad that our flag is covered all over with finan cial honors? The stars shine and gleam now because they represent an honest Nation. They said during that time, u We must have more paper," and the Republican party said: " Let us pay what we have." L am in favor of having that as money which no human being can create. I be lieve in gold and silver; I believe in silver because that is one of the great productions of our country, and when you add a use to a thing, you add a value to that thing, and GREAT SPEECHES. 287 I want silver money; but I want a silver dollar big enough to be worth a gold dollar, if you have to have it three feet in diameter. HONEST MONET. Nothing is ever made by rascality. I do not want it un derstood that we are a Nation of coin clippers. I want honest dollars; honest dollars will make honest people; that is to say, honest people will make an honest dol lar every time. I only want money that is a product of nature. Now listen: no civilized nation, no tribe, how ever ignorant, ever used anything as money that man could make. They had always used for money a production oi nature. Some may say, "Have not some uncivilized tribes used beads for money, something that civilized people could make?" Yes, but a savage tribe could not make the beads. The savage tribes supposed them to be a product either of nature or of something else that they could not imi tate. Nothing has ever been considered money among any people on this globe that those people could make. GREENBACKS. What is a greenback! The greenbacks are a promise, not money. (Great laughter and applause.) The green backs are the Nation's note, not money. You cannot make a fiat dollar any more than you can make a fiat store. You can make a promise, and that promise may be made by such a splendid man that it will pass among all who know him as a dollar; but it is not a dollar. You might as well tell me that a bill of fare is a dinner. (Laughter.) The grew, back is only good now because you can get gold for it. If you could not get gold for it, it would not be worth any more than a ticket for dinner after the fellow who issued the ticket had quit keeping the hotel. A dollar must be 88 COL. INGERSOLL'S made of something that nature has produced. When I die, if I have a dollar left I want it to be a good one. 1 do not want a dollar that will turn into ashes in the hands of wid owhood, or in the possession of the orphan. Take a coin of the Roman Empire a little piece of gold and it is just as good to-day as though Julius Caesar still stood at the head of the Roman legions. I do not wish to trust the wealth of this Nation with the demagogues of the Nation. I do not wish to trust the wealth of the country to every blast of public opinion. I want money as solid as the earth on which we tread, as bright as the stars that shine above us. (Applause.) THE GREENBACKEBS. Now, then, we had such good luck given our notes; we had so much to eat and drink and wear that some Greenback gentleman said: "Why not keep it up? " 1 want to-day to pay a debt to the greenback party. I endeavor to do equal and exact justice, and I believe to-day that if it had not been for the Greenback party we could not have re sumed, and I will tell you why. The Greenbackers went into every school-house in the State, except the Southern States, where they would not allow them to speak, they went onto every stump, and they told the people, "The greenback is the best money the world has ever seen." They talked and they argued until millions of people began to despise the look of silver; they absolutely hated the color of gold ; they said after all the talk, " The greenback is the money of civilization." Finally, when we said, " We will resume," the Greenback party had gotten the people into such a state of mind, had got them so in love with the greenback, that they did not ask for gold. If they had asked for gold, we would not have had enough. (Laughter GREAT SPEECHES. 289 and applause.) So to-day I want to thank the Greenback party for what they have done; but allow me in this con nection to say the day of your usefulness is past. (Loud applause.) Thousands of men gave wrong definitions of money, and that helped to mislead thousands of people. They said, " Money is a measure of value;" they said, " Money is a device to facilitate exchanges." Well, that is calculated to mislead anybody. The Greenbackers said, " If it is only a device to facilitate exchanges, why is not a paper device just as good as a gold device?" ("Good!") You could not answer it; nobody can answer it. The trouble is that the first statement is untrue. Money is not "a device to facilitate exchanges," but the coining of mon ey is a device to facilitate exchanges. Recollect the word, "coining." The only reason that coining was necessary was the Government had to tell how much there was, or else every man had to carry a pair of scales and be a chemist. So the coining of money is "a device to facilitate ex changes," but the money itself is gold and silver, the prod uct of Nature herself. (Applause.) HALF-BUSHELS AND YARDSTICKS. Then they said, " Money measures value as a half-bushel measures corn, or as a yardstick measures cloth." That is not so. If it had been so, the Greenbackers would have been right, because if " money measures value as a half- bushel, or as a yardstick," of course it makes no difference whether a half-bushel or a yardstick is made of gold, silver or paper; but the statement is not true. Money does not measure values as a half-bushel or as a yardstick, and why? The half-bushel does not measure value; the yardstick does not measure value. The yardstick measures length, not yalue; it measures lace worth $200 a yard precisely as it 19 290 COL. INGERSOLL'S does cent tape, and you know it. A half-bnshel does not measure value; it measures quantity; and the half-bushel would measure gold, and diamonds, and pearls precisely as it does oats and corn. (Applause.) There is another trouble about it. The reason it does not make any differ ence whether a yardstick, or half-bushel, or gold, or silver, or paper, is that you do not buy the half-bushel or the yard stick. The man who owned the half-bushel at the com mencement of the trade, keeps it after the trade is over. The gentleman in possession of the yardstick before the purchase is made, keeps the yardstick after the purchase is done. If it were so with money, then it would not make any difference. (Applause.) MONEY DOES NOT MATTE PEOSPESITT. Now, then, my friends, if there is a solitary Greenbacker here, now in the Democratic party, that once belonged to the .Republican party, I ask him to come out. (Cries of "Hear!" "Hear!") I ask him to admit that to-day we have got money enough. I want him to admit that an amount of money does not make prosperity, but prosperity makes the money. I want him to admit that when the country is prosperous then every man trusts his neighbor, but if you buy a pound of sugar on credit then you inflate the currency. If you give your note for a horse, then you inflate the currency; if you give a mortgage or deed of trust, you inflate the currency; and every fellow that says, " Charge it," inflates the currency. (Laughter, and a voice, " That's so.") So that in times of prosperity that is to say, that in times of general confidence we have all the money we want. Suppose you should go to a man that owned a ferry-boat, and there had been no rain for six months, and the river GREAT SPEECHES. 29 1 was entirely dry, and the ferry-boat was upon the sand, with seams gaping open like your average Democrat hear ing a speech that he does not understand I might say in connection a speech about the Constitution (laughter and applause) and suppose you should ask that man, " How is business?" and he should say, "Dull;" and suppose you tell him, " Now, what you want is more boats." (Laugh ter.) He would be apt to answer, " I can get along with this one if I only had a little more water." (Great laughter.) I want every man to think, and get that heresy out of his head, that a Government can make money; and I will ask each one this question and I have never seen any man who could answer it now, honor bright, if the Govern ment can make money, why should it collect taxes? Just think about that. (A voice, " Who does make the money ? ") Sir, Nature makes all the gold and all the silver, and the Nation coins the gold and coins the silver so that each man who sees it may know what it is worth. (Applause.) PAPER NOT MONEY. That is what I understand by money, and all paper that takes the place of money is simply a promise to pay that money. (A voice, " That is all.") You cannot make money by resolving (laughter); you cannot make money by law any more than you can make oats and corn by a res olution in apolitical meeting. (Laughter.) Lord! Lord! I wish you could! (Great laughter.) I wish this Govern ment could make money. "What a rich Nation we would be. (Laughter.) If the Government can make money, why does it collect taxes? Why should the sun borrow a candle? (Laughter and applause.) Here is a poor man working upon his farm the whole year, through rain and shine and storm, day and night, and at the end of the year people come to 2p2 COL, INGERSOLL S him and want $125 taxes. If the Government can make a $1,000 bill in a second, why should it follow up that poor man ? (A voice, " That's so.") I wish the Government could make money, and that I could get my share now. (Great laughter.) I regret that the Aladdin palace made by the Greenback party consisted only of glorified mist. (Laugh ter.) I am sorry that its dome was only a rainbow of hope. I wish it had been a reality. I wish the Government could make money out of paper so that the luxuries of the world would be at American feet. I wish we could make money so that we could put every poor man in a palace. I wish we could make money so that our life should be a con tinual and perpetual feast. But the trouble is, we can't; that is the trouble. MONET GOOD EVERYWHERE IN THE WORLD. Suppose a man had bought a farm for $10,000, and given his note for it, and he had bought a carriage and span of horses, and sent John to college, and bought Mary a piano, and gave his notes; and at the end of the year, when the in terest became due, he gave his note, and the next year the holders came and said, " You must settle," and he said to them, " I never had a better time in my life than while I have been giving these notes; we have had more to eat than we ever had before; the house has been filled with music and dancing; I have ridden in a carriage; I have good clothes; now, why not let this thing go on? (Laughter.) I am willing to renew my notes until Gabriel's trumpet stops the business." (Great laughter.) Upon my word I am sorry that can't be done (laughter), but it can't. "We have got to work; we have got to dig in the ground to taise oats and corn. So far as I am concerned I had rather trust Ae miserly crevices of honest rocks for the money of GREAT SPEECHES. 293 world than to leave it to any Congress ever assembled on earth. (Applause.) The gold won't cheat you; it is its own redeemer. (Ap plause.) The silver won't fool you; there it is, and when you have got it, you know how much you are worth. (Ap plause.) We are a commercial Nation, and I hope the time will come when the American fla^ will float in every part of the world; and when that time comes we want money that will go the world around. Probably it will be paper, but behind every dollar of paper I want a dollar in silver or gold. (Applause.) I want American money to be so good that when you take it out of your pocket, no matter if it is in Central Africa, no matter if it is in the furthermost isles of the Pacific Sea, that when a barbarian sees it, its rustle will sound to him like the clink of gold. (Ap plause.) I want money that we can be proud of the world over, and so do you. I don't want the honesty of this country to be represented by any irredeemable rag, and you don't if you will think about it a little while, FINANCIAL HONOR. Now, I beg every Greenbacker that was ever in the Re publican party to come back (applause), and vote where he belongs. You are in bad company. (Laughter.) Come back. (Applause.) Now, what else do you want? We want free speech; don't forget it. We want an honest bal lot; remember it. We want to collect a revenue to sup port our Government, and we want honest money. What else do we want? We want a Government wherein the law is supreme. We want States that will pay their debts. (Applause.) Whom can we trust? The South or North? (A voice, " The North all the time," and applause.) Had voa ratiiar have a bond of Alabama or Illinois! (A vwoe, 294 CO*- INGERSOLL S " That's it.") Will you take the promise of Arkansas or of Massachusetts? Think about it. Will you invest in the securities of Tennessee or of Pennsylvania? Think about it. (Laughter.) Who are you going to trust? All this debt has got to be paid; every acre of our land is mort gaged; we have mortgaged honor and industry and chil dren. Who will yon trust? The financial honor of the United States; think about it. Who can we trust? We believe in a Government of law; we believe in civilization. Which section of this country believes in law? Which section of this country believes in protecting the innocent, and in the punishment of the guilty? What part of the Nation should control? That part that believes in educa tion; that part that regards the school house as a temple; that part that believes in justice; that believes a court house, where justice is done between man and man, is one of the holy places on this earth; that believes in argument, in reason, in moral suasion, and that believes in liberty? Or will you allow a section of this country to control that does not believe in a government of law? That is the question for you to answer. For one, I say to-day, that I stand with the great, splendid, patriotic, enormous North, and I expect to as long as I live. (Applause.) INTELLIGENCE NOT THE DOCTRINE OP HATRED. But they say to me, " You are preaching the doctrine of hatred." It is not true. I believe in passing the same laws for the South that we do for the North? The law tha is good for the North is good for the South, no matter how not it is. (Laughter.) A law that is good for the North is good for the South; climate has no influence upon justice. (Laughter.) The mercury can nol rise high enough to make wrong right. If climate affected law, we ought GREAT SPEECHES. 295 vo have two sets of laws in this country, one for the winter and one for the summer. (Laughter.) I would give to them the same laws that we have; I would improve their rivers; I would build up their commerce; I would improve their harbors; I would treat them in every respect precisely . as though every man voted the Republican ticket. Then, if that is hatred, that is the doctrine I preach; I know they are as they have to be; I know they are as their institutions made them. Every Southern man and every Northern man is a result of an infinite number of forces behind. They are what they are, because they have to be, and there is only one lever capable of raising them, and that is in telligence. And I propose to keep them out of power until they have the intelligence. (Laughter and applause.) I do not hate them. They probably did as well under the cir cumstances, as well as we would have done under the same circumstances. But as long as they are wrong I do not wish to see them in power. That is all the hatred I have. STATE SOVEREIGNTY. . Now there is one other thing, and nothing can by any possibility, in this country, be more important. The great difference to-day between the Democratic and Republican party is that the Democratic party believes this is a simple confederation. The Democratic party believes in what we 3all State sovereignty, and the Republican party proclaims this country to be a nation, one and indivisible. There is the difference. The South believe this is a mere confedera cy, and they are honest; they were willing to fight for it; they are willing to fight for it now; they are willing to com mit frauds for it; they are willing to use the shotgun to up hold it; they are willing to use tissue ballots to substanti ate it, and they believe it. Now the question with us is, 296 COL. INGERSOLL'S whether we will pnt a party in power, knowing as we do know, that the principal part of that party absolutely be lieve in the doctrine of State sovereignty. They believe in the sacredness of a State line. In old times, in the year of grace 1860, if a man wished the army of the United States to pursue a fugitive slave, then the army could cross the State line. Whenever it became necessary to deprive some human being of a right, then we had a right to cross State lines; but whenever we wished to strike the shackles of slavery from a human being, we had no right to cross a State line. In other words, when you want to do a mean thing you can step over the line, but if your object is a good one you shall not do it. This doctrine of State sover eignty is the meanest doctrine ever lodged in the Ameri can mind. It is political poison, and if this country is de stroyed that doctrine will have done as much toward it as any other one thing. I believe the Union one absolutely. NATIONAL PROTECTION. The Democrat tells me that when I am away from home the Government will protect me; but when I am home, when I am sitting around the family fireside of the Nation, then the Governmentcan not protect me; that I must leave if I want protection. (Laughter.) Now, I denounce that doctrine. For instance, we are at war with another country, and the American Nation comes to me and says: "We want you." I say: "I won't go." They draft me, put some names in a wheel, and a man turns it and another man pulls out a paper, and my name is on it, and he says. "Come." So I go (laughter), and I fight for the flag. When the war is over, I go back to my State. Now, let as admit that the war had been unpopular, and that when 1 got to the State, the people of that State wished to trami le GREAT SPEECHES. 297 upon ray rights, and I cried out to my Government: "Come and defend me; you made me defend you." What ought the Government to do? I only owe that Government alle giance that owes me my protection. Protection is the other side of the bargain; that is what it must be. And if a Government ought to protect even the man that it drafts, what ought it to do for the volunteer (A voice, ''That's it! "), the man who holds his wife for a moment in a tremulous embrace, and kisses his children, wets their cheeks with his tears, shoulders his musket, goes to the field, and says, " Here I am to uphold my flag." (Applause.) A Nation that will not protect such a protector is a disgrace to man kind, and its flag a dirty rag that contaminates the air in which it waves. (Applause.) I believe in a Government with an arm long enough to reach the collar of any rascal beneath its flag. (Laughter.) I want it with an arm long enough, and a sword sharp enough, to strike down tyranny wherever it may raise its snaky head. I want a Nation that can hear the faintest cries of its hum blest citizen. (A voice, "That's itl" and applause.) I want a Nation that will protect a freedman stand ing in the sun by his little cabin, just as quick as it would protect Yanderbilt in a palace of marble and gold. (Ap plause.) I believe in a Government that can cross a State line on an errand of mercy. I believe in a Government that can cross a State line when it wishes to do jus tice. I do not believe that the sword turns to air at a State line. 1 want a Government that will protect me. I am here to-day do I stand here because the flag of Illinois is above met I want no flag of Illinois, and if I were to see it I should not know it I am here to-day under the folds of 298 COL. INGEKSOLL'S THE FLAG OF MY COUNTRY, for which more good, blessed blood has been shed than for any other flag that waves in this world. I have as much right to speak here as if I had been born here. (Laughter.) That is the country in which I believe; that is the Nation that commands my respect, that protects all. This doctrine of State sovereignty has to be done away with; we have got to stamp it out. Let me tell you its history: The first time it appeared was when they wished to keep the slave trade alive until 1808. The first resort to this doctrine was for the protection of piracy and murder, and the next time they appealed to it was to keep the slave trade alive, so that a man in Virginia could sell the very woman who nursed him, to the rice fields of the South. It was done so that they could raise mankind as a crop. (Laughter.) It was a crop that they could thrash the year around. (Renewed laughter.) The next time that they appealed to the doc trine was in favor of the Fugitive Slave Law, so that every white man in the North was to become a hound, to bay upon the track of the fugitive slave. Under that law the North agreed to catch women and give them back to the blood-hounds of the South. Under that infamy men and women were held and were kidnapped under the shadow of the dome of the National Capitol. If the Democratic party had remained in power it would be so now. (Cheers.) The South said: "Be friends with us; all we want is to steal labor; be friends with us; all we want of you is to have you catch our slaves; be friends with us; all we want of you is to be in partnership in the business of slavery, and we are to take all the money, and you are to have the disgrace and dishonor for your shara" The divid end didn't suit me. GREAT SPEECHES. 299 STATE RIGHTS AND THE EXTENSION OF BLAVKBT. The next time they appealed to the doctrine of State rights was that they might extend the area of human slav ery; it was that they might desecrate the fair fields of Kansas. The next time they appealed to this infamous doc trine was in secession and treason; so now, when I hear any man advocate this doctrine, I know that he is not a friend of my country; he is not a friend of humanity, of liberty or of progress. There is another reason why I am opposed to the Demo cratic party. We have* not only got parties to trust, we have got sections of the country to trust. They say, "Are we never to be friends of the South ? " Yes, when the South admits that they were wrong. "When they get up to that point, they will know that whoever is conquered by right is after all the victor; they will know that every man that was whipped by freedom remains a conqueror upon the field; every man trampled down by right rises like a god; and when they get great enough to understand this philosophy, they will be glad they didn't succeed; they will know that defeat was their only possible road to success. (Applause.) "We, hav ing saved them from the crime of slavery, have made it possible for them to go abreast with us with the great march of human progress, and the time will come when the South will rejoice that we succeeded, because the right was victorious. GENERAL HANCOCK. Now, we not only have to choose between sections, and between parties, but also between men. The Democratic party has nominated Gen. Hancock for President and Mr. English for Vice President. For several years last past the Democratic party has been doing all in its power, or pretend- 3 COL. INGERSOLL'S ing to do all in its power, to destroy the army and the National banks, and in order to show that it is sincere it nominates for President a Major-General in that very army, and also nominates for the second place on the ticket a President of a National Bank. Now you know they are honest. I have not one word to say against Gen. Hancock. No doubt he was a good, brave, splendid soldier; but if he was right at Gettysburg, he is wrong now; if he believed in State rights then, he had no right to trample that right between the hoofs of his horse. The South WHEN AT GETTYSBURG believed in State sovereignty. Lee believed in it. Jackson fought for it, and Hampton swears that the cause of Dem ocracy to-day is the same cause that Lee and Jackson fought for. Hampton, an honorable man, told the truth. Who has changed since the battle of Gettysburg, Hancock or the South? The South remains where it was, firm as ever; the men who shot at him there wish to vote for him now. They have not changed. Who has? Hancock is a soldier, I know, but a few of his ideas in regard to govern ment all I know I get from Order No. 40, from his let ter of acceptance, which is in general terms an approval of the constitution (laughter), and from two or three letters and telegrams that he has written and sent since his nomi nation. They say that by Order No. 40 General Hancock showed that he was in favor of exalting the civil power above the military. That order did no such thing; that order tells the General that he must not interfere unless for the purpose of keeping order. Who under that order would decide whether there was order, the General or the civil power! Under that order the General was to decide whether there was order or disorder. From his decision GREAT SPEECHES. 3OJ there was no appeal, and Order No. 40 puts the civil power beneath the feet of the military authorities, and every body knows it that has sense to read. Gen. Hancock, too, the other day had the kindness to certify that if his party did wrong he would not. He tells the American people in substance: " Of course you cannot trust the Democracy (laughter), but you can rely on me. (Great laughter.) If my party passes a law to pay the Southern claims, I now give you my honor that I will defeat the party that exalts me to power." (Laughter and applause.) In other words, he agrees to veto the bill in advance; he agrees even before he is elected President. He swears how he will use a cer tain discretionary power vested in him by the Constitution, and he cannot foresee what the circumstances will be; yet in advance he solemnly swears what his better judgment will be then. He knows exactly how discreet he will be. (Laughter.) He certifies to the American people that he will veto any law that the party may pass for the PAYMENT OF SOUTHERN CLAIMS. How did he ever come to suspect that his party would pass such a law? (Laughter and prolonged applause.) Garfield has written no letter that he will veto a law to pay Southern claims. Is it not a little strange that the can didate has to certify to his party? (Laughter and cheers.) As a rule, in this country, the party has always certified to the candidate. (Applause.) If General Garfield would cer tify that he would veto a certain law if it was passed by the Republican party, the wjiole party would feel insulted. (Cries of " Hear!" "Hear!" and loud applause.) We would say to him: " We will take care of ourselves; when you become President, exercise your power as in your dis cretion vou believe you ought, but do not certify to the 3O2 COL. INGERSOLL S moral character of the Republican party." (Applanse.) Why did Hancock think it necessary to certify to their character? Because he knew it is bad. (Laughter.) He really thought the American people had more confidence ia Klin than in the Democratic party ; for that reason he steps to the front and says to the country: "I will not allow these ragamuffins behind me (laughter) I will not allow these rebels who placed me in power I will not allow them to pass a law that I don't want." (Laughter and ap plause.) He says, " I admit they are bad; look at them. (Re newed laughter.) I admit you cannot trust them, but between the hungry horde and the American people, I promise to throw the shield of my veto." He says: "La dies and gentlemen, I will protect you from this party. (Laughter.) All I want of these men is to make me President, and then I will protect you and let them go to the Devil." (Laughter and applause.) General Hancock might die (laughter); Death might veto him. (Roars of laughter.) From the grave he could not carry out his promise and who comes in then? Mr. English. Death has never yet elected a good President in the United States, yet death has always made a frightful mistake. (Laughter and ap plause.) Read the letter of acceptance made by Mr. Eng lish and tell me whether you are willing to trust that man. Read his history. A man who has done nothing but loan money, take deeds of trust on the " life, liberty and pursuit of happiness " of the people, and then foreclose the deed, and yet, after nominating that man the Democratic party passes a resolution that they will save the people from THE CORMORANTS. (Laughter.) It won't do; we don't want him. (Laugh ter.) I had rather trust a party than any man; so would GREAT SPEECHES. 303 you yon had rather trust the Republican party than sim ply Gen. Hancock. He says: " I am a shepherd; I will . take care of the sheep; I admit that my followers are wolves." (Laughter.) Well, I say rather than have the wolves we will dispense with you. (Applause and langh- ter.) What are the ideas of this soldier? What are his ideas about money? He was a hard-money man they tell me. Mr. Bayard, the representative of hard money, a man who once in the Senate voted to pay the bonds in de preciated money, and to pay them at the same price at which they were originally sold, that man now says: " As fast as we redeem a greenback let us burn it up; let us put the greenback out of the country; when he knows the greenback bears no interest; when he knows it is gold. What are the opinions, I say, of Gen. Hancock? I say he is for hard money, and yet when a Greenbacker carried Maine, he congratulated him. Why should he do that if he is a believer in hard money? Why should he be de lighted because a believer in paper money carried the State of Maine? I don't know. Maybe, after all, he was not so glad that the Greenbackcrs carried the State as that the Republicans lost it. What does that man believe in? Does he believe in free trade? I don't know. What kind of a tariff does he want? I don't know. What is his opin ion about things of interest to every man here? I don't know. You do not know. I would like to hear from him. I wish we had heard from him years and years ago. In 1868 he was opposed to all legislation that has made the negro a citizen. In 1868 he was opposed to all the LEGISLATION GROWING OUT OF THE WAR. Only a little while ago he was in favor of soft money; only a little while ago he said that we never could redeem ; 304 COL. INGERSOLL'S only a little while ago he was a Democrat of that school; and now we are told he is a hard-money man. Now we are told he is in favor of the constitutional amendments. Now we are told he is in favor of an honest vote everywhere. It won't do. (Laughter.) GARFIELD. On the other hand, we have a man who is a trained states man, who has discussed those questions time and time again, and whose opinions are well known to all the intelli gent people of this Union. He was as good a soldier as Hancock was. (A voice, "A volunteer," and applause.) The man who makes up his mind in a time of profound peace to make war the business of his life*, the man who is adopted by the Government; the man who makes war his profession, is, in my judgment, no better than the man who in time of peace would rather follow the avocations of peace, and who, when war comes, when the blast of conflict blows in his ears, buckles on his sword and fights for his native land, and, when the war is over, goes back to the avocations of peace. (Applause.) I say that Garfield was as good a soldier as Hancock, and I say that Garfield took away from the field of Chickamauga as much honor as one man can carry. (Applause.) He is a trained statesman. He knows what he is talking about and he talks about it well. I have known him for years. I know him as well as I know any other man, and I tell you that he has more brains, more education, wider and more splendid views, than any other man who has been nominated for the Presidency since I was born. (Applause.) GARFIELD NOT A BIGOT. Some people say to me: " How can you vote for Garfield whence is a Christian and was a preacher? " I tell them GREAT SPEECHES. I have two reasons; one is I am not a bigot, and the other is, Gen. Garfield is not a bigot. He does not agree with me; I do not agree with him on thousands of things; but on the great luminous principle that every man must give to every other man every right that he claims for himself we do absolutely agree. (Applause.) I would despise myself if I would vote against a man simply because we differed about what is known as religion. I will vote for a liberal Catholic, a liberal Presbyterian, a liberal Methodist, a lib eral anything, ten thousand times quicker than I would vote for an illiberal free-thinker. (Applause.) I believe in the right. I believe in doing to other people in these matters as I would like to have them do to me. Gen. Garfield is an honest man every way; intellectual every way. He is a poor man; he is rich in honor, in integ rity he is wealthy, aud in brains he is a millionaire. (Laugh ter and applause.) I know him, and if the people of Illi nois knew him as well as I do, he would not lose 100 votes in this State. He is a great, good, broad, kind, tender man, and he will do, if elected President, what he believes to be right. (Applause.) I like him, too, because he is a certi ficate of the splendid form of our Government. 1 like him because, under our institutions, he came from abject pov erty to occupy the position he now does before the Ameri can people. He will make Hope the tailor of every ragged boy. He will make every boy think it possible, no matter how poor he is, no matter how hungry he may be, he will make every one of those boys believe that there is in their horizon some one beckoning them to glory and to honor. (Applause.) That is the reason I like this country, be cause 20 306 COL. INGERSOLL'S EVERYBODY HAS A CHANCB. I like it because the poorest man can live hoping his boy may occupy the highest place. That is the reason I like this country. That is one of the reasons I want to see Gen. Oarfield elected. He believes in honor; he believes in lib erty; he believes in an honest ballot; he believes in collect ing the revenues; he believes in good money; he believes in a Government of law; he believes that this is absolutely a Nation, and not a Confederacy, and I believe in him. (Applause.) Throwing aside, throwing to the winds, all prejudice, all partizanship, all hatreds,! be^r of every one who hears me to conscientiously decide for himself what, nnder the circumstances, as a man, as a patriot, as a lover of jus tice, he ought to do. That is all I want you to do. Be honor bright. (Laughter.) Do not be led away by the ap peals of gentlemen who once belonged to the Republican party. Vote to sustain the greatest possible cause, human liberty. I know and appreciate what our liberty has cost. We are reaping to-day the benefits of the sufferings of every hero who ever died. "We are to-day a great, a united, and a splendid people, simply because somebody was great and good enough to die that we might live. Now, do you be lieve if the dead could rise from their graves the men fall en on all the battlefields of the war could they rise from the unknown graves that make this continent sacred, how would they vote next November? Think of it Let us be true to the memory of every man that ever died for us. (Applause.) VOTING WITH REBELS. Let me ask you another question. How do the men who wished to destroy this Government wish yon to vote now? How would every rebel in the South, could he have GREAT SPEECHES. to the North, have voted in 1864? How would every rebel in the South, if he could have visited the North, how would he have voted in 1868, in 1872, in 1876? How would Jefferson Davis vote if he were in the north to-day? How would the men that starved our prisoners at Andersonville and Libby, and Andersonville and Libby are the mighty, mighty wings that will bear the memory of the Confederacy to eternal infamy (applause), how would the men who starved our brave boys there vote if they were in Illinois now? Every one of them would hurrah for Hancock HOW TO VOTE. Let us be honest. We are reaping the reward of all these great and glorious actions, and every good man who has ever lived in the country, no matter whether he has been persecuted or not, has made the world better. The other night I happened to notice a sunset. The sun went down and the West was full of light and fire, and I said : " There, there is the perfect death of a great man ; that sun, dying, leaves a legacy of glory to the very clouds that obstruct its path. - (Applause.) That sun, like a great man, dying, leaves a legacy of glory even to the ones who persecuted him, and the world is glorious only because there have been men great enough and grand enough to die for the right." (Applause.) Will any man, can any man, afford to die for this country? Then we can afford to vote for it. If a man can afford to fight for it and to die for it, I can afford to speak for it. And now I beg of you, every man and woman, no mat ter in what country born, if you are an Irishman, recollect that this country has done more for your race than all other countries under heavens; (Applause.) if you are A German, recollect that this country is kinder to you COL. INGERSOLL'S than your own fatherland no matter what country you come from, remember that this country is an asylum, and vote as in your conscience you believe you ought to vote to keep this flag in heaven. I beg every American to stand with that part of the country that believes in law, in free dom of speech, in an honest vote, in civilization, in prog ress, in human liberty, and in universal justice. a "HAUNTS OF COOT AND HjlBtf ." Ingersoll on Fiat Money. A Talk to the Mechanics ol Newark, N. J. (Chicago Tribune, Oct. %9, 1880.} You can't make a dollar out of paper except by taking a dollar's worth of paper to do it. Did you ever hear of a fiat load of corn, or a fiat load of wheat? (Laughter.) You can no more make a paper dollar a dollar, than you can make a warehouse certificate a load of wheat. When resumption is an accomplished fact, confidence and credit take the place of gold and silver. I admit that the Democratic party raised their share of corn, and pork, and wheat, that enabled us to resume. They furnished their share of the money, and the Republicans furnished the honor to pay it over. The soft-money Democrats said that the greenback was the money for the poor man. Did any one ever hear before of money that sought out only the poor man, that was always hunting for fellows that were dead-broke, and that despised banks? (Applause and laughter.) But the Democrats wanted us to put the finances of the country into the hands of the Solid South, who had repudi ated $50,000,000 of their debts. Could such people be trusted with the honor of the country? But the Democrats talked of centralization. Their theory was that the Gov ernment was bound by the most sacred obligations to pro tect its citizens in England or Spain, but not under its own flag. It had the right to drag a citizen from his home, to stand him up before a loaded battery, to make him food few cannon, to tax him to death, and yet, when in return for all this he asked to be protected from outrage and wrong, the Democrats cried to the Government: "Hands off, you GREAT SPEECHES. 3H mustn't interfere. It's unconstitutional! " What a mon strous mockery it was! A government that couldn't protect its citizens wasn't fit to exist A flasr that couldn't defend its defenders was a o dirty rag. (Storms of applause.) The speaker described the repudiation, brutality and folly of the "Solid South," and asked, "Are we going to trust the Government to these people?" A thundering "No '' was the response. He was in favor of trusting them when they showed repentance and mended their ways, say about fifty years hence, and with a very few and unimportant of fices at first. (Laughter and applause.) He cheerfully admitted that if it hadn't been for hundreds of thousands of Democrats we couldn't have put down the Rebellion, and if it hadn't been for Democrats we never would have had a Rebellion. (Cheers and laughter.) The Democrats were partners in our national misfortunes. Bankruptcy, hard trmes, and a few chilling frosts, that would ruin the crops, would be joy for them, for it would give them a chance to recover their lost power. They would be delighted with all or any of these disasters. Even the potato-bugs would be thankfully received. (Laughter and applause.) Colonel Ingersoll indulged in delicious satire respecting the Democratic candidates, referring to Hancock's cele brated "tariff" interview in a way that sent the audience into successive roars of laughter for minutes. Hancock had heard the tariff talked of "once" in his native State in Pennsylvania! He must have been eavesdropping. (Laugh, ter.) The tariff, according to Gen. Hancock, was a purely "local" issue, with which it would be beneath the dignity of the President and Congress in a word, the general Government to intermeddle. Here was a pretty man to be President! He would probably consider the country it- 312 COL. INGERSOLL'S self a local " issue. Of William H. English, Col. Inger- soil would say this: "A man who voted against expelling the ruffians who all but murdered Charles Sumner was not fit to be Yice- President of hell, if there was such a place. (Laughter and applause.) To utter his name was the mean est thing one could say of him. (Applause.) " "What is Hancock in favor of ? " asked Col. Ingersoll in conclusion. " You don't know, I don't know, he don't know." (Laugh ter.) He says he will veto rebel claims. I tell you he won't have the chance to veto anything. Ohio vetoed him, and Indiana indorsed it. (Thunders of applause.) A. Powerful Plea by Col. Ingersoll in Behalf of the Star-Route Men.* (Chicago Times, Sept. 6, 188%.) WASHINGTON, Sept. 5. [Special.] The desire to hearCoL Ingersoll, gratis, kept Judge Wylie's court-room packed all day, and the odors that arose from the perspiring throng were not those of Araby the Blest. Judge Wylie, whose face, form and voice, strikingly recall Aid. Throop, rested his face against his left hand and slowly fanned hiiusell with a palm-leaf in his right, bending forward when h^ had occasion to speak to the lawyers. Col. Ingersoll opened with a glorification of the United States, in which he denied the existence of corruption in this country, and declared that the war did not produce a demoralization of officials or public sentiment. It was not possible according to his philosophy, that a war waged for the emancipation of slaves should have relaxed moral sentiment. Most of his speech afforded little room for eloquence or wit, as he took up route after route of the nineteen in the indictment, and went through about the same form in each case, insisting that * The star- route trials were begun in the Criminal Court of the District of Columbia, March 25, 1882. The first trial ended in a disagreement of the jury, Sept. 6, 1882. Fresh indictments were found, and the case re-opened before the Department of Justice in the following December, and was concluded June 14, 1883. The jury brought in a verdict of " not guilty." The staF-routes are those over which the mails are carried by other conveyance than that of railways. They are so called because in the records of the department they are marked with an asterisk, thus *. The trials were brought about by the discovery that certain members of the Post-office department were believed to be letting the contracts for carrying the mails over these routes to their own profit but much in- creased expense to the Government. Inter-Octan Curiosity Shop. GREAT SPEECHES. 31} the evidence did not agree with the indictments; that the af fidavits were made at other times and by other persons than those set forth in the indictments, and that instead of being false they were true. He spoke for the most part in large capitals, but occasionally fatigue compelled him to subside into italics. HIS FISTS, however, were shaken in the faces of the jurors with an en ergy that was surprising, in view of the temperature. As he concluded his consideration of each case, he exhibited to the jury the sheet containing his memoranda to show that there was really nothing connected with that case that he had not discussed. .^Occasionally he made some remark that caused a titter in the audience, and when he spoke of the case of John "W. Dorsey as something new and fresh about which the jury had heard little or nothing, even the Judge had to spread his hand over his face to conceal his emotions. The Colonel's best sallies were too subtle for the crowd. When he said Stephen W. Dorsey was not a mere politician, but a statesman, and when he depicted in the most pathetic manner the gloom which had been cast over the homes and the anguish which had riven the souls of his clients and their families by reason of the accusations made by the Government attorneys, there was not so much as a smile. Like Mr. Ker and Gen. Henkle, Col. "Ingersoll sought to utilize ungiven testimony, and one of the Gov ernment lawyers rose to object, but the Colonel explained that what he was saying was mainly in reply to the remarks of one of the lawyers on the other side, and the court ob served in a rather high, thin voice that he should not stop him, and then settled back in his chair with a smile, the re sult of the consciousness that he was holding the scales be- 316 COL. INGERSOLL'S tween the two sets of lawyers with an even hand. During the delivery of Col. Ingersoll's speech THE JURORS were apparently the least interested persons present. The crowd were of course intent on getting all the enjoyment possible out of the occasion, while the jurors are nearly worn out and can not be expected to regard the thing as a show. Two or three of the jurors sat bolt upright and kept their eyes on the speaker, but the rest got themselves into as comfortable positions as possible and leaned their heads upon anything that was handy. However listless they may have appeared their minds couldn't have possibly wandered from the arguments addressed to them. There is little doubt that the speech made a strong impression on the minds of the twelve good men and true. The Colonel's pre liminary remark about the ennobling effect of a war waged to free slaves was not an incidental remark made for no pur pose, and it seemed to make a pleasing impression on the person to whom it was addressed. The Colonel seemed to anticipate an unfavorable charge by the Judge, for he reminded the jury that a juror's courage in refusing to sacrifice his convictions of right to the dictates of the court had often proved to be an act of heroism which a whole world had applauded. He explained that he made this statement without reference to the pending case, but merely as a fact The Colonel's speech was admirably adapted to influ ence the minds of the jurors. He made the case of his clients seem so simple and plain that, repeated as his sum mary was in almost the same terms with every route in the list, it could hardly fail to find lodgment in the minds of the jurors. A verdict of guilty is hardly expected here* GREAT SPEECHES. 317 The case of the Government is necessarily complicated, and the jurors can understand and remember the simple denials of the defense, presented with Col. Ingersoll's force, more easily than the elaborate and cumulative arguments of the prosecution; but the faces of the jurors during the Colonel's address afforded no evidence of their minds' con struction. THE AEGUMENT. WASHINGTON, Sept. 5. (Press.) The criminal court room was crowded this morning with an audience anxious to hear Col. Ingersoll's address to the jury in the star-route trial. The Colonel began his argument with an expressed desire that the jury should understand him. He was as much opposed to official corruption as any man in the world. The taxes were paid by labor and industry, and they should be disbursed by integrity, and any man that was untrue to his official oath and the position that the peo ple honored him with ought to be punished. He had not one word to say in defense of any man who he believed had robbed the treasury. He wanted the jury to understand that he was not defending, not excusing, not endeavoring to palliate the slightest dishonesty in any public official. The jury had been told the people of the United States were a demoralized people, that the tide of dishonesty was rising, ready to sweep from one shore of the country to the other. It had been appealed to to find innocent men guilty in order that this tide might be successfully resisted. It had been told that it was necessary to make an example of somebody in order that the country might take the road to honesty. The country had been in war, but lie denied that war had demoralized the people. Whoever fought for right did not demoralize himself; he ennobled himself, and the war 3l8 through which the country 'lad ^a&sed had been a reforma tion, not a demoralization. The war was A PERIOD OF MORAL ENTHUSIASM, during which the people had become a thousand times grander and nobler than they had ever been before. When we shook the shackles off of 4,000,000 people it did not de moralize us. The jury had been told that the United States was distinguished among the nations of the world only for corruption. It made no difference to him that it was quoted from a Republican senator. He denied it; he had always supposed the people of America were distin guished for free schools, for free speech, for just laws, not for corruption. The jury was appealed to to become cor- rupt. He never would try to put a stain on the forehead of his country in order that he might consign some honest men to the penitentiary. The only mercy his clients asked of the jury was the mercy of an honest verdict according to the evidence and according to the law. That was all they asked that they expected. An honest verdict was a ver dict in accordance with the evidence. Whoever found a verdict to please power; whoever violated his conscience that he might be in accord, or supposed accord, with an administration or government, was bribed. Whoever bent to public demands or bowed before the public press was bribed. Fear, prejudice, malice, the love of approbation, bribed a thousand men where gold bribed one. AN HONEST VERDICT was the result, not of fear, but of courage; not of prejudice but of candor; and above all it was the result of the love of justice. GREAT SPEECHES. Then turning to an examination of the indictment, he ar gued that overt acts charged must be proved exactly as alleged, no matter whether the description was unnecessary or not. In support of this position he quoted from numerous au thorities, until the court remarked that was a legal position which would not be controverted, and suggested it was un necessary for Mr. Ingersoll to cite further authorities. Mr. Ingersoll then proceeded to a minute analysis of the charges in the indictment, taking up and examining all the routes in detail, showing the variances which existed between the charges in the indictment and the evidence, especially in relation to dates. Making A RESUMB of his arguments, he said that in the indictment there were twelve charges as to the filing of false petitions, ten charges as to false oaths, seven charges as to fraudulently sign ing sub-contracts. The evidence showed the ten oaths were true; that it was impossible fraudulently to file a sub contract, and that the petitions were absolutely genuine and honest with two exceptions. The prosecution hastened to prove that in one petition the words " schedule thirteen hours" had been inserted; but he denied that the evidence sustained that claim. The other petition which the prose cution claimed to be "fraudulent" was the "Utah " petition, and this had remained unacted upon by the Second Assist ant Postmaster-General. Mr. Ingersoll, addressing the court, said he supposed he could, with propriety, draw an inference as to the policy of the Post-office from the papers presented in this case. The court replied that he had refused to receive evidence on that subject when offered by the defense, for the 320 COL. INGERSOLL'S reason he was of the opinion that no Second Assistant Post master-General could establish any policy for the Govern- ment, or for any branch of the Government. The policy of the Government was to be found in the law, and the court was unwilling to let the Second Assistant Postmaster- O General set up his policy in defense of his case. He had no right to have a policy. Mr. Ingersoll replied that he had never sought to set up the policy of the Second Assistant Postmaster- General, or had never dreamed of such a thing. All he had insisted was that the general policy of the head of the department might be followed by subordinate officers without laying them selves open to the charge of having been purchased. Mr. Ingersoll then took up the charges of payment of false claims, taking up first the Kearney-Kent route. On this route the prosecution claimed that the payment of $552.72 had been made on a false claim presented by Peck and Yalle. There was no evidence to show that the expe dition was fraudulent, but, conceding that it was, the total amount of false payment was $16.60. The record further showed that Peck did not present this claim. The same was true of the other route. Incidentally Ingersoll men tioned Turner's name and severely criticized the action of the prosecution in regard to that defendant. He had been in dicted, taken from his home, and pursued as though he were a wild beast. The Government could not prove a single thing against him, and there was only one course left, to DISMISS HIM WITH AN INSULT. The prosecution alleged that J. "W. Dorsey received by fraud $124,591. The evidence showed that there were seven Dorsey routes, which paid $58,994, and, in truth, Dorsey got only $392, not another copper. That, he should insist, GREAT SPEECHES. 321 was a fatal variance. Every link in the chain in the indict ment was a mistake or a falsehood. It was made by adding mistake to falsehood, and what the indictment weaved the evidence raveled. Why were false dates put in the indict ment? The prosecution had to deceive the grand jury. It would not do to tell the grand jury that the defendants con spired on the 23d of May, and in pursuance of that con spiracy filed affidavits on the 3d of April preceding. Then they had to deceive the court, because, if the true dates had been set forth in the indictment, the court would have instantly said: "You cannot prove a conspiracy on the 23d of May by showing overt acts in April previous." Did the prosecution expect to win the case on this indict ment? No; but they could keep it up in court long enough to allow them to attack and malign the character of the de fendants; long enough to vent their venom and spleen on good and honest men, and justify in part the commence ment of this infamous prosecution. During recess the number of spectators increased rather than diminished, and when Mr. Ingersoll resumed, the at mosphere of the court room was exceedingly close. He be gan by saying that in the forenoon he had tried to strip the green leaves off the indictment. He now proposed to at tack the main limbs and trunk. What was THE SCHEME OF THE INDICTMENT? 1. That the contractors, defendants, had written, or procured to be written, fraudulent communications, letters and applications. Was there the slightest evidence that a fraudulent letter was ever written? Not the slightest. 2. That they attached forged names to the petitions. Was there any evidence of that, except in one case? And the 21 322 COL. INGERSO1../S evidence in this case was that an order was made before the petition was received. 3. That they procured signatures of persons not living on routes on which service was expedited. There was no evidence of that fact. 4. That they made false oaths and declarations. 5. That Turner falsely indorsed packets containing pe- citions. This indictment against Turner had been changed into a certificate of good moral character. When he (Inger- eoll) knew a man who had fought for the flag of his coun try, who had lain on the field of Gettysburg with a Confed erate bullet in his leg, he was glad to have the evidence show that man to be not only a patriot but an honest man with a spotless reputation. He did not believe that in or der to be a good man one had to be as cold as an icicle. He did not think that if a man wished to be like God (if there was a God) it was necessary to be heartless. 6. That Brady, for the benefit of gain and profit of all the defendants, did something or other. He wished to place special emphasis on the word " all," for that included Tur ner. 7. That Brady had not entered fines against contractors when they did not perform their service. What evidence was there of that? That the whole amount of fines im posed by Brady amounted to $126,865, and that he remit ted fines to the amount of $23,000 only. 8. That Brady fraudulently cut oif the service and then put it on again. That appeared in two cases, the one in volving $39 and the other something more. 9. That the defendants fraudulently filed sub-contracts. The evidence showed that that was an impossible offense. This was the scheme of the indictment, and he insisted that the scheme must be proved precisely as it had been GREAT SPEECHES. 32$ laid, without the variation of a hair. In support of this proposition ho cited " Starkie's Criminal Law," " Roscoe's Criminal Evidence," and other authorities. He also called the court's attention to the case of The King against Pale- man et al. (10 Campbell.) It was there shown that one of the conspirators, named Watson, was in ignorance of the manner in which the fruits of the conspiracy were to be divided, while the indictment charged he knew the manner in which the division was to be made. Lord Ellenbor- ough stated that Watson must be acquitted on the ground that all the defendants must be cognizant of the conspiracy precisely as stated in the indictment. So, in this case, the prosecution must not only prove the indictment according to the scheme described, but they must prove that every de fendant knew the scheme how it was to be accomplished. The Court. In the case you cited Watson was acquitted. What was done with the others? Mr. Ingersoll They were found guilty, because they were guilty as the indictment charged. Turning to the jury, Mr. Ingersoll said he would ask the court to instruct them that no matter how guilty the de fendants might be they had to be tried by this indictment, and by no other. The prosecution had said the money was to be divided among everybody. Was there any evidence that there was any division? The Court That is not the question. The question is with what view was the conspiracy entered into. The ob ject of the conspiracy might have failed, the money mi^lit not have been divided, but the conspiracy might still have been entered into. Mr. Ingersoll But if they set forth in the indictment that the money was divided, that statement is not worth a last year's dead leaf unless they prove it. It amounts to 324 COL. INGERSOLL S nothing more than the characters engraved upon the water* or written on the fogs. Mr. Ingersoll then passed on to examine the testimony in relation to j. w. DORSET'S CONNECTION in the conspiracy, and first he impressed upon the jnry that suspicion was not evidence. If there were taken out of this case suspicions, rumors, prejudices, epithets and arro gant declarations, the amount of real evidence would be surprisingly small. Prejudice would give the lie to all the other senses. It would swear the North Star out of the sky of truth. It was the womb of injustice, and the man who could not rise above prejudice was not a civilized man, but a barbarian. He did not wish the case tried by prejudice. Mr. Merrick had said in his address he had once argued that the jury were the judges of the law as well as of the fact, but that at the same time he did not believe it was safe and true doctrine. Was he candid then? Was he candid now? His doctrine appeared to be this: "When I am afraid of the court I insist that the jury are judges of the law. When I am afraid of the jury I turn the law over to the court." He (Ingersoll) believed J. W. Dorsey to be ab solutely an honest man. Mr. Merrick had called John W. Dorsey a perjurer because he made two affidavits on the same route 38,145. No such charge was made in the in dictment, but he would answer it. Mr. Ingersoll then went on to show that the two affidavits, though filed on the same day, were not made within a month of each other. The only question was whether the last affidavit was made for the purpose of perpetrating a fraud upon the Government. The first affidavit stated that ten men and horses were re quired to perform the then service, and that under the pro posed schedule thirty -seven were required. If pay had GREAT SPEECHES. 325 been calculated on that affidavit it would have amounted to $13,433. The second affidavit said the then service re quired twenty men and animals, and that the proposed serv ice would require fifty-four. Under the second affidavit, which the prosecution said was willful and corrupt perjury, he only got $8,457. Nothing had been shown in the case more calculated to put J. W. Dorsey in a grander light than this very affidavit. There was no evidence to show that he had ever spoken with Brady or Turner; that he had ever entered into any agreement with them of any sort, character, or description, at any place, at any time, on any subject, for any purpose. There was no evidence that he had ever received a solitary dollar from the United States except $392. In other words the testimony showed that John W. Dorsey was an honest man, and there was no jury never had been, never would be, that would find a man like that guilty on evidence such as had been presented. Now he came to speak of his other client, STEPHEN DORSET, a friend of his, a man who was not simply a politician, but a statesman. Mr. McSweeny, in his opening add r egg, had stated that S. "W. Dorsey had lost money on his star-routes, and Mr. Merrick had criticized the defense for not calling JBosler to prove the statement. He (Ingersoll) wanted to know why the prosecution had not put Bosler on the stand to prove that Dorsey had not lost money. Mr. Merrick There was no evidence whatever as to whether S. W. Dorsey lost money on these routes, and the statement of counsel in opening cannot be used, I submit, as evidence by counsel in closing. The Court I understand that the remarks now made, are in reply to remarks made in the opening. Mr. Merrick The opening of their own counsel. 326 COL. INGERSOLL'S Mr. Ingersoll Mr. McSweeny said S. "W. Dorsey had lost monej, aud Mr. Merrick asked why he had not brought Bosler to prove that. Mr. Merrick Not as to money, but as to the distribu tion of routes, and the loan of money to Dorsey and Dor sey's transfer of routes to Bosler as security for the money. The Court I shall not interfere. Mr. Ingersoll Good. The Court I think the remark is in reply to an obser vation of your own, Mr. Merrick. Mr. Ingersoll then went on to comment, at some length, upon the fact that the Government had not called Bosler. and next turned his attention to the overt acts charged against S. W. Dorsey. He was delighted at having an op portunity to answer forever all the infamous things said against that man. He analyzed, seriatim, the charges brought against Dorsey, claimed that the evidence wholly failed to sustain them, and then went into a recapitulation of those charges which, he asserted, consisted of two mis takes and one impossible offense. The mistakes were charges of filing false petitions and affidavits; the impossi ble offense, filing fraudulent sub-contracts. Mr. Dorsey had been called a robber and thief, but the evidence showed he was an honest man. Mr. Ingersoll then quoted from Mr. Merrick's remarks some sentences which he claimed conveyed a false impres sion to the jury, aud with a good deal of emphasis said: f There's not money enough in the veins of this world to tempt me to mis-state evidence when a man is on trial for his life and liberty." Court adjourned, Mr. Ingersoll stating he would close his address to-morrow. o f o O w O o O O W o a t/5 CLOSE OF INGERSOLL'S ELOQUENT AD- DRESS IN THE STAR-ROUTE TRIAL. Men Moved to Applause and Women to Tears by His Word-paintings. AW ILLUSTRATION TAKEN FROM A SCRIPTURAL INCIDENT THK CLIMAX OF HIS GREAT EFFORT. (Chicago Times, Sept. 7, 1888.) WASHINGTON, Sept. 6. [Special] The concluding part of Col. Ingersoll's address, which occupied the forenoon was in his best oratorical style, and an unfortunate allusion by one of the Government counsel to Mrs. Dorsey's presence during the trial, afforded him an opportunity to pay a fer vid tribute to womanly devotion that moved the emotions of the audience in a most marked manner. The jurors have grown too used to eloquence to exhibit much feeling, but the opinions of those who have followed the proceedings are that Ingersoll's speech was not only a great effort, but a great success. In the lucid and forcible presentation of one side of a case Col. Ingersoll cannot be matched by any of his colleagues or opponents, and he made a deep impres sion on the jury. The jurors are a bright, intelligent set of men, and, considering the fact that for three months they have done nothing but listen to the testimony and Argu ments on this case, they manifest more interest in the pro ceedings than one would expect As the case draws to an end and the best speakers address the jury, public interest increases. The court-room was packed all this morning, (328) GREAT SPEECHES. 329 and most of those who had seats stayed through the recess to keep them. INGERSOLL'S ARGUMENT RESUMED. WASHINGTON, Sept. 6. (Press.) Col. Ingersoll, in resum ing his argument this morning in the star-route trial, re ferred to the statement by S. W. Dorsey to Postmaster-Gen eral James, and commented upon the fact that the prosecu tion had not presented that statement in evidence. The Court For any tiling the court knows it may h-ave been a confession. Mr. Ingersoll If it had been a confession it would have been here; if one word in it was consistent with the testi mony, it would have been here. The Court No man charged with crime can say that be cause he did not deny it, it is evidence of his guilt. Mr. Ingersoll It is not evidence either way, but if I am charged with a crime, and make a written statement of my connection with the crime, and the prosecution finish the trial without showing that my statement was incorrect, it is a moral demonstration that my statement agrees with the testimony. The Court I don't see anything in it. Mr. Ingersoll I see a good deal in it, and the jury may see something in it. The Court The question is this: "Whether the court is going to allow an argument to be based upon a mere vac uum, wind, nothing. Mr. Ingersoll That would simply be stealing the foun- dation of this case vacuum. Then, addressing himself to an examination of the im probabilities of Walsh's testimony, though he thought it had been ground to powder already, Ingersoll said: "Boil- 33O COL. INGERSOLL'S ing Walsh's story down,it amounted to this: A rich man bor rowed without necessity, and a poor broker loaned without security. The improbability of this story would breed sus picion and incredulity itself. No man believed it; no man ever would believe it; and it was for the jury to say whether it was true or not." Mr. Ingersoll then went on to argue that, assuming Walsh's testimony to be true, it affected none of the de fendants except Brady, and only went to show he had re ceived bribes; not that he was concerned in the conspiracy Ingersoll then took up and replied to the arguments of the prosecution, based on the subject of EXTRAVAGANCE in the star-route service. What was extravagance 1 If he paid more for a thing than it was worth, that was extrava gance; if he did this knowing it to be wrong, and taking a share of the surplus money, it was bribery, rascality, cor ruption. How did the jury know the service was extrava gant? What witness had appeared to swear that he would perform the service for a smaller price? The expe dition which had been complained about had been urged by members of Congress, and a majority of both houses had earnestly recommended an increase of service and expendi ture. The Attorney-General here objected that there was DO such evidence; that the record of the star-route investiga tion had not been admitted. Mr. Ingersoll admitted he had been mistaken, and asked leave to withdraw his last remark. He then went on to consider the necessity of the mail-service in the far west. He believed a man in Colorado had as much right to his mails as a gentleman in New York; he laid down the GREAT SPEECHES. 33! proposition that the hypothesis of guilt must follow natur ally from facts proved, and to be consistent, not with some facts, not with the majority of them, but with every fact The evidence must be such as to exclude every reasonable hypothesis, except that of the guilt of the defendants. Every fact proved must be consistent with the guilt of defend ants; but it must also be inconsistent with their innocence. Change that doctrine and let it be that a verdict of guilty must be rendered, if the jury have the slightest doubt of the innocence of the defendants, and even under that rule the jury could not find a verdict against Stephen W. Dor- sey. In concluding his address Col. Ingersoll said an effort had been made to terrorize the jury. He said to the jury: 4< You have nothing to do with the supposed desire of any man or supposed desire of any department (turning, and addressing his remarks to the Attorney-General) or the sup posed desire of any Government, or the supposed desire of the public. You have nothing to do with these things. You have only to do with the evidence. Here all power is pow erless except your own. When asked to please the public } you should think of the lives you are asked to wreck, of the homes your verdict would darken, of the hearts it would desolate, of the cheeks it would wet with tears, of the char acters it would destroy, of the wife it would worse than widow, and of the children it would worse than orphan. When asked to please the public, think of these conse quences. Whoever does right clothes himself in a suit of armor which the arrows of prejudice could not penetrate^ but whoever does wrong is responsible for all the conse quences to the last sigh, to the last tear. You are told by Mr. Merrick that you should have no sympathy, that you should be like icicles, that you should 33 2 COL. INGERSOLL'S be God-like. That is not my doctrine. The higher yon get in the scale of being, the grander, the nobler, the ten derer you will become. Kindness is always an evidence of grandness. Malice is the property of a small soul, and whoever allows the feeling of brotherhood to die in hia heart becomes a wild beast " Not the king's crown nor the deputed sword, The marshal's truncheon nor the judge's robe, Become them with one half so good a grace A mercy does." And yet the only mercy we ask is the mercy of an hon est verdict. I appeal to you for my clients, because the ev idence shows they are honest men. I appeal to you for my client, Stephen W. Dorsey, because the evidence shows he is a man with an intellectual horizon and a mental sky, a man of genius, generous and honest Yet this prosecu tion, this Government, these attorneys, representing the majesty of the Republic, representing the only real republic that ever existed, have asked you not only to violate the law of the land, but also the law of nature. They have maligned nature, they have laughed at mercy; they have trampled on the holiest human ties, and even made light be cause a wife in this trial has sat by her husband's side. There is a painting in the Louvre a painting of desola tion, of despair and love. It represents the " Night of the Crucifixion." The world is wrapped in shadow, the stars are dead, and yet in the darkness is seen a kneeling form. It is Mary Magdalene, with loving lips and hands pressed against the bleeding feet of Christ. The skies were never dark enough, nor starless enough, the storm was never fierce enough nor wild enough, the quick bolts of heaven were never loud enough, and the arrows of slander never flew thick enough to drive a noble woman from her husband's GREAT SPEECHES. 333 aide (Applause), and so it is in all of human speech the ho liest word is " woman." (While Mr. Ingersoll was delivering this speech several ladies burst into tears, and Mrs. Dorsey kept her handker chief to her eyes for some minutes.) Now, gentlemen, I have examined this testimony. I have examined every charge in the indictment, and every charge made outside of the indictment I have shown you that the indictment is one thing and the evidence another. I have shown you that not a single charge is substantiated against S. W. Dorsey. I have demonstrated that not one charge has been established against J. "W. Dorsey not one. I have shown you there is no foundation for a verdict of guilty against any one particular defend an tin this case. I have spoken now, gentlemen, the last words that will be spoken in public for my clients, the last words that will be spoken in public for any of these defendants; the last words that will be heard in their favor, until I hear from the lips of the foreman the two elegant words, " Not guilty." And now, thanking the court for many acts of personal kind ness, and you, gentlemen of the jury, for your almost infi nite patience, I leave my clients with all they have, with all they love, with all who love them, in your hands. (Ap. planse.) Ingersoll on American Nationality. ETTBACTS FROM A SPEECH AT GLOUCESTER, MASS., AUG. 12, 1880. Everything In this world that is good for anything has to be defended. Everything that is good has to be taken care of. Everything that is bad will take care of itself. (Applause.) There is the same difference between virtue and vice, between truth and falsehood, as there is between grain and wheat. We have to plow the land, we have to sow the seed, and we have, with great labor and infinite pa tience, to guard the crops against anything that might in. jure; while weeds and dog-fennel, sown by chance and cared for by accident, will grow in the common highway. And ex actly so it is with everything of account in this world. The battle is never over; the battle for the right is never won; fight as long as you may, and the argument will not be fin ished. After four years of war in the United States the ques tions that we endeavored to settle by the sword are as open, as unsettled, as they were in 1859. These questions must be settled, not only by the bayonet, but by argument. There is no argument in war, no logic in the sword. All that war settles is, who is the stronger of the contestants. War makes them stop and listen. War gives the successful party the floor in order to present his argument, and the result is to be argued, not fought out. So, to-day, we are arguing on this side, in the defense of which millions of men risked their lives, and the question is just as oj :n and unsettled to-day as it was then. We have got a country which is, in my opinion, the best in this world. I hold all forms of government in sublime contempt, except the republican (335) 336 COL. INGERSOLL'S form of government. (Applause.) I utterly detest every system of government that is not founded on the legally ex. pressed will of a majority of the people. (Applause.) 1 look upon Kings and Princes and Noblemen as men in the livery of larceny wearing the insignia of robbery. I am proud I am an American, and that I live in a civilized country. When I speak of a free country, I confine myself to the Northern and Western States of this great Republic. (Applause.) This is in my opinion the best government in the world simply because it gives the best chance to every human being. It is the best country simply because there is more liberty here than there is anywhere else; simply because life, liberty, and property are better secured in the North ern and Western States of this Union than in any other portion of the habitable globe. EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES FOB ALL. Hove this country because it gives to the lowest equal opportunity with the greatest. The avenues to distinction are open to all. We have taken the failures of other coun tries; we have taken the men who could not succeed in England; we have taken the men who have been robbed and trampled upon, we have taken them into this coun try, and the second generation are superior to the nobility of the country from which their fathers emigrated. (Cheers.) We have taken the Irishmen, robbed; we have taken the foreigner from the almshouse, and we have turned their rags into robes; we have transformed their hovels and huts into palaces; out of their paupers we have made patriotic, splendid men. That is what we have done in this country. We have given to everybody in the Union, in the States to which I have referred, equal opportunities to get a home, aqual opportunities to attain distinction. That is the reason I like this country. GREAT SPEECHES. 337 BEST COUNTRY FOR THE POOS. I like this country because the honest and industrious man is a nobleman. I like it because a man, no matter how poor he may be, whether a merchant or clerk, can go home at ni^ht, take his tow-headed boy on his knee, and say to him: " John, the public schools and every avenue of dis tinction are open to you. Your father may be ignorant; he may not be good at figures; but you may rise to the highest office within the gift of civilized people." (Ap plause and cheers.) "We don't know how good this country is. Do you know that we have more to eat here than any other nation of the globe has? And that is quite an item. (Laughter.) We have better clothes, and they come nearer fitting us. (Applause.) There is more general information among our people, and it is better distributed than in any other country. REPUBLICAN FAMILIES. But really the greatest thing about our country is that there is no other country where women and children are treated as well as they are in the United States. (Cheers.) Let me tell you why: In other countries the family is patterned after the form of government In other countries, where there is a monarch, the head of the family is a mon arch; in countries where the head of the government is a despot, the head of the family is a despot. Here in this country our families are Republican; every man sitting by the fireside has a vote. (Cheers.) These are a few of the reasons why I like this country. I like it because it gave me a chance. (Applause.) I like it because a man in the lowest walks of life can have the same chance. I like it because a boy who has worked on a canal, a boy who has 22 338 COL. INGERSOLL'S driven a mule on the towpath, a boy who has cat wood at twenty-five cents a cord, I like it because such a boy is going to be the next president of the United States. (Ap plause.) "What a magnificent compliment they pay to our system of governmentl what a splendid compliment they pay to the good heart of our people, by making prominent in this canvass the fact that the boy was poor, that the boy was compelled to work 1 What in other countries would be a work of disgrace, in this country is transfigured into the wings of honor and of fame. (Applause.) Now, as I have said, this is a good country, but there are certain perils against which we must carefully guard. As I told you in the first place, you have got to fight for everything that is good, and the work is never done. There are always some who fall in the rear. In the clearest waters there will always be settlings, and just so it is in politics. THE PERIL OP STATE EIGHTS. There are certain perils that menace this Government; and let us be honest about it. I tell you to-night that I have no favors to ask of any political parties in this world. The first peril, in my judgment, is the doctrine of State rights. The doctrine that a part is greater than the whole; the doctrine that the General Government is born of the States, when everybody knows that the States were born of the General Government,and that before that time they were colonies on their knees to George III, and they were not raised from their degradation into the majesty of States un til the Continental Congress resolved that they were free and independent States. (Applause.) That heresy is, in'my judgment, one of the great perils that menace this Re public at the present time. It was not settled by the war; it has not been beaten out of t the Democratic leaders; and let me assure you that it is as strongly intrenched GREAT SPEECHES. 339 in the hearts of these men at the present time, as it ever was in the history of the Government. The doctrine of State rights was appealed to, to perpetuate human slavery; it was appealed to to keep the slave trade open until the year 1808; it was appealed to to justify Seces sion and Rebellion. It is appealed to now in order that the Southern States may deny to the black people their rights. By this you will see that the doctrine of State Rights has never been appealed to in the history of this country except when somebody wanted to steal something from somebody else. (Applause.) I detest the doctrine. I abhor it in every drop of my blood. This is not a Con federacy; this is a Nation. I have the same right to speak here in Massachusetts that I have in Illinois; not because the flag of Massachusetts floats over me because I would not know it if I should see it it is because the right is guaranteed to me by the flag of the Republic. (Cheers.) ***** The doctrine has never been appealed to except to justify some kind of rascality, and would never have been dreamed except that the South wanted TO PRESERVE SLAVERY. It was appealed to to keep the slave trade open, and then to make Northern men slave catchers, then to justify seces sion, and now to allow the people of the Southern states to deny the negroes the right of citizenship. We have always heard about the rights of South Carolina, but we never hear of the rights of New York and Pennsylvania and any State of importance. Wherever the State fails to give its protection to the people the General Government must step in and give them the protection they require. Wade Hampton recently said that the principles of the Demo- 34O COL. INGERSOLL'S cratic party are to-day the same for which Lee and Stone wall Jackson fought, and, from the bottom of my heart, 1 believe him. BSPUDIATIOlf. Whether we shall pay our debts is the great question and with State sovereignty, the Southern States would repu diate their debts by issuing currency to be redeemed event ually by the National Government. As long as there ia a greenback in circulation, it is an earnest advocate that the Democratic party shall not come into power. People say now that the country is prosperous and that repudiation ia not to be feared ; but let us have bad crops for one or two years, and a depression of business, and demagogues would rise by the thousands and advocate it. With honest money we may become a commercial nation, but we can never be come so with mere promises to pay. Another peril is fraudulent voting, and this can be over come by extending the required time of residence of voters, identifying them thoroughly with the place before they can cast a ballot in it COL. INQERSOLL concluded with a comparison of the two platforms and the letters of the two candidates, showing the shallowness and exposing the glittering generalities of Hancock and his party. He was frequently interrupted by generous ap plause. THE AUDIPHONE, GOOD NEWS FOR THE DEAF. An Instrument that Enables Deaf Persons to Hear Ordinary Con versation Readily Through the Medium of the Teeth, and those Born Deaf and Dumb to Hear and Learn to Speak. How it is Done, Etc. The Audiphone is a new instrument made of a peculiar composition, possessing the property of gathering the faint est sounds (somewhat similar to a telephone diaphragm), and conveying them to the auditory nerve, through the medium of the teeth. 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