E Uaaa . Q.xW\r- 8PEECH HON. EDWARDS PIERREPONT, l)ELtVEKKI> BEKORK The Republican Mass Meeting, at Wilgus Hall, ITHICA, N. Y., October 11th, 1872, NEW YORK: Evening Post Steam Presses, 41 Nassau Street, corner Liberty. 1872. SPEECH HON. EDWARDS PIERREPONT, DELIVERED BEFORE ^> The Republican Mass Meeting, at Wilgus Hall, ITHICA, N. Y., October 11th, 1872, NEW YORK: Evening Post Steam Presses, -il Nassau Street, corner Libertv. 1872. ^^ FelJoic-Citizens : Learned naturalists tell us that the animals which came out' of the ark were the same in kind as those which now exist, and that each, after his kind, fi'om the lion to the kid, had the same appetites, the same instincts, the same animal nahire as now. Hinnan nature was the same before the flood as it is to-day. That Cain murdered his brother, you all know ; but did you ever think Avhat he killed him for? — Jealousy — that was all — jealousy, because his younger brother's oflering was more acceptable to the Lord. In- spired by the same jealousy, Joseph's brethren determined to murder him, but at the suggestion of one less cruel, they mingled a little avarice with their envy, and sold their brother as a slave." Murderers of the life, for jealousy, are a little out of date, but in their stead, we have assassins of the reputation. Formerly those who differed in opinion were put to the rack ; now they are put to the public newspapers and to public speakers ; the torture is more refined, and wrings the deep anguish from the soul, runs through the household nerves, from wife to prattling child, and fiends have new delight. In our Saviour's time they brought to him a woman who had done a wrong, and wanted to stone her to death. The Saviour said, " Well, stone her to death, as you claim to have the law, only do it in this way : gather the stones, form the ring, put her in the midst, and let him that is without sin among you, cast the first stone." These virtuous hypocrites, so eager to vindicate the law, looked one on the other, and every arm was palsied, and not a stone was thrown, and they went out one after another, and the poor woman was left unhurt, alone. But now men's consciences have grown so blunted, or they themselves have grown so free fi'om fault, that they cloud the noonday-sun with stones, which they throw so thickly at their fellow-men ; and of all, the President of the United States is the one most assailed. His ordeal, severe as that of ancient martyr, he has stood. He has walked with unshodden feet over the burning plowshares, and through the craclding flames, and the innumerable Voters of Nebraska and of Maine, of Vermont, Ohio and Pennsylvania looked on, and. when they saw him issue from the fires without a blister upon his feet or a singe upon his garment, in loud and overwhelming numbers they gave him their vote ; and all the people say : Amen ! The election of Grant is secure ; but we must redeem our great State, out of which four years ago, Gen. Grant was de- frauded b}' false counting. The news which we have just received is sure to make the Greeley men abandon the national contest and cause them to concentrate all their energies upon this State. If they can secure New York, then they have a good nucleus for future plot against the union of the States and the success of free govern- ment. The late war was not an accident. It grew out of the two great contending principles which have ever, from time to time, convulsed the world. The contest between good and evil, be- tween freedom and slaverj^, between liberty of conscience and tyranny of the soul, between God and the Devil ; and this warfare will continue, until He, whose right it is to reign, shall have put all enemies under his feet. This new plot against the Union and the liberties of the country was hatched of secession brains. It began before Mr. Greeley made his memorable tour through Texas and the South, in the Spring of 1871. After his return he made and published a speech in the city of New York, on the 12tli of June : in it sev- eral passages occur which we did not then understand, the meaning of which the Baltimore Convention made clear. As a specimen of those passages, then obscure, but since so plain, we cite the followina" : "But, gentlemen, the past is past. Let tlie dead bury theii- dead. I. am prrj'ecfly loiUinri 1o paxs rcccijiti^ v'dli /Ar Eepu]5LI- CAN Party, and .sr^?/ tliat our acroxufs are void srffJcd and. r/osyv/." Tliis was uttered by Mr. Greeley to a large assembly in the city of New York, while fresh from his meeting wdth Jeff. Davis and other leading rebels of the South. We did not then imagine that they were going to make him the Democratic candidate in 1872. But I/e did ; and hence his notice, that he was ready to close accounts and pass receipts with the Bepublican party. The account is closed — no receipts are needed — what profits he will reap from the new partnership, next November will disclose. Secession Georgia has gone for him by an over- whelming vote ; the Grant men w^ere driven from the polls. I dare say that Texas and Tennessee and other rebel States will follow this example. We can " forgive them, only be- cause they know not what they do." This Southern plot to get control of the government by the seduction of an ambitious, able Northern man, and a lifelong enemy, is not new. Reference to the past will throAv light upon the present. It was well known in the early winter of 1850, that Mr. Webster had part- ly prepared a speech in harmony with the sentiments of his life on the subject of slavery. On the i4th of February he wrote to his friend, Peter Harvey, as follows : " Washington, Feb. 14, 1850. " My dear Sir, — I do not partake, /// a?iy degree, in those ap- prehensions which you say some of our friends entertain of the dissolution of the Union, or the breaking up of the govern- ment •■ ■'■ ■'■" " I have, thus far, upon a good deal of retleotion, thought it advisable to hold my peace. If a moment shall come that any temperate, rational and practical .speecA which I can make would be usL'ful, I shall do the best I can. One purpose I wish to execute — and that is, to call on Mr. Berrien, and other South- ern gentlemen, to state distinctly luluU are these a.c:s of the North, vhich, it is said, constitvie a series of aggressions by the North on the South. " This matter ought to be looked into a little more carefully than it has been. Let the North keep cool.'' And to give a little foretaste of what that ''speech'' was to be, he wrote the very next day to Rev. Mr. Furness, of Philadel- phia, as follows : " Washington, February, 15, 1850. " My dear sir, — I was a good deal moved, I coui'eas, by read- ing your letter of the 9th January. Having regard for your tal- ents and character, I could not feel indifferent to what you said, when you intimated that there was, or might be, in me, a power to do good, not 3-et exercised or devoloped. It ma}- beso ; but I fear, my dear sir, that you overrate, not my desire, but my power, to be useful in my day and generation. From liuj ear- liest youfh I have regarded slavery as a great moral and politi- cal evil. "I think it unjust, repugnant to the natural equity of mankind, founded only on superior power ; a standing and permanent conquest by the stronger over the weaker. AH pretence of de- fending it on the ground of different races, I have ever con- demned. I have ever said that if the black man is weaker, that is a reason against — not for, his subjugation and oppression. In a religious point of view, I have ever regarded it, and ever spo- ken of it, not as subject to any express denunciations, either in the Old Testament or the New, but as opposed to the lohole spirit of the Gospel, and to the teachings of Jesus Christ. "The religion of Jesus Christ is a religion of kindness, justice and brotherly love. But slavery is not kindly aft'ectioned ; it does not let the oppressed go free. It is, as I have said, but a continued act of oppression.'' How incredible, that " the speecW which was expected to call Mr. Berrien and the other Southern gentlemen to account for their arrogant charges against the North, and in favor of " let- ting the oppressed go free," should, in tliree short tccels, have been turned into an argument in support of the most infamous law to oppress the slave, and in scorn and mockery of the " higher law," as taught by the religion of Ciirist ! A crashing thunder-clap from a cloudless sky could not have more startled the astonished North ! A Southern senator had suggested, that there was an able statesman in the North who, if his mind expanded to embrace the views and interests of the whole country, would be made the next President of the United States. All knew to whom the aUusion pointed. Webster was then sixty-eight years old. His dream of jears had been the presidency. He fancied that oft repeated dream was now to be reality ; and he suppressed his honest spech, which was in harmony with the teachings of his youth, the record of his life, the convictions of his conscience, and the holiest sentiments of every enlightened friend in the civilized world ; and perverting his great intellect to the unholy use of trying to make his trust- ing countrymen believe that right was wrong, and wrong was right ; to make them " conquer their prejudices," violate their conciences, abandon the worship of God, and prostrate them- selves before the Devil, who had, from a high mountain, jjrom- ised him, what he valued more than all the kingdoms of the world, — the Presidency,— if he would fall down and worship him,Web- ster fell before the tempter, and rose to make his memorable speech of March the 7tli, 1850. A speech which shocked the moral sense of the Christian world — made mourning in ten thousand honest hearts that loved him, and had trusted him so long, and threw into painful perplexing doubt ten times ten thousand more. But the deed was done. A conscientious wave of murmur rolled deeply down towards Washington, and the " Godlike Daniel" heard it ; but his tempters flattered him, and soon after made him Secretary of State, and told him that the presidency was near. The accursed law was passed, and to show their contempt and unutterable scorn of what they called " the dough-faced, mean and mercenary North," they inserted a provision in the bill, that if the evidence induced the commis- sioner to surrrender the hunted slave to the claimant master, then the commissioner should be paid by the United States $10 for the service, but only half that sum if the evidence showed the man was free. Webster had helped the slave-hunters to all they asked, but the slave-hunters had not yet given the promised presidency in return; but, being men of boasted honor and chivalry extreme, they will surely keep their word — of course they will ; they would challenge you, stab you, or beat you after the style of Brooks, if you suggest that they will not keep their promise to Webster. But the Convention is hard by, and in June, 1852, it met. They balotted many times ; and how many Southern votes did Mr. Webster get ? — Not a vote ! Two knoMTi and trusted slave- holders had their votes. A Virginian was nominated for President, and a North- Carolinian for Vice-President. But Webster had not one Southern vote — not one. 8 He did not wait f(jr the election, but went home to die. At Marslifield, beside the sounding sea, he looked through those solemn e^-es out upon the vast ocean : — all was gloom ; he looked within ; and memories of his young days upon New Hampshire's hills came back ; his early trust, his honest youth, his religious teachings, his manly faith in God and truth, the faces he had loved, the numbers in his adopted State who had trusted him almost as a savior, and given their consciences to his keeping ; and now they loved him sadly, but trusted him no more — the panorama of liis whole life unrolled, and he saw it all — his great. heart turned Avithin him, and of no disease, he died. There prone he lay, — the gTandest, saddest wreck, that ever stranded on ambiti(m's shore. But "his works do follow him." Northerti gentlemen were made slave-hunters for the South ; and Commissioners, sitting as Judges on human lil)erty, generally earned the ten dollars, and found evidence that the victim was a slave. Some fathers killed themselves, and some mothers killed then- children, to es- cape the horrors of slavery. The higher law was scoffed, and Northern pulpits furnished their full quota of subservient tools, and wittily laughed about the '' higher law." Two years passed on, and then in obedience to the slave-owners' mandate, that sacred compact with the North, known as the Missouri compromise, which excluded slavery "forever " from all territory north of 36° 30' was re- pealed, and a boastful senator said in his place, that he Avould "call the roll of his slaves on Bunker Hill." When this base deed of perfidy Avas done, then rose the mighty North, and the great Eepublican party sprang to life. In its first campaign it was defeated by Buchanan, but shoAved su3h strength that the South saAv that the aAvakened conscience of the North could not be hushed by threats or bribes, and that slavery was doomed. Then the plot to subvert our government earnestly began ; then followed the election of Lincoln in 18G0, which the slave- holders desired as the pretext for the overthrow of free govern- ment in the states. Buchanan was timid and infirm of purpose ; Breckeuridge Avas a bold, ambitious slave-holder from Kentucky. The first plan, in the Avinter before the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, was to force Mr. Buchanan to resign, and leave the government in the hands of Bi'eckenridge, Avhom the plotters conld trust. Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Kentucky were to join; march thirty thousand troops into Washington, de- clare the Union dissolved, and form a new union with these four States surrounding the District of Columbia, and Breck- enridge legitimately at the head ; the Southern States were all to join this now confederacy ; the north-west were to be invited in ; the middle States, it was supposed, would follow from commercial interests, and thus " a bloodless revolution," as the traitors called it, was to be accomplished, and New England, with her twelve senators and her troublesome conscience, was to be left out. This plan, written by one of the conspirators, is now in the city of New York, with comments reflecting severely upon Gov. Hicks, of Maryland, because he refused to join in the treason. I mentioned the substance of this to Gen. Scott, at West Point, during the war. " True, sir," said he — " true, sir, every word of it ; I was consulted about it — they did not ask me to join in it, but to remain quiescent ; I prevented it ; Gov. Hicks was shivering in the wind, sir, shivering in the wind, and I stiffened him up— I prevented it." This plot failing, secession followed, and the terrible war came. These men whom slavery had made tyrants could brook no interference with their absohite power. They frankly said, that they would rather " reign in hell than serve in heaven," and during four full years they enjoyed the luxury of that kind of sovereignty, until Jeff. Davis fled in the disguise of a woman's petticoats before the soldiers' of Grant. From that hour they have plotted to regain their power and restore their " lost cause ; " not bj' war — they had tried that — but by diplomacy ; nob out of the Union, but in it. They have never for one mo- ment repented — never admitted that they were wrong, but have always insisted that they were right. Jeff. Davis, in his triumphal progress through the South, in May last, denounces all as " rowarrh " who " accept the situation " and who admit that the arbitrament of the sword has decided their condition. The}^ nowhere accept the situation, but only yield to might, which they all say is not right, but only a temporary condition 10 of necessity. They remembered the great Daniel Webster, and they knew that Horace Greeley M-as from the same granite State, but of less granite stuti", of a more restless and equally unsatisfied ambition, and they singled him out as their man. Mr. Greeley was not the choice of the Liberal Republicans, but was forced upon them by the intrigues of the secessionists of the South, allied with the copperheads of the North. The same breed of men which tempted Daniel Webster from his allegiance to tlie North and to freedom, have now seduced Mr, Greeley to abandon his convictions of a lifetime for the hope of the Presidency. This is a secession plot, an unnatural alliance, a coalition, in which every hater of the Union joins. It will surely fail. The forces will be routed and scattered in disgrace, and thousands who are now in the combination will be ashamed of it and conceal it as a crime. It is based upon no principle. It is neither natural or honest, and it must come to grief. Do the Democratic party think that Mr. Greeley is /// to be President ? Does Mr. Greeley think that the Democratic Party- are fit to inoko a president? Hear what each says of the other ! So recently as the 6th of last June, the World cited a large number of extracts from the Tribune, to prove that no Demo- crat with the slightest self-respect, could support Mr. Greeley. Out of a large number of these extracts from the TrUmne, I read a few : '■ If there w^ere not a newspaper nor a common school in the country, the democratic party would be far stronger than it iit\ Neither elementary instruction nor knowledge of transyjiriug events, is necessary to teach tlie essential articles of the demo- cratic creed : ' Love rum and have niggers.' The less one learns and knows, the more certain he is to 'vote the larger ticket, from A to Izzard.' ''' " If democracy has concocted or borrowed an ' interference theory,' which justifies such meddliug, it is a worse tlicor)' than even we had su))])()S(>d. All do know that there are several hundred thousand nmlattocs in this country ; and we presume no one has any serioirs doubt that the fathers o^ at least nine- tenths of them, are white democrats." " The World recently gave a graphic account of the dens and denizens which give character to the Five Points, and other 11 ' slums' of our city — a class, perhaps, lower in the scale of being than can be found in any heathen city on earth." " We thereupon asl^-ixl our contemporary to state franlcly whether the pugiHsts, bhick-legs, thieves, bui'glars, keejx'rs of dens of prostitution, ttc, &c., who make uj) so larg(i a sliare of our city's inhabitants, were not almost unanimously demo- crats." " For the last thirty years, every American slave-holder on the African coast, has accounted himself in politics a democ]\xt. So, every one who chooses to live by pugilism, or gambling, or harlotry, with nearly every keeper of a tipi)ling-liouse, is i^olili- cally a democrat." Speaking of the Democratic party, he said : " It is rebel at the core to-day — hardly able to reconcile the defeats of Lee, Johnston, Bragg, Hood and Price, and the con- sequent downfall of its beloved Confederacy, with its traditional faith in Divine Providence. It would hail the election of a Democratic President in 1872 as a virtual reversal of the Ap- pomattox surrender. It would come into power with the hate, the chagrin, the wrath, the mortification of ten bitter years to impel and guide its steps. It would devote itself to taking ofi' or reducing tax after tax, until the Treasury was deprived of the means of paying interest on the national debt, and would hail the tidings of national bankruptcy with unalloyed gladness and unconcealed exultation. Whatever chastisement may be deserved for our national sins, we must hope that this disgrace and humiliation will be spared us." And the World, commenting upon these extracts, said : " If he does still think that all the vilest classes, all the scum and dregs of the community, are drawn to the Demo- cratic Party by a sympathetic chord, he disgraces himself in asking for democratic suffrages ; and if these incessant charges of thirty years are wanton calumnies, it would be an indescribable baseness on the part of Democrats to adopt him as their candidate. If the party is infected with such a loath- some moral leprosy as he has so perpetually asserted, how \\.iiev\y vile avrl sordi'i m>i-'^t he his hanker imj for office to 'tonteoJso among thern ! ' He wound up one of hi^Joid tirades against the Democracy by saying: ' May it he wrilfeu on my grave that 1 luus never its Jolloioer, and lived and died in nothing its debtor.' And let the people say, Amen ! " And on the 25th of last Maj, this same World newspaper said : 12 " We have domoDstrated, over and over again, that Mr. Greeley is an unfair disputant ; that he is' fun-iwi'sc, irjvnravt, wronri-headed, sophisticaL and argument at ively diahoned ; thai Ids views are at all points ojojMsite to those of the Democratic Party ; that his judgment is as unsound as Ids imj>>dses are wayirardy * It estimates Mr. Greeley now, as itself and all Democrats estimated him up to the moment of his unexpected nomina- tion ; and because it keeps right on in maintaining its long- settled opinion of a man whom it has alwa3'S regarded a.v a fanatic and a charlatan, it is — 'erratic' Which is ninch the same thing as saying that a line of undeviating straightness runs zig-zag. " Mr. Greeley is a very antithesis of a Democrat. He has strenuously fought the Democratic Party all his life. There is no one question, citlier of jDrinciple or policy, on tuhich he agrees ivith us except the transient question of amnesty. By nominating him lue should stultify ourselves as Free Traders ; stultify our- selves as opponents of the paternal tJicory of government ; stultify oursehes as the champions of State Hights ; stultify ourselves as antagonists of the Ku-Kluo: law, tlte odious bayonet election laic, martioJ law in the Southern States, and the tvJujle series of sub- jugating measures ivhich 3Jr. Greeley lias champ/ioned, and the Democratic Party has unanimously opjjosed, ivithin the last tiuo or three years. We have not altered our opinion of tiiese detest- able laws, and Mr. Greeley has not changed his. For either to change now, or rather to profess a change, in order to help on the proposed coalition, would have such an air of insincerity that the self-respect of both parties should forbid them to publish so holloiv a renunciation." On the 5th of last June, the World further said : " The truth is, that Mr. Greeley has next to no Republican strength, and that his most active Democratic supj^ort comes from tlie trailing element of Die party and the folloicers ivhic/i thai element controls. It Avas, therefore, a cunning piece of strategy to hold the ratification meeting in this city, the seat of the shivered Tammany Ring. If the sheep were fairly separated from the goats it Avould be foiind that Mr. Greeley's supporters in this cit}' consist almost entirely a/' that class of Democrats wiiom he has been accustomed to denounce in the Tribune as the th'egs and ott'scouring of creation." Mr. O'Coiior, in a letter to Judge Lyon, of Richmond, dated September yOth, 1812, speaking of the Southern men and of Mr. Greeley, says : 13 " The desolation of which they complain is attributable to him. The long and disastrous war that filled his " bloody chasm" with fratricidal slaughter, and involved tin; whole coun- tr}' in debt and demoralization is due to the " uiKHjuahHl energy," combined with the folly, of this one exceedingly able, exceed- ingly amiable and exceedingly niistthicvous man. I regard the possibility'' of his election with inexpressible aversion. If the ideas of heathen times prevailed, I would cheerfully sur- render my person as a sacrifice on the altar of that deity whoso controlling events might thus be propitiated and induced to save my country from the impending evil.'" These extracts abundantly show how hollow, how false, dis- honest and unnatural is this coalition of the Greeley men with the Democratic Party. The people have never distrusted Gen. Grant, and he has never distrusted them ; in our darkest hour he did not doubt for one moment that the people would vote right ; we are apt to trust those who trust us, and to hke those who like us. When the first news of the North Carolina election came and looked so gloomy for our cause, the President said to an old life-long friend, " General, don't be disturbed, you and I have camped out ui:)on the plains, and heard the wolves howl at night ; you would think from the noise that there were a thousand, but we know that there were not more than three." The false howling from North Carolhia did not disturb the President at all. The news which we have just received from Pennsylvania and Ohio assures the success of Gen. Grant. His elec- tion means peace, continued, and vastly increased pros- perity. All business-men feel that, and many a democrat M'ill deposit a silent vote for Gen. Grant, rather than risk the com- mercial disturbance and financial distrust which would follow the election of Mr. Greeley. I concede that to a capitahst of collossal means, general prosperity is not always the most profitable. Disturbance and financial distress vastly increases the opportunity of such men to double their wealth. They take advantage of the depressed market, and make heavy purchases of stocks, of bonds, of goods of various kinds, and when the market turns, they sell at enormous profit. The beginning of the war caused great commercial distress, and soon the great fortunes were 14 largely increased, -wLile many oi the smaller ones perished utterly. The relative distance between the ric/t, and those of moderate means has \vid