3 1822 01159 6319 PS aM5 ? M4 1895 .jiiiiiiwiiiiiiiwiwiniiiiii 3 1822 01159 6319 3.0 A A 4 GREAT SPEECHES OF COMPLETE. INCLUDING HIS MATCHLESS EULOGY ON LINCOLN ; GREAT SPEECH TO THE VETERAN SOLDIERS ; ADDRESS TO THE FARMERS ON FARMING ; ORATION ON DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE ; FUN ERAL DISCOURSE AT HIS BROTHER'S GRAVE, Etc., Etc., Etc. ILLUSTRATED. Edited by J. B. McCLURE, A. M. CHICAGO RHODES AND MCCLURE PUBLISHING CO. I8 95 Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1894 by the RHODES & McCLURE PUBLISHING COMPANY, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C All Rights Reserved. The brilliant eloquence, sparkling wit, and terse de clarations that characterize Col. Ingersoll's speeches, are as well-known to the American public as are the truths couched in his beautiful language practically useful to mankind. -His address to " The Farmers, on Farming," his great speech to the "Veteran Soldiers," his oration on the "Declaration of Independence," his nomination of James G. Elaine for the Presidency, his funeral dis course at his brother's grave, his matchless. ' ' Eulogy on Abraham Lincoln," all of which, and many others are herein presented, are among the best speeches ever delivered by man, and together form a most entertaining and valuable library book. Many of his great political speeches are also pre sented, the scope of which include the practical ques tions of the day, such as the Tariff, Protection, Free Trade, Hard Money, Capital and Labor, etc., etc. Religious discussions of every kind have been carefully ignored. J. B. McCLURE. CHICAGO, July 4, 1894. (7) EULOGY ON ABRAHAM LINCOLN 19 Lincoln a Diplomat 29 SPEECH ON THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE ... 51 A Revelation and Revolution '. 53 Education of Nature 55 The Rise of the Republic 56 A Nation. : 6 1 Liberty or Death 63 Eloquence of the Colonel 65 What We Want To-Day 67 Grand Future of America 69 To THE FARMERS ON FARMING 71 Col. Ingersoll's Ideal Farmer 74 Best Portion of the Earth 76 The Farmer and the Mechanic 77 The Farmer and the Professional Man 78 Col. Ingersoll's Idea of an Educated Farmer. ... 79 Should Live in Villages 80 Getting up Early in the Morning 82 The Fashions and Handsome Women 83 Home vs. The Boarding-house 84 [8] CONTENTS. 9 Industry and Brotherhood 85 What the Railroads Have Done 86 Business and the Money Question 88 Illinois 90 What a Dollar Can Do 90 How a man Should Treat his Wife and Children. 91 Ingersoll on Cookery 92 The Happy Home 93 The Colonel's View of "Solid Comfort" 96 NOMINATING BLAINE 100 To THE SOLDIERS 105 Why the Colonel is a Republican 108 Ingersoll's Remarkable Vision 115 Solid Shot 1 1 8 Three Important Questions Answered 120 The Money Question 121 More Eloquence 124 Ingersoll's Horse Race 125 Ingersoll's Beautiful Dream 129 INGERSOLL'S FUNERAL ORATION 131 GREAT COOPER INSTITUTE SPEECH 134 The Two Parties Compared 134 The American Republic; 1 36 The Fugitive Law of 1850 137 The Bay of the Bloodhound 140 Abraham Lincoln 141 Bonds and Greenbacks 142 War to Be a Failure 147 The Republican Platform 148 Paying that Debt 149 A Telegram from Blaine 151 IO CONTENTS. Tilden's Essay on Finance 153 Hard Money 156 Protection of Citizens 157 Shot Down for Opinion's Sake 159 Tilden and Tammany 160 Hayes and Wheeler 162 Democratic Meanness 163 Freedom and Progress 164 SPEECH TO VOLUNTEER SOLDIERS 167 INGERSOLL ON THE SITUATION 172 A Political Tramp 175 Democratic Stupidity 1 76 Its Usefulness Obsolete 1 76 The States' Rights Doctrine 1 79 The Colored Race 183 Sufferings of the Slaves 184 The Nation's Friends and Enemies ig5 The Greenback Question 186 Greenback Inflation 187 Running in Debt 1 88 Hard Times 189 The Greenback to Be Redeemed 191 Tilden 193 Tilden a Secessionist 194 Rutherford B. Hayes 196 Not One 'Scratch Upon His Honor 197 The Republican Party 198 ' 'Government Should Be for All" 199 ' 'Be a Blind Owl" 200 Its Record 203 The Question of Superiority 204 My Horse Race 206 CONTENTS . 1 1 We Must Stand by the Party . 209 Old Corpse of Democracy 210 Spurn that Party Forever 211 Hayes and Wheeler 212 The Marvelous City of Pluck 213 WHO Is TILDEN , 214 PLEA FOR HONEST MONEY 217 The Crash 219 Fiat Money 220 Government Taxes 221 The Country is Prosperous 222 Good Money 222 LABOR, CAPITAL, ETC 225 What Is a Capitalist ? 225 How Wealth is Accumulated 226 Labor Not Oppressed in the United States. 227 The Period of Inflation 228 Merchants and Drummers 232 The Crash 233 Property Commenced to Decline 234 Fiat Money 236 The Second Definition 237 The Government a Pauper 238 Money Has a Great Liking for Money 240 Inflation and Contraction 241 Let the Money Fade Out 243 Bondholders 242 The Way Out 244 The Charity of Extravagance 246 Labor-saving Machinery 247 The Poor Have a Chance 249 12 CONTENTS. Tramps 250 Conclusion 250 ORATION AT A CHILD'S GRAVE 253 PLAIN FACTS 257 Republican Party and the Slave 257 Beware of Bachelors 258 What More ? 259 Extract from Democratic Pedigree 260 Record of Mr. Hayes 262 Responsibility for Hard Times 261 Plain Truths for the Democrats 263 OUR COUNTRY 265 Revenue 271 Money 273 Repudiation 274 What Money Isn't 275 A Grease Story 276 Republican Honesty 278 The Best People 278 The Southern Church 279 Centralization 280 The Tewksbury Illustration 283 Splendid Democrats 284 The Candidates 285 Democratic Charges 287 INGERSOLL ON AMERICAN NATIONALITY 288 Equal Opportunities for All 290 Best Country for the Poor 290 Republican Families 291 The Peril of State Rights 292 CONTENTS. 13 To Preserve Slavery 293 Repudiation 293 THE Two PARTIES 295 Manly Voting 296 The Democratic Record 298 A War Commenced 300 Advocates of Secession 302 The Republican Record 304 Democratic Blundering 305 A Change 305 The Solid South 306 Free Speech 307 A Free Ballot-Box 308 Fraud in Elections 309 Southern Tissue-Ballots and Shotguns 311 Democracy the Greatest Luxury 313 Specie Payments 313 Honest Money 315 Hard Times and Repudiation 317 Honest Money 318 Greenbacks 319 The Greenbackers 320 Half Bushels and Yardsticks 321 Money Does Not Make Prosperity 322 Paper Not Money 323 Money Good Everywhere 324 Financial Honor 325 Intelligence, Not the Doctrine of Hatred. ... ... 326 State Sovereignty 327 National Protection 328 General Hancock 331 14 CONTENTS. Gen . Garfield Garfield not a Bigot *. 337 Voting With Rebels 339 How to Vote 339 THE NORTH AND SOUTH 341 No Free Speech in the South 344 The Party of an Honest Ballot 349 Who Shall Collect the Revenue? 352 Honest Money and an Honest Nation 354 The Fallacy and Folly of Fiat Dollars 357 The Struggle After the Panic 362 State Sovereignty and Human Slavery 364 Protecting American Labor 368 Source of the Free Trade Doctrine 370 Candidates of the Two Parties . . . . , 373 The Republican Standard Bearers 378 A Forgery 381 Not Preaching a Gospel of Hate 382 PROTECTION AND PROSPERITY 384 The Party that Needs the "Change" 387 What Republicanism Means 389 The Doctrine of State Rights 390 In Favor of Protection 391 Desperate Resorts of the Democrats 394 Gen. Garfleld's Career 395 What Would Follow Hancock's Election? 398 Why the Republican Party Should Be Supported. 400 FIAT MONEY 404 AN ELOQUENT PERORATION 407 Abraham Lincoln 21 Lincoln's Residence, Springfield, 111 26 Lincoln's Birthplace 1 8 White Pigeon Church 34 Old Capitol Building, Springfield, 111 39 Lincoln's Law Partner, Mr Herndon 42 Lincoln's Stepmother 46 Lincoln's Monument, Springfield, 111 48 The Farmer Looking for Game 95 The Happy Farmer's Home , . 0,8 Hon. James G. Elaine 100 Elaine's Birthplace, Brownsville, Pa 104 Marching Soldiers 105 The Sublime Mountains 109 Electric Dynamo 113 Unforgotten 131 Arch of Triumph 135 Blaine After the Rebellion 152 Industrial Exposition 157 Gen. John A. Logan 169 The Old Mill . 178 Birthplace of Gen. Grant 180 The Telephone 200 [15] i6 ILLUSTRATIONS. The Phonograph 201 Liberty 202 Lincoln's Cabin Home 230 John Hancock's Boston Home v . . 231 Hiawatha Falls, Minnesota 251 The Transfiguration 254 Gen. James A. Garfield 286 Ship of State 299 Plymouth Church, Chicago 401 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL'S GKEAT SPEECHES COMPLETE. INGERSOLL'S EULOGY ON LINCOLN. (Delivered in the Auditorium, Chicago, Feb. 12, 1892.) LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: Eighty-three years ago to-day two babes were born one in the woods of Ken tucky amid the hardships and poverty of pioneers; one in England, surrounded by wealth and culture. One associated his name with the enfranchisement of labor, with the emancipation of millions, with the sal vation of the Republic. He is known to us as Abraham Lincoln. 07) (18) EULOGY ON LINCOLN. 19 The other broke the chains of superstition and filled the world with intellectual light and he is known to us as Charles Darwin. Because of these men the nineteenth century is illus trious. Every generation has its heroes, its iconoclasts, its pioneers, its ideals. The people always have been and still are divided, at least into two classes the many, who with their backs to the sunshine, worship the past and the few' who keep their faces to the dawn the many, who are satisfied with the world as it is; the few, who labor and suffer for the future, for those to be, and who seek to rescue the opressed, to destroy the cruel distinctions of caste, and to civilize mankind. Yet it somtimes happens that the liberator of one age becomes the oppressor of the next. His reputaton be comes so great he becomes so revered and worshipped that the followers in his name attack the hero who en deavors to take another step in advance. In our country there were for many years two great political parties, and each of these parties had conserva- ~X tives and extremists. The extremists of the Democsr^c 4V party were in the rear, and wished to go back; the ex tremists of the Republican party were in the front, and wished to go forward. The extreme Democrat was will ing to destroy the Union for the sake of slavery, and the extreme Republican was willing to destroy the Union for the sake of liberty. Neither party could succeed without the vot e of the extremists. This was the political situation in 1858-60. The extreme Democrats would not vote for Douglas 2O INGERSOLLS GREAT SPEECHES. but the extreme Republicans did vote for Lincoln. Lin coln occupied the middle ground, and was the compro mise candidate of his own party. He had lived for many years in the intellectual territory of compromise in a part of our country settled by Northern aud South, ern men where Northern and Southern ideas met. and the ideals of the two sections were brought together and compared. The sympathies of Lincoln, his ties of kindrd, were with the South. His conviction, his sense of justice, and his ideals, were with the North. He knew the hor rors of slavery; and he felt the unspeakable ecstacies and glories of freedom. He had the kindness, the gentleness, of true greatness, and he could not have been a master; he had the man hood and independence of true greatness, and he could not have been a slave. He was just, and he was incapable of putting a bur den upon others that he himself would not willingly bear. He was merciful and profound, and it was not neces- sar^for him to read the history of the world to know that liberty and slavery could not live in the same nation or in the same brain. The Republc had reached a crisis, the conflict be tween Liberty and Slavery could no longer be delayed. From the heights of philosophy standing above the con tending hosts, above the prejudices, above the ser-ti- mentalities of this day Lincoln was good enough and brave enough and wise enough to utter these prophetic words. 22 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. "A house divided against itself can not stand, I be lieve this country can not permanently endure half slave and half free . I do not expect the Union to be dis solved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided . It will become all the one thing or the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the pub lic mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction or its advocates will push it farther until it becomes alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South." This declaration was the standard around which gath ered the grandest political party that the world has ever seen, and this declaration made Lincoln the leader of that vast host. In this, the first great crisis, Lincoln uttered the vic torious truth that made him the foremost man in the Republic. Then came another crisis the crisis of secession and civil war. Again Lincoln spoke the deepest feeling and the high est thought of the Nation. In his first message he said: "The central idea of secession is the essence of an archy. " He also showed conclusively that the North and South, in spite of secession, must remain face to face that physically they could not separate that they must have more or less commerce, and that this commerce must be carried on, either between the two sections as friends or aliens. This situation and its consequences he pointed out to absolute perfection in these words: EULOGY ON LINCOLN. 2$ "Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws! Can treaties be more faithfully enforced be tween aliens than laws among friends!" After having stated fully and fairly the philosophy of the conflict, after having said enough to satisfy any calm and thoughtful mind, he addressed himself to the hearts of America. Probably there are fewer and finer pas sages of literature than the close of Lincoln's first mes sage: "I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory stretching from every battle field and patriotic grave to every loving heart and hearth-stone all over this broad land, will swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." These noble, these touching, these pathetic words, were delivered in the presence of rebellion, in the midst of spies and conspirators surrounded by friends, most of whom were unknown and some of whom were waver ing in their fidelity at a time when secession was ar rogant and organized, when patriotism was silent, and when, to quote the expressive words of Lincoln himself, "Sinners were calling the righteous to repentance." When Lincoln became President he was held in con tempt by the South underrated by the North and East not appreciated even by his Cabinet and yet he was not only one of the wisest but one of the shrewdest of mankind. Knowing that he had the right to enforce the laws of the Union in all parts of the United States and Territories knowing, as he did, that the secessionists 24 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. were in the wrong, he also knew they had sympathizers, not only in the North, but in other lands. Consequent ly he felt that it was of the utmost importance that the South should fire the first shot, should do some act that would solidify the North and gain for us the justification of the civilized Kvorld . He so managed affairs that while he was attempting simply to give food to our sol diers, the south commenced actual hostilities and fired on Sumter. This course was pursued by Lincoln in spite of the ad vice of many friends, and yet a wiser thing was never done. At that time Lincoln appreciated the scope and con sequences of the impending conflict. Above all other thoughts in his mind was this: This conflict will settle the question, at least for centuries to come, whether man is capable of governing himself, and consequently is of greatest importance to the free than to the enslaved . He knew what depended on the issue, and he said: "We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last, best hope of earth." Then came a crisis in the North. It became clearer and clearer to Lincoln's mind, day by day, that the re bellion was slavery, and that it was necessary to keep the border States on the side of the Union. For this purpose he proposed a scheme of emancipa tion and colonization a scheme by which the owners of slaves should be paid the full value of what they called their "property." He called attention to the fact that he had adhered to the act of Congress to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes that the Union must be preserved, and that therefore all indis- EULOGY ON LINCOLN. 25 pensable means must be employed to that end. He knew that if the border States agreed to gradual emancipation, and received compensation for their slaves, they would be forever lost to the Confederacy, whether secession succeeded or not. It was objected at the time by some that the scheme was far too expensive; but Lin coln, wiser than his advisers far wiser than his enemies demonstrated that from an economical point of view his course was the best. He proposed that $400 be paid for slaves, including men, women and children. This was a large price, and yet it showed how much cheaper it was to purchase than carry on the war. At that time, at the price mentioned, there were about $750,000 worth oi slaves in Deleware. The cost of car rying on the war was at least two millions of dollars a day, and for one-third of one day's expenses all the slaves in Deleware could be purchased . He also showed that all the slaves in Deleware, Maryland, Kentucky and Mis souri could be bought, at the same price, for less than the expense of carrying on the war for eighty-seven days. This was the wisest thing that could have been pro posed, and yet such was the madness of the South, such the indignation of the North, that the advice was un heeded. Again, in July, 1862, he urged on the representatives of the border States a scheme of gradual compensated emancipation; but the representatives were too deaf to hear, too blind to see. Lincoln always hated slavery, and yet he felt the ob ligations and duties of his position. In his first mes- EULOGY ON LINCOLN. 2/ sage he assured the South the laws, including the most odious of all the law for the return of fugitive slaves would be enforced. The South would not hear. After ward he proposed to purchase the slaves of the border States, but the proposition was hardly discussed hardly heard. Events came thick and fast; theories gave way to facts, and everything was left to force. The fact is that he tried to discharge the obligations of his great office, knowing from the first that slavery must perish. The course pursued by Lincoln was so gentle, so kind and persistent, so wise and logical that millions of Northern Democrats sprang to the defense not only of the Union, but of his administration. Lincoln refused to be led or hurried by Freemont or Hunter, by Greeley or Sumner. From first to last he was leader, and he kept step with events. On the 22nd of July, 1862, Lincoln called together his Cabinet for the purpose of showing the draft of a procla mation of emancipation, stating to them that he did not wish their advice, as he had made up his mind. This proclamation was held until some great victory might be acheived, so that it would not appear to be the effect of weakness, but the child of strength. This was on the 22nd of July, 1862. On the 22nd of August the same Lincoln wrote his celebrated letter to Horace Greely, in which he stated that it was to save the Union; that he would save it with slavery if he could; that if it was necessary to destroy slavery in order to save the Union he would; in other words, he would do what was necessary to save the Union . This letter disheartened to a great degree thousands and millions of the friends of freedom. They thought 28 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. that Mr. Lincoln had not attained the moral height upon which they supposed he stood. And yet when this let ter was written the emancipation proclamation was in his hands and had been for thirty days, waiting only an op portunity to give it to the world. Some two weeks after the letter to Greeley Lincoln was waited on by a committee of clergymen, and was by them informed that it was God's will that he should issue a proclamation of emancipation. He replied to them, in substance, that the day of miracles had passed. He also kindly and mildly suggested that if it were God's will that this proclamation be issued, certainly God would have made known that will to him to the per son whose duty it was to issue it. On the 22nd day of September, 1862, the most glori ous date in the history of the Republic, the Proclama tion of Emancipation was issued. The Extreme Democrat of the North was fearful that slavery might be destroyed, that the Constitution might be broken; and that Lincoln, after all, could not be trusted; and at the same time the radical Republican fear ed that he loved the Union more than he did liberty. Lincoln had reached the generlization of all argument upon the question of slavery and freedom a generali zation that never will be excelled: " In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free. " Liberty can be retained, can be enjoyed, only by giv ing it to others. The spendthrift saves, the miser is the prodigal. He who puts chains upon the body of another shackles his own soul . 30 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. The moment the proclamation was issued, the cause of the Republic became sacred. From that moment the North fought for the human race. From that moment the North stood under the blue and stars, the flag of na ture sublime and free. We were surrounded by enemies. Many of the so- called great in Europe and England were against us. They hated the Republic, despised our institutions, and sought in, many ways to aid the South. Mr. Gladstone announced that Jefferson Davis had made a nation, and that he did not believe the restora tion of the American Union by force attainable. It was also declared that the North was righting for empire and the South for independence. The Marquis of Salisbury said: "The people of the South are the natural allies of England. The North keeps an opposition shop in the same department of trade as ourselves." Some of their statesmen declared that the subjugation of the South by the North would be a calamity to the world. Louis Napoleon was another enemy, and he endeavored to establish a monarchy in Mexico, to the end that the great North might be de stroyed. But the patience, the uncommon sense, the statesmanship of Lincoln in spite of foreign hate and Northern division triumphed over all. LINCOLN WAS, BY NATURE, A DIPLOMAT. He knew the art of sailing a gainst the wind. He un derstood, not only the rights of individuals, but of nations. In all his correspondence with other governments he neither wrote nor sanctioned a line which afterward was EULOGY ON LINCOLN. 31 used to tie his hands. In the use of perfect English he easily rose above all his advisers and all his fellows. No one claims that Lincoln did all. He could have done nothing without the great and splendid generals in the field; and the generals could have done nothing with out their armies. The praise is due to all to the pri vate as much as to the officer; to the lowest who did his duty, as much as to the highest. But Lincoln stood at the center and directed all. Slavery was the cause of the war, and slavery was tne perpetual stumbling-block. As the war went on, ques tion after question arose questions that could not be answered by theories. Should we hand back the slave to his master, when the master was using his slave to destroy the Union? If the South was right, slaves were property, and by the laws of war anything that might be used to the advantage of the enemy might be confiscated by us. Events did not wait for discussion, General Butler denominated the negro as "a contraband ." Con gress provided that the property of the rebels might be confiscated. Lincoln moved along this line. Each step was delay ed by Northern division, but every step was taken in the same direction. First, Lincoln offered to execute every law, including the most infamous of all; second, to buy the slaves of the border States; third, to confiscate the property of rebels; fourth, to treat slaves as contraband of war; fifth, to use slaves for the putting down the rebellion; sixth, to arm these slaves and clothe them in the uniform of the Republic; seventh, to make them citizens and allow 32 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHS. them to stand on an equality with their white brethren under the flag of the Republic During all these years Lincoln moved with the people with the masses, and every step he took was justi fied by the considerate of mankind. Lincoln not only watched the war, but kept his hand on the political pulse. In 1863 a tide set in against the administration . A Republican meeting was to be held in Springfield, Illinois, and Lincoln wrote a letter to be read at this convention, It was in his happiest vein. It was a perfect defense of his administration, including the proclamation of emancipation. Among other things he said: ' 'But the proclamation, as law, either is valid or it is not valid. If it is not valid it needs no retraction; but if it is valid it can not be retracted any more than the dead can be brought to life . " To the Northern Democrats who said they would not fight for negroes, Lincoln replied; "Some of them seem willing to fight for you but no matter." "But negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do anything for us if we will do noth ing for them? If they stake their lives for us they must be prompted by the strongest motive even the promise of freedom . And the promise, being made, must be kept." There is one line in this letter that will give it immortality; "The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea." Another; EULOGY ON LINCOLN. 33 "Among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet." He draws a comparison between the white men against us and the black men for us: ' 'And then there will be some black men who can re member with silent tongue and clentched teeth and steady eye and well-poised bayonet they have helped mankind on to this consummation; while I fear there will be some white ones unable to forget that with ma lignant heart and deceitful speech they strove to hind er it." Under the influence of this letter, the love of country, of the Union, and above all the love of liberty, took pos session of the heroic North. Success produces envy, and envy often ends in con spiracy. Lincoln always saw the end. He was un moved by the storms and currents of the time . He ad vanced too rapidly for the conservative politicians, too slowly for the radical enthusiasts. He occupied the line of safety, and held by his personality by the force of his great character, by his charming candor, the masses on his side. The soldiers thought of him as a father. All who had lost their sons in battle felt that they had his sympathy felt that his face was as sad as theirs. They knew that Lincoln was actuated by one motive, and that his energies were bent to the attainmeat of one end the salvation of the Republic. In 1864 many politicians united against him- It is not for me to criticise their motives or their actions. It is enough to say that the magnanimity of Lincoln to- EULOGY ON LINCOLN. 35 ward those who had deserted and endeavored to destroy him is without parallel in the political history of the world. This magnanimity made his success not only possible, but certain. Vallandigham was a friend of the South, an enemy of the North . He did what he could to sow the seeds of failure. He had far more courage than intelligence more cunningthan patriotism. For the most part he was actuated by political malice. He was tried and convicted and sentenced to imprisonment in Fort War ren. Lincoln disapproved of the findings, changed the punishment, and with a kind of grim humor sent Mr. Vallandihgham "to his friends in the South." Those who regarded the act as unconstitutional almost forgave it for the sake of its humor. Horace Greeley always had the idea that he was great ly superior to Lincoln, and for a long time he insisted that the people of the North and the people of the South desired peace. He took it upon himself to lecture Lin coln, and felt that he in some way was responsible for the conduct of the war. Lincoln, with that wonderful sense of humor united with shrewdness and profound wisdom, told Mr. Greeley that if the South really wanted peace he (Lincoln) desired the same thing, and was do ing all he could to bring it about. Greeley insisted that a commissioner should be appointed, with authority to negotiate with the representatives of the Confederacy. This was Lincoln's opportunity. He authorized Greeley to act as such commissioner. The great editor felt that he was caught. For a time he hesitated, but finally went, and found that the Southern commissioners were willing to take into consideration any offers of peace that 36 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. Lincoln might make. The failure of Greeley was humiliating and the position in which he was left absurd . Again the humor of Lincoln had triumphed. One of the most wonderful and unfortunate things ever done by Lincoln was the promotion of General Hooker. After the battle of Fredericksburg General Burnsides found great fault with Hooker, and wished to have him removed from the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln disap proved of Burnside's order, and gave Hooker the com mand of the Army of the Potomac. He then wrote Hooker the memorable letter: "I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of course I have done this upon what ap pears to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and skillful soldier which, of course, I like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession in which you are right. You have confidence in yourself which is valuable, if not an indispensable quality. You are ambitious which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm. But I think that during General Burnside's command of tha army you have taken counsel of your ambition to thwart him as much as you could in which you did a great wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer. I have heard, in such a way as to be lieve it, of your recently saying that both the army and the government needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain successes can EULOGY ON LINCOLN. 37 set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military successes, and I will risk the dictatorship. The govern ment will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders . I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticising their commander and withholding confidence in him, will now turn upon you. I shall assist you, as far as I can, to put it down. Neither you, nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, can get any good out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it. And now beware of rashness. Be ware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories." This letter has, in my judgment, no parallel. The mistaken magnanimity is almost equal to the prophecy: "I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army of criticising their commander and withholding confidence in him will now turn upon you." A great actor can be known only when he has assumed the principal character in a great drama. Possibly the greatest actors have never appeared, and it may be the greatest soldiers have lived the lives of perfect peace . Lincoln assumed the leading part of the greatest drama ever acted upon the stage of a continent. His criticisms of military movements, his correspon dence with his generals and others on the conduct of the war, show that he was at all times master of the situa tion that he was a natural strategist, that he appreciated the difficulties and advantages of every kind, and that in "the still and mental" field of war he stood the peer of any man beneath the flag. Had McClellan followed his advice he would have taken Richmond. Had Hooker 38 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. acted in accordance with his suggestions Chancellorsville would have been a victory for us. Lincoln's political prophecies were always fulfilled. We know now that he not only stood at the top, but that he occupied the center, from the first to the last, and that he did this by reason of his intelligence, his humor, his philosophy, his courage, and his patriotism. He lived to hear the shout of victory. He lived until the Confederacy died until Lee had surrendered, until Davis had fled, until the doors of Libby Prison were opened, until the Republic was free. He lived until Lincoln and liberty were united forever. He lived until there remained nothing for him to do as great as he had done. What he did was worth living for, worth dying for. He lived until he stood in the midst of universal joy, beneath the outstretched wings of peace the foremost man in all the world. And then the horror came. Night fell on noon. The savior of the Republic, the breaker of chains, the libera tor of millions, he who had "assured freedom to the free," was dead. Upon his brow Fame had placed the immortal wreath. For the first time in the history of the world a Nation bowed and wept. The memory of Lincoln is the strongest, tenderest tie that binds all hearts together now, and holds all States beneath a Nation's flag. Strange mingling of mirth and tears, of the tragic and grotesque, of cap and crown, of Socrates and Democritus, of JEsop and Marcus Aurelius, of all that is gentle and just, humorous and honest, merciful, wise, laughable, 40 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. lovable and divine, and all consecrated to the use of man; while through all, and over all, was an overwhelming sense of obligation, of chivalric loyalty to truth and upon all the shadow of the tragic end. Nearly all the great historic characters are impossible monsters, disproportioned by flattery, or by calumny de formed. We know nothing of their peculiarities, or nothing but their peculiarities. About the roots of these oaks there clings none of the earth of humanity . Washington is now only a steel engraving. About the real man who lived and loved, and hated and schemed, we know but little. The glass through which we look at him is of such high magnifying power that the features are exceedingly indistinct. Hundreds of people are now engaged in smoothing out the lines of Lincoln's face forcing all features to the common mould so that he may be known, not as he really was, but, according to their poor standard, as he shculd have been. Lincoln was not a type. He stands alone no an cestors, no fellows, and no successors. He had the advantage of living in a new country, of social equality, of personal freedom, of seeing in the horizon of his future the perpetual star of hope, He pre served his individuality and his self-respect. He knew and mingled with men of every kind; and, after all, men are the best books. He became acquainted with the ambitions and hopes of the heart, the means used to ac complish ends, the springs of action and the seeds of thought. He was familiar with nature, with actual things, with common facts. He loved and appreciated the poem of the year, the drama of the season. EULOGY ON LINCOLN, 4! In a new country a man must possess at least three virtues honesty, courage, and generosity. In cultivated society cultivatian is often more important than soil. A well-executed counterfeit passes more readily than a blurred genuine. It is necessary only to observe the un written laws of society to be honest enough to keep out of prison and generous enough to subscribe in public where the subscription can be defended as an investment. In a new country character is essential; .in the old reputation is sufficient. In the new they find what a man really is; in the old he generally passes for what he resembles. People separated only by distance are much nearer together than those divided by the walls of caste. It is no advantage to live in a great city, where poverty degrades and failure brings despair. The fields are lovelier than paved streets, and great forests than walls of brick. Oaks and elms are more poetic than steeples and chimneys. In the country is the idea of home. There you seethe rising and setting sun; you become acquainted with the stars and clouds, The constellations are your friends. You hear the rain on the roof, and-listen to the rhythmic sighing of the winds. You are thrilled by the resurrec tion called spring, touched and saddened by autumn the grace and poetry of death. Every field is a picture, a landscape; every landscape a poem; every flower a ten der thought, and every forest a fairy-land. In the coun try you preseree your identity your personality. There you are an aggregation of atoms; but in the city you are only an atom of an aggregation. Lincoln never finished his education. To the night of his death he was a pupil, a learner, an inquirer, a seeker W. H. HERNDON, LINCOLN'S LAW PARTNER. [ It was Mr. Lincoln's intention to return to Spring field from Washington and continue the practice of law with Mr. Herndon . In their last interview in the office, referring to their sign-board, Lincoln said: "Let it hang there undisturbed. Give our clients to understand that the election of a President makes no change in the firm of Lincoln and Herndon. If I live I'm coming back sometime, and then we'll go right on practicing law as if nothing ever happened." Editor.] [42] "EULOGY ON LINCOLN. 43 after knowledge. You have no idea how many men are spoiled by what is called education. For the most part colleges are places where pebbles are polished and dia monds are dimmed. If Shakespeare had been educated at Oxford he might have been a quibbling attorney or a hypocritical parson. He was a great lawyer. There is nothing shrewder in this world than intelligent honesty. Perfect candor is not only a sword but a shield . He understood the nature of man. As a lawyer he en deavored to get at the truth, at the very heart of a case. He was not willing even to deceive himself. No matter what his interests said, what his passion demanded, he was great enough to find the truth and strong enough to pronounce judgment against his own desires. He never was satisfied until he fully understood not only the facts, not only the law applicable to such facts, but the reason of the law. * If any one doubts his legal ability, let him read, first, the opinion of Chief Justice Taney in the Merryman case, and then the views of Lincoln on that opinion. Mr. Lincoln was a statesman. The great stumbling block the great obstruction in Lincoln's way, and in the way of thousands, was the old doctrine of states rights. This doctrine was first established to protect slavery. It was clung to to protect the inter-state slave trade. It became sacred iu connection with the fugitive slave law, and was finally used as the corner-stone of secession. This doctrine was never appealed to in defense of the right always in support of the wrong. For many years politicians upon both sides of these questions endeavored 44 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. to express the exact relations existing between the Fed eral Government and the States, and I know of no one who succeeded except Lincoln. In his message of 1861, delivered on July 4, the definition is given, and it is per fect: Whatever concerns the whole should be confided to the whole to the General Government. Whatever con cerns only the State should be left exclusively to the State. When that definition is realized in practice this coun try becomes a Nation. Lincoln was a many-sided man, acquainted with smiles and tears, complex in brain, single in heart, direct as light; and his words, candid as mirrors, gave the perfect image of his thought. He was never afraid to ask never too dignified to admit that he did not know. No man had keener wit or kinder humor. It may be that humor is the pilot of reason. People without humor drift unconsciously into absurdity. Humor sees the other side stands in the wind like a spectator, a good-natured critic, and gives its opinion be fore judgment is reached. Humor goes with good nature, and good nature is the climate of reason . In anger rea son abdicates and malice extinguishes the torch. Such was the humor of Lincoln that he could tell even un pleasant truths as charmingly as most men can tell the things we wish to hear. He was not solemn Solemnity is a mask worn by ignorance and hypocrisy it is the preface, prologue, and index to the cunning or the stupid. He was natural in his life and thought master of the storyteller's art, in illustration apt, in application perfect, EULOGY ON LINCOLN. 45 liberal 'in speech, shocking pharisees and prudes, using any word that wit could disinfect. He was a logician. His logic shed light. In its pres ence the obscure became luminous, and the most com plex and intricate political and metaphysical knots seemed to untie . themselves. Logic is the necessary product of intelligence and sincerity. It cannot be learned. It is the child of a clear head and a good heart. Lincoln was candid, and with candor often deceived the deceitful. He had intellect without arrogance, genius without pride, and religion without cant that is to say, without bigotry and without deceit. He was an orator clear, sincere, natural. He did not pretend. He did not say what he thought others thought, but what he thought. If you wish to be sublime you must be natural you must keep close to the grass. You must sit by the fire side of the heart; above the clouds it is too cold. You must be simple in your speech; too much polish suggests insincerity. The great orator idealizes the real, transfigures the common, makes even the inanimate throb and thrill, fills the gallery of the imagination with statues and pictures perfect in form and color, brings to light the gold hoarded by memory the miser, shows the glittering coin to the spendthrift hope, enriches the brain ennobles the heart, and quickens the conscience. Between his lips words bud and blossom. If you wish to know the difference between an orator and an elocutionist between what is felt and what is said between what the heart and brain can do together 46 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. and what the brain can do alone read Lincoln's won drous words at Gettysburg, and then the speech of Ed ward Everett. The oration of Lincoln will never be forgotten. It will MRS. SARAH BUSH LINCOLN, LINCOLN'S STEPMOTHER. live until languages are dead and lips are dust. The speech of Everett will never be read. The elocutionists believe in the virtue of voice, the sublimity of syntax, the majesty of long sentences, and the genius ot gesture. The orator loves the real, the simple, the natural. He EULOGY ON LINCOLN, 47 places the thought above all. He knows that the great est ideas should be expressed in the shortest words that the greatest statues need the. least drapery. Lincoln was an immense personality firm but not obstinate. Obstinacy is egotism firmness, heroism. He influenced others without effort, unconsciously; and they submitted to him as men submit to nature, uncon sciously. He was severe with himself, and for that rea son lenient with others. He appeared to apologize for being kinder than his fellows. He did merciful things as stealthily as others com mitted crimes. Almost ashamed of tenderness, he said and did the noblest words and deeds with that charming confusion, that awkwardness, that is the perfect grace of modesty. As a noble man, wishing to pay a small debt to a poor neighbor, reluctantly offers a hundred-dollar bill and asks for change, fearing that he may be suspected either of making a display of wealth of pretense of payment, so Lincoln hesitated to show his wealth of goodness, even to the best he knew. A great man stoooping, not wishing to make his fel lows feel that they were small or mean. By his candor, by his kindness, by his perfect freedom from restraint, by saying what he thought, and saying it absolutely in his own way, he made it not only possible, but popular, to be natural. He was the enemy of mock solemnity, of the stupidly reepectable, of the cold and formal. He wore no official robes either on his body or his LINCOLN'S MONUMENT. AT SPRINGFIELD, ILL. EULOGY ON LINCOLN. 49 soul . He never pretended to be more or less, or other or different from what he really was. He had the unconscious naturalness of Nature's self. He built upon the rock. The foundation was secure and broad. The structure was a pyramid, narrowing as it rose. Through days and nights of sorrow, through years of grief and pain, with unswerving purpose, "with malice towards none, with charity for all, "with infinite patience, with unclouded vision, he hoped and toiled. Stone after stone was laid until at last the Proclamation found its place . On that the Goddess stands. He knew others, because perfectly acquainted with himself. He cared nothing for place, but everything for principle; nothing for money, but everything for inde pendence. Where no principle was involved, easily swayed willing to go slowly, if in the right direction sometimes willing to stop; but he would not go back, and he would not go wrong. He was willing to wait. He knew that the event was not waiting and that fate was not the fool of chance. He knew that slavery had defenders, but no defense, and that they who attack the right must wound them selves . He was neither tyrant nor slave. He neither knelt nor scorned. With him men were neither great nor small they were right or wrong. Through manners, clothes, titles, rags and race he saw the real that which is. Beyond accident, policy, com promise and war he saw the end. He was as patient as Destiny, whose undecipherable 5o INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. hieroglyphics were so deeply graven on his sad and tragic face. Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle . Most men can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is give him power. This is the supreme test. It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it except on the side of mercy. Wealth could not purchase, power could not awe, this divine, this loving man . He knew no fear except the fear of doing wrong. Hat ing slavery, pitying the master seeking to conquer, not persons, but prejudice he was the embodiment of the self-denial, the courage, the hope, and the nobility of a Nation. He spoke, not to inflame, not to upbraid, but to con vince. He raised his hands, not to strike, but in bene diction. He longed to pardon. He loved to see the pearls of joy on the cheeks of a wife whose husband he had rescued from death. Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. He is the gentlest memory of our world. DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 51 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 profound- est political document that was ever signed by the representatives of the people. It is the embodi ment of physical and moral courage and of political wis dom. 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 col onies; a declaration of war by a few people, without mil itary 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 mis tress of every sea, was hovering along the coast of Amer ica, looking after defenseless towns and villages to rav age and destroy. It was made when thousands of Eng lish 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 52 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. the bravest political document ever signed by man. And if it was physically brave, the moral courage of the doc ument is almost infinitely beyond the physical. They had the courage not only, but they 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 centuries of war centuries of hypoc risy centuries of injustice. 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 the 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 beneath 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 peo ple. 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 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 53 king and priest that their bodies belonged to one and their souls to another. 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 re gard 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 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 no bles 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 pretended to divide what they stole with God Almighty. The source, then, of political power was from above. The people were re sponsible 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 responsi ble to God, not to the people. The kings were respon sible to the clouds, not to the toiling millions they rob bed and plundered. And our forefathers, in this declaration of independ ence, 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 became the sovereigns, and 54 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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 understand 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, body and soul, to some body who rode on a horse, to somebody with 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 believ ed it. They thought they belonged to somebody, and that they must be loyal to some thief, who could trace his ancestry back to antiquity's most successful rob ber. 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 be lief, 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 barbarian, 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 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 55 most nerve and heart was the best man, whether he had any noble blood in his veins or not. THE EDUCATION OF NATURE. It has been a favorite idea with me that our forefath ers were educated by nature; that they grew grand as the continent upon which they landed; that the green rivers the wide plains the splendid lakes the lonely forests the sublime mountains all these things stole into and became a part of their being, and they grew great as the country in which they lived . They began to hate the narrow, contracted views of Europe. They were educated by their surroundings, and every little col ony had to be, 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 many Indians. There was too much courage required for them to take and keep it, and so men had to come here who were dis satisfied with the old country who were dissatisfied with England, dissatisfied with France, with Germany, with Ireland and Holland. The king's favorites stayed at home. Men came here for liberty, and on account of certain principles they entertained aud held dearer than life. And they were willing to work, willing to fell the forests, to fight the savages, willing to go through all the hard ships, perils and dangers of a new country, of a new land; and the consequence was that our country was set tled 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 if they expressed them only to trees, rocks, and sav age men. The best blood of the old world came to the new. 56 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC LIBERTY AND TOLERATION. When they first came over they did not have a great deal of potitical philosophy, nor the best ideas of liber ty. We might as well tell the truth. When the Puri tans first came they were narrow. They did not under stand 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 education. Wherever they went they built school houses, introduced 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 comprehend. That is the glory or the Puritan fathers. They forgot in a little while what they had suffered, and they forgot to apply the principles of universal lib erty of toleration. Some of the colonies did not forget it, and I want to give credit where credit should be giv en. The Catholics of Maryland were the first people on the new continent to declare universal religious tolera tion. Let this be remembered to their eternal honor. Let it be remembered to the disgrace of the Protestant government of England, that it caused this grand law to be repealed. And to the honor and credit of the Cath olics of Maryland let it be remembered, that the moment they got back into power they re-enacted the old law. The Baptists of Rhode Island, also, led by Roger Wil liams, 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. DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 57 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 teleration, they had no idea of religious liberty. They would not allow any one to call in ques tion 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 the right to think and to express his thoughts. So many religions met in our country so many theo ries and dogmas came in contact so many follies, mis takes and stupidities became acquainted with each other, that religion began to fall somewhat into dispute. Be sides 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 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 an swered. During these years of political excitement, the interest in religion abated to that degree that a common purpose animated men of all sects and creeds. At last our fathers became tired of being colonists tired of writing and reading and signing petitions, and pre senting them, on their bended knees, "to an idiot king. They began to have an aspiration to form a new nation, 58 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. to be citizens of a new republic instead of subjects to an old monarchy. They had the idea the Puritans, the Catholics, 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 Han cock. There were thousands-and thousands of them who were opposed to American Independence. There were thou sands and thousands who said: "When you 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 mov ed by Lee, of Virginia, that the colonies ought to be in dependent States, and ought to dissolve their political connection 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 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 59 only, but the colonies differed widely in their religious views. There were the Puritans who hated the Episco palians, and the 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 wan ted to form a new nation. More than that, most of them cordially hated Great Britain; and they pledged to each other to forget these religious prejudices, for a time at least, and agreed that there should be only one religion till they got through, and that was the religion of patri otism. They solemnly agreed that the new nation should not belong to any particular 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 secular 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; and 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 reli gion. Religion should have the influence upon mankind that its goodness, that its morality, that its justice, its charity, its reason and its argument give it. and no more. Religion should have the effect upon mankind that it nec essarily has, and no more. So our fathers said: "We shall form a secular go v- 60 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. ernment, 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 re sponsible to them. And so I say again, as I said in the commencement, this is the wisest, the profoundest, the bravest political document that ever was written and signed by man. They turned, as I tell you, everything squarely about. They derived all their authority from the people. They did away forever with the theological idea of govern ment. And what more did they say? They said that when ever the rulers abused this authority, this power, inca pable of destruction, returned to the people. How did they come to say this? I will tell you; they were pushed into it. How? They felt that they were oppressed; and whenever a man feels that he is the subject of injus- DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 6 1 tice, his perception of right and wrong is wonderfully quickened. Nobody was ever in prison wrongfully who did not believe in the writ of habeas corpus. Nobody ever suffered wrongfully without instantly having ideas o jus tice. 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 found ed, and when they got there, forced there, too, by their oppressors, forced against their own prejudices and ed ucation, 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 of 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; aud 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. 62 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. What would we have been had we 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 have in him some drop of blood that flowed in the veins of that mailed marauder William the Con- querer. They signed the declaration of independence, although they knew that it would produce a long, terrible, and bloody war. They looked forward and saw poverty, de privation, 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 enthuiasts; In every couutry there have been a few who have given a national aspiration to the people. The enthusiasts of 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 himself. He was poor and pure brave and good, and so he went to the field of death to fight for the rights of men. What did the soldier leave when he went ? He left his wife and children. Did he leave them in a beautiful home, surrounded by DECLARATION OF INDEPENPDENCE. 63 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 her self, and he left the prattling babes to be defended by their mother and by nature. The mother made the liv ing; she planted the corn and the potatoes, and hoed them in the sun, 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 64 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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 on as best they could, hoping and fighting until they came to the dark and somber gloom of Valley Forge . There were very few hearts then beneath that flag that did not begin to think that the struggle was useless; that all the blood and treasure had been spent and shed in vain. But there were some men gifted with that won derful prophecy that fulfills itself, and with that wonder ful magnetic power that makes heroes of everybody they come in contact with. And so our fathers went through the gloom of that terrible time, and still fought on. Brave men wrote grand 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 en tire 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 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 peo- DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 65 pie. They make all the money; do all the work. They plow the land; cut down the forests, they produce every thing 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, surround ed by vermin ? The history of civilization is the history of the slow and painful enfranchisement of the human race. In the olden times the family was a monarchy, the father being the monarch . The mother and children were the veriest slaves. The will of the father was the supreme law. He had the power of life and death . It took thousands of years to civilize this father, thousands of years to make the condition of wife and mother and children even tol erable. A few families constituted a tribe; the tribe had a chief; the chief was a tyrant; a few tribes formed a na tion; the nation was governed by a king, who was also a tyrant. A strong nation 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 con ceive of the horrors of slavery. It has left no possible wrong uncommitted, no possible crime unperpetrated. 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 de rived from the slave trade churches have been built, cathedrals reared and. priests paid. Slavery has been, blessed by bishop, by cardinal and by pope. It has re ceived the sanction of statesmen, of kings, of queens. Monarchs have shared in the profits. Clergymen have 66 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. taken their part of the spoil, reciting 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 outrages that had been perpetrated upon them. As soon as white slavery began to be aboliseed, black slavery commenced. In this infamous traffic nearly every nation of Europe em barked. The other day there came shoemakers, potters, work ers in wood and iron, from Europe, and they were re ceived in the city of New York as though they had been princes. They had been sent by the great republic of France to examine 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 . DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 6/ 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 in dependence 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 com mences." I know of no better difinition. I ask you to day to make a declaration of individual independence. And if you are independent, be just. Allow everybody else to make his declaration of individual independence. Allow your wife, allow your husband, allow your chil dren to make theirs. It is a grand thing to be the owner of yourself. It is a grand thing to 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 possi ble 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 68 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. dreamed of the things I saw. There were hundreds of locomotives, 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 sweep ing 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 Revolution could see what a century of freedom has produced. I wished they could see the fields we cultivate the rivers we navi gate the railroads ruuning over the Alleghanies, far into what was then the unknown forest on over the broad prairies on over the vast plains away over the moun tains 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 people, 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 of the grand men who fought for liberty. All should be 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 re port of "a hundred killed," or "a hundred missing," no body 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. DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 69 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 be lieve there is more human kindness, and a greater desire to help one another, 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 culture 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 in vestigating; 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 Declaration of Independence, that we have given re ality to it, and breathed the breath of life into its every word. I felt that our flag would float over and protect the colored man and his little children standing straight in the sun, just the same as though he were white and worth a million. All who stand beneath our banner are free . Ours is 7o INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. the only flag that has in reality written upon it: Liberty, Fraternity. Eqality the three grandest words in all the languages of men. Liberty: Give to every man the fruit of his own labor the labor of his hand and of his brain. Fraternity, Every man in the right is my brother. Equality: 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 dis tinction are open to you upon your brow may fall the civic wreath. We are celebrating the courage and wis dom of our fathers, and the glad shout of a free people, the anthem of a grand nation, commencing at the Atlan tic, is following the sun to the Pacific, across a continent of happy homes. We are a great people. Three mil lions 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 him self, is the best man. We have disfranchised the aristo crats of the air, and have given the country to mankind. TO THE FARMERS ON FARMING. Ingersoll's Early Experience as a Farmer. From the Illinois State Register. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN; I am not an old and ex perienced 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 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 prosperons. 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 hun dred and sixty acres of land with a couple of dogs. Everything was left to the protection of the blessed trin ity of chance, accident and mistake. When I was a farmer they used to haul wheat two hundred miles in a wagon and sell it for thirty-five cents [70 72 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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 roof in per fect contempt, and the snow drifted joyfully o*n 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 was 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 ac tual starvation. In those days farmers thought the best place for the pig pen was immediately in front of the house. There is nothing like sociability . Women were supposed to know the art of making fires without fuel. The wood-pile consisted, as a gener al 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 kindling. Everything was done in the hardest way. Everything about the farm was disagree able. Nothing was kept in order. Nothing was pre served. 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 TO FARMERS. 73 weariness and vextation of spirit, The crops were de stroyed 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 flies, or 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 rafsing a good crop and a high price was offered, then the roads would be impassable. And when the roads got good, then the prices went down. Everything work ed together for evil. Nearly every farmer's boy took an oath that .he would 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 farm. Nearly every boy ac quainted with the three R's reading, writing and arith metic 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, established banks and insurance companies. 74 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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 their 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 presi dent abscond, and the insurance company a wrecked and ruined fraud. The only solvent people, as a class, the only independent people, are the tillers of the soil. COL. INGERSOLL'S IDEAL FARMER. Farming must be made more attractive. The com forts of the town must be added to the beauty of the fields. The sociability of the city must be rendered pos sible 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 pos sible out of what he produces. So long as the farmers of the Middle States ship their corn and oats, so long will they 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 bene fit, 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 manufac- TO FARMERS. 75 ture 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 genera tion had enough to eat, and have been treated with kind ness. Every farmer who will treat his cattle kindly, and feed them all they want, will, in a few years, have blooded stock on his 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 this way only, can good cat tle 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 flow ers 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 civ- ilizer, 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 76 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. a pig in order to raise one, In the cool of an 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 OF THE EARTH. 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 country 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 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 fram the. miserly clutch of the rocks, When I saw the mountains, treeless, shrubless, flower- less, without even a spire of grass, it seemed to me that gold has 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 farmer in the world. His hard work ceases with autumn . He has the long winters 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. If the farmer is not well informed it is his own fault. Books are TO FARMERS. 77 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 FARMER 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 tradesman. 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 men, but not a shoemaker. It takes them all, assisted by a great many machines, to make a shoe. Each does a particular part, and not one of them knows the entire trade. The result is that the moment the factory shuts down these men are out of employment. Out of em ployment means out of bread; out of bread means famine and horror. The mechanic of to-day has but little in dependence. His prosperity 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 declin ing 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. Man should endeavor to belong to himself. About seven hundred years ago, Kheyam, a Persian, said: "Why should a man possessing 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 78 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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 sal aries 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 trembling, feeling of the public pulse, resorting to art and artifice, inquiring about the wind of opinion, and succeeding at last in losing my self-respect without gain ing the respect 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 which will give us the most happiness. Hap piness 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 THE 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. TO FARMERS. 79 He will be last where once he was first. But the farmer goes, as it were, into partnership with nature he lives with trees and flowers he breathes the sweet air of the fields. There is no constant and frightful strain upon his mind. His 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 the idle and unemployed, and the great question asking for an answer is: What shall be done with those men? What shall these men do? To this there is but one answer: They must culti vate 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 hate it themselves. The boys must not be taught that tilling the soil is a curse and almost a dis grace. They must not suppose that education is thrown away upon them unless they become ministers, lawyers, doctors or statesmen. It must be understood that edu cation can be usod to advantage on a farm. We must 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 varities of menial service. 8o INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. They seem willing to do anything that is not regarded as work anything that can be done in a tcwn, in the house, in an office, but they avoid farming as they would a lep rosy. 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 com mon sense without education, than education without the sense. Boys and girls should be educated to help themselves. They should be taught that it is disgrace ful 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 pleas ant. One great difficulty is that the farm is lonely. Peo ple 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 hatred. 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 use 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. 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- TO FARMERS. 8 1 is upon his heart all day, and a like shadow rests upon all at home. In the early settlement of our country the farmer 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 away from any neighbor. He saw the smoke go up from his hearth alone in all the wide and lonely sky. But this necessity has passed away, and now, instead of living so far apart upon the lonely farms, you should live in villages. With the improved machinery which you have with your generons 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 social 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 learn from each other you can discuss all topics ot interest, and in this way you can make farming a delight ful business. You must keep up with the age. The way to make farming respectable is for farmers to become really in telligent. 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 rest of the earth. The business must be made attractive, and it never can be until the farmer has prosperity, in telligence and leisure. 82 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. THE COLONEL'S AMUSING REMARKS ABOUT GETTING UP EARLY IN THE MORNING. It is not necessary in this age of the world for the farm er to rising in the middle of the night to 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 purpose 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 your 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 lesiure? What is harvesting now, compared to what it was in the old time? Think of the days of reaping, of cradling, of raking and binding and mowing. Think pf threshing with the flail and winnowing with the wind. And now think of the reapers and mowers, the binders and threshing machines, the plows and cultiva- TO FARMERS. 83 tors, upon which the farmer rides protected from the sun. If, with all these advantages you cannot get a living with out rising in the middle of the night, go into some other business. You should not rob your families of sleep. 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 refresh ing sleep. THE FASHIONS AND HANDSOME WOMEN. Another thing I am a believer in fashiou. It is the duty of 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 his 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 and 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 be lieve 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 de sire seems to be everywhere 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. Oh! daughters and wives, 84 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. if you would be loved, adorn yourselves if you would be adored, be beautiful! HOME VS. THE BOARDING-HOUSE. There is another fault common with the farmers of our 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. In this way what you keep will be enhanc- 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 high est sense as a home unless you own it. There must be an incentive to plant trees, beautify the grounds, to pre serve and improve. It elevates a man to own a home. It gives a certain independence, a force of character that is obtained in no other way. A man without a home feels like a passenger. There is in such a man a little of the vagrant. Home makes patriots. He who has sat by his own fireside with wife and children, will defend it. When he hears the word country pronounced, he thinks of his home. Few men have been patriotic enough to shoulder a musket in defense of a boarding house. The prosperity and glory of our 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; and to act upon their own responsibility, and to take the conse quences like men. Teach them above all things to be TO FARMERS. 85 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 pros perity depends upon the inventor. The world advances by the assistance of all laborers; and all labor is under ob ligations to the inventions of genius. The inventor does as much for agriculture as he who tills the soil. All lab oring men should be brothers. You are in partnership with the mechanic who makes 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 beople should unite and protect themselves against all idlers. You can divide mankind into two classes; the laborers and the idlers, the supporters and supported, the honest and the dishonest. Every man is dishonest who lives upon the unpaid labor of others, no matter if he occupies 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 with either 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 agricultutal im plement, 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 noth ing of macninery, he was the slave of superstition. 86 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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 king and queens, the only true nobility. WHAT THE RAILROADS HAVE DONE THIRTY-THREE DOZEN EGGS FOR ONE D'OLLAR. 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, especially by railroads. Of course the railroads are indebted to the farmers for their prosperity, and the farmers are indebted to the rail roads. A few 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 re member 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 succeded so well in local freights. The exact oppo site should be the policy in Illinois. Put down local freights; put them down, if you can, to the lowest pos sible figure, and let through freights take care of them selves. If all the corn raised in Illinois could be trans ported 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 ex- TO FARMERS. 8/ pense of the West. The railroads are your friends. They are your partners. They can prosper only where the coun try through which they run prospers. All intelligent rail road men know this. They know that present robbery is future bankruptcy. They know that the interest of the farmer and of the railroad are 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 bushel 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 dol lar and a half. What has made the difference? The railroads came to your door and they brought with them the markets of the world. They brought New York and Liverpool and London into Illinois, and the State has been clothed with prosperity as with a mantle. It is the interest, of the farmer to protect eyery 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 cost of all the land in the State. To make war on the railroads 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. 88 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. BUSINESS AND THE MONEY 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 aud millionaires have passed into the oblivion of bank ruptcy. The period of depression is slowly passing away, and we are entering upon better times. A great many people say that scarcity of money is our only difficulty . In my opinion we have money enough, but we lack confidence in eacn other in the future. There has been so much dishonesty, there have been so many failures, and the people are afraid to trust any body. 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 water." So with us there is not a scarcity of money, but there is a scarcity of business. And this scarcity springs from lack of confidence in one another. So many presidents 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 meth ods in business. Confidence will return, and then enter- TO FARMERS. 89 prise will unlock 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. But I do ask for the remonetization of silver. Silver was de monetized by fraud. It is an imposition upon every sol vent man; a fraud upon every honest debtor in the United States. It assassinated labor. It was done in the interest of avarice and greed, and should be outdone by honest men. The farmers should vote only for such men as are able and willing to guard and advance the interest of labor. We should know better than to vote for men who will deliberately put a tariff of three dollars a thousand upon' Canada lumber, when every farmer in the State 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 labor ing men of this country can succeed if they are united. By laboring men, I do not mean only the farmers. I mean all who contribute in some way to the general wel fare. They shonld forget prejudices and party names, and remember only the best interests of the people. Let us see if we cannot protect every department of industry. Let us see if all property cannot be protected alike and taxed alike, whether owned by individuals or corpora tions. Where industry creates and justice protects, prosper ity dwells. go INGERSOLLS GREAT SPEECHES. ILLINOIS. Let me tell you something about Illinois. We have fifty-six thousand square miles of land; nearly thirty-six million acres. Upon these plains we can raise enough to clothe and feed 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 aggregate 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 foving 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 possibly can. A mortgage casts a shadow on the sunni est field. There is no business under the sun that can pay ten per cent. WHAT A DOLLAR CAN DO. A. R. Spofford gives the following facts about 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 dol- TO FARMERS. 9 1 lars. At eight per cent it amounts to two thousand two hundred and three dollars. At three per cent, it amounts to only 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 seventy- five dollars, or more than four thousand times as much. At eighteen per cent, it amounts to fifteen million one hundred and forty-five thousand and seven dollars. At twenty-four per cent, (which we sometimes hear talked of) it reaches the enormous sum of two billion five hun dred 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 noth ing, he hears his corn grow. Get out of debt as soon as you possibly can. You have supported idle averice and lazy economy long enough . HOW A MAN SHOULD TREAT 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 kind ness they will grow about you like flowers. They will fill your homes with sunshine and 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 sur- 92 INGERSOLLS GREAT SPEECHES. rounded by children 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 ser vant. Wives, weary and worn; mothers, wrinkled and bent before their time, fill homes with grief and shame. If you are not able to hire help for your wives, help them yourselves. See that they have the best utensils to work with. Women cannot cannot create things by magic. Have plenty of wood and coal; good cellars and plenty in them. Have cisterns, so that you can have plenty of rain-water for washing. 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 miser able 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 breakfast. Do not make her cook 4 in a kitchen hot as the orthodox perdition. The beef, not the cook, should be roasted. It is ju^t as easy to have things convenient and right as to have them any other way. INGERSOLL 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 cook ing is the basis of civilization . The man whose arteries and veins are filled with rich blood made of good and TO FARMERS. 93 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 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 it is broiled it is delicious. Fried beef steak is not fit for a wild beast. You can broil'even on a stove. Shut the front damper open the back one, then take of a griddle. There will be a draft downwards through the 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. For broiling, coal, ev.en 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 great est 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 com fort. THE HAPPY HOME. Make your homes pleasant. Have your houses warm 94 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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 en gravings. The cheapest are far better than none. Have books have papers, and read them. You have more 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 eleva tion of man. Every little morning-glory whose purple bosom is thrilled with the amorous kiss 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 homes comfortable. Do not huddle to gether in a little room around a red-hot stove, with every window fastened down. Do not live in this pois oned atmosphere, and then, when one of your children dies, put a piece in the paper commencing with, "Where as, 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 un healthy 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 THE FARMER LOOKING FOR GAME, ]95] 96 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. into hatred and disrepute. Treat your children with in finite kindness treat them as equals. There is no hap piness in a home not filled with love. Where the hus band 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 crab bed. To look upon the sunny slopes covered with dais ies does not tend to make men unjust. Whoever labors for the happiness of those he loves, elevates himself, no matter whether he 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 him self. Selfishness is ignorance. Speculators cannot make unless somebody loses. In the realm of specula tion, every success has at least one victim. The har vest 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 COMFORT." 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; three months of home; three months of solid comfort. When the life of the farmer is such as I have describ ed, the cities and towns will not be filled with want; the TO FARMERS. 97 streets will not be crowded with wretched rogues, broken bankers, and bankrupt speculators. The fields will be tilled, and country villages, almost hidden by trees, and vines, and flowers, rilled with industrious and happy peo ple, will nestle in every vale and gleam like gems on every plain. The idea must be done away with that there is some thing intellectually degrading in cultivating the soil. Nothing can be nobler 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 win ter and cool in summer; if they will plant trees and beautify their homes; if they will occupy their leisure in reading, in studying, in improving their minds and in de vising ways and means to make their business profitable and pleasant; if they will live nearer together and culti vate 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 mead ows, 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. TO FARMERS. 99 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 fath er 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 of 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 conntry, 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. JAMES G. ELAINE. NOMINATING ELAINE. The Celebrated Speech of Col. Ingersoll Nom. inating James G. Elaine for President. At Cincinnati, June, 1876, in nominating James G. Elaine for President, Col. Ingersoll spoke as follows: MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : Massa- [100] NOMINATING ELAINE. IOI chusetts may be satisfied with the loyalty of Benjamin H. Bristow; so am I; but if any man nominated by this convention 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 headquarters. I would advise them to take from Bunker Hili 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 political opinions. They demand a statesman; they de mand a reformer after as well as before the election. They demand a politician in the highest, broadest and best sense a man of superb moral courage. They de mand a man acquainted 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 sacred ly 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 to know that all the financial theories in the world 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 io2 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. make the money, and the honor to pay it over just as fast as they make it. . The Republican 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 spindle 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 can not make it by passing resolutions in a politicol conven tion. 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 pro tectors, is a disgrace to the map of the world. They de mand a man who believes in the eternal separation and divorcement 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 cer- tjficate of moral character signed by a Confederate Con gress. The man who has, in full, heaped and rounded measures, all these splendid qualifications is the present grand and gallant leader of the Republican party James G. Elaine. Our country, crowned with the vast aud 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 NOMINATING ELAINE. 1 03 grandest combination of heart, conccience and brain be neath her flag. Such a man is James G. Elaine. For the Republican host, led by this intrepid man, there can be no defeat. This is a grand year a year filled with recollections of the Revolution; filled with the proud and tender memories of the past; with sacred legends of liberty; a year in which the sons of freedom will drink from the fountains of en thusiasm; 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 intellectual athlete, has stood in the arena of debate and challenged all comers, and who is still a total stranger to defeat. Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blaine marched down the halls of the American Con gress 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 de sert this gallant leader now is as though an army should desert their General upon the field of battle. James G. Blaine 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 104 INGERSOLLS GREAT SPEECHES. name of 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 BIRTHPLACE OF MR. ELAINE, BROWNSVILLE, PA. so vividly remembers, Illinois Illinois nominates for the next President of this country that prince of parliamen tarians, that leader of leaders James G. Elaine. TO THE SOLDIERS. Delivered at Indianapolis to the Veteran Sol. diers of the Rebellion. From the Indianapolis Journal LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, FELLOW CITIZENS AND CITI ZEN 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 io6 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. flag from the heaven that it enriches was a Democrat. Every man that tried to destroy this nation was a Demo crat. 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 Democrat. Eve'ry 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 President 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 Democrat. Every man that clutched from shrieking, shuddering, 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 country'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 because they were endeavoring to enforce the law 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 Proclama tion of Emancipation the grandest paper since the Declaration of Independence every one of them was a Democrat. Every man that denounced the soldiers that TO THE SOLDIERS. IO/ 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 believed 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 crumble instantly into dust at the io8 IXGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. touch of treason, was a Democrat. Every man that helped to burn orphan asylums in 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 serpent 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 Democrat . 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 be came a school house. The Republican party put down the rebellion, saved the nation, kept the old banner afloat in the air, and declared that slavery of every kind should be extirpated 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 plat form as broad as humanity, a platform as broad as the no INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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 party 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 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 preposed to adjourn the meet ing 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 Indiana waves over me. I would not know it if I should see it. You have the same right to speak in Illinois, not because 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 arn in favor of this being a Nation. Think of a man gratifying his entire ambition in the State of Rhode Island, We want this to be a nation, and you ean't have a great, grand, splendid people with out 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 grand character. I am for the Republi can party because it says the government has as much right, as much power to protect its citizens at home as TO THE SOLDIERS. 1 1 I abroad. The Republican party don't say you have to go away from home to get the protection of the government. The Democratic party says the government can't march its troops into the South to protect the rights of the citi zens. 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 )'ou are sitting by your fireside with your wife and children about you, and the old lady knitting, and the cat playing with the yarn, and every body 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 govern ment 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 protectors 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 Republican 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 ii2 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. shoulder to shoulder for the advancement of mankind. It invites the Methodist, it invites the Catholic, it incites 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 Republi can, 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, and question the stars for yourself." But the Democratic party says: "Be blind 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 his coun try, 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 will- TO THE SOLDIERS. 113 ing 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 be lieves 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 Re publican party, I say, believes in free labor. The Re publican 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- ELECTRIC DYNAMO. 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 H4 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. hammer and fashion what we need. The forces of nature are the slaves of the Republican parly. 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 work night and day and they cannot tire. You cannot whip them, you cannot starve them, and a Democrat even can be trusted with one of them. I tell 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 government 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, TO THE SOLDIERS. I I 5 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. COL. i NGERSOLL'S REMARKABLE v i s i ON ONE OF THE MOST ELOQUENT EXTRACTS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. The past, as it were, rises before me like a dream. Again we are in the great struggle for national life. We hear the sound of preparation the music of the boister ous drums the silver voices of heroic bugles. We see thousands of assemblages, and hear the appeals of ora tors; 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 bend ing over cradles kissing babes that are asleep . Some are receiving the blessings of old men . Some are part ing 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. ii6 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. We see them part. We see the wife standing in the door with the babe in her arms standing in the sunlight 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 weary marches. We stand guard with them in the wild storm and under the quiet stars. We are with them in the ravines running with blood in the furrows of old fields. We are with them between contending hosts, TO THE SOLDIERS. 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 whirlwind 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 unspeakable ! 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 ii8 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. they 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 soldier living and dead cheers for the living and tears for the dead. MORE 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 resolution 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 thing; 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 TO THE SOLDIERS. 119 paper was only worth about 34 cents on the dollar. Gold went up to $2.90. What did that mean ? It meant that greenbacks were worth 34 cents on the dollar. What be came of the other 66 cents ? They were lied out of the greenbacks, they were calumniated out of 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 find a Democratic lie. Recollect 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, bleed ing, suffering 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 hospitals 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 I wished there were words of pure hatred I2O INGERSOLLS GREAT SPEECHES. 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 rebels. THREE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS ANSWERED. There are three questions now submitted to the Ameri can 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 or ders and sink it. That is the question. Shall a solid South, a united South, united by assassination and mur der, a South solidified by the shot-gun; shall a united South, with the aid of a divided North, shall they con trol this great ahd splendid country ? Well, then the North must wake up, We are right back where we were in 1 86 1. This is simply a prolongation of the war. This is the war of the idea, the other was the war of the mus ket. 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 question 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 coun try, and so we borrowed the money, and the juestion now is, will we pay it ? And which party is the most apt to pay it, the Republican party, that made the debt the TO THE SOLDIERS. 121 party that swore it was constitutional, or the party that said it was unconstitutional ? 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 greenback, 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 everybody that talks about it gets as dry as if they had been in the final home of the Demo cratic 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 peo ple 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 government is a perpetual consumer. You under stand me, the government don't plow ground, the gov ernment don't raise corn and wheat: the government is simply a perpetual consumer; we support the govern ment. 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 in debtedness 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 dol lar bills ? It takes no more ink and no more paper 122 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. why not make $ 1,000 bills ? Why not make $100,000,- ooo 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. Green backer, suppose the gov ernment 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 not go around and give you your aver age. You have to have some corn, or wheat, or pork to give for it . How do you get your money ? By work. Where from ? You have to dig it out of the g/ound. That is where it comes from. In old times there were some men who thought they could get some way to turn the baser metals into gold, 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 ot 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 per petual motion by combinations of wheels, shifting weights, and rolling balls; but somehow the machine would never quite run. A perpetual fountain of green backs, of wealth without labor, is just as foolish as a fountain of eternal youth, The idea that you can pro- puce 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 THE SOLDIERS. 123 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 sov ereign 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 valuable ? Suppose he had put it upon a piece of paper it would have been of no more value than a Democratic promise. Another thing, my friends, this debt will be paid; you need not worry about that. The Democrats ought to pay 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 grass 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 stand ing 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 Sierra Nevadas, waiting the miner's pick, is a guarantee that the debt will be paid; every locomotive, with its muscles of iron and breath of flame, and all the boys and girls bending over 124 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. their books at school, every dimpled child in th? cradle, every good man and every good woman, and every man that votes the Republican ticket is a guarantee that the debt will be paid. MORE 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 the 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 company of their owners. It is a terrible thing to live with a man that steals from you. They have suf fered 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 sisters. There was not dur ing the whole rebellion a single negro that was not our friend. We are willing to be reconciled 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 TO THE SOLDIERS. 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 sup plications of his family, shoot him down; when they cease to consider the massacre of Hamburg as a Demo cratic 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 at tend to your business. The simple fact that you are white cannot save you always. You have got to be in dustrious, honest, to cultivate 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 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 126 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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 swiftness, with his mane flying like a banner of victory, with his veins standing out all over him, as if a net of life had been cast around him with his thin neck, 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 TO THE SOLDIERS. I2/ 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 millja 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. The sign had swung and swung and creaked in the wind; the snow had fallen upon it in the winter, the birds han sung upon it in the sum mer. Nobody ever stopped at that hotel; but the sign stuck to it and kept swearing to it, "Entertainment for 128 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. man and beast," and I said to myself, "Such is the Dem- cratic party of the United States." Now, my friends, I want you to vote the Republican ticket. I want you to swear you will not vote for a man who opposed putting down the rebellion. I want you to swear 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 Lincoln 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 mari ner, 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. Vote to save that country. TO THE SOLDIERS. 129 INGERSOLL'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; amaligner of this nation. It is not so. This country is covered with asylums for the aged, the helpless, the insane, the orphan, wounded 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 ocean 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 people. Thieves and rascals did not do so. I am a Republican. The world is getting better. Husbands 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 gads ore out of the schools, and they are governing chil dren by love and by sense . The world is getting better; 130 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. it is getting better in Maine. It has got better in Maine, in Vermont. It is getting better in every State of the North. I have a dream that this world is growing better and better 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 withered hand of want will not always be stretched out for charity; that finally wisdom will sit in the legisla ture, justice in the courts, charity will occupy all the pul pits, and that finally the world will be controlled by lib erty 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. (Immense and prolonged cheering.) INGERSOLL'S FUNERAL ORATION. Delivered at His Brother's Obsequies, in Wash ington, June 2, 1879. The funeral of Hon. Ebon C. Irigersoll, 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, and a funeral oration by Col. 132 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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 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 lov ing brother, husband, father, friend, died where man hood'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 sail, 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 farther 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, be come 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 FUNERAL ORATION. 133 was the friend of all heroic souls. He climbed the heights, and left all superstitions far below, while on his forehead fell the golden dawning of a grander day. He loved the beautiful and was with color, form and music 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 the words, "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 rustle of a wing. He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered 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. GREAT COOPER INSTITUTE SPEECH. The Condition of the Parties and of the Country. Delivered in Cooper Institute, New York city, Sept. n, 1876. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I am just on my way home from the gallant State of Maine, and there has fol lowed 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 overwhelm ing, and the majority will, I think, exceed 15,000. This dispatch is signed by the knight-errant of politi cal chivalry, James G. Blaine. THE TWO PARTIES 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 wishes 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 Constitu tion. The Republican party comes to you with its re- [134] AT COOPEK INSTITUTE. 135 cord open, and asks every man, woman and child in this broad country to read its every word; and I say to you, there is not a line, not a paragraph, or a page in that re cord that is not only an honor to the Republican party, but to the human race. ARCH OF TRIUMPH. 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 common country. We ask everybody to read its every word. The Democratic party comes before you with its record closed; a record of blot and blur, and stain and treason, and slander and 136 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. malignity, and asks you not to read a solitary word of what it has done, but be kind enough to take its infam ous 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, 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 Demo cratic 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 repub lic 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 government 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 refresh ourselves, for we AT COOPER INSTITUTE. 137 all know it, but it is well enough to say it now and then in order to refresh ourselves) in order to understand what this great party has accomplished, let us for a moment consider the state of the country when the Re publican 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 pro visions 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 simply 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 around his neck a collar, and they did not have the decency to put a man's name upon the collar, but they put the name of his master. I have said in the State of Maine several times, and I expect to say it several times again, althongh I heard I outraged the religious sentiment of the Democratic party and shocked the piety oi that organization by saying it. I did say there, and now say here : THE FUGITIVE LAW OF 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 indict able offense. There was a law by virtue of which char ity became a crime, and a man, simply for an act of kindness exercised, could be indicted, imprisoned, and fined. It was the law of Illinois, of my State, that if I gave a drop of cold water, or a crust of bread, to a poor 138 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. fugitive from slavery, I could be indicted, fined and im prisoned. Under the infamous Slave Law of 1850, under the infamous Black laws of the Western States when the Republican party was born, if a woman, ninety-nine and one hundredths 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 have been an indict able 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 women and hand her back to' the dominion of the hound, the Democrat, and the lash. What more? The institution of slavery had pol luted and corrupted the church not only in the South, AT COOPER INSTITUTE. 139 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 men tioned. Not only so, but the Presbyterian Church South in 1863, met in General Synod and passed three resolu tions, two of which were: "Resolved, That slavery is a Divine institution. "Resolved, That God raised up the Presbyterian Church South to protect and perpetuate that institu tion." All I have to say is, that if God did it, He never choose a more infamous instrument to carry out a more diaboli cal object. What more had slavery done? It had cor rupted our courts, so that, in nearly every State in the Union, if a Democrat had gone to the hut of a poor negro, and shot 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 Republi can party was born. 140 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. THE BAY OF THE BLOODHOUND. When that party was born the crack of the slave whip 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 hon esty and reform. Then, if a poor negro had tilled a farm and watered it by the sweat of honest labor, and if a Democrat came along and seized upon the result of his labor, the courts of the United States did not know to whom the 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 come to the conclusion that the Democrats owned the corn. At the time the Republican party came into existence slavery was not satisfied with local, but endeavored to use its infamous leprosy, as it were, for pushing it into every Territory of the United States. Recollect the con dition of the country at that time. Boats went down the Missouri river 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 of our hypocrises, rose the crime of slavery like Chimborazo above the clouds. AT COOPER INSTITUTE. 14! The Republican party came into existence in 1860, when it elected 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 say so, too," and his name was Samuel J. Tilden. He read the Constitution of the United States and several Democratic platforms, and de cided that the Government had no right to do anything except to defend slavery. Recollect that James Buchan an was an old bachelor not only, but a Democrat. Rec ollect that, and say to yourselves, "Why should we ever trust a man and 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 Democrats claimed that this was not a Nation. It was misply a Confederacy, and that the old banner of the stars represented a contract commencing with, "Know 142 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPCEEHES. 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 Democrat ic 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 Republican party said to them, -'You try and break up this Union, and we will break your necks," and they did it. The Republican party came into power on the heels of the Buchanan administration. The treasury was empty of coin as the Democratic party was of patriotism and honor. We had to borrow money of whom we could. We had to issue BONDS AND GREENBACKS. What for? Why, to buy shot and shell and muskets to shoot enough Democrats to save the union . There was a division then forced upon the people, not into Democrats and Republicans, but into patriots and trait ors; and thousands and thousands went out of the Dem ocratic party to aid the Government to put down the re bellion. 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 Democrats. These Democrats went into the markets of the world, and they maligned and they slandered these efforts to obtain 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 caluminate AT COOPER INSTITUTE. 143 the Government 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 caluminated 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 you will find a Democratic lie. The Republican party has done nothing for sixteen years that it has not been proud of. The Democratic party has done nothing for sixteen years that it is not ashamed of. The Republicans have not done one thing that was not for the public interests of the Government for sixteen years. The history of the Democratic party is an epitaph. The Democratic party to-day is searching around in the old political cemetery of the by-gone ages for a standard bearer. They have raised up in Massachusetts that old cemetery remiscence, Charles Francis Adams, who had his henchmen at Cincinnati, hoping that he would get the namination from the Republicans there, and who was equally willing to take it at St . Louis, and who was will ing 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 cemetery and have fished our Mr. Adams. The law against violating the sacredness of the tomb ought to be enforced. The Democratic party was not willing that this country should be saved unless slavery should be saved with it. There was never a Democrat North or South and bv that I mean those who 144 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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 breastwork of the Consti tution for rebels to get behind and shoot loyal men. The next thing they done was to discourage enlistments in the North. They did all in their power to prevent men from going into the army, and that great statesman, Sam uel 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 denounced 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 absolute power, Abraham Lincoln was one, and I know of no 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 Democrat. I call Mr. Thompson a vigor ous Democrat, because he did have a musket. He was sent by the rebel Government 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 Democracy. He got himself ac quainted with the Democratic party in Ohio, Indiana AT COOPER INSTITUTE. 145 and Illinois. The vigorous Democrats or real Demo crats of those cities had organized themselves under the heads of "The Sons of Liberty, -Knights of the Golden Circle," "Order of the Star," and various other names. They held meetings in Chi cago, Indianapolis and St, Louis, their object being to raise fires in those places; in other words, to burn down 146 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. the homes of the 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 Pendelton, 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 de nounced 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 furnished the money to pay the expenses of that Democratic meeting. The expenses of that meet ing were paid by rebel gold by Jake Thompson, and he has got filed a voucher or receipt from these Democrats, who are now in favor of Tilden 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 Sun day-school books. I said the expenses of these Demo cratic meetings were paid for by rebel money, and their AT COOPER INSTITUTE. 147 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 Church- hill. 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 the earth. It was only a few days afterward that the guns of Farragut and the achievements of the men in the field said they lied. Soldiers who fell in sup port of this country, rise from your graves and lift your skeleton hands on high, and swear that when the Demo cratic 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. What and who for? Tilden, Hen- dricks, honesty and reform. This same Jacob Thomp son 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 upon the Atlantic, men rose up in mobs to burn down asylums simply because their walls sheltered the offspring of another race. Every one who raised his hands against these institutions should have his brains crushed to atoms. It was a disgrace to hu- 148 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. manity 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 rilled with agony and grief. Recollect that they did these things when the future of your coun try and mine was trembling in the balance of war; recol lect 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 battlefields of the South, lying there at night, the blood slowly oozing through the wounds of death; when your brothers, husbands and sons were lying in the hospitals 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 cov ering at night except the sky, with no food but what the worms refused, with no friends except insanity and death. THE REPUBLICAN PLATFORM. Now, my friends, I have said a few things to you about the Republican party, and a few things about the Dem ocratic party. With a few more words I will quit this branch of the subject. Allow me to say that the plat form of the Republican party is as broad as humanity it self. It asks all to come and help and to join it who are in favor of human advancement. It is broad enough for Catholics, for 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 AT COOPER INSTITUTE. 149 its magnanimity goes even farther; it is willing that the Democrat should vote its ticket. Beyond that, mag nanimity cannot go. The Republicans believe in giving to every man the result of the labor of his own hands; will allow every man to do his own thinking and express his own thoughts, whatever 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. Re collect 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 people who have an idea that the Government can make money by stamping its sovereignty upon a piece of paper. The Government of the United States is a per petual pauper. It passes the hat all 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 caanot support the people, but the people have to support the Government. The idea that the Government can issue money for the people to live 150 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. upon is the same as the idea that my hired man can is sue 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 greenback 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 represented by our debt as so much loss, and we shall never be a sol vent 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 un derstand that, there is no use of talking to on any sub ject. 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 mort gage on a continent of land. There is a mortgage on the Republican party. Every blade of grass growing in the United States is a guarantee that the debt shall be paid. Every ear of corn is a guarantee that the debt debt shall be paid. Every pine tree growing in the som ber forest is a guarantee that the debt shall be paid. All AT COOPER INSTITUTE. 151 the coal put away in the ground by that old miser, the sun, is a guarantee that the debt shall be paid. Every thought is a guarantee that the debt shall be paid. And all the gold and silver in the Serria 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 bend ing over their books at school; and every chap who is go ing 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 com ing (as a telegram was handed to him). I have been in that country. I have been talking to this people: "We have triumphed by an immense majority, car rying every Congressional district and every county in our State; something we have not achieved since 1868." 152 INGERSOLLS GREAT SPEECHES. (The audience then gave three rousing cheers and a tiger for James G. Elaine, by whom the dispatch was signed.) ELAINE, AFTER THE REBELLION. 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. Elaine. AT COOPER INSTITUTE. 153 Now, then, the question is, who is most apt to fulfill this National debt, the party who made it and swore it was Constituional 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 vanquished you;" and every time a Republican sees a greenback it says to him, "You and I put the re bellion down." TILDEN'S ESSAY ON FINANCE. Now, there is a gentleman of the name of Tilden, who his written an essay on finance. Some people call it a letter of acceptance. Let me say here that under the circumstances I don't think it proper to say anything of Mr. Tilden personally. He is under the shadow, as I understand it, of a great grief and sorrow; his brother has recently died, and I speak only of his political ac tion. With Samuel J. Tilden as a man I sincerely syrnphath- ize; with Samuel J. Tilden as a politician, I do not. Now, we have been told in this essay that one of the great pre- ventatives of paying this debt is having a time fixed when to pay it. I have never taken any notes that I recol lect of that there was not something said in that note about when it was to be paid; and I had always suppos ed that it was an exceedingly important part of the note that there be at least an indirect allusion to some age or epoch at which the maker thereof proposed to liquidate the aforesaid note. But I find that I have been mistak en, 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. 154 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. Tilden says the reason of this is that you cannot pay a note without wise preparation, and a wise system of pre paration, and to have a date fixed plays the very devil with a wise preparation. He also tells us that it is nec essary to have a central resovoir of coin, and that if )ou fix the date the reservoir is an impossibility. He also tells us that we 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 me read what he says: "How shall the Government make these notes (green backs) at all times as good as specie?" Well, in my humble view, I had supposed the way to do was to be ready to redeem. I had, really. Tilden says: "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 tem porary fluctuations of the international balance." But Mr. Tilden did not entirely disgorge his mind on that subject, so he says: " as a guaranty against transient drains, artificial ly created by panic or by speculation. It has also to provide for the payment in coin of such fractional cur rency as may be presented for redemption, and such in considerable portion 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 discreetly 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. AT COOPER INSTITUTE. 155 "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 inspire confidence and encourage the revival of busi ness. The earliest time in which such a result can be brought about is best." And then he tells you how to do it; The specific measure and actual date are matters of details having reference to ever-changing conditions." That is what I tell the fellow about paying my note. "They belong to the domain of practical, adminis trative 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 further and then I will stop. He says that it is impossible to fix the day, because you cannot know what the fluctuating balances of Eu rope will be; you can not 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 redeem on the ist of January. 1879, how the Democratic Convention know they could not? How did they ascertain so much about the central reservoir of coin? How did they ascertain these when it was impos sible for us to ascertain anything about it? If the Dem- 156 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. ocratic party can say it can't be done in January, 1879: it seems to me that the Republican Congress could easi ly 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. He simply says he can't tie a rudder to a particular angle. He says you must trust to "human intelligence," the human intelli gence being Tilden, and in case of his demise, Hendricks, and they won't tell a thing until the crisis arrives. This is what he says. Now, suppose I read this letter, and, after 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 solemn manner, tell you that the fluctuations caused in the vital stability of shifting financial opera tions, not to say speculations of the wildest character, cannot be rendered instantly accountable to a true finan cial theory, based upon the great law that the superflous is not a necessity, except in the vague thoughts of per sons unacquainted with the exigencies of the hour, and cannot, in the absence of a central reservoir of coin with a human intelligence 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 result may be. HARD MONEY. If that is not just like it, I don't know what the differ ence is. Why, if anybody in the world come to you with a note upon which the date of payment was not fixed, you would say he was either insane or a rascal. AT COOPER INSTITUTE. 157 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 politically dishonest. But the Republican party propose resumption in 1879. Hard money is economy; paper money is extravagance; lift* INDUSTRIAL EXPOSITION. hard money means economy and National prosperity; we have touched hard-pan in all the business of the country, and now we want money to do business on hard-pan with. The Republican party will redeem on the ist of January, 1879, or if it fails, it will fail as the soldier fails to take a fort high up on the rampart with the flag in his hand. PROTECTION OF CITIZENS. The next question is about the protection of our citi- tens. The Nation that can not protect its citizens at home and abroad ought to be swept from the map of the world. The Democratic part}' tells us that the United States of America can protect all of its citizens when 158 INGERSOLL ( S GREAT SPEECHES. they are away from home, but those who are citizens of Louisana or Mississippi or any other State under our flag, the Government is powerless to protect them. I deny it. I 'say the Government of the United States not only has the power and unless it does, it is infinitely dishonor able 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 doc trine of secession in disguise that the State of South Carolina or Mississippi must protect its own citizens, but that the Government had nothing to do with it unless the Governor or Legislature of the State Calls upon the General Government. This is infamous. The United States claims the right to draft every citizen into the army. It claims the right to draft every able-bodied man in front of a cannon in time of war; arid 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 infamous. (Applause and cries of "good, good.") The flag that will not protect its protectors is a dirty rag. It contaminates the air in which it waves, and if that is the true theory of our Gov ernment, I despise it. It is the duty of the Government to see that each and every American citizen has all his rights in every State in the Union, peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must. The Republican party made the black men of this coun try citizens. It put the ballot in his hands, and it is the AT COOPER INSTITUTE. 159 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 arbitra ment 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 population of the South is turbulent, and the best men cannot con trol it, and men are SHOT DOWN FOR OPINION'S SAKE. It ought to be stopped . It is a disgrace to American civilization. They tell us that the colored men are 160 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. treated very well! Oh, yes, very well! I read every little while of two peaceable white men going along not think ing of anything, or harmless and innoffensive as lambs, and they are approached by ten or twelve negroes, and the ten or twelve negroes are shot, but the two peace able 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. Samuel J. Tilden don't care. He knows that many Southern States .are to be carried by assassination and murder. He knows that if he is elected President of the United States it will be only 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 pre serve the liberties of the loyal white men of the South, the men that fought for them or the men that fought against them? 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 Democratic party of the city and State of New York. The Democratic party of the city of New York, as I un derstand it, and as we have hsard 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 a church. I understand that the Demo cratic party of the city of new York got control of the AT COOPER INSTITUTE. l6l city when it didn't owe a dollar, and that it has managed to steal until now it owes about one hundred 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 every thing that they could lay their hands upon, and oh, what hands! 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 now he is a teacher in that school. I under stand that when the war commenced he said he would never aid in the prosecution of that old outrage. I un derstand that he said in 1860 and 1861 that the South ern 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, and that he was opposed to the Proclamation of Eman cipation, and demanded that the document be taken back. I understand that he regretted to see the chains fall from the limbs of the colored man. I underatand that he re- 1 62 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. gretted when the Constitution of the United States was elevated and purified, pure as the driven snow. I un derstand that he regretted when the stain was wiped from our flag and we stood before the world the only pure Re public that ever existed. This 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 syid take no part in it." Compare, if you please, that with Mr. Tilden's refus al to sign a call for a Union meeting in this city of New York, headed by that honored man, who was at that time, a staunch Democrat, John A. Dix. Rutherford B. Hayes is, as I said, a patriotic man; he went and dispersed rebel meetings when Mr. Tilden re fused 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 en nobling things accomplished go into this grand thing called character, and the character of Rutherford B. Hayes rises before the people to-day like a dome of hon or, of patriotism and integrity. All the Democratic AT COOPER INSTITUTE. IO3 snakes, with their poisonous tongues thrust out, cannot find a crevice in the character of Mr. Hayes into which to deposit their malignity, Imagine a man so good that the Democratic men cannot lie 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 coun try when the Republican party was born, what it achiev ed and a little about the Democratic party, and a little about Mr. Tilden, and now I am going to wind this thing up. I want you to recollect that the very men who fought for this Union, with very few exceptions, were Republi cans. There were some Democrats, but I cannot tell why they were there. With these exceptions, the Dem- 164 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. ocratic party is made up of the worst elements of society. The worst wards in New York ar the ones that will give the largest Democratic majority. There is not a peni tentiary 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 Demo cratic party; all the men who shot our soldiers at the dead-mark are now for honesty and reform, ancj^ 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 Democratic party; do not vote that ticket; any young man who is 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 education. The Republican party is one that believes in the equality of human rights. I believe it. I am willing to give to every human being every right that I claim for myself. 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. Sam uel J. Tilden says we are a nation of thieves and robbers. I don't believe it. If we were, he ought to be Presi dent. I believe we arge getting better, and every day the Republican party is in power we will be getting bet ter. Ahd how? By free labor and free thought. Free labor will give us wealth. Free thought will give us AT COOPER INSTITUTE. 165 truth. Free labor has done everything 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. (Tre mendous 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 I don't want that school house touched; or that institution of science touched by any superstition whatever. Leave religion with the church, with the family, and more than all, leave religion with each individual 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 1 66 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. children. We are keeping the old flag floating for your children; and let 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 you will hear from Ohio and Indiana, and those three silver bugle sounds, Hayes and Wheeler, and the Nation hearing those, next November, will say that the men who saved our country shall rule; will say that the men who sailed the Ship of State shall sail it. And now, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you again and again. (Long and loud applause.) SPEECH TO VOLUNTEER SOLDIERS. An Eloquent Address Delivered in Chicago. November 13, 1879. At the banquet given to the Army of Tennessee, at Chicago, Nov. 13, 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 peo ple.' Response by Col. Robert G. Ingersoll. Col. Ingersoll, mounting the table by which he was sitting, spoke as follows: When the savagery of the lash, the barbarism of the class, and the insanity of secession confronted the civiliz ation of our century, the question, 'Will the great Re public defend itself?' trembled on the lips of every lover of mankind. The North, filled with intelligence and wealth child ren of liberty marshalled her forces and asked only for [167] 1 68 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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: "Uncondi tional and immediate surrender." From that moment the end was known. That utterance was the first real declaration of war, and, in accordance with the drama tic unities of mighty events, the 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 pre serve the blessings of liberty and that their children might have peace. They were the defenders of human ity, 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 Rev olution commenced. They relighted 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 hypocrits at the instigation of rob bers, and tore with indignant hands from the Constitu tion the infamous clause that made men the catchers 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 Na tionality and Liberty. The soldiers were the saviors of TO VOLUNTEER SOLDIERS. 169 the Nation. They were the liberators of men. In writ ing the Proclamation of Independence, Lincoln, the great est of our mighty dead, whose memory is as gentle as the summer air when reapers sing among the gathered sheaves copied with his pen what Grant and his brave comrades wrote with their swords. GEN. LOGAN. Grander than the Greek, nobler than the Romans the soldiers 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 pa tient 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 mas ter and without a slave. Then was asked the question: 170 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. Will a free people tax themselves to pay the Nation's debt? The soldiers went home to their waiting wives, to their glad children, 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 honest in peace as they had been brave in war. Mock ing 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 band 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 war be healed?' I answer, Yes. The Southern peo ple 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 that they are victors who have been vanquished by the right. Freedom conquered them, and freedom will cul tivate 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 TO VOLUNTEER SOLDIERS. I /I 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 modesty 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 Grant, 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. , /~\ .. INGERSOLL ON THE SITUATION. His Celebrated Speech Delivered at Chicago, October 21, 1876. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: Democrats and Republi cans 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 Republi cans, to endeavor to make a conscientious choice; to en deavor to select as President and Vice-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 PARTY 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. I never knew a man who did some great and shining act of self- sacrifice and heroic devotion who did not wish that act [172] THE SITUATION. 1/3 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 when ever a man does an infamous thing; whenever a man com mits some crime; whenever a man does that which man tles the cheeks of his children with shame, he says, "Let bygones be bygones." (Applause.) 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, I am a gentleman or not; but I do say that in a certain sense I am one of the historians 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 gen tleman 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 his tory given of the Democratic party. In the first place, I claim that the Democratic party embraces within its filthy arms the worst elements in American society. I claim that every enemy that this Government has had for twenty years has been and is a Democrat; every man in the Dominion Canada that hates the great Republic, would like to see Tilden and Hen- dricks 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 Democrat; every Union soldier that has a INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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.") Tne men that burned the orphan asylum in the city of New York were Democrats; every one that fired that city, knowing that, if it burned, the serpents of flames would leap 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 Democrat. (Loud applause.) Every man that was sorry to see the institution of slavery abolished; every men 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 instru mentalities of a free government every one was a Dem ocrat. In short, every enemy that this Government has had for twenty years, every enemy that liberty and pro- THE SITUATION. gress 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 (laughter) 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 Democratic party is a political tramp with a yellow passport. This political tramp begs food and he carries in his pocket old dirty scraps of paper as a kind of certificate of character, On one of those papers he will show you 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 dis grace lilinois; on another Governor Tilden's letter to Kent (laughter and applause); on another a certificate signed by Lyman Trumbull that the Republican party is not fit to associate with (laughter and applause) 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, and thanking him for saving the Union as Commander-in- Chief of the Sons of Liberty. 176 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. (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 hang ing lips. Study the expression of that dog. (Laughter.) Translate it into English and it means, "Oh ! I want to bite a nigger!" (Laughter.) And when the dog has that expression he shows a striking likeness to his master. (Laughter.) The question is, "Shall the tramp and that dog gain possession of the White House ?" (Loud cries of "No! No!") 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 incbfsince 1860. Time is a Democratic dumb watch. It has not given a tick for sixteen years. (Laughter.) The Demo cratic party does not know that we, upon the great glit tering highway of progress, have passed a single mile stone for twenty years. The Democratic party, I say, is incapable of learning. The Democratic party is incapa ble of anything but prejudice and hatred. Every man that is a Demccrat is a Democrat because he hates some thing; every man that is a Republican is a Republican be cause he loves something. (Applause.) 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 pointing industriously, pointing diligently over to a THE SITUATION. 177 deserted field; nobody ever went that way, but the guide- board thought the next man would. Thousands passed, and notwithstanding the fact that no one went in the di rection 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 Democratic party oT 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 cer tified 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 Til- den, and the other chimney ought to be called Hen- dricks." (Laughter.) I saw also by a stream, a building that had ouce been a mill; all the clap-boards nearly were gone, and the roof leaked like 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 gudgeons into the street, and it was as dry as though it had been in the final home of the Demo cratic party for forty years. (Laughter and applause.) THE OLD MILL: [178] THE SITUATION. The dam was gone; nobody had built a new dam; the mill was not worth a dam ! (Laughter.) And I said to myself, "That is exactly the condition of the Democratic party to-day." THE "STATES RIGHTS" 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 confederacy, that this great Government is sim ply a bargain, that this great splended people have sim ply 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 Government 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, by in timidation, by assassination, and by murder. The Dem ocratic party is willing to-day that Tilden and Hendricks should be elected by violence; they are willing to-day to go into partnership with assassination and mur der; they are willing to-day that- every man in the South ern States, who is a friend of this Union, and who fought for our flag that the rights of every one of these men i8o INGERSOLLS GREAT SPEECHES. should be trampled to dust, provided Tilden and Hen- dricks be elected President and Vice-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 it 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 sacred line, and you can not cross it. Such is the infamous doctrine of the Democratic party. Who, I say, will be injured by sending soldiers into the BIRTHPLACE OF GEN. GRANT. 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 THE SITUATION. l8l 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. (Ap plause. As a matter of fact, all that is done in the South to-day, of use, is done by colored men. The col ored 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 the white men together that do not love this Government (applause), and I think more of the black man of the South than I do of the white man of the North that sym pathizes with the white wretch that wishes to trample upon the rights of that black man. (Applause.) I be lieve 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 defend the rights of every American citi zen in that State. (Applause. Voice, "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 Government that will not defend its defenders, is a dis grace 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, 1 82 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. sitting there with your children, 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 country. Now, suppose the Govern ment does it, and you go and fight, and your Govern ment 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 de fend 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, how much more is it the duty 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 re quest 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 oppressor, or will it heed the cry of the op pressed ? 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 Can ada during the war. (Laughter and applause.) I believe that the Government must protect you, not only abroad, but must protect you at home. THE SITUATION. 183 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 congratulary ad dress of Abram S. Hewitt, chairman of the National Ex ecutive 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 say to the Southern people, to the col ored people? He says to them in substance : t "The reason the white people trample upon you is because the white people are weak. Give the white people more strength, put the white people in authority, and, al though they murder you now when they are weak, when they are strong they will let you alone. (Laughter and applause.) Yes, the only trouble with our Southern white brethren is that they are in the minority, and they kill you now, and the only way to save your lives is to put your enemy in the majority." That is the doctrine of Ahram S. Hewitt, and he congratulates the colored peo ple of the South upon the Democratic victory in Indiana. There is going to be a great crop of hawks next season let us congratulate the doves. (Laughter.) That is it. The burglars have whipped the police let up congratu late the bank. (Laughter.) That is it. The wolves have killed off almost all the shepherds let us con gratulate the sheep. (Laughter and applause.) This is the same Abram S. Hewitt who has endeavored to set the rotten teeth of Democratic slander into the live and 184 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. quivering flesh of that splendid man, James G. Elaine. (Cheers.) The same Hewitt that congratulates the ne groes 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 reputation 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 you ! Think of being com pelled to live with the man who sold your wife. Think of being compelled to live with the man who stole your child from the cradle before your very eyes ! Think of being compelled to live with the thief of your life, and spend your days with the white robber, and to be under his con trol ! The black people 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 and torn asunder by the bloody, brutal hads 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 peo- THE SITUATION. 185 pie, 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. (Voice, "Never!") We never can be friends with the men that starved and shot our brothers. (Voices, "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 they 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 friend ship with the enemies of our country. (Applause.) THE NATION'S FRIENDS AND ENEMIES. The next question is, who shall have possession of this country the men that saved it, or the men that sought to destroy it ? The Southern people lit the fires of civil war. They who set the conflagration must be satisfied with the ashes left by the conflagration. The men that saved the Ship of State must sail it. The men that saved the flag must carry it. (Applause.) This Gov ernment is not far from destruction when it crowns with its highest honor in time of peace, the man that was false to it in time of war. (Applause.) This Nation is not far from the precipice 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 arbitra ment of the sword. 1 86 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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 borrow 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 redeem a cent by statute. You can't pay one solitary farthing by all the resolutions, by all the speeches ever made under the sun. (Applause.) Cou have got to dig this money right square out of the ground. Every dollar we owe is not wealth of the Na tion, but it is the evidence of the poverty of this Nation. The Nation cannot make money. The Nation cannot support you and me; it cannot support us. We support the Nation. The Nation collects its taxes for us. The Nation is a perpetual, everlasting pauper, and we have to support the Nation. The Nation passes the measure of taxation, and the Nation passes around the hat, and makes us all throw in our charity to support the Govern ment, and everybody does throw in except Tilden, as far 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 shouln'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 THE SITUATION. 187 tell you that this Government has the power to put its sovereign impress on a piece of paper; and, if the Gov ernment has that power, it don't take any more sov ereignty to make a $2 bill than it does to make a $i bill. What is the use of wasting sovereignty on $i bills? (Laughter.) Why not have$io bills ? What is the use of wasting sovereignty on a $10 bill? Why not have $ioobills? (Laughter.) Why not have million-dollor bills, and every one become a millionaire at once ? (Laughter and applause.) If the greenback doctrine is right, that evidence of national indebtedness 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 accomplish ment. 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 coun try . They bought land, they bought houses, they 1 88 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. bought goods, and when the crisis and crash came, they were caught with the property on their hands, and they want another inflation, they want another tide to raise 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 infla tion to-morrow, the day that the bubble would burst would find thousands of speculators who paid as much for property as 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.) RUNNING IN DEBT. We want no more inflation. We want the simple> honest payment of the debt, and to pay out of the pros perity of this country. "But," says the greenback man, "we never had as good times as when we had plenty of greenbacks." Suppose a farmer would buy a farm for $10,000, and give his note. He would send Mary, Jane and Lacy to school. He would give them pianos, and send them to college, and would give his note for the in terest, and the next year again his note, and finally 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 THE SITUATION. 189 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 these 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 Dem ocratic platform. 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 redeemed; but, my friends, we will have some trouble doing it. Why ? Because the debt is a great deal larger than it should have been. In the first place there should have been no debt. If it had not been for the Southern Democracy there would have been no war. If it hadn't been for the Northern Democracy tfre war wouldn't have lasted one year. (Cheers voices, "That's so.") When we put up 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 be came 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 INGERSOLLS GREAT SPEECHES. 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 sentence of death shall not be pronounced on you ?" "Nothing in the world, judge," said he, "only I hope your Honor will take pity on me and remember that I am a poor orphan." (Laughter and applause; renewed laughter.) The Democratic party made this debt. The Democratic party caused these hard times, and now they go around the country and ask sympathy from the people because the Democrats 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 every blister you will find a North ern Democratic lie. 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 hon est man pays at the command of his honor, and not at the demand 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. THE SITUATION. 19! When in peace we shall have made as much net profit as there was wealth lost in the war, then we will be a sol vent people. THE GREENBACK TO BE REDEEMED. The greenback will be redeemed, we expect to redeem it on the ist day of January, 1879. We may fail; we will fail if the prosperity of the country fails; but we in tend to try to do it, and if we fail to do it, 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 cannot pay the debt because there is a date fixed when the debt is to be paid. I have had to borrow money myself; I nave 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 geo logical period, as to the time, as to the century and date when I expected to pay those little notes. (Laughter.) I never understood that having a time fixed would prevent my being industrious; that if it would interfere with my honesty; or with my activity, or with my desire to dis charge that debt. And if any man in this great country owed you $1,000, due you the first day 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, "why don't you do it?" "Oh," he says, "I can't do it while you have that date in that note." 192 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. "Another thing," he says, "I have got to get me a central reservoir of coin." [Here the speaker went through the motion 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," you would say, "I do not care how slow or how gradual you are, provided that you get around by the time the note is due." 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 greenback dollar has got a mortgage upon the best continent of land on earth, an 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 guar anty that every dollar will be paid; all the iron ore, all 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 man who is going to vote the Republican ticket, is a guaranty that every dollar of the national debt will be paid. (Loud applause.) THE SITUATION. 193 TILDEN. 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, be cause he is an old bachelor. (Laughter.) In a country like ours, depending 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 dim ple lurking a cupid, with coral lips and pearly teeth and sparkling eyes any man that will push them all aside and be satisfied with the embraces of the Democratic party, does not even know the value of time. (Laughter and applause.) I am opposed to Samuel J. Tilden, be cause he is a Democrat ; because he belongs to the Demo cratic party of the city of New York; the worst party ever organized in any civilized country. I wish you could see it. The pugilists, the prize-fighters, the plug- uglies, the fellows that run with the "masheen;" nearly every nose is mashed, and about half the ears have been chawed off. (Laughter.) And of whatever complexion they are, their eyes are nearly always black. (Laughter. ) They have fists like teakettles and heads like bullets. (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 Tam many Hall, "Tammany Hall and Reform;" "John Mor- risey and Reform;" Connolly and Reform;" "John Kelly and Reform;" "William M. Tweed and Reform;" and the other day I saw that same old flag, ' 'Samuel J. Tilden and Reform." (Loud laughter and applause.) The 194 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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 ! 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 Seces sionist 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 the 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 Na tion. Samuel J. Tilden denounced the war as an outrage. No man ever should be President of this country that de nounced 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 flag carried by our fathers over the fields of the Revolution; the old flag carried by our fathers over the fields of 1812; the glorious old flag carried by our brothers over the cruel fields of the South Samuel J. Tilden said the flag stands for a contract; that it stands for a confederation; that it stands for a bargain. But the great, splended Republican party says, "No. That flag stands for a great, hoping aspiring, sublime Nation, not THE SITUATION. for a confederacy. [Applause.] I am opposed, I say, 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 nineteen-twentieths of the stock, and they will dictate the policy -of the Democratic corpo ration. No Northern Democrat has the manhood to stand up before a Southern Democrat. Every Northern Dem ocrat, 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 laughter.] If Samuel J. Tilden is elected President of the United States, he will be controlled by the Dem ocratic party, and the Democratic party will be con trolled by the Southern Democracy, that is to say, the late rebels; that is to say, the men that destroyed the Government; that is to say, the men who are sorry they didn't destroy the Government; that is to say, the ene mies 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. Hendricks will then be their man . I say that it would be an outrage to give this country into the con trol of men who tried to destroy it; to give this country into the control of the thieves who endeavored to destroy it; to give this country into the control of the Southern rebels and haters of Union men. 196 INGERSOLLS GREAT SPEECHES. RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. And on the other hand the Republican party have put 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.] Ruther ford B. Hayes has a good character. A good character is not built upon a prospectus, but upon a good record. A good character 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 Democra tic party would have one to-morrow. [Laughter.] But a good character rests upon good action, upon some thing already accomplished. 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 THE SITUATION. 197 it and take no part in it." [Cheers.] Search the patri otic 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 SCRATCH UPON HIS HONOR. [Applause.] Samuel J. Tilden received many wounds in his honor, but not one scratch on his flesh. [Laugh- tor.] Rutherford B. Hayes is a firm man; not an ob stinate 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 right. He will stand firm because he be lieves it to be right; but an obstinate man wants his own way, whether it is right or whether it is wrong. Ruther ford B. Hayes is firm in the right, and obstinate only when he knows he is in the right. [Applause.] If you want to vote for a man who fought for you, vote for Rutherford B. Hayes. If you want to vote for a man that carried our flag during the storm of shot and shell, vote for Rutherford B. Hayes. [A voice, "We are go ing to. "] If you believe 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 against his country in time of war, vote for Samuel J. Tilden. If you believe the war waged for the salvation of your North 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 hypocrisy, if you want to pay a 198 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. premium upon sympathizing with the enemies of your country, vote for Samuel J. Tilden. If you believe that patriotism is right, if you believe 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. [Applause. 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.' 1 It is the only party that ever had a platform to stand upon. [Applause.] THE SITUATION. 199 BROAD ENOUGH FOR ALL HUMANITY. It is the first decent party that ever lived. The Re publican party made the first free government that was ever made. The Republican 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. The Republican party 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 "Good!" "Good!"] The Republican party is the first party that knew enough to know that humanity is more than skin deep. [Applause.] It is the first party that said: "GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE FOR 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. The Republican party said, "Free labor will give us wealth; tree thought will give us truth." The Republi can is the first party that said to every man, ' 'Think for yourself, and express that thought." [Applanse.] 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 2OO INGERSOLLS GREAT SPEECHES. says to every roul, "Fly out into the great intellectual dome of thought, question the stars for yourself. " T3 "* - the Democratic party says: But 'BE A BLIND OWLJ Sit on the dry limb of a dead tree and hoot only when that party says, hoot." [Laughter.] I say that the Re publican party is for free labor. Free labor will bring us wealth; and why ? Whenever a man works for him self, works for his wife, works for his children, he en deavors 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 conveni- THE SITUATION. 2OI ence, 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 spark, freedom, with thought, with intelligence and with love, sweeps under all the waves of the sea; science, free thought, took a tear from THE PHONOGRAPH. the cheek of unpaid labor, converted it into steam, and created the giant that turns, with tireless arms, the countless wheels of toil. The Republican party, I say, believes in free labor. Every solitary thing, every soli tary improvement made in the United States has been made by the Republican party. Every reform accom plished was inaugurated, and was accomplished by the 202 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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 of Liberty; in its right hand is a broken chain, in THE SITUATION. 203 its left hand a banner, and upon the glorious forehead the glittering and shining star of progress. And as I looked at it, I said, "Such is the Republican party of my country." [Applause.] The Republican party does not say, "Let by-gones be by-gones." The Republican party is proud of the past and confident of the future. The Re publican party brings ITS RECORD before you and implores you to read every page, every paragraph, every line and every shining word. Oo 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 terri tory 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 coun try: "Slavery shall be extirpated from the American soil." On the next page: "The rebellion shall be put down." On the next page: "The rebellion has been put down." On the next page: "Slavery has been ex tirpated from the American soil." On the next page: "The freedmen shall not be vagrants; they shall be citi zens." On the next page: "They are citizens. " On the next page: "The ballot shall be put in their hands;" and now we 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." [Loud applause.] That in 2O4 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. short, that in brief, is the history of the Republican party. The Republican party says, and it means what it says, "This shall be a free country forever; every man in it twenty-one 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 Government of the United States will see to it that the right of every Ameri can citizen is protected at the polls." 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 overwhelm ing majority; the great mass of the population are cruel, revengeful, 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 hon est, the people who are industrious, will pass the people who are dishonest, and the people that are idle, no mat ter how grand an aristocracy they may have had, and so J 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 up 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. The superior man is the man who loves his fellow-man. And let me say right here, the good men, the superior men, the grand men are THE SITUATION. brothers the world over, no matter what their 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. I pity the man, I execrate and hate the man who has only to brag that he is white . Whenever I am reduced to that necessity, I believe shame will make me red in stead 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 a living without stealing from the inferior. 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 206 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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, be longs to the foot that gets on it first. 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 delighted. 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 Democratic persuasion, I shall not trouble myself about the fact 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 RACE. I like to tell it. I enjoy it a thousand times better probably than you do. It will illnstrate 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 THE SITUATION. 2O? head horse, the blooded horse, his eyes flashing fire, his distended nostrils drinking the breath of their own swift ness, 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 believe that horse would care how many scrubs, how many mules, how many donkeys run on that track ? Honor bright. The old Democratic chuckle-headed, lop-eared, long-bodied, short-legged, with a neck like a log, tail and mane full of cockle-burrs, jump high and dig in deep and short -you 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." Fellow-citizens, allow me to say that the Re publican party is the blooded horse in the race* No man ever was, no man ever will be the superior of the man he 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- 208 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. doer. And allow me to say again to impress it forever upon 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. 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 an other thing. No Government can stand founded upon the crushed rights of simply one* human being, and any compromise we make with the South, if we make it at the expense 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 THE SITUATION. stone of the once mighty Rome, comes a wail, as it were, the cry that no nation founded upon injustice can per manently stand. 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 in the South as every Southerner can speak in every State of the North. We must vote the grand old Republican ticket until there is the same liberty in every Southern State that there is in every Northern, Eastern and Western State. WE 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. Be cause the State flag of Illinois waves over me ? No. Why ? Because 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 to 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 anybody 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. Don't do it. Don't vote with the Democratic party of the North. Sometimes I think I hate the rebel sympathizer of the North worse than the rebel, and I will tell you why. The 2io INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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 North ern Democrat rowed up stream against wind and tide. The Southern rebel went with the current; the Northern Democrat rowed against it from pure, simple cussedness. 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 implore him, do not go with the Democratic party. And every young man within the within the sound of my voice, do not tie your bright and and shining prospects to that OLD CORPSE OF DEMOCRACY. You will get tired of dragging it around, yet won't you get tired of smelling it ? 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. Remember, my friends, that that party did every mean thing it could every dishonest, every treasonable thing it could. Recollect that that party did all he could to divide the Nation, to destroy this country. Recollect that the Democratic party did that when your brothers, your fathers, your chivalric sons were fighting, bleeding, suffering, dying upon the battle fields of the South. Recollect that this Democratic party THE SITUATION. 211 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 chival ric 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 refused, with no friends except insanity and death. Recollect it, and SPURN THAT PARTY FOREVER. 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 wrifhed and hissed, then I could give my opinion of the Northern allies of Southern rebels during the great struggle for the preservation of this Nation. [Cheers.] Let me say one word more and I am done. [Cries of "Goon."] The youngest man here, the youngest child here, will never live long enough to see a Democrat President of the United States. [Cries of "Good" and "Never," and applause.] No man can carry that aggre gation of rascality, that aggregation of treasonable prac tices, that aggregation of Southern sympathizers, that 212 INGERSOLLS GREAT SPEECHES. aggregation of traitors, that aggregation of men that en deavored to destroy the country no man can carry their reputation on his back and make a successful run for the Presidency of the United States. 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 ma jority of votes in the United States. [Cries of "Never,' 1 and applause.] For myself. I have no fear. HAYES AND WHEELER will be the next President and Vice-President of the United 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. We have a man running 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 Indiana. Do not let us believe that there is so much connection 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 Lieutenant-Governor of the State of Illinois. Stand by our ticket. Vote for every Republi can 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 bet ter for the country than any Democrat Nature can make, THE SITUATION. 213 or ever has made. We must in this supreme 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 Republi can party. Ladies and gentlemen, if I were insensible to the honor you have done me by this magniffcent 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 Republican 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 re member any revenge, but I ask you never, never, to for get, as the world swings through the 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 thousand times. Good night. WHO IS TILDEN? Extracts fronu Speech at Augusta. Me., Sept. 2. 1876. "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: The Democratic party is a wolf which has been howling at the door of this Na tion 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 that followed 1860. We are fighting Democrats, and in the time to which I refer every Democrat with a musket was a rebel, and every rebel without 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 muskets, and cannon, and shot and shell to kill Democrats with. To get this money they issued promis es to pay, and the belief that these promises would be kept was so strong that they got the money they wanted and they killed Democrats enough to put a stop to the war and save their country." "Naturally the Democrats don't like the promises to pay which did them so much harm, and they would re pudiate them if they could, but 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 [214] WHO IS TILDEN ? 215 that every ear of corn, every head of golden wheat, all the gold and silver, all the cattle roaming over pastures, prairies and plain, 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 a guarantee that the Republican party will keep faith with the men that trusted them when it most needed trust." "Who is Samuel J. Tilden? Samuel J. Tilden is an at torney. He never gave birth to an elevated or noble sentiment in his life. He is a kind of legal spider, watch ing in a web of technicalities for victims. He is a com pound of cunning and heartlessness of beak and claw and fang. He is one of the few men who can grab a rail road and hide all the deep cuts, tunnels, bridges and cul verts in a single night . He is a corporation wrecker. He is a demurrer filed by the Confederate Congress. He waits on the shore of the sea of bankruptcy to clutch the drowning by the throat. He would not save his country 2i6 . INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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 principal business is explaining or trying to explain, how he came to adopt that child. " PLEA FOR HONEST MONEY. Characteristic Speech at Malone, N. Y., Oct. 4, 1879. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: We have had in our coun try 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 every thing 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 Re bellion as it will to pay the debt. A man can be brave for a, few minutes when he is right in the line of battle, and when he looks and sees that no one 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. [217] 218 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. It is hard work to get up at four o'clock in the morn ing and work until the sun goes down, and do that for a life. I say we spent all of this money, and we had what was called prosperity, and while that was going on the young men left the farms, and said they didn't want to be farm ers. They said: "We won't be farmers; we will go to the city." Every man that could get $500 worth of goods on trust became a merchant. They wanted to be dentists, doctors, lawyers, something that there was no work in. When they could not do that they would start an insur ance association. Then they sent their agents all over the country to get your property insured, and every moment you would have the 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 and 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 HONEST MONEY. 2IQ anyone getting more than 3 per cent, on any claim in my life. THE CRASH. All at once in 1873 there came a crash, and the brother that had said at home and worked on the farm saw in the paper that his brother, who was president of a life insurance 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 himself; and the fact is the men who cultivate the soil are to-day the richest, on the average, of any class of men under 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 prosperous times again is to again go into debt. Sup pose I bought a farm for $5,000, and gave my note for it; 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 and wanted me to pay the note, I would say, "I will give you little notes for the interest, and let them run for another year." What a splendid time I could have for another year! 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 necessary for universal peace and happiness is to let me keep right on giving my notes." 22O INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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 have not got the money. "FIAT" MONEY. 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 Govern ment can't make money. It can make what it calls money. It has not the power to make it; it has the pow er 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 bushel of wheat, and you have got ' 'fiat" money, the man can say, "I will take $i in gold for that wheat, but I want $5 if you pay in "fiat" money." How are you going to prevent him? The money you have got is simply good because it promises to pay. Now it is proposed to have money that will not promise to pay. If nonsense can go beyond that, I cannot conceive what route or path it will take. Then if Congress says you , HONEST MONEY. 221 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 power to make money, and I want to ask them one question; I want you to think about it. If this Government has the power to make money, why should it collect taxes from us? Why don't it make it and let us alone? If the 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 Government 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 a bayonet and compels you to 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. 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 pro duce 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 busi ness will be prosperous. But I say business will be pros perous when 222 INGERSOLLS GREAT SPEECHES. THE COUNTRY IS PROSPEROUS. But if you get too much paper and it goes down, who loses it? The man who has owned it and happens to have it in his possession that is the man who loses it. You need not be afraid but what the smart people the people on Wall street will take care of themselves. They require 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 lacking collaterals, that is what we are lacking. You can get all you want on call in New York at i^ 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 upon this subject I would like to have Congress pass a law furnishing us col laterals. But it will not do; there is no foundation to it. When the money gets out it has all got to be paid. GOOD MONEY. Call it ' 'fiat" money call it what you please! the rea son that a gold dollar is worth a dollar is, because you 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 HONEST MONEY. 223 the man or Government that made the promise is good, and you can't go beyond it. Suppose you could blot from your mind that 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 is $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 Eng land, I have to sell it the same as I would a bushel of corn, and all that spread-eagle nonsense doesn't add a 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 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 tem pest-tossed, every sail torn and rent, and every mast by the side; and these wreckers stand on the shore and say, "If you 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 under par himself. I never took a bill that was at 2 or 3 per cent, discount that I did not feel a 224 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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 honest, I want its promise to be as good in every part of the world as the promise of any other nation. I want the greenback to be pre served; I want to have gold and silver behind it; I want it so that if I should go into the furthest isle of the Paci fic and take out a greenback a savage would look at it and his eyes would glitter as if he looked at gold. Then you feel you are like somebody; like you had a great and splendid nation, and even that old flag would look better if every promise of the United States had been redeem ed. 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. I want to feel that man is capable of governing himself, and that a republican government is the very acme and hight of national honor. LABOR, CAPITAL, ETC. Speech in Boston Music Hall, October 21, 1878. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: The lovers of the human race, the philantropists, the dreamers of grand dreams, all predicted and all believed that when every man could govern himself, when every human being should be equal before the law, they believed, they prophesied that pau perism, crime and want would exist only in the history of the past. They accounted for misery in their time by the rapa city of kings and the cruelty of priests. Here in the United States man at last is free; here man makes the laws and all have an equal voice. The rich cannot op press 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 IS A CAPITALIST? Every man who has good health is a capitalist; every [22 5] 226 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. man who has good sense, every one who has had a good dinner and has enough left for supper, is to that extent a capitalist. Every man that has a good character, who has the credit to borrow 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 en deavor to excite the envy of the unfortunate, the malice of the poor, such man are the enemies of law and order. HOW WEALTH IS ACCUMULATED. As a rule wealth is the result of industry, economy, attention to business; and, as a rule, poverty is the re sult of idleness, extravagance, and inattention to busi ness, though to these rules there are thousands of excep tions. The man who has wasted his time, who has thrown away his opportunities, is apt to envy the man who has not. For instance, here are six shoemakers working in one shop. One of them attends to his 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 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 Mon day, and, as a result, never advance. The industrious one, the one in love, gains the con- LABOR AND CAPITAL. 227 fidence 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 in tegrity, can buy all he wishes in the United States upon credit. The next thing you know he is married, and he has built him a house 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 when he rides by. He has got a carriage; his wife sits by his side, her face cov ered 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 ad journ to some neighboring saloon and pass a resolution that there is an irrepressible conflict between capital and labor. NO OPPRESSION OF LABOR IN THE UNITED STATES. There is, in fact, no such conflict, and the laboring 228 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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 the wandering pauper is 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, certainly there should be no com plaint. In our country the people hold the power, and if any corporation in any State is devouring the substance of the people, every State has retained the power of im minent power 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 th6usands 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- precedent 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 employed in cutting bridge timbers and ties, and giving to the wintry air the music of the axe; think LABOR AND CAPITAL. 22Q of the thousands and thousands employed in making cars, in making locomotives, those horses ot 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 industries that thrived in the : r Y.Ljfc&fi onstructioA of 80,000 mil 35 of railway; of the streams bridged, of the mountains tunneled, of the plains cross- ced, and think of the towns and cities that sprung up, as if by magic, along these highways of iron, puring the same time we had a war in which we expended thous ands of millions of dollars, not to create, not to con struct, but to destroy. 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 prop erty inconceivable was destroyed, and some of the best and bravest were sacrificed. During these years the productive power of the North was strained to the ut most; every wheel was in motion; there was employment for every kind and description of labor, for every me chanic there was a constantly rising market, speculation was rife, it seemed almost impossible to lose. 230 INGERSOLLS GREAT SPEECHES. 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 suddenly became a millionaire. They became tired with the slow methods of agriculture. The young men of intelligence, of vim, of nerve, became disgusted with the farms. On every hand fortunes were being made, a wave of LINCOLN S CABIN HOME. wealth swept over the United States, huts became hous es, houses became palaces, tatters became garments, and rags became robes; walls were covered 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 our fathers endured life . Every kind of business was pressed to the very sky line. LABOR AND CAPITAL. OLD LIFE-INSURANCE ASSOCIATIONS 231 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 HANCOCKS PALACE HOME. the house without being told of the uncertainty of life and the certainty of death. You were shown pictures of life-insurance agents emptying vast bags of gold at the feet of the disconsolate widow. You saw your own fatherless children in imagination wiping away the tears of grief, and smiling with joy. These agents insured everybody and everything. They would have insured a hospital, or consumption in its 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. 232 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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, 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 customers. 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, pro vided the parties renewing the notes would take more goods. And these country merchants pressed the goods upon their customers in the came manner. Everybody was selling, everybody was buying, and nearly all was done upon a credit. No one believed the day of settlements ever would or ever could come. Towns must continue to grow; and, in the imagination of speculators, there were hundreds of cities numbering their millions of inhabi tants. 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, but by so much per foot . They were sold on credit, with a LABOR AND CAPITAL. 233 partial 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 mort gage upon a last year's fog would have been just as val uable. Everybody advertised, and those who were not selling goods or real estate were in the medicine line, and every rock beneath our flag was coverered with advice to the unfortunate; and I have often thought that if some sin cere Christian had made a pilgrimage to Sinai, and had climbed its venerable crags and in a moment of devotion dropped on 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 Planta tion Bitters." THE CRASH. Suddenly there came a crash. Jay Cooke failed and I have heard thousands of men account for the subse quent hard times from the fact that Mr. Cooke did fail. As well might you account for small-pox by saying that that the first pustule was the cause of the disease. The failure of Jay Cooke & Co. was simply a symptom of the disease universal. No language can describe the agon ies that have been endured since 1873. No language can tell the sufferings of the men that have wandered over the dreary and desolate desert of bankruptcy. Thousands and thousands supposed they had enough, enough for their declining years, enough for wife and children, and suddenly found themselves paupers and vagrants. During all these years the Bankruptcy Law was in 234 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. force, and whoever failed to keep his promise had simply to take the benefit of this law. As a consequence there could be no real, solid foundation for business. PROPERTY 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 pro duce and no more. It miy 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 re sumed. Magnificent residences, supposed to be worth $100,000, that can now be purchased for $25,000, they have simply resumed. The property 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 in vention 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 are pleased to call our money. As the money de preciated, property appreciated; as the money appreci ated, property depreciated. The moment property be gan to fall speculation ceased. There is but little spec ulation on a falling market. The stocks and bonds, bas ed simply upon ideas, become worthless, the collaterals become, so to speak, dust and ashes. LABOR AND CAPITAL. 235 At the close of the war, when the Government ceased to be such a vast purchaser and consumer, many of the factories had to stop. When the crash came the men stopped digging ore, they stopped felling the forest, the fires died out of the furnaces, the men who 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 real ity. Too many men were doing nothing, too many men were traders, brokers, speculators. There were not 236 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. enough producers of the things needed, there were too many producers of the things no one wished. FIAT MONEY. Many remedies have been proposed and chief among those 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 im agine that money is something that can be created by law. The definitions given by the hard money men have been used as arguments by those who believe in the power of Congress to create wealth. We are told that gold is an instrumentality or a device to facilitate ex changes. 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 facilitate 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 exchanged for something else, and other things are exchanged for them. The only device about them is the coining of these met als, so that you can truthfully say, that coining of gold and silver is a device to facilitate exchanges and ex changes are facilitated in this way; whenever the Gov ernment or any Government certifies that in a certain piece of gold and 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 LABOR AND CAPITAL. . 237 he is receiving enough; so that I will change the defini tion to this: The coining of the precious metals is a device to facil itate exchanges; but the precious metals are property; they are merchandise, they are commodities, and when ever one commodity is exchanged for another, it is bar ter; and gold and silver are the last refinement of bar ter. 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 measure of value just the same as a half-bushel or a yardstick. I deny thai gold is a measure of value. It is a meas ure of value precisely as a half-bushel is, or a yardstick is, but no other way. The yardstick is not a measure of value, it is simply a measure of quantity. It measures cloth worth $50 a yard precisely as it does calico worth four cents; it measures $100 lace exactly as it does one cent tape, and in no other way. It is therefore not a measure of value, and consequent ly this yardstick 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 $i. It simply measures quantity, not quality, not value. The yardstick, the half-bushel and the coining of money are all devices to facilitate exchanges. The yardstick assures the man who buys that he has received enough, and in that way it facilitates exchanges. The coining of money facilitates exchange, for the 238 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. reason that if it were not coined, each man who did bus- tness would have to carry a pair of scales and be a chem ist. 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 amount of labor in any other direction. Nothing has ever 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 certain value, a value not dependent upon legislation in any degree. 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 devises simply to facilitate business, but in and of them selves they have no value. THE GOVERNMENT A PAUPER. We are told, however, that the Government can create money. This I deny. The Government produces noth ing, 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 perpetual pauper that has to be supported by the pe o- LABOR AND CAPITAL. 239 pie. 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 con tributions. You cannot live upon the promises of your own Govern ment any more than you can 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 can not live upon what you have to 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 sometime. 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 Government collect taxes? We have in every dis trict assessors and collectors; we have at every port cus tom-houses, and we are collecting taxes day and night for the support of this Government. We are making those who are hardly able to pay, contribute. Now, if the Government can make money itself, why should it collect taxes 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 $40 taxes 240 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. when the Government, according to the theory of these gentlemen, could make a $1,000 note quicker than a man could wink? Why impose on industry in that manner? Why should the sun borrow a candle? And if the Gov ernment can create money, how much should it create? And if it should create it, who will get it? MONEY HAS A GREAT LIKING FOR MONEY. A single dollar in the pocket of a poor man is lone some; it is never satisfied until it has found its compan ions. Money gravitates towards 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 indus trious, in the hands of the economical, in the hands of the shrewd, in the hands of the cunning; in other words, in the hands of capitalists. Another thing: If the Government can create money simply by stamping what it is pleased to call its sover eignty upon a piece of paper, why should you waste that sovereignty 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 one of the principal gentlemen on that side and I told him, "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 direc tions the result of the same labor expended in its pro duction. As a matter of fact, there is money enough in LABOR AND CAPITAL. 24! 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 country was money so cheap, that is to say, was in terest 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 busi ness in which we could embark that promised a sure and reasonable return. We have plenty of money, not enough business. The reason we have not enough is, we have not enough confidence, and the reason we have not enough confidence is that the market is slowly fall ing, 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 valuation. Another reason is because those that left the cultivation of the soil have not all yet returned, and they are living, some upon their wits, some upon their relatives, some upon charity, some upon crime. INFLATION AND CONTRACTION. The next question is: Suppose the Government should issue a thousand millions of fiat money, how would it regulate the value thereof? Every creditor could be forced to take it, but nobody else. If a man is in debt $i 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 $i 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 con- 242 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. ceivable commodity; the price of painting a picture, of trying a law suit, of chiseling a statue, the price of a day's work, in short, the price of every conceivable thing. 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 cur- LABOR AND CAPITAL. 243 rency 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 MONEY FADE OUT. Another reme'dy has been suggested by the same per sons who advocate fiat money. With a consistency per fectly charming, they say it would have been much bet ter had we allowed the treasury notes to fade out. Why allow fiat money to fade out when a simple act of Con gress 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 fade out is universal robbery, to pay them is universal justice. The greenback would 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 dis grace to our forefathers. When the greenback fades away, there will fade with it honor from the American heart, brain from the American head, and our flag from the air of heaven. BONDHOLDERS. A great cry has been raised against the holders of bonds. They have been denounced by every epithet that malignity can coin. During the war our bonds were of fered for sale, and they brought all that they then ap- 244 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. peared to be worth . They had to be sold, or the rebel lion 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 indebted to the soldiers. But every man who took a greenback at less than gold com mitted the same crime, and no other, as he who bought the bonds at less than par in gold. These bonds have changed hands a thousand times. They have been bought at prices far above par, they have been laid away by loving husbands for wives, by toiling fathers for children, and the man who seeks to re pudiate them now, or to pay them in fiat rags, is un speakably cruel and dishonest. If the Government has made a bad bargain it must 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 dishonest 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 counter feiter is a public benefactor. The counterfeiter increas es 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 LABOR AND CAPITAL. 245 speculators, traders and merchants; thousands embarked in every possible and conceivable scheme. They pro duced nothing, they simply preyed upon labor, and dealt with imaginary values. These men must go back; they must become producers, and every producer is a paying consumer. Thousands and thousands of them are un able to get back. To a man who begs of you a break fast, 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 impossibilities. They must be help ed. We shall all remember that society must support all of its members, all of its robbers, thieves and pau pers. 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 asylums, in hospitals, in penitentaries, 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 arrest 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 a first-class hotel. We must either support them or help them support themselves. They let us go on the one hand simply to take us by the other, and we can take care of them as paupers and criminals, 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 decent people. In Australia they found homes; hope again spread its wings in their breasts. 246 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. They had different ambitions; they were removed from vile and vicious associations. They had new surround ings, and, as a rule, man does not improve without a corresponding 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 palaces, the riders in carriages, the wearers of broad cloth, 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 extrava gance. When you give a man money, when you toss him a dollar; although you get nothing, the man loses his mandood. To help others help themselves is the LABOR AND CAPITAL. 247 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 clothed, of the firesides made happy. A rich man living up to his privileges, having the best house, the best furniture, the best horses, the finest grounds, the most beautiful flow ers, the best clothes, the best food, the best pictures, and all the books that he can afford, is a perpetual bless ing. 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 means, who is extravagant in the best and highest sense, is not the enemy of labor. The miser who lives in the hovel, wears rags, and hoardes 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 re storing 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 ex travagant, that country is filled with prosperity. LABOR-SAVING MACHINERY. Every man ought to be willing to pay for what he 248 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. gets. He ought to desire to give full value received. The man who wants $2 worth for $i 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 inventions if no burden is lifted from industry? If no additional 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, pro vided 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, linger ing crucifixion. The hours of labor should be shortened. With the vast and wonderful improvements of the nineteenth cen tury there should not be ouly 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 com forts 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. LABOR AND CAPITAL. 249 by the I sympathize with every honest effort made children of labor to improve their condition. That is a poorly governed in which those who do the most have the least. There is something wrong when men are obliged to beg for leave to toil. We are not yet a civilized peo ple. When we are. pauperism and crime will vanish from our land. THE POOR HAVE A CHANCE. There is one thing, however, of which I am glad and proud, and that is, that society is not, in our country, petrified; that the poor are not always poor. The chil dren of the poor of this generation may and probably will be the rich of the next. The sons of the rich of this gen eration may be the poor of the next; so that, after all, the rich fear and the poor hope. 250 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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 of 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 is education, honor, fame and prosperity." These thoughts render holy every drop of sweat that rolls down the face of honest toil. TRAMPS. I sympathize with the wanderers, with the vagrants out of employment, with the sad and weary men who are seeking for work. When I see one of these men, poor and friendless no matter how bad he is, I think that somebody loved him once that he was once held in the arms of a mother that he slept beneath her lov ing 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 invent. We take advantage of the forces of nature . We enslave the wind 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 LABOR AND CAPITAL. is nothing to me. 251 of your State. It is nothing to me. The people of Massachussetts 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 here sy that you can pay one promise by making another that you take your oath never to fulfill. Do not, I implore' 252 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. you, teach the people that the rich have conspired to trample them in the dust. Since 1873 thousands of millions of articles have been made that could not be sold, and I may say that a ma jority of the men who have been employed are bankrupts to-day. Let us be honest, let us teach others to be hon est, and let us tell these men not to envy the man who has been successful. 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 chil dren when he is dead, that it will be a consolation to him, so that he will know it will stay good after he is dead; 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 dishonor. 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 Massachussetts. ORATION AT A CHILD S GRAVE. In a remote corner of the Congressional Cemetery, at Washington, 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 witness the burial of the former's bright little son Harry, a victim of diphtheria. As the casket rested upon the trestles there was a pain ful pause, broken only by the mother'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 re quest. He shook his head when the undertaker first ad dressed 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 exquisite cadence, delivered one of his character istic eulogies of the dead. He spoke as follows : MY FRIENDS : I know how vain it is to gild a grief [253] 254 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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 to another, or whether the night here is not somewhere else a dawn. Neither can we tell which is the more fortunate, the child AT A CHILD'S GRAVE. 255 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 authen tic creed. The tearful ignorance of the one is just as consoling 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 rilled with pain and tears. It may be that death gives all 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 sel fishness, 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, tell us that death, even at its worst, is only perfect rest. We know that through the common 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 ours. We have no fear; we are all children of the same mother and the same fate awaits us all. We, too, have our religion, and it is this: "Help for the living, hope for the dead." 256 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. At the conclusion of the eloquent oration the little coffin was deposited in its last resting place covered with flowers. PLAIN FACTS, ETC. Delivered at Lewistou, 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 ap plause. It is safe to say no one was disappointed. He kept the audience in a perpetual roar of laughter for nearly two hours . THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND THE SLAVE. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I belong to the Republi can 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 condition 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 lib erty. Such a law would disgrace the statute books of hell. (Laughter.) No man ever voted for such a law [257] 258 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. who was not a rascal. I intend to tell the truth if I am strong enough, and I tell you I have an excellent con stitution. (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 have decided with their spectacles pushed 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.) Im agine 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 without r6bbing him. 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 1 860 ? Are you sorry the great Lincoln was elected President ? He was almost the only man who, having absolute power, never abused it except on the side of mercy. BEWARE OF BACHELORS. Then there's Buchanan; an old bachelor, and, for God's sake, never trust another. I wouldn't trust a man PLAIN FACTS. 259 who don't love a wife better than politics. (Great laugh ter. ) Buchanan said, "I can't do anything." He fell back on, State Rights. Now, I claim nobody ever urged that doctrine who didn't want to steal something from somebody. 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 of the firm wants to set up business on his own account he may go out. Now, what has the Democratic party been doing all these years ? The Re publican party has its book open. The Democratic party says: "For God's sake, let our pedigree alone." I say let's examine the pedigree. The Democratic party was opposed to the war; that ought to damn them eter nally. 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 Dem ocratic party had its way, the soldiers in the field would not have been paid. They ought [politically] to be damned for that. How many Democrats were delighted every time the Union army was defeated ! That's a fact. I don't tell it as news, but simply to refresh your mem ories. WHAT MORE ? The Democrotic party tried to get up a fire in the rear of Canada. Jake Thompson had $700,000 from the Confederacy to operate in Canada in conjunction 260 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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. J AN EXTRACT FROM DEMOCRATIC PEDIGREE. I was at Peoria, 111. , when the Democrats held their convention. "Brothers," they said, "let us put down that tyrant, Lincoln. " They were for peace, they said, and all the time they had Jake Thompson's pistols in their pockets. That was the first meeting held in the interest of an uprising to aid the South. But Val- landigham told them, "Well elect McClellan, and that'll accomplish by ballot what is proposed to do by force. " Jake Thompson laments the failnre of his attempt to burn New York with Greek fire. That's what the Dem ocrats were doing in 1 864. 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 cussed- ness. How came it to this ? Is a man to be ashamed PLAIN FACTS. 26 1 for having fought the Democratic party with shot and shell ? Will the time ever come when these scars worn by Governor Connor shall be a disgrace to him ? Shall the time come when we shall not mention the struggles of our boys and defend their scars ? It never can come ! 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 in strument of the Southern Democracy. Did the Southern Democracy ever allow the Northern Democracy to man age ? The}' never did and they never will. After the war was over the Republicans told the negro he was free, and he must be a citizen and have the ballot. The Democratic 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 constitu tion and make the slave free. He to-day believes these persons were unlawfully deprived of their property, and he will vote to pay them for their property. RESPONSIBILITY FOR 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, ap peal to prejudices or appeal to hard times. A Democrat in Illinois thinks the chinch-bug comes cf 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 Demo cratic party into power. We've got down to hard-pan. 262 INGERSOLLS GREAT SPEECHES. 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 appointed time. The Republican party, I say, will pay the debt, and protect all men. The Democratic party can find no flaw in the RECORD OF MR. HAYES. 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 gentlemen, you must stand by the Republican party. What was Mr. Tilden doing when Mr. Hayes was fight ing for his country ? Mr. Tilden was resolving the war a failure. What is Mr. Tilden to-day? An attorney-at-law; an old bachelor. There is no more flesh and blood on him PLAIN FACTS. 263 than an old umbrella. He is one of those oily attor neys you see depicted on the stage. He is a demurrer. [Great laughter.] He never courted a woman because women can't vote. Lately he has adopted a rag-baby that really belongs to Hendricks. [Prolonged laughter.] He is now spending his time explaining how he adopted it. PLAIN TRUTHS FOR THE DEMOCRATS. I know the State in which an audience like this can collect can never elect a Democrat for Governor. I know you will re-elect Governor Connor by a rousing majority. There is not a State prison in this country but votes forTilden 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 264 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. laughter and applause.] 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 continental in thought and have sympathy, then he says he will give every other man the same chance in the world that he asks for him self. Nature has made inequalities enough. Some peo ple are born with few brains some of them you can find in the Democratic party by close inspection. Why should men add artificial inequalities ? 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. Now, don't for get to tell the Democrats the whole truth tell them in a Christian spirit, just 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 signa ture. 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 forget it. 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. 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 men. OUR COUNTRY. Ingersoll's Speeen at Lewiston, Me., Sept. 10, 1880. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: This is, in my opinion, the grandest and best country in the world. 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-gov ernment. In other words, they don't believe in being governed at all. The question we must settle is, wheth er our country 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 solid ity of civilization. I do not pretend that the Republican party is perfectly good, and I do not pretend that the [265] 266 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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. 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; and 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. The reason why I admire a good government is be cause the people are made happy. What's the good ot a government unless the people are happy; unless they have plenty to eat and to wear? Now I believe that in OUR COUNTRY we've got more kind husbands, more good women; that we wear better clothes, and that our clothos fit us better on an average than in any other country on the globe. We've got more information. We know more things about more things. We've got more 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. I believe in a country where every man has an equal chance. That's the reason why I work for the Republi- OUR COUNTRY. 267 can party. Now, if there's anything that's dear to an American citizen it's the right of free speech! The grand reason is that every human being has a right to the public ear. If a man can not speak, others can not hear. 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 commences, 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? This is a Government of liberty regulated by law. This is a Government founded on reason . This is a country where the people have honest thought on every subject. The man who has these privileges himself and is not willing to accord them to othess is a barbarian. I believe it. So do you. I am not going to say a word to exclude my Democratic hearers. They believe it as well as I do, It makes no matter what they say with their mouths. Inside they'll swear to it. When a man hears what he knows to be true, he feels it, no matter what he says. I'm not going to say a word that a Dem ocrat 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 common air? He dare not say it! Now, if that liberty is to be preserved, whom will you have preserve it? Honor bright, now! Will you ap point the South to keep that treasure? Will you leave it to Alabama? Is there a Democrat here who doesn't know that a man stands no chance for the right of free speech in Alabama? I'm not going there! I'm not go- 268 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. ing to put myself in the hands of a State where there is no law. I'm going further off, and the longer the lever the more I can lift! Maine is a good place in which to begin. Let a Republican 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 votes 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 Lousiana. I'd rather entrust Massachussetts than Louisiana. In order to preserve this right, the North must keep in power. There is an aristocracy in the South, based on a trade in human beings. They are men who believed that lashes were a legal tender for a human being. That is the kind of aristocracy there is in the South. I sometimes feel like finding fault with the North because she isn't proud enough. I want the time to come when a North ern man will be as proud because his father was an hon est man, as a Southern man is proud because his father was a slaveholder. I want the time to come when he will be as proud of breaking the chains of the slave as they were of forging them . In this country we have our sovereign, our King one power. That is the legally expressed will of a majority of the people. That's our King. Every solitary voter has a certain amount of King! Any man that will throw an illegal vote; any man that will count votes illegally OUR COUNTRY. 269 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 traitor, 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 protect your ballot-box for you? In the South elections are a farce. It is there that Bulldozing holds the elec tion, Dishonesty counts their votes, and Fraud declares the result! Now it is a fact, my friends, that since the Rebellion the South has killed more men, in time of pro found peace, than our country lost in the two wars with Great Britian! Are they the men you will have to pro tect your ballot-box? Do you want to leave it with the masked man that shoots fathers, mothers and children? Oh, Mr. Honest Greenbacker and Democrat! 'way down in your soul I know you say "No!" no matter what you say outside. Do you want the Chalmers, the Hamp tons, and the murderers of Coushatta to hold your bal lot-box? I guess not! MR. 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 ex press 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! Do you want the Democrats of Maine to count your votes for local affairs? Of course, I dont know much 270 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. about your local affairs. I know enough to make me blush to think that Maine had men that were guilty of the great treason of last winter. I know enough to know that they ought to have been sent to the penitentiary! I know enough to know that that great crime has made the cheeks 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. You must tell the whole 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 Stat* 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. There are thousands of 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 be lieve that is the same party that stuffs ballot-boxes and carries elections by bulldozing? The same party that be lieves being a Republican is a crime? 'Oh, " you ask me, "are you never going to forgive the Democratic party?" No! I'm not going to forgive them until I can speak OUR COUNTRY. 2/1 as freely in one part of the land as another, protected by the old flag? 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 this is the same party who now passes a resolution about the "right preservative of all rights?" I guess it is the same old party. That 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 is too logy," said the man. Then they came along to a handsome grey. "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! You know General Banks 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." "Yes," said the man, looking at the horse's teeth, "I'll be if I don't believe it's the same horse." So I find it is the same party, precisely. I can't trust it. Why? Because I waat free speech. I want an honest ballot, And what else? I 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? 272 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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 South ern 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 Demo crats 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 the 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, 3,874 illicit distilliries have been un covered. They're the gentlemen whom you wish to trust with the collection of your revenue. If you trust them, you'll be like the minister. 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." "What for?" asked the first minister. "Because we've got the hat back. 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 sup pose have been arrested for stealing revenue? Seven thous- OUR COUNTRY. 273 and and seventy-eight have been arrested and indicted! Think of that! They're the gentlemen whom the Dem ocrats of Maine want to have collect their revenue. They're the gentlemen that Greenbackers have joined the Democrats to help along! Twenty-five collectors of revenue have been shot in the South by ambushed Dem ocrats. Twenty-five by men who hid in the bush to shoot officers of the United States, and make widows and orphans of their wives and children! They're the men! What has been done with them? They've 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, - ooo of bonds. Are we going to let them collect it? 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- producing 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 open ed the way to our examination of the whole question. The Greenbackers made resumption possible. They went into every school district in the country, and stuck to it that the greenback was the best money in the world. And they convinced so many of it that, when they were offered gold they said: "No, we want greenbacks." If we all had demanded gold our resumption would have been impossible . But we preferred greenbacks. I 274 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. want to thank the greenbackers for that much! Having accomplished that I think their mission is ended. 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 . There's no glory in grow ing 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! In 1873 came the great crash. We staggered over the desert of bankruptcy. No one can estimate the anguish or that time. Millionaires found themselves paupers. Palaces were exchanged for hovels. The aged man who had spent his life in hard labor, and thought he had accumulated enough to sup port himself in his old age, and leave a little something to his children and grand-children, found they were all beggars . The highways were filled with tramps. REPUDIATION. Then it was that the serpent of temptation whispered in the ear of want that dreadful word ''Repudiation." 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. '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 ocrat here, who is not glad we escaped the stench and shame of repudiation, and did not take Democratic ad vice? Is ( there a Greenbacker here who is not glad we didn't? He may say he is, but he isn't. We then had to pay OUR COUNTRY. 2/5 seven per cent, interest on our bonds. Now we only pay four. Our greenbacks were then at ten per cent, dis count. 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 cannot be made. We have found ont that money is a product of Nature. When a nation gets hard up it is right and proper 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 every civil ized nation. Yes, we want it good in Central Africa! And when a naked Hottentot sees a United States green back blown about by the wind, he will pick it up as eagerly as if it were a lump of gold. They say even now that money is a device to facilitate 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. WHAT MONEY ISN'T. Again they say that money is a measure of value. 'Tisn't so! A bushel doesn't measure values. It meas ures diamonds as well as potatoes. If it measured val ues, a bushel of potatoes would be worth as much as a bushel of diamonds. A yardstick doesn't measure val ues. They used to say, "There is no use in having a gold yardstick." That was right. You don't buy the yardstick. If money bore the same relation to trade as yardstick or half-bushel, you would have the same money when you got through trading as you had when you be- 276 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. gun. 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 ! 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 behind says his wife's sick, and he must go home. You ought to hear that fellow descant on domestic virtue. And the other fellow accuses 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 prosperous we'd have more money. 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 that in that year the railroad had used $12,000 worth of grease. The next year, suppose the earnings should fall off $5,000, and the man, in looking over the accounts, should learn that in that year the road had used only $500 worth of grease ! Supposing the man should say - ' 'The trouble is, we OUR COUNTRY. want more grease," What would you think of a man if he discharged the superintendent for not using more grease ? 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." I 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 resumption. It was a question of crops, a ques tion of industry. 278 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. REPUBLICAN HONESTY. Now then, honor bright, don't you believe you're bet ter off than if you hadn't resumed ? I don't care what you say ! I know what you mean. The Republicans have made mistakes. There are good and bad men in parties. We have collected in the year past $468,000,- ooo of revenue. And we have collected it cheaper than it could have been collected in any other country in the world. It cost us, I believe, 3| per cent, to collect it. And of the whole amount not a dollar has been lost. Can the Democrats equal that ? 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 you, Democrats, 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 decide the question for yourselves. Every man of us is an agent of the United States of America. Each man of us has a part to perform. In him depends, in part, whether we shall have true Gov ernment or not ! That's why I want you to think care fully 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 apiece. 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 to gether. The death rate in the prisons of the North is OUR COUNTRY. 2/9 about one per cent, per annum. There's something that I like in the North. It's a monument to Northern charity and honesty. In one of those Georgia camps the death rate was thirty per cent. In another forty per cent. In one of them it reached fifty per cent. In another it run up to ten per cent, per month. 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 support, that the Greenbackers want to tie to. And 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 Government? THE SOUTHERN CHURCH has no respect for men's rights. Good Northern men and women have gone South and taken letters from Northern churches. In the House of God they ha,ve been refused the Sacramental bread. Recollect it ! There's not anybody in the South who will admit that there ever was a Northern gentleman or lady. Why ? They won't ad mit that labor is honorable . I like the North because it respects its industry. 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 principles. Now, then, whom will you trust ? There's still an other important thing we have got to overcome. We can't overcome it without killing it, either. You can con vince a man without killing him, but you caiit kill him 280 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. without convincing him ! The South is honest in one thing, and that is their belief in the doctrine of State sovereignty. 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 pretend 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. The Northern Democrats become 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. Another thing they wanted. They wanted to keep the slave-trade a going 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 ? I am. We never would have been out of it but for the Republi can party. Splendid, splendid party ! 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 so I've made up my mind that, when I hear a man tak ing up the doctrine of State sovereignty, he wants to steal something from somebody; somewhere. I'm not afraid of CENTRALIZATION. I want the power where somebody can use it . As long OUR COUNTRY. 28 I as a man is responsible to the people there is no fear of despotism. 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 Democratic doctrine, and you'll scatter your brains all over you. 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 But you 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 can cross it -to 282 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. take a chain off. "Why," you say, "you want the Fed eral Government to interfere with the rights of a State ?" Yes, I do, if necessary. I want the ear of the Govern ment acute enough and arms long enough to reach a wrong man in any State. A government that will not protect its protectors is no government. 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. Think of it ! 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 Fed eral Government, "You told me I owed my first allegi ance to you, and I had to go to war. Now I say to you, you owe your first allegiance to me, and I want you to protect me !" The Federal Government says, ' 'Oh, you must ask your State to request it." I say, "That's just what they won't do !" Such a condition of things is per fectly horrible ! 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 it ! 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. You had almost rather be with the damned. But you've got to do it. And you will do it. OUR COUNTRY. 283 THE 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 of many mansions and have fed on shucks about long enough. 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 from. 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 circumstances. 'Well,' he said, 'there's Hell down there; you might try that !' "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 ?' Said he, 'You'll have to go back to Tewksbury.'" And, Greenbackers, when you remem ber 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 Tewksbury. 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. Everyman that defended slavery was a Democrat. Every man that signed an or- 284 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. dinance of secession was a Democrat. Every man that lowered our flag from the skies was a Democrat. Every man that bred bloodhounds 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 wound borne by you, 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 emaciated maniac who happened to totter across the death line, with a hellish grin on his face, was a Demo crat. Nice company you're in ! The keepers of Ander- sonville 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. 1 never will bear hard feel ings against a man who bared his breast in his country's defense. The men who attempted to spread yellow 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 company you're in ! Recollect it ! The men who wanted to as sassinate 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; OUR COUNTRY. 285 if you have more confidence in Hampton than your own men; if you have a greater trust in the solvency of Missis sippi than in Massachusetts, then vote the Democratic ticket. But there's not a Democrat in Maine who be lieves it ! THE CANDIDATES. I've got a little while to talk about candidates. I haven't much against Hancock. The most I have against him is 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 dis reputable. 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 threshing machine. I 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. I want my Government to be proud and free. Liberty is a thing wherein ex travagance is economy. Now comes the Republican party. Who is at its head ? Thousands of men say to me, "How can you support Garfield ? He is a Christian; he's a Campbellite." I sup port him because I am not a bigot; I support him because he is not a bigot; 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-lubbers on our ship. Garfleld is as good a soldier as Hancock. I've got nothing against the 286 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. regular army; but a man who, in a time of profound peace, determines to make killing folks his regular busi ness, who, when there's no sound of war, longs for the din of shot and shell is no better, in my opinion, than GEN. JAMES A. GARFIELD. than the man who hates war, but, when he is called upon, puts his sword on, and goes into the field of battle ! That's my man. OUR COUNTRY. 287 DEMOCRATIC CHARGES. They say he's dishonest. Who says it ? The Solid South and the counting out conspirators of Maine ! That won't do. Garfield has been in a position where he conld 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. I want the Demo crats 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 Democratic 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 ! (Voice "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 coun try a legacy of power and glory. (Rousing cheers.) Col. Ingersoll here left the stand and took a special train for Portland. INGERSOLL ON AMERICAN NATIONALITY. Speech Delivered 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. There is the same difference between virtue and vice, be tween truth and falsehood, as there is between grain and [288] AMERICAN NATIONALITY. 289 weeds. We have to plow the land, we have to sow the seed, and we have, with great labor and infinite patience, to guard the crops against anything that might injure; while weeds and dog-fennel, sown by chance and cared for by accident, will grow in the common highway. And exactly 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 finished . After four years of war in the United States the questions 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 pre sent 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 open 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 gov ernment in sublime contempt, except the republican form of government. I utterly detest every system of govern ment that is not fouuded on the legally expressed will of a majority of the people. I 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. This is in my opinion the best government in the world 290 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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 be cause life, liberty, and property are better secured in the Northern and Western States of this Union than in any other portion of the habitable globe. EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALL. I love this country because it gives to the lowest equal opportunity with the greatest. The avenues of distinc tion are open to all. We have taken the failures of other countries; 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 country, and the second generation are superior to the nobility of the country from which their fathers emigrated; 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 every body in the Union, in the States to which I have referred, equal opportunities to get a home, equal opportunities to attain distinction. That is the reason I like this country. BEST COUNTRY FOR THE POOR. 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 night, take his tow-headed boy on his knee, and say to him: "John, the public schools and every avenue of distinction are open to you. Your father may AMERICAN NATIONALITY. 2QI be ignorant; he may not be good at figures; but } 7 ou may rise to the highest office within the gift of civilized peo ple. " 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. We have better clothes, and they come dearer fitting us. 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 if that there is no other country where women and children are treated as well as they are in the United States. 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 monarch; 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 hus a vote. These are a few of the reasons why I like this country. I like it because it gave me a chance. I like it because a man in the lowest walks of life can have the same chance. I like it because a boy who had worked on a canal, a boy who has driven a mule on the towpath, a boy who has cut 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. (Applause.) What a magnificent compliment they pay to our system of government ! 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 ! What in other countries would 292 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. be a work of disgrace, in this country is transfigured into the wings of honor and of fame. 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 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 OF STATE RIGHTS. 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 partis greater than the whole; the doctrine that the General Government is born in 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 until the Continental Congress re solved that they were free and independent States. That heresy is, in my judgment, one of the great perils that menace this Republic at the present time. It was not settled by the war; it has not been beaten out of the Democratic leaders; and let me assure you that it is as strongly intrenched in the hearts of these men at the present time, as it ever was in the history of the Govern ment. The doctrine nf State rights was appealed to, to perpetuate human slavery; it was appealed to to keep the slave trade opon until the year 1808; it was appealed to to justify Secession and Rebellion. It is appealed to now AMERICAN NATIONALITY. 293 in order that the Southern States may deny to the black people their rights. By this you will see that the doc trine 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 de test the doctrine. L abhor it in every drop of my blood. This is not a Confederacy; 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 secession, and now to allow the people of the Southern States to deny the negroes the right of citizen ship. 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. Wher ever 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 Democratic party are to-day the same for which Lee and Stonewall Jackson fought, and, from the bottom of my heart, I believe him . REPUDIATION. Whether we shall pay our debts is the great question 294 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. and with State sovereignty, the Southern States would repudiate their debts by issuing currency to be redeemed eventually by the National Government. As long as there is a greenback in circulation, it is an earnest advo cate that the Democrotic party shall not come into power. Peopte say now that the country is prosperous and that repudiation is 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 na tion, but we can never become 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 baliot in it. COL. INGERSOLL 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 applause. THE TWO PARTIES. Ingersoll's Speech at Rockford, 111., Sept. 28, 1880. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: In the first place I wish to admit that Democrats and Republicans have an equal interest 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. Neither do I believe that it is possible to make a vote in any civilized country by misrepresenting the facts. Neither do I believe it is possible to influence a solitary man who has got any sense, -by slander or vi tuperation. That time has gone by, and I do not intend to say one word that every Democrat present will not be willing to say is true . I do not intend to-day to express a solitary sentiment vthat every Democrat will not give three cheers [395] 296 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. for in his heart. 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 de sire 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 con dition of citizenship, but where manhood, and manhood alone; permits its possessor to have an equal share in the control of the Government. It is the only country in the world where poverty is upon an exact 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 on 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. 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 Government a complete and perfect suc cess, is for the poorest man to think as much of his man hood as the millionaire does of his wealth . A man does not vote in this country simply because he THE TWO PARTIES. 297 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 his manhood. And for that reason we put poverty on an equality with wealth. We say in this country manhood is worth more than gold. We say in this country that without liberty the Nation is not worth preserving. Now, I ap peal to every poor man; I appeal to-day to every labor ing man, and I ask him: Is there another country on this globe where you can have your equal rights with others? 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 coun try wears a crown ; every voter in this country has in his own hands a scepter of authority; and every voter, poor and rich, wears the purple 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 his scepter and admits that he is less than a man. 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 fooled out of his vote, is not worthy to be an American citizen. Let us endeavor to do what is right; let us say this country is good we will make it better; let us say, if 298 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. our children do not live in a republic it shall not be our fault. THE 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 a reputation by passing a resolution. If you could, you could reform every peni tentiary in fifteen minutes in the United States. 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? THE DEMOCRATIC RECORD. In 1 860 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 Democrat, every one; because that party would nevar allow anyone but a Democrat to be in office, no matter how small. In 1860 and 1861 a few of the South ern States said: "We will no longer remain in this Union." What did the Democratic party do? James Buchan an, with Judge Black for his legal adviser, solemnly de- lared that not only the United States could not ccercere State, but solemnly decided that the Federal Govern ment could not even protect its own property. That was the decision of the highest officer in that administra tion. In other words that Democratic administration said the United States of America are dissolved; the great Federal Government is dead forever; the ex- THE TWO PARTIES. 299 periment of our fathers has failed; the blood of the Rev olution was shed in vain; and here in 1861, on the jag ged rocks of secession, the Ship of State must go down forever. 3OO INGERSOLLS GREAT SPEECHES. This is what that party said then. Does anybody wish that party had remained in power? Does anybody wish to-day that the advice of James Buchanan had been fol lowed? Does anybody wish that we at that time had al lowed the flag of our fathers to have been forever torn from heaven? 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. And I admit to-day, and I THE TWO PARTIES. 3 rather than have the wolves we will dispense with you . (Ap plause and laughter.) What are the ideas of this sol dier ? What are his ideas about money ! He was a hard- money man they tell me. Mr. Bayard, the representa tive of hard money, a man who once in the Senate voted to pay the bonds in depreciated 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 coun try; when he knows the greenback bears no interest; when he knows it is gold. What are the opinions, I say, of General 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 delighted 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 Greenbackers carried the State as that the Republicans lost it. What does that man believe in ? Does he be lieve in free trade ? I don't know. What kind of a tariff does he want ? I don't know. What is his opinion 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; 336 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. only a little while ago he said that we never could re deem; 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 hon est vote everywhere. It won't do. GARFIELD. On the other hand, we have a man who is a trained statesman, who has discussed those questions time and time again, and whose opinions are well known to all the intelligent people of this Union. He was as good a sol dier as Hancock was. (A voice, "A volunteer," and ap plause.) 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. (Ap plause.) 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. 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.) THE TWO PARTIES. 337 GARFIELD NOT A BIGOT. Some people say to me: "How can you vote for Gar- field, when he is a Christian and a preacher ?" I tell them I have two reasons; one is I am not a bigot, and the other is, General 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 reli gion. I will vote for a liberal Catholic, a liberal Presby terian, a liberal Methodist, a liberal anything, ten thou sand 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. General Garfield is an honest man every way; intel lectual every way. He is a poor man; he is rich in honor, in integrity he is wealthy, and in brains he is a million aire. I know him, and if the people of Illinois 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 certificate of the splendid form of our Government. I like him because, under our institutions, he came from abject poverty to occupy the position he now does before the American 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 338 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. that there is in their horizon some one beckoning them to glory and to honor. (Applause.) That is the reason I like this country, because EVERYBODY HAS A CHANCE. 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 General Garfield elected. He believes in honor, he be lieves in liberty; he believes in an honest ballot; he be lieves in collecting 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, I beg of every one who hears me to conscienti ously decide for himself what, nnder the circumstances, as a man, as a patriot, as a lover of justice, he ought to do. That is all I want you to do. Be honor bright. Do not be led away by the appeals of gentlemen who once belonged to the Republican party. Vote to sustain the greatest possible cause human liberty. I know and ap preciate 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 believe if the dead could rise from their graves the men fallen 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.) THE TWO PARTIES. 339 VOTING WITH REBELS. Let me ask you another question. How do the men who wished to destroy the Government wish you to vote now ? How would every rebel in the South, could he have come 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 (ap plause) how would the men who starved our brave boys their 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 340 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. fight for it and 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, recol lect that this country has done more for your race than all other countries under heaven (applause); if you are a German, recollect that this country is kinder to you 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 progress, in human liberty, and in universal justice. THE NORTH AND SOUTH. Ingersoll's Speech at New York. Oct. 23, 1880. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: Years ago I made up my mind that there is no particular argument in slander. I made up my mind that for parties as well as individuals honesty in the long run is the best policy. I made up my mind that the people were entitled to know a man's honest thoughts, and I propose to-night to tell you ex actly what I think. And it may be well enough, in the first place, for me to say that no party has a mortgage upon me. I am the sole proprietor of myself. 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 common air I am going to tell my honest thoughts. One man in the right will finally get to be a majority. I am not going to say a word to-night that every Democrat here will not know is true, and whatever he may say with his mouth, I will compel him in his heart to give three cheers. In the first place, I wish to admit that if it had not been for the War Democrats of the North, we never [34i] 342 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. would have put down the Rebellion. 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. War Democrats! Why did they call them war Democrats? Did you ever hear anybody talk about a War Republican? We spoke of War Democrats to those Democrats who were in favor of peace upon any terms. I also wish to admit that the Republican party is not absolutely perfect. While I believe that it is the best party that ever existed, while I believe that 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 million of slaves, in its great and sublime effort to save the finan cial honor of this Nation, I admit that it has made some mistakes. In its great effort to do right it has sometimes by mis take done wrong. And I also wish to admit that the great Democratic party, in it? effort to get office, has sometimes by mistake done right. You see that I am inclined to be perfectly fair. I am going with the Republican party, because it is going my way; but if it ever turns to the right or left, I intend to go straight ahead. In every Government there is something that ought to be 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 NORTH AND SOUTH. 343 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 honestly believes will preserve the good and destroy the bad. It takes a great deal of trouble to raise a good Repub lican. It is a vast deal of labor. The Republican party is the fruit of all ages of self sacrifice and devotion. The Republican party is born of every good thing that was ever done in this world. The Republican party is the result of all martyrdom, of all heroic blood shed for the right. It is the blossom and fruit of the world's best endeavor. In order to make a Republican you have got to have schoolhouses. You have got to have newspapers and magazines. A good Republican is the best fruit of civilization, of all there is of intelligence, of art, of music and of song. If you want to make Democrats let them 344 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. alone. The Democratic party is the settlings of this country. 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 Re publican you must work. If you wish to raise a Demo crat give him wholesome neglect. The Democratic party flatters the vices of mankind. That party says to the ignorant man: "You know enough." It says to the vicious man: ' 'You are good enough . " The Republican party says* "You must be better next year than 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 hill of infinite 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 bottom, and as he strikes the mud he springs upon his feet transfigured and says "Hur rah for Hancock." NO FREE SPEECH IN THE SOUTH. There are things in this Government that I wish to NORTH AND SOUTH. 345 preserve, and there are things that I wish to destroy; and in order to convince you that you ough to go the same way that I am going, it is only fair that I give you my reasons: This is a Republic founded upon the intelligence and the patriotism of the people; and in every Republic it is absolutely necessary that there should be free speech. Free speech is the gem of the human soul. Words are the bodies of thought, and liberty gives to these words wings, and the whole intellectual heavens are filled with thought. In a Republic every individual tongue has as right to the general ear. In a Republic every man has the right to give his reasons for the course he pursues to his fellow citizens, and when you say that a man shall not speak, you also say that others shall not hear. 346 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. When you say a. man shall not express his honest thought you say his fellow citizens shall be deprived of honest thoughts; for of what use is it to allow the attor ney 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 the 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 solitary Democrat here who dare 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 country can you trust the inestimable gem of free speech with? Can you trust it with the gentlemen of Mississip pi, or to the gentlemen of Massachussetts? 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. Honor bright, is there any free dom 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 right to rob the cradle none to defend the right to sell the babe from the breast of the ago-nized 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 others knew in his heart that he was a thief. And for that rea son they did not wish to discuss that question. There upon the institution of slavery said, "You shall not speak; you NORTH AND SOUTH. 347 shall not reason," and the lips of free though were man acled. Every Democrat knows it as well as every Re publican. There never was free speech in the South. And what has been the result? And allow me to ad 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. And whenever there is free speech there and whenever there is a free ballot there, they will vote the Republican ticket. I say again, there are hundreds of thousands of good people in the South; but the institution of slavery pre vented free speech, and it is a splendid fact in nature that you cannot put chains upon the limbs of others without putting corresponding manacles upon your own brain. When the South enslaved the negro, it also en slaved itself, and the result is an intellectual desert. No book has been produced, with one exception, that has added to the knowledge of mankind; no paper no maga zine, no poet, no philosopher, no philanthropist, was ever raised in that desert. Now and then some one protest ed against that infamous institution, and he came as near being a philosopher as the society in which he lived per mitted. Why is it that New England, a rock-clad land, blossoms like roses? Why is it that New York is the great Empire State of the Union? I will tell you. Be cause you have been permitted to trade in ideas. Be cause 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. That party has rocked the cradle of intellectual liberty, and 348 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. that is the reason I say it is the best party that ever ex isted in the wide, wide world. I 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 North or South; to the Democracy or to the Republican party? And I am bound, as an honest man, to say free speech is safest with it earliest defenders. Where is there such a thing as a Republican mob to prevent the expression of an honest thought where. The people of the South are allowed to come to the North; they are allowed to come to express their sentiments upon every stump in the great East, the great West, and the great Middle 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 answer their argu ment. 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 Dem ocrats of the North ought to compel the Democrats of the South to treat the Republicans of the South as well as the Republicans of the North treat them. We treat the Democrats well in the North. We treat them like gentlemen in the North; and yet they go into partner ship with the Democracy of the South, knowing that the Democracy of 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 peo ple as well as the friends of the other people treat me, I'll swap friends. NORTH AND SOUTH. 349 First, then, I am in favor of free speech, and I am go ing with that section of my country that believes in free speech. I am going with that party that has always up held that sacred right. Wnen you stop free speech, when you say that thought shall die in the womb of the brain why, it would have the same effect upon the in tellectual world that to stop springs at their sources would have upon the physical world. Stop the springs at their sources and they cease to gurgle, the streams cease to murmer, and the great rivers cease rushing to the embrace of the sea. So you stop thought. Stop thought in the brain in which it is born and theory dies; and the great ocean of knowledge to which all should be permitted to contribute, and from which all should be al lowed to draw, becomes a vast desert of ignorance. I have always said, and I say again, that the more lib erty given away the more you have. There is room in this world for us all; and 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. 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 a disgrace to the American Union. THE PARTY OF AN HONEST BALLOT. I am not only in favor of free speech, but I am also in favor of au absolutely honest ballot. There is one king in this country, there is one supreme Czar; and that is the legally expressed will of a majority of the people. The man who casts an illegal vote, the man who refuses to count a legal vote, poisons the fountain of power, 350 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. poisons the springs 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 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 comes revolution and chaos . It is the duty of every good man to see to it that the ballot-box is kept abso lutely pure. It is the duty of every patriot, whether he is Democrat or Republican and I want to further admit that I believe a large majority of Democrats are honest in their opinions, and I know that all Republicans must be honest in their opinions. It is the duty, then, of all honest men of both paities to see to it that only honest votes are 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 child? Can you trust it to the men who since the close of our war have killed more men simply because those men wished to vote, simply because they wished to exercise a right with which they had been clothed by the sublime heroism of the North who have NORTH AND SOUTH. 351 killed more men than were killed on both sides during the war of 1812; than were killed on both sides in both wars? Can you trust them? Can you trust the gentlemen who invented the tissue- ballot? Do you wish to put the ballot-box in the keep ing of the shotgun, of the White Liners, of the Ku Klux? Do you wish to put the ballot-box in the keeping of men who openly swear they will not be ruled by a majority of American citizens if a portion of that majority is made of black men? And I want to tell you right here, I like a black man who loves this country better than a white man who hates it. I think more of a black man who fought for our flag than for any white man who endeavored to tear it out of heaven. I like black friends better than white enemies. And I think more of a man black outside and white inside, than I do of one white outside and black in side. I say, can you trust the ballot-box to the Democratic party? Read the history of the State of New York! Read the history of this great and beautiful city the Queen of the Atlantic read her history and tell us if you can implicitly trust Democratic returns? Honor bright. 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 in this Union for twenty long years, the object of which was to guard the American ballot-box, has been passed by the Republican party, and in every State where the Republi- party has introduced such a bill for the purpose of mak- 352 IMGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. it a law, in every State where such a bill has been de feated by the Democratic party . 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 preserve the financial honor of the United States. I want money enough to be collected to pay pensions to widows and orphans and to wounded soldiers. And the question is what section in this country can you trust to collect and disburse that revenue? Let us be honest about it. What section can you trust? In the last four years we have collected $467,000 of the internal revenue taxes. We have col lected principally from taxes upon high wines and tobac co, $468,000,000, and in those four years we have seized, libeled and destroyed in the Southern States 3,875 illicit distilleries. And during the same 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 revenue of this country. Recollect it don't you forget it. And in several Southern States to-day every revenue collector or officer connected with the revenue is furnished by the Internal Revenue Depart ment 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. NORTH AND SOUTH. 353 During the same four years we have arrested and have indicted 7,084 Southern Democrats for endeavoring to defraud the revenue of the United States. Recollect 3,874 distilleries seized, 25 revenue officers killed, 55 wounded, and 7,084 Democrats arrested. Can we trust them ? The State of Alabama in its last Democratic Conven tion passed a resolution that no man should be tried in a Federal Court for a violation of the revenue law that should be tried in a State Court ! 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 this revenue. A couple of Methodist ministers had been holding a revival for a few weeks; one said to the other that he thought it was 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 not one and his brother minister got up and looked at the contribution, and he said: "Let us thank God ! And the owner of the hat said: 354 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. "What for?" The brother replied: "Because you have got the hat back." If we trust the South we won't get our hat back. 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. I believe in silver, because it is one of the greatest of American products, and I am in favor of anything that will add to the value of American product. But I want a silver dollar worth a gold dollar, even if you make it or have to make it four feet in diameter. No Government can afford to be a clipper of coin. A great Republic can not afford to stamp a lie upon silver or gold. Honest money, an honest people, an honest Nation. When our money is worth only 80 cents on the dollar, we feel 20 per cent, below par. When our money is good we feel good. When our money is at par that is where we are. I am a profound believer in the doctrine that for Na tions, as well as men, honesty is the best, always, every where and forever. What section of this country, what party will give us honest money honor bright honor bright? I 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 of dollars, but not dollars. And the green back, unless you have gold behind it, is no more a dollar than a bill of fare is a dinner. You cannot make a paper dollar without taking a dollar's worth of paper. We must have paper that represents money. I want it issu- NORTH AND SOUTH. 355 ed by the Government, and I want behind every one of these dollars, either a gold or silver dollar, so that every greenback under the sun can lift up its hand and swear, "I know that my redeemer liveth. When we were running into debt, thousands of peo ple mistook that for prosperity, and when we were pay ing they regarded it as adversity. Of course we had plenty when we bought on credit. No man has ever starved when his credit was good, if there was no famine 356 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. in that country. As long as we buy on credit we shall have enough. The trouble commences when the pay day arrives. 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 promise made in war?" Honor bright! The Democratic party had once been a hard money party, bnt it drifted from its metallic moorings and drifted off in the ocean of infla tion. 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 land had resum ed. 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 he did not also say: ' 'If it ever comes, and I don't unload, you may shoot me." It was very much as it is sometimes in playing poker, and I make this comparison, knowing that hardly a per son here will understand it. I have been told that along toward morning the man that is ahead suddenly says: "I have got to go home. The fact is. my wife is not well." And the fellow who is behind says: "Let us have another deal. 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 another deal; let us get our driftwood back into the center of the stream." NORTH AND SOUTH. 357 And they cried out for more money. But the Repub lican 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." 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 only a measure of value, just the same as a half bushel or yardstick." True. And consequently it makes no difference whether your half-bushel is of wood, or gold, or silver, or paper; and it makes no difference whether your yard stick is gold or paper. But the trouble about the state ment is this: A half-bushel is not a measure of value; it is a measure of quantity, and it measures rubies, dia monds and pearls precisely 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 $iooa yard, pre cisely as it does cent tape. And another reason why it makes no difference to the purchaser whether the half- bushel is gold or silver, or whether the yardstick is gold or paper, you don't buy the yard-stick; you don't get the half bushel in 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 con summation of the bargain then it wouldn't make any difference what your money was made of. But the trouble is the money changes hands. And let me say to- 358 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. night, money is a thing it is a product of nature and you can no more make a "fiat" dollar than you can 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. If I am fortunate enough to have a dollar when I die, I want it to be a good one; I do not wish to have it turn to ashes in the hands of widowhood, or become a Dem- NORTH AND SOUTH. 359 ocratic broken promise in the pocket of the orphan; I want it money. I saw not long ago a piece of gold bear ing the stamp of the Roman Empire. The empire is dust, and over it has been thrown the mantle of oblivion, but that piece of gold is as good as though Juilius Cesar were still riding at the head of the Roman Legion. 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 inflates the currency." Whenever a man buys a pound of sugar and says, "Charge it," he inflates the currency; whenever he gives his note he inflates the currency; whenever his word takes the place of money he inflates the currency. The con sequence is that when we are prosperous credit takes the place of money, and we have what we call "plenty." But you cannot increase prosperity simply by using prom ises to pay. But I want to be fair, and I wish to-night to return my 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 the poor man. Gold loves the rich; gold haunts banks and safes and vaults; but we have got money that will go around in quiring for a man that is broke. We have finally found money that will stay in a pocket with holes in it." But, after all, do you know that money is the most social thing in the world? If a fellow has got one dollar 360 INFERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. in his pocket, and he meets another with two, do you know that dollar is actually homesick until he gets where the other two are? 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, better 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 fellow 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 have given it to them. 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 busnel of wheat or a pound of beef or pork helped NORTH AND SOUTH. 361 to resume, I say that the gentle rain and the 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 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. 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. 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 you swore our bonds would be as worthless as the withered leaves of winter. And now when a Democrat goes to England and sees an American four per cent, quoted at no he kind of swells up, and says: "That's the kind of a man I am." In that country he pretends that he was a Republican in this. And I don't blame him. And I don't begrudge him respectability when away from home. The Repub lican party is entitled to the credit of keeping this Na tion grandly and splendidly honest. I say the Republi can party is entitled to the credit of preserving the honor of this Nation. 362 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. THE STRUGGLE AFTER THE PANIC. In 1873 came the crash, and all the languages of the world cannot describe the agonies suffered by the Amer ican 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 live all their lives in the sunshine of joy found themselves beggars and paupers. The great fac tories were closed, the workman were demoralized, and the roads of the United States were filled with tramps. In the hovel of the poor and the palace af the rich came the serpent of temptation and whispered in the American ear the terrible word "Repudiation." But the Repub lican party said, "No, we have started toward the shin ing goal of resumption, and we never will turn back." And the Republican party struggled until it had the happiness of seeing upon the broad, shining forehead of American labor the words "Financial Honor." The Republican party struggled until every paper promise was as good as gold. And the moment we got back to gold then we commenced to rise again. We could not jump up until our feet touched something that they pressed against. And from that moment to this we have been going, going higher and higher, more prosper ous every hour. And now they say, "Let us have a change." When I am sick I want a change; and if I were a Democrat I would have a personal change. We are prosperous to-day, and we 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. NORTH AND SOUTH. 363 A NATION, NOT A CONFEDERACY. 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. I deny that we are a confederacy bound together by 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. 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 the same doctrine. No less a man than Horatio Seymour standing, it may be, at the head of the Democratic statesman said, if he has been correctly reported, only the other day, that he despised the word "Nation." I bless that word. I owe my first allegiance to that Nation, and it owes its first protection to me. I am talking here to-night, not be cause I am protected by the flag of New York. I would not know the flag if I should see it- I am talking here and have the right to talk here because the flag of my country is above us. I have the same right as though I had been born upon this very platform. I am proud of New York because it is part of my country. I am proud of my country because it has got such a State as New York in it, .and I will be prouder of New York on a week from next Tuesday, than ever before in my life. I de spise the doctrine of State Sovereignty. I believe in the 364 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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 Government even in this Nation are the sublime rights of the people. Govesnments are good only so long as they protect human rights. But the rights of man should never be sacrificed upon the altar of the State or upon the altar of the Nation. STATE SOVEREIGNTY AND HUMAN SLAVERY. Let me tell you a few objections that I have got to State Sovereignty. That doctrine has never been ap pealed to for any good. The first time it was appealed to waswhen our Constitution was made. And the ob ject then was to keep the slave trade open until the year 1808. The object then was to make the sea the high way of piracy the object tjien was to allow Americans 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 to the doctrine of State Sovereignty was made, and the next time was for the purpose of keeping alive the inter-state of slave trade, so that a gentleman in Virginia could sell his slaves to the rice and cotton plantations of the South. Think of it! It was made so they could rob the cradle in the name of the law. Think of it! Think of it! And the next time thy appealed to the doctrine of State Sovereignty was in favor of the Fugitive Slave Law a law that made a bloodhound 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. NORTH AND SOUTH. 365 Think of it! A law that, if a woman ninety-nine one hundredths white had escaped slavery, had traversed for ests, 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 upon her withered bosom a law that declared it the duty of the Northern men to clutch^that woman and turn her back to the domination of the hound and lash. I have no respect for the man living or dead that 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 Soveregnty was to increase the area of human slavery, so that the bloodhound, with clots of blood dripping from his loose and hanging jaws, might traverse the bil lowy plains of Kansas. Think of it! The Democratic party then said the Federal Government then had a right to cross the State line. And the next time they ap pealed to that infamous doctrine was in defense of seces sion and treason a doctrine that cost us six millions of dollars a doctrine that cost four hundred thousand lives; a doctrine that filled our country with with widows, our homes with orphans. And I tell you the doctrine of State Sovereignty is the viper in the bosom of this Re public, and if we do not kill this viper it will kill us. The Democrats tell us that in the olden time the Fed eral Government had a right to cross a State line to put the 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, 366 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. when the Federal Government wishes to protect a citi zen, 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 exe crate the Doctrine of State Sovereignty. The Democrats tell us that if we wish to be protected by the Federal Government we must leave home, I wish they would try it for about ten days. They say the Fed eral Government can defend a citizen in England, France, Spain, or Germany, but cannot defend a child of the Republic sitting around the family hearth. I deny it. A Government that cannot protect its citizens at home is unfit to be called a Goverernment. I want a Government with an arm long enough and a sword sharp enough to cut down treason wherever it may raise its serpent head. I want a Government that will protect a freedman standing by his little log hut, with the same e^mciency that it would protect Vanderbilt living in a palace of marble and gold. NORTH AND SOUTH. 367 Humanity is a sacred thing, and manhood is a thing to be preserved. Let us look at it. For instance, here is war, and the Federal Government says to a man, ' 'We want you," and he says, "No. I don't want to go," and then they put a lot of pieces 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. 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 Government, "Pro tect 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 says 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 police. 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 to the volunteer, who for one moment holds his wife in a tremulous and agonized embrace, kisses his children, shoulders his musket goes to the field, and says, "Here I am, ready to die for my native land." 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. 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 368 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. heart. 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 have it spread all over your body, and they act as though theirs was. PROTECTING AMERICAN LABOR. 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 some thing 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 chil dren; I want him to see the flags of health flying in their beautiful cheeks; I want him to feel that this is his coun try, and the shield of protection is above his labor. And I will tell you why I am for protection, too. If we were all farmers we would be stupid. If we were all shoemakers we would be stupid. If we all followed one business, no matter what it was, we would become stupid. Protection to American labor diversifies American in dustry, and to have it diversified touches and develops every part of the human brain. Protection protects in tegrity; it protects intelligence; and protection raises sense, and by protection we have greater men and better looking women and healthier children. Free Trade means that our laborer is upon an equality with the NORTH AND SOUTH. 369 poorest paid labor of this world. And allow me to tell you that for an empty stomach, "Hurrah for Hancock" is a poor consolation. I do not think much of a govern ment where the people do not have enough to eat. I am a materialist to that extent I want something to eat. I have been in countries where the laboring man had meat once a 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 knitting busily with both hands, and those women lived without meat; and when I thought of the American laborer, I said to myself, "After all, my country is the best in the world." 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. Labor has more to eat and more to wear in the United States than in any other land of this earth. I want America to produce everything that Americans need. I want it so if the whole world should declare war against us, so if we were surrounded by walls of cannons and bayonets and swords, we could supply all our hun?*in wants in and of ourselves. 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, 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. I want to see him a man feeling that he is a king by the divine right of living in the Republic. 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 3/o INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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, A believe in American labor, and I tell you why. The other day a man told me that we had produced in the United States of America one million tons of rails. How much 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. One million tons of rails, and the raw material not worth $24,000. We built 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. SOURCE OF THE FREE TRADE DOCTRINE. I propose to stand by the Nation, I want the furnaces keps 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. That is what I am for. (A voice, "So are we all.") Yes, sir. Where did this doctrine of a tariff for revenue come from ? From the South. The South would like to stab the pros perity of the North. They had rather trade with Old England than with New England. They had rather trade with the people who were willing to help them in war than those who conquered the rebellion. They knew NORTH AND SOUTH. 3/1 what gave us our strength in war. They knew that all the brooks and creeks and rivers of New England were putting down the rebellion. They knew that every wheel that turned, every spindle that revolved, was a soldier in the army of human progress. It won't do. 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 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. And there isn't a Democrat here but what knows that a failure of the crops this year would have helped his party. You know that an early frost would have been a God-send to them. You know that the potato-bug could have done them more good than all their speakers. I 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. I be long to that party which is prosperous when the fur naces are aflame; and when you dig coal and iron and silver; when everybody has enough to eat; when every body is happy; when the children are all, going to school; and when joy covers my Nation as with a garment. 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 honest ballot, and if you are not you ought to be. I 372 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. am for the collection of revenue. I am for honest money. I am for the idea that this is a Nation forever. I be lieve in protecting American labor. I want the shield of my country above every anvil, above every furnace, above every cunning head and above every deft of American labor. Now, then, what section of this country will be the more apt to carry these ideas into execution ? What party will be the more apt to achieve these grand and splendid things ? Honor bright ! Now we have not only to choose between sections of the country we have to choose between parties: Here is the Democcatic party and I admit that there are thousands of good Demo crats 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. The men who wrote the ordinances of secession, who fired upon Fort Sum- ter; the men who starved our soldiers, who fed them with the crumbs that the worms had devoured before they were Democrats. The keepers of Libby, the keepers of Andersonville, were Democrats Libby and Anderson- ville, the two mighty wings that will bear the memory of the confederacy to eternal infamy. And when some poor, emaciated Union patriot, driven to insanity by famine, saw in an insane dream the face of his mother, and she beckeded 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 NORTH AND SOUTH. 373 put the bullet through his loving, throbbing heart was a Democrat. 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 Democrats . He who said that the greenback never would be paid, and he who slandered sixty cents out of every dollar of the Na tion's promises, 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 ? They were Democrats. The men who wept when the old flag floated in triumph above the ramparts of 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 bloodhounds as apostles and missionaries, and who wept at the funeral of that in fernal institution they were Democrats. Bad company bad company. 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 passsort. 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 enemy 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 right irrespective of their color. And allow me to say right here that I am opposed to that party. CANDIDATES OF THE TWO PARTIES. We have not only to choose between parties, but to 374 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. choose between candidates. The Democracy have put forward as the bearers of their standard General Han cock and William H. English. (Hisses, "No, no, no.") They will soon be beyond hissing. 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, and allow me to say, that I feel as well as could be expected. That party has nominated General Winfield S. Han cock, and I am told that he is a good soldier. I admit it. I don't know whether he is or not. I admit it. That was his 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 Gen. Grant. It was a time when he had been appointed at the head of the Department of the Gulf. In that con versation he stated to General Grant that he was op posed to "nigger domination." Grant said to him, "We must obey the laws of Congress. We are soldiers." And that meant, the military is not above the civil authority. And I tell you to-night that the army and the navy are the right and the left hands of the civil power. Grant said to him: "Three or four million ex-slaves, without property and without education, cannot dominate over thirty or forty millions of white people, with education and with property." General Hancock replied to that: "lam 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 . I never meet a negro that I do not feel like asking his forgivness for the wrongs that my race has inflicted on his. I remember that from the white NORTH AND SOUTH. 375 man he received for 200 years agony and tears; I remem ber 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 insulting the colored man; I feel rather like asking the forgivenecs 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. What is General Hancock for, besides the Presidency ? How does he stand upon the great questions affecting American prosperity ? 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. So is death. He also told us that he heard the question dis cussed once in Pennsylvania. He must have been "eaves dropping." And he tells us that his doctrine of the tariff will continue as long as Nature lasts. Then Senator Randolph wrote him a letter. I don't know whether Senator Randolph answered it or not; but that answer was worse than the first interview, and I understand now that another letter is going through a period of incuba tion at Governor's Island, upon the great subject of tariff. It won't do. They say one thing they are sure of he is opposed to paying 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. If a man cannot earn a pension by tearing our flag out of the sky, he cannot earn power. (A voice, "How about Long- 376 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. street ?") Longstreet has repented of what he did. Long- street admits that he was wrong. And there was no braver officer in the Southern Confederacy. 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 for ever, he is for this being a Nation, I will take him by the hand. 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, but 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 ad mit that an ordinary famine is satiety compared to the hunger they feel. But between that vast appetite known as she Democratic party, and the public treasury I will throw the shield of my veto." 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. The veto power is a distinction with which the Constitution has clothed the Executive, and no President has a right NORTH AND SOUTH. 377 to say that he will veto until he has heard both sides of the question . But he agrees in advance. I would rather trust a party than a man. Death may veto Hancock, and death has not been a successful poli tician in the United States, Tyler, Fillmore, Andy Johnson I don't wish Death to elect any more Presi dents; and if he does, and if Hancock is elected, William H . English becomes President of the United States. (Hisses, "No, no, no !") All I need to say about him is simply to pronounce his name; that is all. You 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 reputa tion of an American citizen, unless I know it to be true. What I have got against him is what he has done in pub lic life. When Charles Sumner, that great and splendid publicist; Charles Sumner, the great philanthropist, one who spoke to the conscience of the time and to the his tory 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 expel that man William H. English voted "No." All the stories in the world could not add to the infamy of that public act. That is enough for me, and whatever his private life may be, let it be that of an angel, uever, never, never will I vote for a man that would defend the assassin of free speech. General Hancock, they tell me, is a statesman; that what little time he has to spare from war he has given to the tariff, and what little time he could spare from the 378 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. tariff he has given to the Constitution of his country; showing 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. 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 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 renewed, the men standing up, waving their hats and the ladies their handkerchiefs) James A. Garfield and Ches ter A. Arthur (great cheers and applause.) James A. Garfield was a volunteer soldier, and he took away from the field of Chickamauga as much glory as any man could carry. He is not a soldier; he is a statesman. He has studied and discussed all the great questions that affect the prosperity and well-being of the American peo ple. His opinions are well known, and I say to you to- NORTH AND SOUTH. 379 night that there is not in this Nation, there is not in this Republic, a man with a greater brain and greater heart than James A. Garfield. I know him and like him. 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 pri vate sewer of his own into which had been emptied for a hundred years the slops of hell. They tell me that James A. Garfield is not honest. Are you a Democrat ? Your party tried to steal nearly half this country. Your party stole the armament of a nation. Your party was williug to live upon the unpaid labor of four millions of people. You have no right to the floor for the purpose of making a motion of honesty. Sit down. James A. Garfield has been at the head of the most important committee 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. 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 of wealth, but he is to-night a poor man. But he is rich in honor, in integrity he is wealthy, and in brain he is a millionaire. I know him and I like him. He is as genial as May and he is as generous as Autumn. And the men for whom he has done unnumbered favors, the men whom he had pity enough not to destroy with an argument, 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. 380 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. Several ladies and gentlemen were passing a muddy place around which were gathered ragged and wretched urchins. And these little wretches began to throw mud at them; and one gentleman said, -'If you don't stop I will throw it back at you." And a little fellow said, "You can't do it without dirtying your hands. And it doesn't hurt us, anyway. " I never was more profoundly happy than on the night of the 1 2th 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. When Ohio said, "Garfield is my greatest son, and there never has been raised in the cabins of Ohio a grander man;" and when Indiana 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 tome, "The Solid South will be confronted by a great and splendid North." I know Garfield. I like him. Some people have said, "How is it that you support Garfield when he was a min ister ? "How is it that you support Garfield when he is a Christian ?" I will tell you. There are two reasons. The first is, I am not a beggar; 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 persuasion, 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 jus- NORTH AND SOUTH. 381 tice 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, 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 a mistake. I will tell you why he don't make a mistake; because he spoke from the inside out. Because he was guided by the glittering Northern star of princi ple. 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. A FORGERY. I saw to-day the fac-simile of a letter that they pre tended he wrote upon the Chinese question. I know his writing; I know his signature; I am acquainted with his writing; I know handwriting, and I tell you to-night that letter and that signature are forgeries. A forgery for the benefit of the Pacific States; a forgery for the purpose of convincing the American workingmen that Garfield is without heart. I tell you, my fellow-citi zens, that cannot take from him a vote. But Ohio pierced their cencer and Indiana rolled up both flanks and the rebel line cannot reform with a forgery for a standard. They are gone . 382 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. NOT PREACHING A GOSPEL OF HATE. 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 Re publican. I am going to preach my doctrine until every American citizen is permitted to express his opinion and vote as he may desire in every State of the Union. 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. I want to treat every section of the country precisely as we do ours, I want to improve their rivers and their har bors; I want to fill their land 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. I am not willing to bury nationality or free speech in the grave for the purpose of being friends. Let us stand by our colors! let the old Republican party that has made this a Nation 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!" Let that party say, "Honest money forever; the Nation and the flag forever !" And let that party stand by the great men carrying her banner, James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur. I had rather trust a party than a man. If General Garfield dies, the Republican party lives. If NORTH AND SOUTH. 383 General Garfield dies, General Arthur will take his place a brave and honest and intelligent gentleman, upon whom every Republican can rely. 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 heaven'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 will worship. (Long continued applause.) PROTECTION AND PROSPERITY. Ingersoll's Speech at New York, October 28, 1880. FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE GREAT CITY OF NEW YORK: This is the grandest audience I ever saw. This audience certifies that Gen. James A. Garfield (tremen dous cheers) that James A. Garfield is to be the next President of the United States. This audience certifies that a Republican is to be the next mayor of the city of New York. This audience certifies that the business men of New York are not go ing to let the country be controlled by the Rebel South and the Rebel North. In 1 860 the Democratic party appealed to force, now it appeals to fraud. In 1860 the Democratic party ap pealed to the sword, now it appeals to the pen. It was treason then; it is forgery now. The Democratic party cannot be trusted with the property or with the honor of the people of the United States. The city of New [384] PROTECTION AND PROSPERITY. 385 York owes a great debt to the 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. Where I am now speaking are the termini of all the railways in the United States. They all come here. New York has been built up by the labor of the country, and New York owes it to the country to protect the best interest of the country. (Ap plause.) The farmers of Illinois depend upon the merchants, the brokers and bankers, upon the- gentlemen of New York, to beat the rabble of New York. You owe to yourselves, 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 the world, 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 this shall forever be a free country. The Republicans of New York ought to say that free speech shall forever be held sacred in the United States. The Republicans of New York ought to see that the party that defended the Na tion shall still remain in power. The Republicans of New York should see that flag is safely held by the hands that defended it in war, (Applause.) The Re publicans 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. The Republi cans know that a black friend is better than a white enemy. They know that a negro while fighting for the Government is better'than any white man who will fight 386 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. against it. (Great cheers.) The Republicans of New York know that the colored 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. 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. This Government means to protect all its citi zens, 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 Garfield." Great cheers and laughter,) Of course. We are going to have an election next Tuesday, and every Republican knows why he is going to vote the Re publican ticket; while every Democrat votes his without knowing why. A Republican is a Republican because he loves something; a Democrat is a Demoorat because he hates something. A Republican believes in progress; a Democrat in retrogression. A Democrat is a "has been." He is a "used to be." The Republican party ives on hope; the Democratic on memory. The Demo crat keeps his back to the sun and imagines himself a great man because he casts a great shadow. (Laugh ter.) 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. And where the Democratic party has power there has never been an honest ballot. You take the worst ward in this city and there you will find the largest Democratic ma jority. You know it, and so do I. There is not a uni versity in the North, East or West that has not in it a PROTECTION AND PROSPERITY. 387 Republican majority. (Applause.) There is not a pen itentiary in the United States (tremendous laughter and cheers; cries of "Good! Good!") how do you know what I am going to say? (great cheers and laughter) there is not a penitentiary, I say, in the United States that has not in it a Democratic majority, and they know it. Two years ago about 283 convicts were in the penitentiary of Maine. Out of that whole number there was one Republican, and only one. (A voice, "Who was the man?") Well, I don't know, but he broke out. He said he didn't mind being in the penitentiary, but the company was more than he could stand. (Renewed laughter.) THE PARTY 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 bal lot-box, has been passed by the Republican party. Every law that has been defeated, has been defeated by the Democratic party. And you know it. Unless we have an honest ballot the days of the Republic are num bered, and the only way to get an honest ballot is to beat the Democratic party forever. And that is what we are going to do. 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 . 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.) 388 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. Yon will have to change your names; you will have to change your personnel; and you will have to get enough Republicans to join you and tell you how to run a cam paign. If you want an honest ballot and every honest man does then you will vote to keep the Republican party in power. What else do you want? You want honest money, and I say to the merchants and to the brokers and to the bankers, the only party that will give you honest money is the party that resumed specie pay ments. The only party that will give you honest money is the party that has said the greenback is a broken promise until it is redeemed with gold. You can only trust the party that has been honest in disaster. (Ap plause.) From 1863 to 1879 sixteen long years the Repub lican party was the party of honor and principal, and the Republican party saved the honor of the United States. And you know it. During that time the Dem ocratic party did what it could to destroy our credit at home and abroad. We are not only in favor of free speech and an honest ballot, and- honest money, but we go in for law and order. What part of this country believes in free speech the South or 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. The Democratic party has not got intelligence to know that free speech is the germ of this Republic. The Democratic party cares little for free speech because it has no argument to make. No reasons to offer. Its entire argument is summed up and ended in three words, "Hurrah for Haacock." PROTECTION AND PROSPERITY. 389 The Republican party believes in free speech because it has something to say; because it believes in argument: because it believes in moral suasion; because it believes in education. (Great applause.) Any man that does not believe in free speech is a barbarian. Any State that does not support it is not a civilized State. (Great ap plause.) WHAT REPUBLICANISM MEANS. I have a right to express rny opinions and the right in common with every other human being, and I am willing to give every other human being the right that I claim for myself. (Applause.) Republicanism says, 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 progress in civilization. Repub licanism means that every man shall be an educated pa triot and a gentleman. And I want to say to you to day that the Republican party is the best that ever ex isted. I want to say to you to-day that it is an honor to belong to it. 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. And let me say to you that Lincoln was the greatest, the best; the purest, the kindest man that ever sat in the Presidential chair. (Great applause.) It is an honor to belong to the Re publican 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. It is an honor to belong to the party that de- 39o INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. clared. that bloodhounds were not missionaries of civiliz ation. It is an honor to belong to a party that said it was a crime to steal a babe from a mother's breast, It s an honor to belong to the party that swore that this is a Nation forever, one and indivisible. It is an honor to belong to the party that elected U. S. Grant President of the United States. (Cheers.) It is an honor to belong to a party that issued thousands and thousands of millions of dollars in promises that issued promises until they became as thick as the withered leaves of win ter; 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 prom ises made in war, in peace, as good as shining, glittering gold. And I tell you that if there is another life, if there is a day of judgment, all you need to say upon that sol emn occasion is: "I was in my life, and in my death a good, square Re publican." THE DOCTRINE OF STATE RIGHTS. I hate the doctrine of State sovereignty because it fos tered State pride; because it fostered the idea that it is more to be the citizen of a State than a citizen of this glorious country. I love the whole country. I like New York because it is a part of the country; and I like the country because it has got New York in it. 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.) PROTECTION AND PROSPERITY. 39 1 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 Fugitive Slave law, he should be ashamed if not of himself of the ignorance of the time in which he lived. That Fugi tive Slave law was a compromise, 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. (Ap plause.) I am a friend of my friend and an enemy of my enemy. That is my doctrine. We might as well be honest about it. Under that doctrine of State rights, such men as I see before me bankers, brokers, gentle men 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 North star. (Ap plause.) 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. The patronage of the splendid North is enough to sup port the city of New York. (Applause.) IN FAVOR OF PROTECTION. There is another thing. Why is this city here filled with palaces covered with wealth? Because American 392 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. labor has been protected everywhere. I am in favor of protecting American brain and muscle; I am in favor of giving scope to American ingenuity and American skill. We want a market at home, and 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. You business men in New York know that General Garfleld understands these great (A voice, ' 'Three cheers for General Garfield." They were given with a 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. 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 does the tariff, he doesn't know much. I don't like to hit the dead. My hatred stops with the grave, and we are going to bury the Democratic party next Tuesday. The pulse is feeble now, and if that party proposes to take advantage of the last hour, it is time that it goes into the repenting busi ness. Nothing pleases me better than to see the con dition of that party to-day. What do the Democrats know on the subject of the tariff? They are frightened; they are ratting. They swear their plank and platform meant nothing. They say in effect: "When we put that in we lied; and now, having made that confession, we hope you will have perfect confidence in us from this out." Hancock says the object of the party is, to get the tar- PROTECTION AND PROSPERITY. 393 iff out of politics. That is the reason, I suppose, why they have that plank in the platform, I presume he re gards the tariff as a little local issue, but I tell you to day that the great question of protecting American 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. And you can no more take it out of politics than you can take the question of Government out of politics. I want the people to settle these questions for themselves, and the people of this country are capable of doing it If you don't believe it, read the returns from Ohio and Indiana. There are other persons who would take the question of office out of politics. Well, when we get the questions of tariff and office both out of politics, then, I presume, we will see two parties on the same side. It won't do. (Laugh ter.) David A. Wells has come to the rescue of the Demo cratic party on the tariff, and shed a few pathetic tears over scrap iron. But it won't do. You can not run this country on scraps. We believe in the tariff because it gives skilled labor good pay. We believe in the tariff because it gives the laboring man something to eat. We believe in the tariff because it keeps the hands of the producer close to the mouth of the devourer. We believe in the tariff because it developed American brain; because it builds up our towns and cities; because it makes Americans self-sup porting; because it makes us an independent Nation. And we believe in the tariff because the Democratic party don't. That plank in the Democratic party was 394 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. intended for a dagger to assassinate the prosperity of the North. The Northern people have become aroused, and that is the plank that is broken in the Democratic plat form; and that plank was wide enough when it broke to let even Hancock through. DESPERATE RESORTS OF THE DEMOCRATS. Gentlemen, they are gone. ("Honor bright?") They are gone honor bright. (Laughter.) Look at the des perate means that have been resorted to by the Demo cratic 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 rep utation of a splendid man not satisfied with that, they have appealed to a crime; a deliberate and infamous forgery has been committed. That forgery has been upheld by some of the leaders of the Democratic party; that forgery has been defended by men calling themselves respectable. Leaders of the Democratic party 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 it was absolutely unlike his. They knew it, and no man that has certified it was the writing of James A. Garfield who did not know in his throat of throats it was a falsehood. Every honest man in the city of New York ought to leave such a party if he belongs to it. ("Go for Hew itt.") Every honest man (repeated cries of "Go for Hewitt.") ought to refuse to belong to a 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? And there is no man in this city who is go ing for Hewitt like Hewitt himself. PROTECTION AND PROSPERITY. 395 Senator Barnum, Chairman of the Democratic Com mittee 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. He had a little 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 old 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 of the wagon, and always say, "Gee a little, if anything," (Laughter.) And that is the only order Barnum has been able to give for two weeks "Gee a little, if anything. " (Laugh ter.) I tell you now that forgery makes doubly sure the election of James A. Garfield. The people of the North believe in honest dealing; the people of the North believe in free speech and an honest ballot. The people of the North believe that this is an honest Nation; the people of the North hate treason; the people of the North hate forgery, the people of the North hate slander. The peo ple of the North have made up their minds to give Gen. Garfield a vindication of which any American may be forever proud. GEN. GARFIELD'S CAREER. I will tell you why I am for Garfield. I know him, and I like him. No man has been nominated for the of fice since I was born, by either party, who had more 396 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. brains and more heart than James A. Garfield. He was a soldier, he is a statesman. In time of peace he pre ferred the avocations of peace; when the bugle of war blew in his ears he withdrew from his work and fought for the flag, 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 mind that he would like to kill folks for a living is no better, to say the least of it, than the man who loves peace in the time of peace, and PROTECTION AND PROSPERITY. 397 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 there is not money enough in this magnificent street to buy the honor and manhood of James A, Garfield. Mon ey cannot make such a man, and I will swear to you that money cannot buy him. James A. Garfield to-day wears the robe of honest poverty. He is a poor man, but I like to say it here in Wall street; I 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. I know him, and I like him. So do you all, gentlemen. Garfield was a poor boy; he is a certificate of our splen did form of Government. Most of these magnificent buildings have been built by poor boys; most of the suc cess of New York began almost in poverty. You know it. The kings of this street were once poor, and they maybe again poor; and if they are fools enough to vote for Hancock they ought to be. (Loud laughter and cheers.) Garfield is a certificate of the splendor of our Govern ment, 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 is a soldier; he is a patriot; and above all, he is a magnificent man; and if every man in New York knew him as well as I do, Gar- field would not lose a hundred votes in this city. And yet this is the man against whom the Demo cratic party has been howling its filth; this is the 398 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. and good man whom the Democrats 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 is willing to commit the crime of forgery. Compare him with Hancock, and then compare Gen. Arthur with William H. English. If there ever was a pure Republican in this world Gen. Arthur is one. Now gentlemen, there is no use in my talking about English. I have made up my mind to avoid unpleasant 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 4 'short." That is what the Democratic party is doing to-day. You know as well as I do that if the Democra tic party succeeds, every kind of property in the United States will depreciate. 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." I dare any broker here to deny it . There is not a man in Broad or Wall streets, or in New York, but what knows the election of Hancock will depreciate 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 coun try is prosperous, That's me. I belong to the party that believes in good crops; that is glad when a fellow PROTECTION AND PROSPERITY. 399 finds a gold mine; that rejoices when there are forty bushels of wheat to the acre; that laughs when every roilroad 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 be long to the party that is happy when the people are hap py; when the laboring man gets $3 a day; when he has roast beef on his table; when he has a carpet on the floor; when he has a picture of Garfield on the wall. I I belong to the party that is happy when everybody .smiles; when we have plenty of money; good horses; good carriages; when our wives are happy and our chil dren feel glad. I belong to the country whose banner floats side by side with the great flag of the country; that does not grow fat on defeat. The Democratic party is a party of famine; it is a good friend of an early frost; it believes in the Colorado beetle and in the weevil. When the crops are bad the Dem ocratic mouth opens from ear to ear with smiles of joy; 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 the stars are shining and waiting for us. 4OO INGERSOLLS GREAT SPEECHES. 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. Don't you go with the Democraric party, young man. If your father voted the Democratic ticket, that is dis grace enough for one family. Tell the old man that you can stand it no longer. Tell the old man that you have made up your mind to stand with the party of human progress; and if he asks you why you can not vote the Democratic ticket you tell him: "Every man that tried to destroy the Government, every man that shot at the holy flag in heaven, every man that starved our soldiers, every keeper of Libby, Andersonville 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 lib erty, that regarded 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 back was legal tender for labor performed, every one willing to rob a mother of her child every solitary one was a Democrat. " 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 earth . Tell him it makes a four per cent, bond worth $i.'io; that it satisfies the demand of the highest civilization; that it made it possi- PROTECTION AND PROSPERITY. 40 1 ble for every greenback toliold up its hand and swear, ' 'I know that my redeemer liveth." Tell the old man that the Republican party preserved the honor of the Nation; that it believes in education; that it looks upon the school house as a cathedral. (Applause.) Tell him the Republican party believes in absolute intellectual liberty^ in absolute religious freedom, in human rights, and that human rights rise above States. Tell him that, the Republican party believes in humanity, justice, hu man equality, and that the Republican party believes this a Nation for ever and ever; that an honest ballot is the breath of the Republic's life; that honest money is the 4O2 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. blood of the Republic, and that Nationality is the great throbbing beat of the heart of the Republic. Tell him that and tell him that you are going to stand by the flag that the patriots North carried upon the battlefields of death. (Cheers.) Tell him that you are going to be true to the martyred dead; that you are going to vote exactly as Lincoln would have voted were he living. Tell him that every traitor dead, were he living now, there would issue from the lips of dust, "Hurrah for Hancock;" that could every patriot rise he would cry for Garfield and liberty, for union and for human progress everywhere. Tell him that the South seeks to secure by the ballot what it lost by the bayonet; to whip by the ballot those who fought in the field. But we saved the country and we have got the heart and brains to take care of it. 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 peo ple in the North. Victors cannot afford to have malice. The North is too magnanimous to have hatred. We will treat the South precisely as we treat the North. There are thousands of good people there. 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 pros perity; their fences rebuilt; their houses painted. I want to see their towns prosperous; I want to see school houses in every town; I want to see books in the hands of every child, and papers and magazines in every house; I want to see all the rays of light of the civilization of the nineteenth century enter every home of the South; and in a little while you will see that country full of good Republicans. We can afford to be kind; we cannot af ford to be unkind. I will shake hands cordially with PROTECTION AND PROSPERITY. 403 every believer in human liberty; I will shake hands with every believer in Nationality. I will shake hands with every friend of the human race. That is my doctrine. I believe in the great Republic, in this magnificent coun try of ours. I believe in the great people of the United States. I believe in the muscle and brain of America, in the prairies and forests. I believe in New York. I believe in the brain of your city. I believe that you know enough to vote the Republican ticket. (Applause.) I believe you are grand enough to stand by the country that has stood by you. 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.) FIAT MONEY. A Talk to the Mechanics of Newark, N. J. 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 ? You can no more make a paper dollar a dollar than you can make a warehouse certificate a load of wheat. When resump tion is an accomplished fact, confidence and credit take the place of gold and silver. I admit that the Demo cratic party raised their share of corn, and pork, and wheat, and 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 of 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 to put the finances of the country into the hands of the Solid South, who had re pudiated $50,000,000 of their debts. Could such people be trusted with the honor of the country ? But the Dem- [404] FIAT MONEY. 405 ocrats talked of centralization. Their theory was that the Government was bound by the most sacred obliga tions to protect 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 for 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 mustn't interfere. It's unconstitutional. " What a monstrous mockery it was ! A Government that couldn't protect its citizens wasn't fit to exist. A flag that couldn't defend its defenders was a 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 offices at first. (Laughter and ap plause.) 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 Demo crats we never would have had a Rebellion. (Cheers and laughter.) The Democrats were partners in our na tional misfortunes. Bankruptcy, hard times, and a few chilling frosts, that would ruin the crops, would be joy to 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 thank fully received. (Laughter and applause.) Colonel Ingersoll indulged in delicious satire respecting 406 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. 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. (Laughter.) The tariff, according to General Hancock, was a purely "local" issue, with which it would be be neath 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 itself a ' 'local" issue. Of William H. English, Colonel Ingersoll would say thfe: "A man who voted against expelling the ruffians who all but mur dered Charles Sumner was not fit to be Vice-President of hell, if there was such a place. To utter his name was the meanest thing one could say of him. "What is Han cock in favor of ?" asked Colonel Ingersoll in conclusion. "You don't know, I don't know, he don't know." He says he will veto rebel claims. I tell you he won't have the chance to veto anything. Ohio vetoed him, and In- diada indorsed it. (Thunders of applause.) A ELOQUENT PERORATION. Ingersoll's Closing Words to the Jury in the Celebrated "Star Route" Law Suit. In concluding his address Colonel Ingersoll said: ' '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 supposed 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 evi dence. Here all power is powerless except your own. When asked to please the public, you should think of the lives you are asked to wreck, of the homes your ver dict would darken, of the hearts it would desolate, of the cheeks it would wet with tears, of the characters 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 consequences. 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 the consequence to the last sigh, to the last tear. [407] 408 INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES. Fou are told by Mr . Merrick that you should have no sympathy, that you should be like icicles, that you should be God-like. That is not my doctrine. The higher you get in the scale of being, the grander, the nobler, the tenderer you will become. Kindness is always an evi dence of grandness. Malice is the property of a small soul, and whoever allows the feeling of brotherhood to die in his 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 As 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 evidence 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 men tal sky, a man of genius, generous and honest. Yet this prosecution, this Government, these attorneys, repre senting the Republic, representing the only real Re public 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 because a wife in this trial has sat by her hus band's side. There is a painting in the Louvre a painting of deso lation, 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 STAR ROUTE LAW SUIT. 409 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 side (Applause), and so it is in all of human speech, the holiest word is ' -woman." [While Mr. Ingersoll was delivering this speech several ladies burst into tears, and Mrs. Dorsey kept her hand kerchief 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 an other. I have shown you that not a single charge is sub stantiated 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 founda tion for a verdict of guilty against any one particular de fendant in 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 kindness, and you, gentlemen of the jury, for your almost infinite patience, I leave my clients with all they have, with all they love, with all who love them, in your hands. (Applause.) THE END. PUBLISHED BY RHODES & MeCLURE PUBLISHING CO. 93 Washington Street, . CHICAGO. All handsomely bound in the best English and American cloths, with full silver embossed side and back stamp; uniform in style of binding. Together making a handsome library, or, separately, making handsome center table volumes. Price, $1.0O each Sent postpaid. ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S STORIES AND SPEECHES; in one volume, complete; new 1895 edition; handsomely illustrated; 473 pages. Containing the many witty, pointed and un equalled stories as told by Mr. Lincoln, including Early life stories; Professional life stories; White House and. 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