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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL SURVEY, 
 
* 
 
ADDRESSES 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2018 with funding from 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 https://archive.org/details/addressesofhonjoOOthur 
 
. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 

 * 
 
Were I to frame a platform for the Republican 
 
 party , it would mean this : 
 
 The supremacy of the Constitution of the United 
 States; 
 
 The maintenance of law and order; 
 
 The suppression of anarchy and crime ; 
 
 The protection of every American citizen in his 
 right to live, to labor, and to vote ; 
 
 A vigorous foreign policy ; 
 
 The enforcement of the Monroe doctrine ; 
 
 Safety under the stars and stripes on every sea and 
 in every port ; 
 
 The restoration of our merchant marine ; 
 
 The tariff of William McKinley and the reciprocity 
 of James G. Blaine ; 
 
 American markets for American products ; 
 
 The protection of the American farm, the American 
 factory and the American mine from foreign pau¬ 
 per competition ; 
 
 Such legislation as will guarantee steady employ¬ 
 ment and good wages to the workingmen of this 
 country; 
 
 A free ticket to China for any man who insists upon 
 his right to buy the product of human labor with¬ 
 out paying a fair price to the brain and braun 
 which produces it; 
 
 / 
 
 The enactment of Federal legislation adequate to se¬ 
 cure a free ballot and a fair count in every voting 
 
 j o 
 
 precinct of the Union; 
 
 A one term Presidency; 
 
 The election of United States Senators by direct 
 
 j 
 
 vote of the people; 
 
 The establishment of a postal telegraph system; 
 
The governmental supervision and control of trans¬ 
 portation lines and rates; 
 
 The protection of the people from all unlawful com¬ 
 bination and unjust exaction of aggregated capital 
 and corporate power; 
 
 War on the three great Democratic trusts—oil y 
 whisky and sugar; 
 
 The abolition of all sectionalism; one people; one 
 country; one flag; 
 
 A political crop failure for the calamity howlers and 
 fusion jugglers; 
 
 A pension policy just and generous to our living 
 heroes and the widows and orphans of their dead 
 comrades; 
 
 The utmost expansion of our currency consistent 
 with the maintenance of the equal purchasing 
 and debt paying power of every dollar; 
 
 American mints for American mines; 
 
 The free coinage of the American product of silver 
 and gold into honest money; 
 
 An American welcome to every God-fearing, liberty 
 loving, constitution respecting, law-abiding, labor 
 seeking, decent man; 
 
 The deportation and exclusion of all whose birth; 
 whose blood; whose condition; whose teachings; 
 whose practices would menace the permanancy of 
 free institutions; endanger the safetv of American 
 society, or lessen the opportunities of American 
 labor; 
 
 An American flag for everv American school house; 
 
 A deathless loyalty to American institutions and a 
 patriotism eternal as the stars. 
 
 JOHN M. THURSTON. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Hon. John M. Thurston, 
 
 Temporary Chairman of the Republican 
 Na tional Co n vent ion. 
 
 Delivered at Chicago, June 19 , 1888 , 
 
 Gentlemen of the Convention: I am deeply sensi¬ 
 ble of the distinguished honor conferred upon me as the 
 presiding officer of your temporary organization. I am 
 also mindful of the grave responsibilities of the posi¬ 
 tion, and if they arc successfully met it will be due to 
 the continuance of your generous favor and the bestowal 
 of your loyal assistance. 1 have no words in which to 
 fittingly express my heartfelt appreciation of your con¬ 
 fidence. I thank you, gentlemen, not for myself alone, 
 but on behalf of that great and growing West, which 
 never disappoints the expectations of the Republican 
 party. I come from a State whose broad domain has 
 been largely appropriated by the surviving veterans of 
 the Army of the Republic under the beneficient pro¬ 
 visions of the homestead laws enacted by a Republican 
 congress, and, true to the heroic recollections of the 
 past, the homesteaders of the West still march on under 
 the banner of Republicanism. In victory and defeat, in 
 sunshine and in storm, in prosperity and adversity, this 
 mighty West retains the courage of its convictions and 
 holds that devotion to a just cause, though it brings de¬ 
 feat, is better than victory achieved at the expense of 
 broken vows and political dishonor. We are met in 
 National Convention for deliberation and conference. 
 The Republican party of the United States relies upon 
 
 1 
 
the wisdom of its assembled delegates for such action as 
 will insure success. If we are prepared to honestly 
 meet the supreme issues of the hour with a clear, fear¬ 
 less and ringing declaration of our principles, and to 
 nominate a ticket that will commend itself to the loyalty 
 and intelligence of the country, we can grandly win. 
 We enter upon the proceedings of this convention pre¬ 
 pared to submit individual judgment to the wisdom of 
 the majority, and to lay down personal preferences on 
 the altar of party success. When our candidates are 
 nominated we will all join, heart and soul, in the grand 
 chorus of rejoicing; and the rainbow of our harmony 
 will give certain promise of a victorious morning in 
 November. When the Democratic party, at the close 
 of the last Presidential election, robbed us of a victory 
 fairly won, we patiently waited for the certain coming 
 of the justice of the years. We hoped and believed that 
 1888 would right the great political wrong of 188 -f. 
 Right it, not only for the Republican party, but for the 
 grand and glorious candidates whose names were the in- 
 spiration of that wonderful campaign. The wisdom of 
 an all wise Providence has otherwise decreed. One of 
 them—that citizen soldier, that warrior statesman, the 
 Black Eagle of Illinois, has been summoned by the 
 Silent Messenger to report to his old commander beyond 
 the river. But John A. Logan—dead in the body— 
 lives in the illuminated pages of his country’s most 
 splendid history—lives in the grateful love of a free 
 people, whose union he so gallantly fought to preserve 
 —lives in the blessings of a down-trodden race, whose 
 freedom he so manfully struggled to achieve—lives in 
 the future song and story of a hero-worshipping world; 
 and along the highway of the Nation’s glory, side by 
 side with old John Brown, Abraham Lincoln and 
 Ulysses S. Grant, his soul goes marching on. The 
 other—that gallant leader, the chevalier of American 
 politics, the glory of Republicanism and the nightmare 
 of Democracy, our Henry of Navarre—is seeking in 
 
 9 
 
foreign travel needed relaxation and rest from the cares 
 © 
 
 and responsibilities of long public life and service. 
 With the magnanimity of his greatness he has denied us 
 the privilege of supporting him in this convention. 
 Holding above all other things party harmony and suc¬ 
 cess, he has stepped from the certain ladder of his laud¬ 
 able ambition that some other man may climb to power. 
 As his true friends we must not, dare not, commit the 
 political crime of disobedience to his expressed will. 
 We cannot place him at the head of the ticket, but we 
 can make him commander-in chief of the forces in the 
 field, where he will be invincible. And though James 
 G. Blaine may not be our President, yet he remains our 
 uncrowned king, wielding the baton of acknowledged 
 leadership, supreme in the allegiance of his devoted fol¬ 
 lowers, honored and respected by all honest and loyal 
 men—the greatest living American, and the worthy 
 object of our undying love. But the Republican party 
 is not left without great men to place upon its ticket. 
 We h ave that honest, able and experienced financier, 
 statesman and senator from Ohio, and his no less dis¬ 
 tinguished colleague from Iowa. Indiana, Michigan and 
 Wisconsin present to us the names of distinguished 
 soldiers, while New York, New Jersey, Kansas, Con¬ 
 necticut and other States have favorite and worthy 
 sons. From this splendid galaxy of political stars we 
 cannot choose amiss. The Republican party points 
 with pride to the mighty achievements of its past, and 
 offers as an earnest of its future faithfulness an un¬ 
 broken record of great deeds done for freedom, union 
 and national prosperity. It is pre-eminently the party 
 of protection. It was born of the irresistible desire to 
 proteet the slave from the lash of the master, and to 
 save our civilization from the blighting curse of its 
 crime against humanity. It performed its sacred mission 
 of protecting the Republic from secession and disunion; 
 and, in the later time, it succeeded in protecting both the 
 credit and currency of the Nation from repudiation and 
 
inflation. Its platform epitomized, stands for the pro¬ 
 tection of popular government upon the American con¬ 
 tinent; stands for the protection of all govern¬ 
 mental and international rights from restriction 
 or invasion; stands for the protection of the life, 
 liberty, and property of the individual; stands for 
 the protection of every privilege and immunity of 
 American citizenship; stands for the protection of 
 the ballot box from the crimes of .intimidation, 
 robbery and substitution; stands for the protection 
 of American commerce, American manufacture and 
 American agriculture from disastrous foreign competi¬ 
 tion; stands for the protection of home invention, home 
 skill and home labor from the free trade heresies which 
 would degrade and pauperize them all; stands for the 
 protection of the people from all unlawful combination 
 and unjust exaction of aggregated capital and corporate 
 power; stands also for the protection of both capital 
 and corporation from confiscation and mob violence; 
 and above all, stands for the protection and sanctity of 
 the American home. It welcomes to our shores the 
 downtrodden and oppressed of every land, but it de¬ 
 mands that the inestimable blessing of American citi¬ 
 zenship, purchased with the priceless blood of heroes 
 and martyrs, shall be conferred only upon those who are 
 in full sympathy and accord with the fundamental prin¬ 
 ciples of our Government and who will loyally support 
 the sacred provisions of the Constitution of the United 
 States. And it holds that Congress has the power to 
 protect our civilization and morality from the leprosy 
 of Asiatic paganism, contamination and degradation. 
 It maintains that the benefits of free government should 
 be extended to all true lovers of liberty, but it insists 
 that the law of the land shall be a shield only to 
 those who obey it, and that for the Anarchist, the Com¬ 
 munist, and the criminal American, justice has nothing 
 to offer but its sword. The reconstructed Democracy 
 has now been in power nearly four years. Its adminis- 
 
 4 
 
 
tration has been most satisfactory to those who hold 
 office under it. Its loyalty has been so pronounced as 
 to receive the approval of every enemy of the govern¬ 
 ment. The courage of its foreign policy has amused 
 the great powers and pleased every coward. Its civil 
 service has been so thoroughly reformed as to delight 
 Mr. Higgins. Its justice to the disabled soldiers has 
 won golden opinions from those who gave them their 
 wounds. Its financial management has been safe be¬ 
 cause of its inability to destroy the resulting prosperity 
 of Republican legislation. And its unparalleled straddle 
 of the tariff question has been a source of wonderment 
 to “gods and men." It is strong in the imbecility of 
 “innocuous desuetude," and deserves to live as a remin¬ 
 iscence of promises forgotten and pledges unfulfilled. 
 There are those in the land who say that the mission of 
 the Republican party is at an end—that the Emancipa¬ 
 tion Proclamation, Appomattox, and the Constitutional 
 amendments are at once the monuments of its 
 glory and the gravestones of its demise. But 
 the work of the Republican party will never be 
 done until every American citizen enters into his 
 unquestioned inheritance of liberty, equal rights and 
 justice; until representation in Congress is based upon 
 votes freely cast and fairly counted; until adequate pro¬ 
 vision has been made for the helplessness and old age of 
 our surviving veterans and the widows and orphans of 
 their dead comrades; until those policies of government 
 which insure national and individual prosperity are 
 firmly established, and until patriotism and loyalty are 
 the only qualifications, except fitness, for official posi¬ 
 tion in the service of the republic. There are those 
 who insist that the Republican party keeps alive the old 
 sectional feeling and refuses to let “the dead past bury 
 its dead." The Republican party longs and prays for 
 ths speedy coming of the millennium of its hope, when 
 Mason and Dixon's line, in spirit as in fact, is obliter¬ 
 ated forever; when fraternal ties and common interests 
 
 o 
 
unite us all; when the people are found rejoicing to¬ 
 gether that the inherited institution of human slavery 
 
 CD 4/ 
 
 was destroyed by the justice of God; glad together 
 that the holy bonds of union could not be severed; 
 hopeful together for a magnificent national destiny; 
 loyal together to a common country and its uncon¬ 
 quered flag. But when that glad time comes, black 
 and white must march side by side in the broad sun¬ 
 shine of safety and lie down to peaceful slum¬ 
 ber in the untroubled • shadows of protected 
 homes. The Republican party turns to the new 
 South with wide-open arms. It offers loyal as¬ 
 sistance in the development of its agriculture, 
 the opening of its mines and the upbuilding of its man¬ 
 ufactories. It proposes to break down the barrier of 
 unpleasant memories with the hope of a new prosperity. 
 The distinctive issue of tne present campaign is that of 
 the tariff. To the support of a protective tariff there 
 will rise up an overwhelming army of intelligent, 
 thoughtful and practical men; and the East and West, 
 the North and South, will join hands together in one 
 final effort to forever exterminate in this Republic the 
 pernicious doctrine of free trade. As we gather here 
 we remember that other grand convention held in this 
 city in 1860 . We remember how it was given wisdom 
 and courage to select that great man of the people—that 
 Moses who led 11s through the parted waters of the sea, 
 past the wilderness of battle, over the Jordan of safety 
 into the Promised Land. In 1881 we were driven back 
 into the wilderness again. God give us the wisdom to 
 
 find another Moses who can limit our wanderings to 
 four years instead of forty. The mighty past is with 
 us here to-day. It fills us with that same spirit of free¬ 
 dom, patriotism and devotion which breathed into the 
 common dust of ordinary humanity the sublime inspira¬ 
 tion of heroic deeds. Let us read its lessons rightly 
 and hold its precepts dear. When Robert Bruce, King 
 of Scotland, lay upon his dying bed he requested that 
 
 6 
 
his heart should he taken from his inanimate body and 
 borne by knightly hands to the Savior’s sepulchre. 
 After his death, James, Earl of Douglas, undertook 
 the sacred mission, and, with the heart encased in a 
 golden casket, set out upon his pilgrimage to the Holy 
 Land. On the way thither himself and comrades were 
 set upon by a great host of Moorish warriors. Though 
 they fought with all the vallor of mortal men, they were 
 borne backward by sheer force-of numbers, and their 
 overthrow seemed certain, when Douglas, drawing from 
 his bosom the priceless casket, cast it far out into the 
 midst of the oncoming host, and cried out: “Lead on, 
 Heart of Bruce, we follow thee." And the knights of 
 Scotland, never defeated while following a Bruce, 
 pressed forward, and won the day. Let this convention 
 choose a Douglas for our Bruce. He will take the soul 
 
 V_ 
 
 of our great martyr into the golden casket of his love, 
 and with it lead us on to certain and splendid victory. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED BY 
 
 Hon. John M. Thurston, 
 
 AT CENTRAL MUSIC HALL, 
 
 Chicago, April 30, 1880, 
 
 ON the; occasion of the obskrvence of the 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL CENTENNIAL OF 
 THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen: —The inauguration of 
 George Washington as President of the United States 
 put an end forever to the divine right of kingly rule. 
 Despots still hold in subjugation the lives and liberties 
 of unwilling subjects. Emperors still surround with 
 the splendor of courtly pageantry their crumbling 
 thrones. Kings, shorn of their royal prerogatives by 
 the gradual encroachments of parliamentary power, still 
 wield their puny scepters and, in imagination, govern 
 as of old. But the saintly mask no longer hides the 
 hideous face of oppression, and the clamor of the great 
 bell on Independence Hall awakened the whole world to 
 the glad knowledge that the divine right of government 
 is in the people. When Paul Revere rode through the 
 night, rousing the sons of liberty with the cry, “To 
 arms!" he not only summoned the patriots of Massachu¬ 
 setts to the unequal struggle and martyrdom of the 
 morrow, but he summoned the genius of universal free¬ 
 dom to the revolution of humanity against the injustice 
 and oppression of a slave-cursed world. That revolu- 
 
 1 
 
tion did not end with the surrender of Cornwallis at 
 Yorktown; it still goes on wherever some desperate 
 martyr hurls his bare breast against the bayonets of 
 despotic power and with his life makes way for the 
 liberties of his fellow men. It still goes on wherever 
 some great constitutional leader dares to combat the 
 prejudices of political associates, that government may 
 be administered to all alike. It still goes on wherever 
 the mighty engine of a free press scourges injustice with 
 its scorpion lash; it still goes on wherever eloquence and 
 song have power to stir the souls of man; it still goes on 
 wherever from Christian pulpit is preached the living 
 word of God. And this mighty revolution will be 
 carried on by every people and in every land until the 
 glorious sunshine of its victorious day rests with equal 
 splendor upon all the earth. On this centennial occasion 
 our hearts are tilled with gratitude to those great men 
 
 C; cj 
 
 of old whose inspired patriotism, lofty courage, and 
 sublime sacrifices wrought the miracle of American 
 independence. They toiled and struggled, not for them¬ 
 selves, but for all future generations. They did not 
 dream what mighty strides would mark the Nation's 
 onward path. They saw but dimly through the mists 
 of years the possibilities of time. They sought no 
 honors, asked for no reward; they laid their lives as 
 willing offerings upon the altar of duty, content to know 
 that what they did was for the sacred cause of right. 
 Who can fitly commemorate the courage and devotion 
 of those patriots and heroes of '76 ( What pen can 
 write, what tongue can speak their fitting meed of 
 praise ? History has immortalized 300 Spartans, who, 
 at Thermopylae, kept the gateway of their country until 
 all but one had died. The chivalrous devotion of Na¬ 
 poleon's old guard, who at Waterloo made absolute verity 
 of their watchword, “The old guard dies, but never 
 surrenders," has filled the world with wonder, and the 
 song of a Tennyson has thrilled the hearts of all man¬ 
 kind with the story of the noble six hundred who at 
 
 2 
 
Halaklava charged an army. The minute men of Lex¬ 
 ington and Hunker Hill; the defenders of the old log fort 
 in Charlestown harbor; the refugees of Valley Forge 
 yea, “ every ragged rebel of them all " should l>e canon¬ 
 ized as saints in the cathedral of liberty, and the memory 
 of their glorious deeds will live undimmed forever. And 
 not alone by those who drew the sword for freedom are 
 the laurels to be won. There were great men of peace 
 whose wisdom and statesmanship guided the struggling 
 colonies, armed, equipped and maintained their armies, 
 brought order and union out of the chaos of conflicting 
 interests, and finally confirmed by wise constitutional 
 provision the victories of war. Such names as those of 
 Adams, Franklin, Jefferson and Madison have reached 
 to the full stature of immortality. Having gained their 
 independence and formulated their constitution, the 
 people of the new Union were called upon to select a 
 chief magistrate. George Washington was elected our 
 first President by unanimous choice. He might have 
 made himself a dictator, and perhaps a monarch, but he 
 only accepted the exalted Presidential office for the pur¬ 
 pose of more certainly establishing constitutional 
 government in the land, and for the people his sword 
 made free. We stand at the close of our country's 
 completed century. In place of the original thirteen 
 colonies there are now thirty-eight populous, thriving, 
 magnificent commonwealths, while four new stars already 
 cast their dawning glory across the azure of the Nation's 
 flag. From less than four millions who struggled 
 through the desperate night of revolution to the morn¬ 
 ing of constitutional fieedom, we have grown to sixty 
 million happy people — all in the full enjoyment of in¬ 
 dividual liberty — all in exact measure protected by the 
 law of the land — all with equal opportunity pursuing 
 the prosperous paths of peace. The wilderness of the 
 New World has, indeed, been made to blossom with the 
 rose of civilization. Into the depths of the primeval 
 forest the ax of the sturdy pioneer has led the wav. 
 
 3 
 
The virgin prairies, wakened from their eons of repose, 
 repay the efforts of patient husbandry with the richest 
 gifts of garnered sheaves. From the golden hearts 
 of our mountains has been brought to light the count- 
 less billions of their hoarded wealth. The ingenuity 
 of man has chained the rivulet and the river, the cata¬ 
 ract and the waterfall to turn the wheel that toils for 
 him. From Orient to Occident, over the great steel 
 highways, thunders the commerce of the world; grand 
 and thriving cities rise along the way, their apparent 
 growth of centuries wrought by the magic of a few 
 short years. Wonderful labor-saving machines have 
 multiplied the power of human hands, while the inven¬ 
 tive Yankee has fathomed the miracle of electric force 
 and compelled the lightning to perform the will of man. 
 In every valley nestles the cottage of contented labor; 
 in every hamlet stands the temple of free education; on 
 every hillside rises the church spire of a God-given faith. 
 This is the only land where man is truly free. The 
 only land in which there is no rank, no caste, no aris¬ 
 tocracy of blood, of birth, of wealth, of place. It is 
 the only country where labor is fairly paid, where the 
 industrious workingman, out of the accumulated sav¬ 
 ings of his daily toil, can pay for the pleasant home m 
 which he lives, and send his children to the public 
 schools. It is the only place where the peasant is a 
 prince, and the plowboy may become the President. 
 Yes, thank God for it, in the United States the sweat of 
 honest toil is honorable and honored, and the dinner 
 pail in the hands of an American mechanic is the badge 
 of America’s truest nobility. We offer to confer upon 
 every man, who will understandingly and in good faith 
 accept the sacred trust, the priceless rights and fran¬ 
 chises of American citizenship; but no man must be 
 permitted to profane the sanctuary of liberty with un¬ 
 holy presence who does not subscribe with his whole 
 heart and soul to the tenets of our Constitution, and 
 who is not ready to yield implicit obedience to the stat- 
 
 4 
 
utes of the country whose* protection Ik; invokes. The 
 United States of America must never become the asy¬ 
 lum of criminals, or the hot-bed of conspiracies against 
 law and order. The government of the people, made 
 possible by the sword of a Washington, preserved by 
 the victories of a Grant, and consecrated by the martyr¬ 
 dom of a Lincoln, must never be endangered by the 
 dissemination of those monstrous theories which would 
 overturn all government for anarchy, and subvert all 
 society to the dominion of unbridled passion and brute 
 force. (Tremendous applause.) 
 
 And now, as a Nation, we face the sunrise of a second 
 century. What a splendid destiny awaits our glorious 
 Union if its people keep the faith. And yet its path¬ 
 way may be beset by many dangers, its sky obscured 
 by many clouds. This Republic can only live so long 
 as it holds to the original purposes of its creation — to 
 protect the lives, to insure the liberties, and to promote 
 the happiness of all its people. Its corner-stone is tin* 
 consent of the governed; that consent only continues so 
 long as all are given equal voice in its affairs. The 
 great crisis which this Nation faced in 1861 came to it 
 not because of any inherent lack of constitutional power 
 to preserve its unity; but it came because the framers of 
 our Constitution denied to one class of their fellow men 
 that same measure of liberty and equality which they 
 demanded for themselves. The Constitution of the 
 United States was framed and adopted as a partial com¬ 
 promise to an existing condition of things. The repre¬ 
 sentatives of the thirteen colonies, assembled for the 
 purpose of creating national government, felt that the 
 necessities of union overshadowed all other considera¬ 
 tions, and, therefore, they temporized upon the question 
 of human rights. Such a compromise could not out¬ 
 last the conscience of the nineteenth century. The 
 institution of human slavery was inconsistent with tin* 
 Declaration of Independence. A government which 
 proclaimed liberty and equality as a God-given heritage, 
 
 
and yet denied both to one class of its people, could not 
 withstand the test of time. The culmination of the 
 irrepressible conflict between right and wrong, justice 
 and crime, humanity and oppression, was sure to come. 
 It was a conflict far antedating the adoption of our 
 Federal Constitution. The Puritans of New England 
 and the Cavaliers of Virginia brought to this country 
 two irreconcilable theories of the rights of men. Both 
 were descendants of that grand race which first success¬ 
 fully set up the bulwark of law against the unrestricted 
 will of kings. Their common ancestors in 1215 had 
 wrested from unwilling royalty the great Magna 
 Charta — that sublime declaration of the power of the 
 people — the great constitutional landmark of human 
 liberty. But the Cavaliers brought from the old world 
 their inherited traditions of superiority. The Pilgrims 
 planted on the shores of the new world the great white 
 cross of a second crusade —its Mecca the' shrine of equal 
 rights. The Declaration of Independence breathed the 
 spirit of the Puritan faith. The Constitution of the 
 United States submitted to the domination of the 
 Cavalier. The supreme hour of the Nation came; its 
 life weighed in the balance as against the sin; it was de¬ 
 manded that one or the other should perish from the 
 earth, and the Republic lived. r \ he genesis of American 
 liberty was in the Declaration of Independence; but the 
 gospel of its New Testament was written by Abraham 
 Lincoln in the Emancipation Proclamation, and the 
 Magna Charta of man’s real freedom and equality was 
 secured by Ulysses S. Grant under the shadow of a 
 Virginia apple tree — Appomatox and Plymouth Rock, 
 the one the complement of the other, — God’s two foot¬ 
 steps marching on. Massachusetts and Virginia, 
 commonwealth and dominion, are at last wedded at the 
 altar of a common faith, and on this sacred centennial 
 of constitutional freedom the descendants of Roundhead 
 and Cavalier all unite in thanksgiving to Almighty 
 God for the preservation of the Union on the basis of 
 
universal liberty. And the time will never come when 
 American people can afford to divide their joint inheri¬ 
 tance of Mount Vernon and Bunker Hill. 
 
 This retrospection of the mighty past is pregnant with 
 wisdom for future guidance. 
 
 It is almost impossible to hope that the present un¬ 
 paralleled era of prosperity and peace can be continued 
 through all future time. 
 
 In the marvelous development of the United States; 
 in the rapid accumulation of unprecedented wealth; in 
 the amalgamation of many nationalities; in the unseemly 
 greed for place and power; in the startling combina¬ 
 tions of corporate capital; in the rapid growth of great 
 cities; in the tendency toward class distinctions; in the 
 establishment of a mushroom aristocracy, and in the 
 growing discontent of the laboring masses, is there not 
 danger to the Republic? 
 
 Rome was a republic once. And to be a Roman was 
 greater than to be a king. Her strength was in the 
 rugged manhood and Spartan simplicity of her citizen¬ 
 ship, but, grown over-rich and strong her people sunk 
 their virtues in a maelstrom of luxury and vice and for¬ 
 feited their liberties forever. The free states of Greece 
 perished in the same way, and from the same cause. 
 
 It would be useless to deny the fact that in the United 
 States there is a growing tendency to subordinate ab¬ 
 stract right to concrete gain. The worshipers of Mam¬ 
 mon are on the increase, and the man of money too 
 often takes undue precedence in social and political life 
 over the man of brains. 
 
 This unjust aggrandisement of the rich is the tempta¬ 
 tion of the struggling poor. It breeds that spirit of 
 restlessness and discontent which sometimes incites to 
 lawlessness and crime. It may well be feared that on 
 some not impossible to-morrow of financial distress, the 
 ostentatious extravagance and unwarranted arrogance 
 
 o p 
 
 of the few may drive the struggling masses to desperate 
 measures. 
 
Do not misunderstand me. I would not sanction any 
 resort to violence for the redress of real or imaginary 
 
 cD> J 
 
 wrongs. 
 
 The law must be respected and enforced or liberty is 
 impossible. The rights of property must remain in¬ 
 violate, and justice will not tolerate illegal acts. Mobs 
 are a menace to free government and should be dis 
 persed by the iron hand of power. But I would make a 
 mob impossible by the observance of that equality and 
 the dispensation of that fellowship which recognizes the 
 common brotherhood of the human race. 
 
 There is no danger that any law will hereafter dis¬ 
 grace the statutes of our country which, by declaration 
 or effect, refuses to any American citizen equal partici¬ 
 pation in the rights and privileges of citizenship. But it 
 is at least possible that public sentiment, either locally 
 or throughout the country, may become so strong in 
 favor of the especial rights and privileges of some par¬ 
 ticular class as to permit injustice to go unpunished. 
 This should never be. If we are worthy of the freedom 
 we enjoy, if we are lit to participate in the blessings of 
 popular government, if we are God-fearing, law abid¬ 
 ing, patriotic people, then we should see to it that every 
 American citizen, high or low, rich or poor, at home or 
 abroad, on land or sea, is protected in his right to live, 
 to labor, and to vote; not only by legislative enactment, 
 not only by administrative power, but by the ready 
 sympathy of every American heart and the loyal assist¬ 
 ance of every American hand. Thus will we realize the 
 prophecy of our Lincoln that 4 This government of the 
 people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish 
 from the earth A 
 
 It is worthy of solemn reflection that upon the morn¬ 
 ing of the day which was to witness the inauguration of 
 our first President the people were summoned to as¬ 
 semble in their several places of divine worship, and re¬ 
 turn thanks to Almighty God for the blessings of free 
 government: and the first act of George Washington, 
 
 8 
 
after he took the oath as Chief Executive, was to pro¬ 
 ceed on foot, attended by the witnesses of the inaugural 
 ceremony, to the altar of the Christian faith, where the 
 wisdom of an overruling Providence was publicly pro¬ 
 claimed. 1 do not hesitate to assert that the genius of 
 American liberty was born of the spirit of the Christian 
 religion. It was the practical application to the affairs 
 of men of that gospel of equality preached by the lowly 
 Nazarene upon the shores of Galilee. 
 
 The little band of worshipers who assembled in the 
 cabin of ‘the Mayflower, as it rocked at peaceful anchor 
 by the shore of the new world, drew up the first written 
 constitution of popular government. This agreement, 
 signed and executed by them all, received its inspiration 
 from the teachings of holy writ. 
 
 Jerusalem crucified Him who taught that doctrine of 
 brotherly love, which underlies all democratic institu¬ 
 tions; but His resurrection goes on in the souls of men, 
 and his kingdom, will come on earth with the universal 
 republic. 
 
 By the immortal memories of the heroic past, we are 
 summoned to the duties and responsibilities of the 
 future. 
 
 AVe pledge to the perpetuation of popular govern¬ 
 ment and the maintenance of its free institutions the 
 unwearying devotion of patriotic hearts. 
 
 AVe pray that the blessings of Providence may attend 
 us in the years to come, and the shield of aFalher's love 
 be over us always. 
 
 Ethan Allen demanded the immediate surrender of 
 old Ticonderoga in the name of the great Jehovah and 
 the Continental Congress, and at the summons the 
 sword of oppression fell from the nerveless grasp of the 
 representative of despotic power. 
 
 George AVashington, as he stood before the assembled 
 multitude and took the oath of office as our first Presi¬ 
 dent, touched with reverent lips the word of God. 
 Abraham Lincoln, in His Holy name, issued tin' man- 
 
date that set four million people free. And Ulysses S. 
 Grant gratefully acknowledged Ilis supreme guidance 
 of the armies that saved the Republic. His mercy will 
 still lead us on. 
 
 On, under the dearest Hag that freedmen ever bore. 
 On, in the broad sunshine of liberty and justice. On, 
 to the inspiring music of the Union. 
 
 On, along: the grand high wav of the Nation's glorv to 
 the future of our country’s hope. 
 
 lo 
 
 
 

* 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN M. THURSTON 
 
 At the Annual Banquet of the 
 
 MICHIGAN CLUB AT DETROIT 
 
 FEBRUARY 21st, 1890, 
 
 IN RESPONSE TO THE TOAST, 
 
 li 
 
 The Man Who Wears the Button 
 
 Sometimes in passing along the street I meet a man 
 who, in the left lapel of his coat, wears a little, plain, 
 modest, unassuming bronze button. The coat is often 
 old and rusty; the face above it seamed and furrowed 
 by the toil and suffering of adverse years; perhaps be¬ 
 side it hangs an empty sleeve, and below it stumps a 
 wooden peg. But when I meet the man who wears 
 that button I doff* my hat and stand uncovered in his 
 presence—yea! to me the very dust his weary foot has 
 pressed is holy ground, for I know that man, in the 
 dark hour of the Nation's peril, bared his breast to the 
 hell of battle to keep the flag of our country in the 
 Union sky. 
 
 May 1 >e at Donaldson he reached the inner trench; at 
 Shiloh held the broken line: at Chattanooga climbed 
 the flame-swept hill, or stormed the clouds on Lookout 
 Heights. He was not born or bred to soldier life. His 
 country’s summons called him from the plow, the forge, 
 the bench, the loom, the mine, the store, the office, the 
 
 * 
 
 i 
 
college, the sanctuary. He did not fight for greed of 
 gold, to find adventure, or to win renown. He loved 
 the peace of quiet ways, and yet he broke the clasp of 
 clinging arms, turned from the witching glance of ten¬ 
 der eyes, left good-bye kisses upon tiny lips to look 
 death in the face on desperate fields. 
 
 And when the war was over he quietly took up the 
 broken threads of love and life as best he could, a better 
 citizen for having been so good a soldier. 
 
 What mighty men have worn this same bronze but¬ 
 ton! Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Logan and an hun¬ 
 dred more, whose names are written on the title page 
 of deathless fame. Their glorious victories are known of 
 men; the history of their country gives them voice; the 
 white light of publicity illuminates them for every eye. 
 But there are thousands who, in humbler way, no less 
 deserve applause. How many 
 
 KNIGHTLIEST ACTS OF CHIVALRY 
 were never seen beyond the line or heard of above the 
 roar of battle; I know a man wearing the button whose 
 modest lips will not unclose upon his own heroic deeds. 
 Let me the story tell of one. On the morning of July 
 1, 1862, 5,000 confederate cavalry advanced upon 
 Booneville, Mo., then held by Col. Philip Sheridan with 
 less than a thousand troopers. The federal line, being 
 strongly intrenched, was able to hold its ground against 
 the greatly superior force. But Sheridan, fearful of 
 being outflanked, directed a young captain to take a 
 portion of two companies, make a rapid detour, charge 
 the enemy in rear, and throw its line into confusion, 
 thus making possible a simultaneous and successful at¬ 
 tack in front. Sheridan said to him: U I expect of 
 your command the quick and desperate work usually 
 imposed upon a forlorn hope;" at the same time bidding 
 him what promised to be an eternal farewell. Ninety- 
 two men rode calmly out, knowing the supreme moment 
 of their lives had come. What was in their hearts dur¬ 
 ing that silent ride? What lights and shadows flashed 
 
 Cj O 
 
across the cameras of their souls? To one pale boy 
 there came the vision of a quaint old house, a white- 
 haired woman on her knees in prayer, an open bible by 
 her side, God's peace upon her face. Another memory 
 held a cottage half embedded in the shade of sheltering 
 trees and clinging vines, stray bits of sunshine round 
 the open door; within a fair young mother, crooning 
 lullabys above a baby's crib. And one old grizzled hero 
 seemed to see, in mists of unshed tears, a brush-grown 
 corner of the farm yard fence, and through the rails a 
 blended picture of faded calico and golden curls and 
 laughing eyes. And then the little column halted on a 
 bit of rising ground and faced—destiny! 
 
 Before them was a brigade of cavalry 3,000 strong. 
 That way lay death. Behind them were the open fields, 
 the sheltering woods, safety and—dishonor. Just for a 
 moment every cheek was blanched. A robin sang un¬ 
 heeded from a neighboring limb; clusters of purple 
 daisies bloomed unseen upon the grassy slope; the 
 sweet, fresh breath of early summer filled the air, unfelt 
 by all. They only saw 
 
 THE DEAR OLD FLAG OF UNION 
 
 overhead; they only knew that foes of country blocked 
 the road in front; they only heard the ringing voice of 
 their gallant leader ordering the charge, and with a yell 
 the little troop swept on. 
 
 “Flashed every sabre bare, 
 
 Flashed as they turned in air, 
 
 Charging an army, 
 
 While all the world wondered.” 
 
 So sudden and unexpected was the attack, so desper¬ 
 ate and irresistible the charge, that this handful of men 
 cut their way through the heart of a whole brigade. 
 Then, in prompt obedience to the calm command of 
 their captain, they wheeled, re-formed and charged 
 again. At this opportune moment, while the % confeder¬ 
 ates were in confusion, Sheridan's whole line dashed 
 forward with mighty cheers and the day was won. 
 
 That night forty of the ninety-two kept their eternal 
 
 3 
 
J 
 
 bivouac on the field of battle, their white faces kissed by 
 
 the silent stars. The captain was left for dead, but 
 thank God! he still lives; lives to wear the button of a 
 people’s love. For the man whose sublime courage and 
 daring leadership gave victory and a first star to Phil 
 Sheridan, was Russell A. Alger of Detroit. (Great 
 applause.) 
 
 The President of the United States wears the button; 
 a soldier and a statesman, he wears it for the Nation's 
 honor. As the selected chief of the Republican party, 
 his administration should receive the cordial support of 
 every man who believes in its principles. With a Re¬ 
 publican congress, working under business rules; pre¬ 
 sided over by a speaker whom ruffianism cannot intimi¬ 
 date or invective annoy, it ought to be possible to keep 
 every party pledge. It ought to be possible to revise 
 the tariff in such a way as to protect American labor 
 without imposing an unjust burden upon any man who 
 toils. It ought to be possible to complete an honest 
 census and make a fair reapportionment. It ought to 
 be possible to protect every American citizen in his 
 right to live, to labor, and to vote. It ought to be pos¬ 
 sible to provide for the helplessness and old age, for the 
 widows and orphans, for the suffering and wounds of 
 every man who wore the Union button. (Applause.) 
 
 The Republic was saved by 
 
 AN ENORMOUS SACRIFICE OF BLOOD 
 
 and treasure. The blood was that of patriots — volun¬ 
 teers who received $13 a month. The treasure was 
 loaned by capitalists, who purchased our bonds at 40 
 cents on the dollar. 
 
 « 
 
 To-day the bondholder^ are clipping their coupons, 
 and the veterans their bandages. The written obliga¬ 
 tion of the government to the one class has been loyally 
 kept by Republican legislation, supported by the sol¬ 
 diers vote. Its unwritten obligation to the other should 
 be no less binding on the conscience of the Nation. A 
 
 4 
 
surplus in the treasury and heroes in the poorhouse is 
 not creditable to a brave people. (Applause.) 
 
 The men who wear the button are dropping away one 
 by one, and in a few more years they will all have an¬ 
 swered to Heaven's reveille, but their sons remain. 
 Their sons remain, not only to enjoy the heritage of 
 good government, prosperity and peace, but take their 
 fathers’ places in the ranks of the grandest party (tod's 
 favor ever$hone upon. Most of the sons of men who 
 wore the button are Republicans by inheritance, by con¬ 
 viction and by choice. They will follow the precedents 
 their fathers set. 
 
 I remember one. In November, 1864, the union 
 prisoners in Andersonville held an election in all due 
 form of law. News had reached them from beyond the 
 lines that the Republican party had renominated Abra¬ 
 ham Lincoln upon a platform which declared for the 
 prosecution of the war to the bitter end. They had 
 heard that the Democrats had nominated George B. 
 McClellan on a platform which declared the war a fail 
 ure, and called’ for the cessation of hostilities. Thev 
 knew that McClellan's election would result in a speedy 
 exchange of prisoners and a return to home. How 
 much that meant to a man penned up there, God only 
 knows. To walk once more the shady lane; to see the 
 expectant faces of love in the open door; to hold 
 against his breast the one woman whose momentary cm- 
 brace seemed more to him than hope of heaven does to 
 you and me; to raise in yearning arms the sturdy boy 
 who was a baby when his father marched away. It 
 meant this, and it meant more. It meant life, and hope, 
 and home, and love, and peace for him; but for the Hag, 
 dishonor, and for the Union, dissolution. 
 
 THE RE-ELECTION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 meant the indefinite continuance of the war; prolonged 
 captivity, suffering and death, amid the horrors of 
 Andersonville. They knew the issue and they solemnly 
 prepared to meet it on that election morning. A mock 
 
election, say you? Yes, a mock election. Its result 
 would never be returned to swell the grand total of 
 loyal votes in liberty’s land, but in the golden book of 
 life, that mock election is recorded in letters of eternal 
 splendor. (Applause.) They took for their ballot-box 
 an old tin coffee pot; their hallots were army beans. A 
 black bean was for Lincoln, the Republican party, the 
 flag and the Union, but the man who cast it could never 
 expect to see home, wife or babies any moire. A white 
 bean was for McClellan, the Democratic party, the 
 Union sacrificed, its flag in the dust; but it also was a 
 promise to those despairing men of all most dear to 
 human hearts. Some walked to the polls; some crawled 
 there, and some were borne in the tender arms of loving 
 comrades, and with the last expiring breath of life 
 dropped in the bean that registered a freeman’s will. 
 And when the sun had set and the glory- of evening 
 tilled the sky, eager hands tore off the lid and streaming 
 eyes looking therein saw that the inside of the old coffee 
 pot was as black as the face of the blackest contriband 
 with votes for Abraham Lincoln ancl the Republican 
 party. (Applause.) 
 
 God bless the men who wore the button! They 
 pinned the stars of Union in the azure of our flag with 
 bayonets, and made atonement for a nation's sin in 
 blood. They took the negro from the auction block and 
 at the altar of emancipation crowned him—citizen. 
 They supplemented “Yankee Doodle" with 4 ‘Glory 
 Hallelujah," and Yorktown with Appomatox. Their 
 powder woke the morn of universal freedom and made 
 the name “American" first in all the earth. To us their 
 memory is an inspiration and to the future it is hope. 
 
 G 
 

* 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. J NO. M. THURSTON 
 
 At the Annual Banquet of the 
 
 publican Club of New York City 
 
 FEBRUARY 12th, 1891, 
 
 IN RESPONSE TO THE TOAST, 
 
 "THE YOUNG REPUBLICANS” 
 
 Mr. Toastmaster and Gentlemen: 
 
 I noticed a member of your club, a few minutes since, 
 looking at bis watch. Out in the country where I live 
 people leave their watches at home when they go to a 
 banquet. (Laughter and applause.) It is not so much 
 that they fear the honesty of their associates, but because 
 the morning sunrise is the time of going home in the far 
 West. (Laughter.) On account of the delay of the 
 train, I arrived, as the Irishman says, just too late for 
 your feast, but I am glad to be in time for the fun. 
 
 (Laughter and applause.) I was the victim to-day of 
 the misrepresentation of the time table of the Penn¬ 
 sylvania Railroad. (Laughter.) 
 
 Hereafter, I will travel on the New York Central, if 1 
 can exchange courtesies with Chauncey Depew. (Laugh¬ 
 ter and applause.) 
 
 The political future of the Republican party depends 
 upon its ability to satisfy the intelligence, to convince 
 the judgment, arouse the enthusiasm and enlist the active 
 co-operation of the young men of the Nation. (Cries of 
 “Good, good/’) To do this it must have declared 
 
 1 
 
and aggressive policies of government, it must maintain 
 and enforce the rights of American citizenship; it must 
 foster and encourage the development of American 
 industries; it must stand first, last and all the time for 
 American patriotism, American prosperity, American 
 progress, and American power as against the world. 
 (Great applause.) 
 
 It must remain true to constitutional Union, liberty 
 and equality, and must strive to increase the intelligence, 
 the opportunities, the possibilities and the happiness of 
 the whole body politic. It must have the courage to 
 advocate what is right without regard to political results, 
 and must look beyond the danger of present defeat to 
 the vantage ground of ultimate success. (Applause.) 
 
 When Abraham Lincoln, in 1858, faced the American 
 public with that sublime declaration, U A house divided 
 against itself can not stand; I believe this Government 
 can not endure permanently half slave and half free"'— 
 he knew that that one sentence made it impossible for 
 him to secure the United States Senatorship from 
 Illinois. He may not have known, but it was no less 
 true, that that one sentence made it possible for him to 
 become President of the United States. (Great applause.) 
 
 No party can or ought to live which panders to section, 
 to class, to nationality or to faction. No party can or 
 ought to exist which yields to the popular passion or 
 clamor, in order to secure the applause of the mob. 
 (Cries of “Hear, hear. 5 ') The great party of National 
 advancement must defy, not deify the passing cyclones 
 of popular error. The Republican party, if need be, 
 can afford grandly to die; it cannot afford despicably to 
 live. (Great applause.) It were better to go down into 
 the bottomless ocean of irretrievable political disaster, 
 with the ffag of its unchangeable principles nailed to the 
 mast, following the leadership of some true statesman, 
 than to sail into the harbor of political safety under the 
 banner of expediency or the command of a dema¬ 
 
 gogue. 
 
 (Great applause.) 
 
 9 
 
The young men of this country will not he hound hy 
 inherited political beliefs. In every other land, of all 
 the earth, the son may he said to inherit the social, 
 political and religious condition of the sire. “The son 
 of a peasant lives and dies a peasant, and the son of a 
 lord lives and dies a lord/’ But the genious of our 
 civilization is of another kind—in this land of limitless 
 opportunities and possibilities, the son of an American 
 peasant is born an American prince. On the broad 
 highway of American success the barefoot boy outstrips 
 the golden chariot of ancestral wealth; and the humblest 
 mother in this free land, as she hushes the weak protest 
 of a baby’s lips upon her holy breast, knows that her 
 child may live to become the President of the Republic. 
 (Great applause.) 
 
 Alarmists may assert that the rich grow richer and 
 the poor poorer, and even the most conservative may 
 justly fear the concentration of enormous riches in the 
 coffers of a few; but the fact remains, nevertheless, that 
 every illustrious American name has been borne by a 
 poor man’s son, and the enormous fortunes of the 
 present day have nearly all been accumulated by those 
 who commenced with nothing. The American boy who 
 enters upon the battle of life in his shirt sleeves is the 
 one who succeeds. The dress coat, the stovepipe hat, 
 the cigarette and the English walking-stick are not fav- 
 orable to American development. (Great applause and 
 laughter.) 
 
 Every Republican President of the United States has 
 toiled with his hands for daily bread, and the Republi¬ 
 can party stands to-day the champion of labor’s cause. 
 (Cries of u Hear, hear!") The Democratic party from 
 the hour of its birth insisted that it had a right to buy 
 the product of human labor at its own price, and when¬ 
 ever it had the power, it made the payment with a 
 master’s lash. It insists upon the same doctrine to-day. 
 It proclaims that it is the right—the right, mark you 
 of every American citizen to buy what he wants where 
 
 3 
 
he can buy it the cheapest. 1 deny that doctrine broadly 
 and utterly. It is not the right of any man worthy of 
 American citizenship to bay the product of human labor 
 without paying a fair price for the brain and brawn 
 that enters into its manufacture. (Great applause.) 
 This is the issue between Republicanism and Democracy; 
 is it best for the yoemen of this country to sell their 
 labor dear or buy their goods cheap ? On this great 
 issue, who can doubt how the patriotic, generous and 
 intelligent young men will cast their ballots in 1892? 
 
 I am not here to abuse the Democratic party. I 
 believe that all great political movements are born of 
 the honest desire of the masses to increase their oppor¬ 
 tunities and improve their conditions. Between the 
 upper and the nether millstones of contending human 
 thought, truth is separated from pretentious chaff, and 
 it is a blessing to this Nation that we have two great 
 political parties almost evenly divided in numerical 
 strength, for it enables a few thoughtful, conscientious, 
 conservative men to turn either party out of power 
 when its administration becomes corrupt, improvident 
 or unwise. But no man should desert his party, or set 
 up individual judgment against the wisdow of the ma¬ 
 jority, without careful consideration and undoubted 
 cause; for it generally happens, in politics, as in religion, 
 that over-sanctification begets pharisaical gall; and the 
 man who is holier than the tried leaders of his party 
 may be safely classed as a monumental fraud. (Great 
 laughter and applause.) 
 
 The history of the Republican party appeals to the 
 patriotism of every young man. It tells of the heroic 
 accomplishment of mighty deeds. It tells of a race 
 enfranchised by bristling bayonets, and a Republic pre¬ 
 served by the blood of the brave. Every constitutional 
 amendment which extends the blessing of human liberty, 
 confirms the justice of a broader humanity and protects 
 the fullest enjoyment of American citizenship, has been 
 written by the pen of Republican statesmanship and 
 
 4 
 
ratified by the vote of Republican intelligence. (Great 
 applause.) Every existing statute of the United States 
 designed for the protection of the individual, for the 
 maintenance of our national credit, for the development 
 of our industrial affairs, for the permanency of free 
 institutions, is the result of Republican thought, Repub¬ 
 lican courage and Republican action. 
 
 Every young man who looks upon the flag of his 
 country must feel glad to know that the Republican 
 party kept the stars of the Union in the azure of its 
 its sky, and he must remember with pride how recently 
 this same party has broken the darkness of Democratic 
 opposition that other brilliant gems of statehood might 
 be added to the splendor of the constellation. (Great 
 applause.) 
 
 Every new State adds to the power of the Republican 
 party. No new Western commonwealth can be claimed 
 by the Democracy. Those local and temporary condi¬ 
 tions which control the prairie States to-day cannot 
 long continue. The West will be true in the next Presi¬ 
 dential election to the party that made it what it is. 
 (Great applause.) Wherever men have spent the best 
 years of their lives in building up a civilization in the 
 wilderness; wherever they have come face to face with 
 those conditions that develop true manhood, that re¬ 
 quire courage, perseverance and ceaseless industry; 
 wherever they have triumphed in the paths of pioneer 
 life, and have wrung from reluctant nature the secrets 
 of her hidden wealth, you will find that Republicanism 
 grows and thrives, for its principles are in harmony 
 with the true spirit of American progress. (Great ap¬ 
 plause.) 
 
 The Republican party appeals to the courage of every 
 young man, for it is the party of National courage. 
 Youth is the golden time of hope, ambition, chivalry 
 and power. Those on the sunset side of life no longer 
 volunteer to lead armies or reforms. Youth goes sing- 
 ing to the battlefields of liberty; youth carries the 
 
musket; youth leads the assult; youth conquers or dies. 
 The world's great battlefields have been won by heroes 
 young in years. Hannibal, at twenty-nine, had crossed 
 the Alps and overthrown the legions of Imperial Rome. 
 Alexander, while scarce the down of manhood pricked 
 his lips, stood in the presence of a conquered world; 
 and the Little Corporal, while but a boy in years, had 
 slashed the map of Europe with his sword and carved 
 an empire from its heart. (Great applause.) But if 
 the boys vote the Republican ticket, they must have 
 Republicanism of the unadulterated kind. (Cries of 
 “Good, good,’' and applause.) If the older statesman¬ 
 ship of the party fears to keep faith with the soul of old 
 John Brown, or fails to stand firm for the protection of 
 manhood and muscle, the young men will desert old- 
 fogyism and rally under the banner of those big, brave 
 American boys, Tom Reed, Bill McKinley, Johnny 
 Foraker, Russell Alger and Jim Blaine. (Great ap¬ 
 plause.) The boys will insist upon a free ballot and a 
 fair count, (Cries of “Good, good," and applause.) 
 
 In a government of the people, the rights of citizen¬ 
 ship are paramount to all others. The very conerstone 
 of National existence rests upon the consent of the 
 governed, and free institutions can no longer exist 
 where any man is deprived of his right to vote. (A 
 voice, “Right you are," great applause.) 
 
 Popular government is maintained for the purpose of 
 protecting the weak against the oppression of the 
 strong; of the poor from the exactions of the rich; of 
 the ignorant from the subtleties of the learned, and the 
 man of all others who most needs the elective franchise 
 and the American flag, is the humblest and the poorest 
 and the weakest citizen of them all. (Great applause.) 
 
 The Republican party was returned to power in 1888 
 on the faith of its solemn promise that it would enact 
 the necessary legislation to ensure every American citi¬ 
 zen in his political equality; and the wisdom of the 
 Republican majority in Congress has prepared an act in- 
 
 6 
 

 tended as a fulfillment of that promise. This act is not 
 sectional or partisan in its character. I defy any man 
 to show me where it is so. It does not pretend to inter¬ 
 fere with State or local elections. It cannot honestly be 
 opposed by any man who wishes that the majority’s will 
 should be expressed at the polls. (Applause.) I would 
 be the last man to stand in the way of that perfect re¬ 
 conciliation between North and South, so necessary for 
 the continued prosperity and glory of our common 
 country; but when any man in any State is prevented 
 from voting for a Presidential candidate, every man of 
 every other State is robbed in some measure of his just 
 political power. (Great applause.) When a man from 
 the State of South Carolina stands on the floor of Con¬ 
 gress opposing legislation necessary for the people of 
 my State, I have a right to say to him that he shall 
 stand there with an honest certificate of election. 
 (Great applause.) When any man stands on the floor 
 of Congress blocking with his single objection the busi¬ 
 ness of the country, the American people have a right 
 to say to him that he shall stand there with a title on 
 which there is no stain of wronged citizenship and no 
 drop of human blood. (Great applause.) I do not 
 know that this proposed legislation is the best that could 
 have been designed. I do not know that it is free from 
 all measure of objection, but I do know that it repre¬ 
 sents the best intelligence of that majority in Congress, 
 secured on the faith of the platform of 1888. The 
 Democratic party sneeringly allude to this act as the 
 Forae Bill, as if that were a term of decision and re¬ 
 proach. What is the Government, but the highest pro¬ 
 tective force. What virtue in a constitution or sanction 
 in a law, unless obedience to its provisions can be en¬ 
 forced' What makes the flag of our country, on land 
 and sea, at home and abroad, the insignia of American 
 glory and the safe-guard of American honor, but tin* 
 memory of a million bayonets that confirmed it as the 
 flag of a Nation ? (Great applause.) 
 
 7 
 
The Government which has not the power, or having 
 it, will not use it to protect a citizen, is unworthy of 
 continued existence, and God's justice will not permit 
 it to cumber the earth. Yes, let this act be called the 
 Force Bill, if Democracy pleases. We accept the name 
 with joy. It is a force bill, for it represents the irre- 
 sistable force of the American conscience. (Great ap¬ 
 plause.) When has any battle for liberty and justice 
 ever been won except by force? Force compelled the 
 signature of unwilling royalty to the great Magna Charta. 
 Force framed the Declaration of Independence and dic¬ 
 tated the Emancipation Proclamation. Force sang with 
 impassioned lips the Marsellaise, Yankee Doodle and 
 Glory Hallelujah. (Great applause.) Force beat with 
 naked hands upon the iron gates of the Bastile, and 
 made expiation in one awful hour for centuries of op¬ 
 pression. Force waved the flag of revolution over 
 Bunker Hill and marked the snows of Valiev Foro'e 
 with blood-stained feet. Force held the broken line at 
 Shiloh, climbed the flame-swept hill at Chattanooga and 
 stormed the clouds on Lookout Mountain. (Great ap¬ 
 plause.) Force upheld the withered arm of Barbara 
 Fritchie at Fredericktown, and looked along the sights 
 of John Burns' rifle at Gettysburg. Force marched 
 with Sherman to the sea, rode with Sheridan in the val¬ 
 ley of the Shenandoah and stood with Grant for victory 
 at Appomattox. (Great applause.) Force found a 
 slave; it set him free. It found a negro; it made him a 
 man. He cowered in the rags of servitude; force robed 
 him in the panoply of citizenship. He was helpless and 
 defenceless; force put into his poor, black hand the 
 mightiest weapon of the nineteenth century, and this 
 resistless force of the American conscience will go with 
 him under the stars and stripes to his country's ballot 
 box and see that he casts his vote in safety and has it 
 counted in honesty and honor. (Great applause.) 
 
 There are those who say that such legislation is inex¬ 
 pedient, and statesmen have blocked the pathway of 
 
 8 
 
human rights with a silver dollar. I differ from most of 
 you, and we are all at liberty to differ within the Republi¬ 
 can ranks in season and out of season. I have been an 
 ardent advocate of the double standard and free coinage. 
 
 I believe the goddess of our currency should have a 
 golden crown upon her head and silver sandals on her feet. 
 (Laughter and applause.) But when the Senate of the 
 United States takes up the money and abandons the 
 man, the young men of this country will revolt. They 
 will not be satisfied with what seems expedient. They 
 must have what is right. (Cries of “Good, good,” and 
 applause.) They will vote the Republican ticket, but 
 it must be the Republicanism of Oliver P. Morton, old 
 Zach. Chandler, Roscoe Conkling and John A. Logan. 
 (Great applause.) We need a revival of it now. (Cries 
 of “We do.”) 
 
 Would that the American platform might know an¬ 
 other Wendell Phillips, and the American congress an¬ 
 other Owen Lovejoy. 
 
 The boys will stay with the grand old Republican 
 party for protection, but it must be a protection broad 
 enough to secure every American man in his right to 
 live, to labor and to vote. (Great applause.) 
 
 There is no business interest so great; there is no 
 manufacturing industry so necessary; there is no money 
 power so important that it must be fostered at the ex¬ 
 pense of American citizenship. (Great applause.) ff 
 patriotism is so dead that the trade and commerce of 
 New York City cannot be maintained, or the Columbian 
 Exposition at Chicago be make a success, without giv¬ 
 ing up the “Nigger" to the Ku-Klux and the shotgun, 
 then let us turn the pictured face of Lincoln to the wall 
 and cast the sword of Grant into the sea, (Great ap¬ 
 plause. ) 
 
 Thank God, my country has not reached such degra¬ 
 dation yet. The Republican party still bears aloft the 
 unconquered flag of a Nation's honor and a people's . 
 hope. 
 
 9 
 
Under it the boys will rally for the next campaign. 
 Under it the loyal legion will go marching on. Under 
 it the American citizen and the American home will 
 both share in the blessings of American protection, 
 (Great applause.) 
 
 * 
 
 10 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED BY 
 
 Hon. John M. Thurston, 
 
 Before the Chicago Lincoln Association , 
 at Central Music Hall. 
 
 Chicago, February 12 , 1891 . 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen— The State of Illinois has. 
 contributed to the nineteenth century its two most illus¬ 
 trious names. One, that of the greatest captain of 
 modern times; the other, that of the patriot and states¬ 
 man whose birthday we commemorate. 
 
 In this great inland .metropolis; this chief city of his 
 beloved commonwealth; this fateful city of his presi¬ 
 dential nomination; this loyal city, which so cordially 
 supported him through all the trying days of his ad¬ 
 ministration; this prosperous city, which has shared so 
 greatly in the benefits of that grand government he 
 preserved; this magic city in which seems centered the 
 spirit of resistless American enterprise and courage, so 
 strongly typified in his life, it is especially fitting that 
 the memory of Abraham Lincoln should be forever 
 cherished, and the anniversary of his birth sacredly 
 observed. 
 
 Sixty million free people join with us in honor of his 
 name, yet he wielded no scepter and wore no crown; 
 but in his life he exercised greater powers, called into 
 existence grander armies, and won for his country and 
 humanity sublimer victories than any who preceded 
 him upon the earth, and in his death he reached the full 
 stature of immortal fame. 
 
 It is not my purpose to-night to review the life of 
 
 1 
 
Abraham Lincoln, for that is a part of the history of 
 the Republic. That history remains with all loyal men: 
 it is recorded on the nation's battle Hags; it speaks from 
 silent lips; it lingers in the shadows of desolate lives; 
 yea, and it blooms in beauty above the sacred dust of 
 those who fell by river and by sea. That history should 
 be taught in every public school; it should be preached 
 from every pulpit; it should be honored, venerated, 
 loved, wherever liberty is dear to man. 
 
 The contemplation of heroic deeds, the study of pa¬ 
 triotic lives, the review of great reforms, broaden the 
 characters and ennoble the minds of all future genera¬ 
 
 tions, and the story of Abraham Lincoln, citizen, pres¬ 
 ident, liberator, martyr, should be told by every Amer- 
 • ican fireside, and instilled into the heart of every 
 American child. 
 
 One day, not long since, as I sat in a crowded court 
 room, engaged in the trial of a case involving the title 
 to a very valuable tract of land, there came to the wit¬ 
 ness stand a venerable, white-haired negro. Written all 
 over his old black face was the record of three-quarters 
 of a century, such as few persons ever knew. Born a 
 slave he had stood upon the auction block and been 
 sold to the highest bidder; he had seen his wife and 
 babies torn from his side by those who ridiculed his 
 breaking heart; he bore upon his back the scars and 
 ridges left by a master's lash. Now he was called into 
 
 the temple of justice to settle, by his testimony, a con¬ 
 troversy between white men. When asked his age, lie 
 drew himself proudly up and said: “For fifty years I 
 was a chattel, on the first day of January, 1863, ‘Old 
 Uncle Abe' made me a man." 
 
 The act which set that old man free was the crowning 
 glory of Lincoln's life. It was that act which lifted him 
 above the plane of statesmanship, for by it he not only 
 saved the Union, but emancipated a race. When he 
 took his pen in hand to sign the emancipation procla¬ 
 mation, he knew that the supreme hour of the Nation's 
 
 9 
 
fate had come. He had known for many years that 
 such an hour must come. In his great Springfield 
 speech, delivered June 16, 1858, he said: 
 
 “A house divided against itself cannot stand. 1 be¬ 
 lieve this government cannot endure permanently half 
 slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be 
 dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall, but 1 do ex¬ 
 pect it will cease to be divided/’ 
 
 Five years later, over the signature which fulfilled his 
 own prophecy, he wrote: 
 
 “And upon this, sincerely believed to be an act of 
 justice warranted by the constitution, upon military 
 authority, I invoke the considerate judgment of man¬ 
 kind and the gracious favor of Almightv God." 
 
 In that sentence he affirmed the sacred character of 
 his own stewardship. 
 
 1 am a believer in an overruling Providence. I can¬ 
 not so far belittle the miracle of my own existence and 
 the incomprehensible splendors of the universe as even 
 for a moment to suppose that they came by chance. And 
 the Omnipotent Ruler who set the earth to whirling in 
 the realms of space; who breathed upon the inanimate 
 dust until it stirred and thrilled with created life: who 
 took a part of the spirit of infinite existence and clothed 
 it in the temporal form of man, did not leave the multi- 
 plyin g generations of the God born race to work out 
 their own deliverance unaided and abandoned of him. 
 
 His mercy fills the earth, and though the prayers of 
 the desperate and despairing often seem unheeded and 
 unheard, yet we know that humanity keeps steady pace 
 with the footsteps of the ages, and the light of liberty, 
 equality and fraternity grows brighter with every com¬ 
 ing day. 
 
 God's providence has raised up a leader in every time 
 of a people's exceeding need. 
 
 Moses, reared in the family of Pharoah, initiated 
 in the sublime mysteries of the priestcraft of Egypt, 
 partaking of the power and splendor of royal family 
 
V 
 
 and favor; himself a ruler and almonst a king; was so 
 moved by the degraded and helpless condition of his 
 enslaved brethren that for their sake he undertook what 
 to human understanding seemed the impossible problem 
 of deliverance. 
 
 He led his people through the parted waters of the sea 
 out of their bondage. He brought for them -from the 
 flame and smoke of Sinai that supreme code of moral 
 law which has remained, the foundation of all good 
 government; he kept them wandering in the wilderness 
 for forty years, until a new generation had sprung up,' 
 fitted hy hardships borne and dangers braved, to found 
 and maintain a ^reat nation; he marshaled them on the 
 
 banks of the Jordan and showed them the beauty and 
 plenty of the promised land. Then, with his mission 
 ended, his work done, his people saved, God took him 
 and he was not. 
 
 Who can deny to Moses the inspiration of omnipotent 
 command? What puny human intelligence dares ques¬ 
 tion the perfection of the infinite design ' 
 
 A peasant girl, a shepherdess, dreaming on the hills 
 of France, feels her simple heart burn with the story of 
 her country’s wrongs. Its army beaten, shattered and 
 dispersed; its fields laid waste; its homes pillaged and 
 burned; its people outraged and murdered; its prince 
 fleeing for life before a triumphant and remorseless foe. 
 Hope for France was dead. Heroes, there were none to 
 save. What could a woman do ' 
 
 Into the soul of this timid, unlettered mountain maid 
 there swept a flood of glorious resolve. Some power, 
 unknown to man. drew back the curtain from the glass 
 of fate and bade her look therein. As in a vision, she 
 sees anew French army, courageous, hopeful, victorious, 
 invincible. A girl, sword in hand, rides at its head; 
 before it the invaders flee. She sees France restored, 
 her fields in bloom, her cottages in peace, her people 
 happy, her prince crowned. 
 
 This vision came to pass. Joan de Arc, the saviour 
 of her country, Avas the instrument of God- 
 
 4 
 
Who can doubt that this new world in which we live 
 is under the.especial guidance of an active providence? 
 It woke the preposterous idea of an undiscovered con¬ 
 tinent in the quickened brain of the Genoese sailor; it 
 gave him courage to appeal to court after court until 
 his wishes were granted by the sympathetic queen. It 
 tilled his sails with favoring breezes; stood, at the helm 
 and guided his fleet aright, and when he kneeled upon 
 the unknown strand it raised above him the great white 
 cross of a Saviour’s love, the emblem of immortal hope. 
 
 It gave leadership and victory to the little band of 
 Continental heroes who would no longer yield to kingly 
 rule, and through successful revolution laid the first 
 foundation of a popular government that could with¬ 
 stand the tests of time. It inspired the pen of emanci¬ 
 pation and the sword of Appomatox. 
 
 Columbus, Washington, Lincoln, Grant—discoverer, 
 father, preserver, hero! Did chance select them, each 
 for his glorious work, so gloriously performed? Let 
 the fool answer how he will; I prefer to see the finger 
 of Divine design. 
 
 The rail-splitter of Illinois became President of the 
 United States in the darkest hour of the Nation’s peril. 
 Inexperienced and untrained in governmental affairs, 
 he formulated national politics, overruled statesmen, 
 directed armies, removed generals, and, when it became 
 necessary to save the Republic, set at naught the written 
 Constitution. He amazed the politicians and offended 
 the leaders of his party; but the people loved him by in¬ 
 stinct, and followed him blindly. The child leads the 
 blind man through dangerous places, not by reason of 
 controlling strength and intelligence, but by certainty 
 of vision. Abraham led the Nation along its obscure 
 pathway, for his vision was above the clouds, and he 
 stood in the clear sunshine of God’s indicated will. 
 
 So stands the mountain while the murky shadows 
 thicken at its base, beset by the tempest, lashed by the 
 storm, darkness and desolation on every side; no gleam 
 
 7 7 c ? 
 
of hope in the lightning's lurid lances, nor voice of 
 safety in the crashing thunder-bolts; but high above the 
 topmost mist, vexed by no wave of angry sound, kissed 
 by the sun of day, wooed by the stars of night, the 
 eternal summit lifts its snowy crest, crowned with the 
 infinite serenity of peace. 
 
 “And God said—let there be light and there was 
 light." Light on the ocean, light on the land. 
 
 “And God said--let there be light and there was 
 light." Light from the cross of calvary, light from the 
 souls of men. 
 
 “And God said—let there be light and there was 
 light." Light from the emancipation proclamation, 
 light on the honor of the Nation, light on the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States, light on the black faces of 
 patient bondmen, light on every standard of freedom 
 throughout the world. 
 
 From the hour in which the cause of the Union be¬ 
 came the cause of liberty; from the hour in which the 
 flag of the Republic became the flag of humanity; from 
 the hour in which the stars and stripes no longer floated 
 over a slave; yea, from the sacred hour of the Nation's 
 new birth, that dear old banner never faded from the 
 sky, and the brave boys who bore it, never wavered in 
 their ownward march to victory. With the single ex¬ 
 ception of Chancellorsville, and the stubborn, doubtful 
 day at Chicamauga, no decisive field of battle was ever 
 lost by the men who sang with redoubled enthusiasm: 
 
 “John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave, 
 But his soul goes marching on 
 
 Gettysburg at the east, Vicksburg at the west, rati¬ 
 fied the president’s action, and woke the morning of 
 the Nation's holiday with a grand jubilee of joy. From 
 Chattanooga to Appomatox, from Atlanta to the sea, 
 the hearts of the war-worn, battle-scarred veterans took 
 new courage. All along the line they touched elbows 
 with a steadier purpose, saw in each other's eyes a holier 
 fire, joined with new inspiration in that glorious anthem: 
 
 6 
 
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, 
 With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me; 
 
 As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free. 
 
 For God is marching on. 
 
 Me is sounding forth a trumpet that never calls retreat; 
 
 He is sitting out the hearts of men before the judgment seat. 
 
 Oh! be swift my soul, to answer Him, be jubilant my feet. 
 
 Our God is marching on. 
 
 After a quarter of a century of peace and prosperity, 
 all children of our common country kneel at the altar of a 
 re-united faith. The blue and gray lie in eternal slumber, 
 side by side. Heroes all, they fell face to face, brother 
 against brother, to expiate a nation’s sin. The lonely 
 firesides and the unknown graves; the memory of the 
 loved; the yearning for the lost; the desolated altars 
 and the broken hopes, are past recall. The wings of 
 our weak protest beat in vain against the iron doors of 
 fate. But through the mingled tears, that fall alike 
 upon the honored dead of both, the north and south 
 turn hopeful eyes to that new future of prosperity and 
 power, possible only in the shelter of the dear old flag. 
 To the conquerors and the conquered; to the white man 
 and the black; to the master and the slave, Abraham 
 Lincoln was God’s providence. 
 
 What is the heritage to us ' Lincoln, on the historical 
 held of Gettysburg, said, “A government of the people, 
 by the people, for the people/" A government of the 
 people so broad that it offers land, liberty and labor to 
 the down-trodden and oppressed of every clime; so 
 strong that the sheathed swords of its citizen soldiers 
 need never again be drawn to protect it from foes with¬ 
 out or dissensions within; so just, that the blind goddess 
 of its temples holds in equal poise the scales that measure 
 out the rights and privileges and powers of all; so liberal, 
 that in its sky the spires of every faith may find a place, 
 and bv its altars individual conscience fears not church 
 nor state; so wise in crafts-of statesmanship, in policies 
 of government and enacted laws, that all its industries 
 and arts, ennobled by invention, stimulated by intelli- 
 
gence and zeal, flourish and prosper beyond compare; 
 so well beloved, that the bright bayonet of its honor is 
 in every American hand, and the certain bulwark of its 
 safety in every American heart. Its cities grow and 
 thrive; its fertile fields increase; its inland commerce 
 quickens all the land through arteries of steel; its white 
 sails spread to catch the favoring breeze of every sea; 
 its whirling spindles and its tireless wheels make merry 
 music by every stream; its silver forests and its golden 
 hills are inexhaustible treasuries of national wealth; the 
 school house is the pride of every village, and happy 
 motherhood the crown of every home. 
 
 This government is by the people. In it the unit of 
 political power is individual citizenship. Under its con¬ 
 stitution every citizen must be given equal voice in the 
 formulation of laws, and in the selection of those who 
 are to administer and enforce them; every avenue of 
 preferment must be fairly open to all, and every child 
 of American birth, whether his wondering ej es first un¬ 
 close upon the splendors of a palace or the poverty of a 
 cabin, must share in the grand possibility of becoming 
 President of the United States. 
 
 There are some who profess to believe that the rights 
 and privileges of citizenship should be denied to the 
 foreign-born. But in the hour when the Republic asked 
 for brawny arms to bear its muskets, and willing feet to 
 march beneath its flag, how many a volunteer made 
 answer in his mother tongue, first learned on vineclad 
 hills or by the Zuyder Zee ? How many a dying patriot, 
 with his latest breath, blessed Erin's wave-kissed shore? 
 Every man who loved our country well enough to fight 
 for it; every man who is willing to abandon for it his 
 childhood home; every man who longs for the blessings 
 of liberfy, and is ready to support our constitution and 
 obey our laws, is fitted to participate in a government 
 by the people. 
 
 On the other hand, let it be forever decreed that no 
 man can safely land upon our shores to spread the 
 
 8 
 
leprosy of anarchy, or to advocate the perpetuation of 
 crime. Those monstrous doctrines which are perhaps 
 the necessary outgrowth of persecution and oppression, 
 and those violent remedies, which may he justifiable 
 as against tyrants, will not be tolerated in a land where 
 the sovereign can only be assailed at the fireside of tin; 
 citizen. 
 
 There are some, too, who say it is not right that those 
 who own no property, and pay no direct tax, should 
 vote obligations upon those who do; but the student of 
 political economy will readily discover that the daily 
 wage of every man who toils is lessened by the tax on 
 capital; that to every house rent is added a proportion¬ 
 ate share of the public burden, and every article of food, 
 clothing and the like, must contribute to the revenue. 
 The ultimate liquidation of all municipal and govern¬ 
 ment indebtedness is met by the sweat of the brow, and 
 the toil of busy hands. 
 
 •J 
 
 There are others vet, who clamor for an educational 
 
 my 
 
 test. We are all deeply interested in the elevation of 
 the masses, but oftentimes we find that the rude, prac¬ 
 tical common sense of the man who cannot read is as 
 trustworthy as the theory of the college professor. It 
 is true, that in communities where great numbers of ig- 
 norant people are congregated together, unworthy pub¬ 
 lic officers are often chosen; but take it the country 
 over, all great political and economic questions are set¬ 
 tled by the ballots of the millions, and they are gen¬ 
 erally settled in accordance with right. Wealth can 
 take care of itself; learning is its own champion. The 
 object of all good government is to protect the weak 
 and defend the defenseless. To the poor and the ig¬ 
 norant the elective franchise is both buckler and sword, 
 aifd to them it must never be denied. 
 
 All great revolutions, all great reforms, originate 
 with the populace. Those who share in the benefits of 
 injustice and wrong never rebel. Universal suffrage is 
 the safety of our society. Very few men who realize 
 
the tremendous power of the ballot will eare to experi¬ 
 ment with bombs. If future revolutions are to be blood¬ 
 less and merciful, it must be because all just reforms, 
 all remedial legislation, all proper changes in govern¬ 
 ment can l)e speedily and safely effected by practical 
 methods and lawful means. So long as every American 
 citizen may walk to the polls in sunshine and safety, so 
 long as he may enfold his conscience in a free ballot, 
 and have it fairly counted, so long will the Nation be 
 governed by the people in happiness and peace. 
 
 And one of the most important questions before this 
 country to-day is that of properly guarding and protect¬ 
 ing its ballot boxes. No adequate legislation can ever 
 be enacted, no Australian system will ever prove effec 
 tive, until at the bar of an aroused public opinion any 
 man who nullifies a legal ballot by fraud, by undue in¬ 
 fluence, by threat or force, stands condemned as a 
 criminal, a traitor and a public enemy. 
 
 This is a government “for the people.” 
 
 So framed and earned on that the stimulus of its pos¬ 
 sible reward rouses humanity to its best endeavors. Its 
 history is replete with the name of those who, from the 
 lowest condition, have risen to the highest station. On 
 its great highway the barefoot boy may distance the 
 golden chariot of ancestral wealth. 
 
 There are dreamers and idiots who prate of an ideal 
 community in which all live upon an exact equality; 
 where the product of each man’s brain and brawn is 
 turned into the general storehouse; where all occupy 
 the same model dwellings, wear the same stereotyped 
 clothes, receive the same allotment of daily food, work 
 the same number of hours, rest by rule, and recreate 
 by programme; in fact, where everything possible is 
 done to obliterate the God-giving individuality, aftd 
 dwarf the hopes, the aspirations and ambitions which 
 give to life its flavor and to the world its charm. Con- 
 finement in a penitentiary or poor house would satisfy 
 all these conditions, and 1x5 far preferable. 
 
 10 
 
The infinite Creator has never yet made two beings 
 exactly alike. No two human faces are the same. 
 From the cradle to the grave, each body, intellect and 
 soul, is an entity in itself, distinct and different from 
 every other created thing. It is inevitable that there 
 should be different classes of society in every govern¬ 
 ment; the labor of the world could be carried on in no 
 other way. It is also inevitable that there shall always 
 be an unequal distribution of wealth, and this gives rise 
 to much serious discontent. If it were not for the 
 accumulation of great fortunes; if it were not for the 
 combination of capital in corporate organization, those 
 great enterprises which so rapidly develop the country 
 and give employment to millions, who might otherwise 
 starve, could never be undertaken or successfully car¬ 
 ried on. Rut money yields a mighty influence, not only 
 for good but for evil; and if there is anv serious danger 
 in the future of this Republic, it will come from its im¬ 
 proper and unjustifiable use. 
 
 We 1 ive in an age of marvels. The forces of steam 
 and electricity have revolutionized the approved methods 
 of centuries. The rapid settlement of the United States, 
 the construction of great railway systems, the unprece¬ 
 dented growth of cities, and the surprising increase in 
 values, have multiplied wealth, both national and indi¬ 
 vidual, almost beyond calculation. This wealth is en¬ 
 titled to its just measure of protection. It can be used 
 for the great and lasting good of all. But eternal vigil- 
 ance must be exercised, lest its possessors attempt to 
 usurp or destroy the just powers of the people. The 
 people have a right to demand that capital shall share 
 with labor in the profits of joint enterprise. They have 
 the right to demand that it shall never be used to oppress 
 the poor; to artificially diminish the wage of labor, or 
 increase the price of the necessaries of life. They have 
 a right to demand that it shall be satisfied with a fair 
 rate of interest for its use, and that it shall only be em- 
 ployed in legitimate business pursuits. 
 
 11 
 
To accomplish these results it is not necessary to 
 murder the millionaires or mob the capitalists. Redress 
 will never be secured by the rabid mouthings of dema- 
 gogues, or the attempted reprisals of impracticable men. 
 But by intelligent, dispassionate discussion, by legiti¬ 
 mate organization, by moderate and reasonable regula¬ 
 tion, these grave questions can be settled on a basis fair 
 to all, and no man need fear the absolute, ultimate jus¬ 
 tice of the deliberate judgment of the American people. 
 
 The future is not dark; the stainless weapon of liberty 
 and self-defense is in the hand of every citizen. 
 
 “A weapon that comes down as still 
 As snowflakes fall upon the sod, 
 Yet executes a freeman’s will 
 
 As lightning does the will of God.” 
 
 And this u government of the people, by the people, 
 for the people," shall not perish from the earth. Our 
 nation has stood for an hundred years as a menace to 
 despotism and a hope to the oppressed. Mother of re¬ 
 publics, her lullaby is sung over every cradle of liberty 
 throughout the world. The last throne has disappeared 
 from the western hemisphere, and the conscience of the 
 twentieth century will not tolerate a crown. On Free¬ 
 dom's scroll of honor the name of Abraham Lincoln is 
 written first. The colossal statue of his fame stands 
 forever on the pedestal of a people's love. About it are 
 the upturned, glorified faces of an emancipated race. 
 In its protecting shadow liberty, equality and justice is 
 the heritage of every American citizen. The sunshine 
 of approving heaven rests upon it like an infinite hene- 
 diction, and over it calmly floats the unconquered flag of 
 the greatest nation of the earth. 
 
 12 
 
 i 
 
HDDRESS 
 
 TO THE 
 
 4th ANNUAL CONVENTION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Republican League 
 
 OP THE 
 
 UNITED STATES, 
 
 AT 
 
 CINCINNATI, APRIL 21, 1591. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN M. THURSTON, President. 
 

 
 ' -r- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HDDRESS 
 
 TO THE 
 
 4th. ANNUAL CONVENTION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Republican League of the United States, 
 
 AT 
 
 CINCINNATI, APRIL 21, 1891 
 
 By JOHN M. THURSTON, President. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Convention: 
 
 I congratulate the republican league of the United 
 States upon the auspicious opening of its fourth anuual 
 convention. 
 
 When representative men, from nearly every state in 
 the union, leave their homes and business affairs, pay 
 their own expenses and sacrifice their time to attend 
 a convention which holds no promise of private gain, 
 individual preferment or political advancement, it means 
 that the republicans of the country are determined to 
 make successful battle for continued national 
 supremacy. 
 
 This is the volunteer political organization of the 
 republican party. It has no payroll; it controls no 
 patronage; it asks no administrative favor; it is devoted 
 alone to the advocacy and perpetuation of those great 
 principles which guarantee liberty and equality to every 
 American citizen and make possible the prosperity of 
 
 t 
 
 all who love to dwell in the protecting shadow of the 
 American flag. ' 
 
 ' It follows the personal fortunes of no leader, and will 
 not commit itself to the candidacy of any man. It is 
 
 3 
 
for the nominees and the platform of the republican 
 national convention. 
 
 The league is an army of privates; its officers serve 
 with the rank and file. Epaulets, cocked hats, dress 
 parade aud spectacular exhibitions are not included in 
 its plan of operation. It has no desire to assume con¬ 
 trol of party machinery or usurp the functions of any 
 committee entrusted with campaign management. It 
 seeks to popularize political action; it offers to every 
 republican in the land an equal share of the responsi¬ 
 bility, the labor, and the glory of political service and 
 success. It addresses itself to the intelligence and 
 patriotism of the American people, and proposes by 
 honest methods and fair means to commend republican 
 principles to their deliberate judgment. It seeks to 
 establish a permanent club in every community and to 
 carry on political organization and political education 
 every week day in the year. 
 
 All American citizens should have decided political 
 convictions and ought to actively participate in political 
 affairs. The elective franchise should not be exercised 
 by any man who is not in the truest and best sense 
 a politician. The life, the liberty, the property, and the 
 prosperity of the individual depend upon the main¬ 
 tenance of good government; and good government can 
 only be secured through the earnest, united and intelli¬ 
 gent action of the best elements of society. 
 
 The delegates here present represent more than ten 
 thousand permanent republican clubs. The member¬ 
 ship of the league already exceeds a million. This 
 magnificent army has been recruited from the east and 
 the west, the north and the south; from the city and 
 the farm, the manufactory and the field. 
 
 In it is the man of the plow, the man of the forge, the 
 man of the loom, the man of the mine, the man of the 
 
 4 
 
shop, the man of the locomotive, the man of the 
 furnace, the man of the store, the man of the college, 
 
 t 
 
 and the man of the temple. 
 
 These men who rally in the ranks of the republican 
 league, believe in the nobility of human labor, they 
 rejoice in a land of happy homes, they stand by the free 
 school system, and respect the House of God. They 
 demand that government shall be administered to all 
 alike, and they insist that American citizenship and 
 American muscle shall be protected as against all the 
 world. 
 
 They read the history of their country and they know 
 the republican party has always been the advocate of 
 labor’s cause. They know this party was born of the 
 conscience of the nineteenth century, which would no 
 longer permit the master’s lash to be the only recom¬ 
 pense for services performed. They know that when 
 democracy insisted upon its constitutional right to 
 forcibly appropriate the product of human toil without 
 the payment of a wage, the republican paity made pro¬ 
 test with the pen of a Lincoln and the sword of a 
 Grant. They know that American labor first entered 
 upon its inheritance of sovereignty, in this republic, 
 w'hen the eager feet of the musket-carrying million 
 trampled the democratic juggernaut of human slavery 
 into the irresurrectible dust. 
 
 0 
 
 Ever since that time the republican party has* 
 remained true to the interests and demands of labor. 
 
 By wise protective measures; b} r generous homestead 
 laws; by the development of our wonderful natural 
 resources, . and the diversification of our industries, it 
 lias divided the hardships, and doubled the rewards of 
 America’s toiling masses. 
 
 Theory can weave subtle arguments to prove, and 
 ignorance can brazenly assert, that a protective tariff 
 does not increase the prosperity of a people; but the 
 
fact remains, nevertheless, that in a single quarter of a 
 century, there have been built in the United States and 
 paid for out of the accumulated savings of its working- * 
 men, three million comfortable American homes. 
 
 Protection has not only furnished remunerative em¬ 
 ployment for the thirty-five millions who welcomed the 
 preservation of the Union, and loyally set about the 
 restoration of its glory, but it has also found profitable 
 work for the willing hands of thirty millions more. Dur¬ 
 ing these same years, the laboring man of other lands has 
 remained a tenant; in the United States he is rapidly 
 becoming his own landlord. In most other countries 
 his wages have decreased; in this, advanced. Through¬ 
 out the greater part of the world the laborer is virtually 
 a serf, his condition desperate, his future hopeless. 
 Gaunt famine sits by his cold and cheerless hearthstone; 
 his wife cowers in degradation and rags; his offspring 
 struggle through childhood hungry and ignorant, while 
 their very existence is a continual menace to the safety 
 of society. 
 
 Under our protective system, labor is honorable and 
 honored; happy families gather around its cheerful fire¬ 
 sides, and there is no place in the republic to which its 
 sons may not aspire. 
 
 I do not mean that we have yet reached a point where 
 all labor can be profitably and continuously employed;— 
 cm the contrary, the great problem of the immediate 
 future is, how to provide work and wages, not alone for 
 our present population, but for the additional fifteen 
 millions who will be with us before another census. The 
 republican party insists that this can only be done 
 under the continued enforcement of a reasonable pro¬ 
 tective tariff. 
 
 Our country is an empire, vast in area, unmatched in 
 resources, limitless in possibilities. It can produce and 
 manufacture almost everything necessary for human use. 
 
 6 
 

 Its citizens are equal before the law, entitled to equal 
 opportunities and possessed of equal privileges. 
 
 There is no class, and no section, which should be 
 favored at the expense of another, for success or failure 
 must in the end be shared by all. 
 
 The factory and the farm are the two great producers 
 of national wealth. They are dependent on each other. 
 For every spindle that ceases to bum; for every wheel 
 that no longer turns; for every forge that fails to glow, 
 some farmer’s plow will rust in the furrow. The repub¬ 
 lican party undertakes by wise legislation to foster and 
 develope all our varied and diversified interests. Our 
 system of protection is designed to build up our manu¬ 
 facturing interests, and thereby greatly increase the 
 home demand for agricultural products; while the genius 
 of the nation’s greatest statesman lias coupled with pro¬ 
 tection a broad system of reciprocity, which is already 
 opening up to the invincible Yankee the best markets 
 of the world. 
 
 The result of the late congressional election, and the 
 phenomenal growth of the farmers’ alliance, have been 
 heralded by democracy as the forerunner of republican 
 defeat, and virtual abandonment of the protective 
 system. It is true, that the enactment of the McKinley 
 bill, so near election day that its provisions could not be 
 explained, its practical effects determined, or the false¬ 
 hoods concerning it refuted, cost the republican party 
 thousands of votes. But before the next presidential 
 election its beneficial effects will have become apparent, 
 and if any of its schedules prove to be excessive or un¬ 
 just, the republican party stands ready to correct its own 
 mistakes, without destroying or emasculating the founda¬ 
 tion principles of American protection. 
 
 The farmers’ alliance was undoubtedly an important 
 factor in the last election. It was first organized in the 
 southern states, where it has declared and proven itself 
 
 7 
 
0 
 
 a faithful ally and supporter of democracy. Its organi¬ 
 zation in the west has also been encouraged by the 
 democratic party, as its membership must be largely 
 drawn from the homesteaders, and the veterans, whose 
 votes have heretofore made the prairie states certainly 
 and reliably republican. 
 
 The importance of this movement must not be under¬ 
 estimated by the republican party. In the west its 
 members for the most part are honest, intelligent, patri¬ 
 otic men. The low prices of 1889, and the short crop of 
 1890, brought great hardship and financial distress to 
 the agricultural west, and its farmers naturally turned 
 toward a movement which at once enlisted their sympa¬ 
 thies, and seemed to promise almost immediate relief- 
 The time was also most opportune for those political 
 demagogues, outcasts of both political parties, to whom 
 a famine is a festival, and a pestilence a picnic. 
 
 The hope of the democratic party to-day, is based 
 upon its ability to combine with the alliance on electoral 
 tickets in the western states, and thereby throw the 
 election of president into the house of representatives. 
 In my judgment this result will never come. The men 
 who carried the muskets and followed the flag of union 
 and freedom, will never consent to assist the democratic 
 party back into power. They will never consent to re¬ 
 place a man iu the presidential chair, who vetoed the 
 pittances voted by a democratic congress to the helpless 
 survivors of the war of the rebellion. And the men, 
 whose homesteads have been secured through the 
 legislation of the republican party, cannot be perma¬ 
 nently arrayed against an organization which represents 
 the best thought, the best intelligence, and the truest 
 patriotism of the American people. 
 
 - While the farmers’ alliance in the west is honest in 
 its purposes, yet it is a secret organization, bound 
 together by secret obligations. It considers political 
 
 8 
 
matters, and directs political action, not in open conven¬ 
 tion, or the light of publicity, but from behind closed 
 doors; its leaders'assume gieater powers of dictation 
 than have ever been submitted to by any people. It is 
 therefore in opposition to the spirit of American liberty, 
 which rejoices in the blessing of public discussion, free 
 speech, and an honest exchange of sentiment. 
 
 But if the republican party expects to hold the 
 allegiance of the western people, it must see to it that 
 western interests are recognized, and western demands 
 given fair consideration in all legislative and administra¬ 
 tive affairs. This new country beyond the Mississippi 
 river will no longer be politically silent. Its voice will 
 be heard in the next national convention, in favor of 
 such measures, and such men as will give it a fair share 
 in the benefits of republican government. You of the 
 east need have no fear that republicanism west will 
 demand the enactment of measures detrimental to the 
 interests of our common country. The west, in the day 
 of its power, will be both generous and just. It will 
 recognize the fact that legislation must be national, not 
 sectional, and ' it will staud loyal in the republican 
 column, favoring the protection of American labor, and 
 demanding the protection of American citizenship. It 
 will ask for no financial legislation which is not sound in 
 theory. Its sterling common sense will reject every at¬ 
 tempt to debase the currency and coin of the realm with 
 fiat alloy; but it will insist upon such legitimate increase 
 of our circulation, and such restoration of the double 
 standard as will fairly satisfy the increasing necessities 
 of trade and commerce. In other words, it repudiates 
 the idea of making money intrinsically cheap, but it 
 must have such a volume in circulation as will absolute¬ 
 ly prevent any combination of capital from making its 
 use too dear. The west is not communistic. Its loyal 
 
 and intelligent people will not seek to destroy vested 
 
 9 
 
inteiests, or to cripple any legitimate enterprise, bnt it 
 does demand that the best thought of the republican 
 party shall be concentrated on the fofmulation of such 
 legislation as will save the people from the exactions of 
 the usurer, the oppiession of monopoly, and the extor¬ 
 tionate demands of public carriers. That such results 
 can be accomplished without destroying capital, confis¬ 
 cating corporate property, or murdering millionaires, will 
 be demonstrated by the future statesmanship of the 
 republican party. 
 
 Some who have been trusted and rewarded by the re¬ 
 publican party, have made haste to prove their insin¬ 
 cerity and unworthiness by desertion to the enemy; 
 others have attempted to damn republican measures by 
 faint praise. We have consigned all such to the waste 
 paper basket. No political Benedict Arnold has ever 
 held an honored place in the memory of a brave people. 
 
 Let those whose partisanship is for pottage and posi¬ 
 tion leave us if they will; we can win without their assist¬ 
 ance. 
 
 The republican party cannot be defeated in 1892 if it 
 remains true to the real interests of the people. It must 
 have the courage of its convictions without fear ot 
 political results. It cannot begin a successful campaign 
 with an apology, and if victory can only be won by the 
 abandonment of principles and the substitution of policies, 
 then let the grand old party die. 
 
 The republican party of to-day need claim nothing for 
 its past; its record simply stands as a guarantee of its 
 good faith. It asks the suffrage of the American electors 
 for what it is doing and for what it proposes to do. 
 
 Its first and most sacred duty is the protection of the 
 rights of American citizenship. Not to increase, but to 
 destroy sectionalism; not to rekindle the bitterness of 
 the past, but to lay the foundation for a perfect future, 
 it proposes that in a “government of the people, by the 
 
people, for the people, ” every individual citizen, high 
 or low, rich or poor, foreign or native, black or white, 
 east or west, north or south, shall be permitted to walk 
 to his country’s ballot box and exercise the inalienable 
 privileges of his citizenship without danger to his life 
 or the surrender of his manhood. 
 
 The republican party further proposes to protect t he 
 ballot boxes of this country from both the petty and 
 grand larcenies of alleged honorable democrats. 
 
 This is not a sectional question, except in so far as 
 ci ime against citizenship has become general, respectable, 
 and politically profitable in the southern states. The 
 democratic party of the south secures its congressional 
 representation based upon a census of the colored popu- 
 la'ion. The negro is the salvation of the south; his 
 patient, cheerful, profitable labor is its greatest blessing 
 and dearest hope. But he is the democratic Nemesis. 
 If he is not counted for congressional and electoral rep¬ 
 resentation, the democratic party cannot exist; if he is 
 counted at the polls, the democratic party dies. 
 
 The republican party pledges its faith that it will 
 enact and enforce such legislation as will result in a 
 democratic funeral one way or the other. 
 
 This is not a social question; it is not a question ot 
 good or bad local government; nor is it, properly speaking, 
 a race question. It is a question of right, of justice, of 
 law, of conscience. Slavery was a national sin; men 
 were deprived of liberty in one section of the union 
 and the responsibility was upon the republic. Citizens 
 are deprived of the right of suffrage in the same section 
 and the crime is national. Every American citizen par¬ 
 ticipates in, and is responsible for it; doubly so if he votes 
 the democratic ticket, for democracy north approves of 
 the wrong, and democracy south glorifies in it. 
 
 If this government surrenders the political liberty or 
 equality of its citizenship; if it permits its constitution to 
 be practically annulled, it will cease to command the 
 respect of the nations of the earth; it will no longer be 
 entitled to the confidence of loyal men; the theory of its 
 civilization is at an end, and God’s justice will mark it 
 for destruction, as other great nations have been marked 
 for lesser crimes. 
 
 Nor is the duty of the republican party ended when it 
 
 n 
 
» 
 
 secures a free ballot and a fair count. Those baneful 
 influences, those fraudulent practices, and those vicious 
 elements that have so often debauched the morality of 
 the American ballot box must be suppressed. The 
 ku-klux, the shot gun, the rounder, the bummer, the vote 
 buyer and the demijohn, must be banished from every 
 polling place over which the flag of liberty beneficently 
 floats. 
 
 On March 4, 1889, our government for the first time 
 in many years became republican in all its branches. The 
 administration then begun, has done much to merit the 
 confidence and esteem of the people of the United States. 
 Its congress put an end forever to the power of the parli- 
 mentary filibuster, and permanently established in the 
 house of representatives the right of the majority to pro¬ 
 ceed with the business of the country in a common sense 
 and business like way. Legislation has been enacted 
 under which some measure of justice has been done to 
 the helplessness and old age of those whose valor saved 
 the union, and to the widows and orphans of their de¬ 
 parted comrades. Six new stars of statehood have been 
 added to the azure of the nation’s flag; the development 
 of our shipping interests has been provided for; the act 
 to regulate commerce has been strengthened by amend¬ 
 ment; and laws have been placed upon our statute book 
 intended to ameliorate and advance the interests of the 
 workingman. That the act for the protection of the 
 electors in congressional and presidential elections, did 
 not pass, was due to the desparate opposition of the 
 democratic minority in the senate, and the republican 
 party cannot be charged with its failure. The honor of 
 the nation has been maintained abroad, and the affairs 
 of government honestly and successfully administered. 
 The eleventh census has been carefully and honestly 
 taken, and a non-partisan re-apportionment made there¬ 
 under. Great care has been exercised in the selection of 
 public officials, and the provisions of the civil service act 
 have been implicitly obeyed. 
 
 Despite all assertions to the contrary, the republican 
 party is the real champion of civil service reform. Not 
 that lackadaisical reform, which would substitute the 
 pedantic absorption of encyclopedical information tor 
 the practical good sense and business ability of honest 
 
 12 
 
and capable men ; nor that fraudulent democratic re¬ 
 form which placed Eugene Higgins in charge of the 
 administrative guillotine; but that civil service reform 
 which proposes to run all departments of the govern¬ 
 ment on business principles; to till every official position 
 with an honest, loyal, capable man, and to leave all 
 government employes free to voice, to act, and to vote 
 their political convictions without fear of the administra¬ 
 tive wrath. 
 
 The party of equal rights will never consent that any 
 American citizen shall be denied the exercise of any of 
 his just privileges because he holds a federal office; and 
 on the other hand the American people will not permit 
 the ratification of any nomination secured by the undue 
 influence of those who represent the party in power. 
 
 The summary punishment recently inflicted by the 
 people of New Orleans upon certain alleged members of 
 the mafia society, has strained our friendly relations 
 with the Italian government, and predictions are freely 
 made that further trouble is yet to come. While we do 
 not countenance the unlawful shedding of human blood, 
 and while we all believe that crime should only be pun¬ 
 ished by due process of law, yet we canuot ignore the 
 fact that communities sometimes seem compelled to re¬ 
 sort to desperate remedies for the extermination of mon¬ 
 sters, and it may happen that infamous conspiracies 
 against society can only be crushed by the brutal justice 
 of the mob. 
 
 Of one thing let all Christendom take notice: If 
 other nations rid themselves of anarchists, cut-throats, 
 assassins, and lazzaroni at our expense, the American 
 people will protect themselves. 
 
 Our government stands ready to make ample repara¬ 
 tion for every wrong done to the real citizens of any 
 foreign power; but so long as we have a republican 
 administration, with James G. Blaine as secretary of 
 state, no apology will ever be ottered, and not a dollar 
 will ever be paid for the killing of any red-handed out¬ 
 law, though the navies of all Europe should thunder at 
 our harbors, and the flag of the republic should once 
 more need a million muskets for its defense. 
 
 The New Orleans incident has aroused public opinion 
 on the subject of our immigration aud naturalization 
 
 13 
 
laws. The protective policy, which will not permit 
 foreign pauper labor to unjustly compete in American 
 markets against the American mechanic, must be ex¬ 
 tended to effectually prevent the same unjust compe¬ 
 tition of imported pauper labor. We can have no sym¬ 
 pathy with those who raise the cry—“ America for 
 Americans,” meaning thereby, that foreigners shall be 
 excluded from participation in our political affairs. God 
 Almighty reserved this continent through all the ages, 
 that in the fullness of time the downtrodden and 
 oppressed of all the earth might here find liberty and 
 hope. We are all descendants of foreigners, and our 
 distinctive characteristic as a people, is formed by the 
 amalgamation of many nationalities into one. Every 
 American battlefield has been sanctified by the life blood 
 of heroes, shed for their adopted country. The repub¬ 
 lican party stands pledged to confer citizenship upon 
 every man who is worthy of this sacred trust; but our 
 naturalization laws should be so amended, that no man 
 cau become an American citizen until he possesses an 
 intelligent understanding of our political institutions; 
 until he establishes his character as a law abiding and 
 worthy member of society; and until his devotion to our 
 constitution, and his loyalty to the stars and stripes, has 
 been clearly shown. 
 
 Two years ago at Baltimore, I accepted the presidency 
 of this great organization, under circumstances which 
 seemed to require such action, in order to harmonize 
 conflicting elements, and establish the league on a per¬ 
 manent basis. Last year at Nashville, I was unable to 
 decline a re-election so generously tendered by unani¬ 
 mous vote. During my two terms, I have endeavored 
 to the best of my ability to maintain the league 
 organization throughout the country; to encourage 
 the formation of clubs in every locality; to interest- 
 the young men in political affairs; to assist in the 
 promulgation of republican literature; and to arouse 
 the enthusiam of the best elements of society, in favor 
 of that party which saved the union, destroyed slavery, 
 established our prosperity, and made the name American 
 respected in all the earth. 
 
 At the Baltimore convention the statement was made 
 that the league was out of debt. Within a month from 
 
 14 
 
that time a bill was presented by Talmage & Martin, of 
 New York City, in the sum of about twelve thousand 
 dollars, for printing, advertising, and other work claimed 
 to have been done uuder the direction of the former 
 president, and with the approval of the executive com¬ 
 mittee. After careful examination of this claim, I satis¬ 
 fied myself that it was unjust, excessive in amount, and 
 that it had never been incurred by any one representing 
 the league. I therefore refused to recognize it as a 
 binding obligation, and suit was brought to compel its 
 payment. 
 
 The pendency of this case enabled the democratic 
 press of the country to assert that the league was 
 repudiating its just debts, and was unworthy to 
 be trusted with campaign management or campaigu 
 funds. So long as this suit was pending and unde¬ 
 termined, I believed it unwise to call upon the re¬ 
 publicans of the country to contribute toward the ex¬ 
 penses of the league. It was therefore impossible to 
 push the work of the league as vigorously as I had 
 hoped. A few months since, the democratic judge in 
 New York City, before whom the case was tried, decided 
 in our favor on every point, holding that the league was 
 neither legally nor morally bound for a single item of the 
 claim. This leaves our organization with its bills all 
 paid, its just obligations all met, its honor vindicated, 
 and there is nothing from this time on to stand in the 
 way of vigorous and aggressive action. 
 
 Now is the time to begin the campaign of 1892. In¬ 
 stead of waiting until alter nominations, as heretofore, 
 before putting forth any effort to elect the nominees, it 
 is in the power of the republican league of the United 
 States to offer to the next republican national committee, 
 on the very day of its selection, an organized army of 
 fifty thousand clubs, ready to fall into line at the word of 
 command, and march three millions strong under the re¬ 
 publican banner, to a glorious victory in the following 
 November. 
 
 This magnificent convention is an earnest of the re¬ 
 vival of stalwart republicanism. It is within your power 
 to make this country certainly republican for a quarter 
 of a century to come. The old guard of the party must 
 soon give place to younger leaders. Most of those grand 
 
 15 
 
men who grew to the full stature of greatness in heroic 
 days, have already fathomed the mystery of the infinite 
 design, and in a few more years the last survivor will 
 have mounted to his pedestal of immortal fame. Their 
 biographies make those marvelous chapters in our 
 history, which excite the wonder and admiration of the 
 civilized world. High priests in the cathedral of liberty, 
 they raised the cross of a new crusade, and bore it 
 triumphantly through opposing hosts, to the Mecca of 
 equal rights. The heritage of honor, liberty, and glory, 
 is to us. 
 
 To maintain the union they preserved; to confirm the 
 freedom they secured; to protect the citizenship they 
 conferred; to complete the edifice of prosperity on the 
 foundation they laid, is our solemn duty and dearest 
 hope. We are members of that same organization their 
 wisdom and patriotism created. We are advocates of 
 the same glorious principles they maintained; we kneel 
 at the altar where they pledged tlieir devotion, and we 
 are inspired by the memory of the knightly fields where 
 so mauy of them fell. 
 
 No other age, no other civilization, no other political 
 power, has set so many milestones on the turnpike of 
 human progress, as mark the triumphal advance of 
 the republican party. In its unconquered ranks let us 
 still go marching on; on, under the dearest flag that 
 freemen ever bore; on, in the companionship of the 
 loyal, true and brave; on, to the inspiring music of the 
 union; on, along the pathway of the nation’s glory, to 
 the future of our country’s hope. 
 
 16 
 
\ • _ ' * 'If 
 
 At the Annual Banquet of the Hamilton Club, of 
 
 1 . * 
 
 Chicago, held January lltli, 1892, at the Auditorium, 
 Mr. John M. Thurston responded to the toast, 
 “Alexander Hamilton,” as follows: 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen: —Our patriotic 
 forefathers wrote with inspired pens the two testaments 
 of American Liberty: One, the Declaration of Independ¬ 
 ence; the other, the Constitution of the United States. 
 The first put an end to the government of kings; the 
 second established a government of the people. 
 
 The Declaration of Independence was the manifesto 
 of the spirit of revolution. It voiced the sublime courage 
 of heroic souls; it hurled defiance in the face ot power, 
 and set the barricade of naked breasts against the bay¬ 
 onets of a mighty nation. 
 
 It epitomized the accumulated protest of the 
 centuries against injustice and oppression; it proclaimed 
 the freedom and equality of the human race; it fixed 
 the star of universal liberty in the azure sky of hope, 
 and raised aloft the glorious standard of a new crusade. 
 It was a part of the supreme crisis in which it was 
 formulated. It echoed the guns of Lexington and 
 Bunker Hill; it was deliberated upon almost within the 
 sound of contending arms. The men who framed it 
 were already outlawed and prescribed; they knowingly 
 staked upon the issue their liberties and lives. 
 
 Instead of being overwhelmed by the tremendous 
 responsibilities and dangers of the situation; instead of 
 hesitating upon the brink of the- abyss,—like eaglets 
 
pluming first pinions for an upward iligbt,—they rose into 
 the clear sunshine of the revealed will, and out of the 
 exaltation of the hour, produced a document which com¬ 
 mended itself to the deliberate judgmtnt of mankind, 
 and won the approval of a righteous God. 
 
 In launching their thunderbolt against a throne, it 
 is a wonder they did not lose sight of the ultimate object 
 of the revolution. Had they done so, victory could 
 have brought nothing but chaos, and the history of other 
 popular uprisings would have repeated itself in the re- 
 enslavement. of those gifted to destroy but powerless to 
 recreate. The government they assailed was sanctioned 
 by time and tradition, endeared by inheritance and asso¬ 
 ciations; although it had become oppressive and tyra- 
 nical, yet it secured to the colonies safety at home and 
 peace abroad. It maintained law and order; it furnished 
 protection for property and personal rights. To have 
 overthrown it without proposing something better in its 
 place, would have been an unpardonable offense. 
 
 Any government is better than none. Despotism 
 is safer than anarchy. The world has less to fear from 
 tyrants than from mobs. The frenzied enthusiasts, who 
 beat with naked hands upon the iron gateway of the 
 Bastile, instituted the Reign of Terror. In the outraged 
 name of Liberty, monsters have perpetrated the most 
 infamous of crimes. Robespierre, not royalty, set up the 
 guillotine. 
 
 The men of the Continental Congress were of 
 another mold. Trained in the broad school of a new 
 world development; animated by lofty purposes; fully 
 understanding the necessity for stability in human affairs, 
 they first exhausted all peaceful methods to redress their 
 Wrongs. And even when those failed they only consented 
 to tear down the outgrown edifice of foreign rule, in order 
 that there might be erected in its place an enduring 
 
temple of their own fashioning, in which those “unalien¬ 
 able lights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happi¬ 
 ness” should be forever guaranteed to the American 
 people. 
 
 The Declaration of Independence, therefore, was not 
 alone a defiance, it was a covenant. In renouncing 
 dependence, it pledged nationality. It promised the 
 American people “to institute new government, laying 
 its foundation on such principles and organizing its pow¬ 
 ers in such form as to them” should “seem most likely 
 to effect their safety and happiness.” 
 
 The adoption of the Constitution of the United 
 States was the fulfillment of the pledge. That the 
 promise was kept; that the ark of the covenant was not 
 broken; that an abiding union of the colonies was 
 secured; that the world was astounded by successful 
 popular government; that the ship of state did not strand 
 on the shoals of incompetency, discord, sectionalism, 
 insolvency and enervation, was largely due to the 
 matchless genius, the eloquent tongue, the trenchant 
 pen, the broad statesmanship, the undaunted courage, 
 the robust patriotism and the herculean efforts of Alex¬ 
 ander Hamilton. 
 
 Who cau fittingly tell the marvelous story of his 
 life ? Out of its driest details could be woven a romance 
 surpassing fiction. 
 
 Had he been only a soldier, he would still live on 
 the pages of heroic history as one of the bravest and 
 most chivalrous of men. None knightlier than he 
 ever set lance in rest for lady’s favor in the lists of love; 
 none with more ardent heart ever turned face of faith 
 toward Palastine; uone with a holier purpose ever drew 
 sword for God and country. 
 
 Captain of artillery at nineteen; Lieutenant Colonel 
 and aide de camp to Washington at twenty; the 
 . '-vb ’ • • 3 
 
trusted secretary, assistant, companion, consellor aud 
 friend of tlie great Commander, all through the desperate 
 years of the Revolution ; conspicuous for military skill 
 and gallantry on its most stubborn fields; leader of the 
 forlorn hope at Yorktown ; his blazing sword waved on 
 the final charge, amid the smoke and hell of battle, until 
 upon the captured parapet, it cleared a place for the 
 victorious standard of a new born nation. 
 
 As an orator he ranked with the greatest of a time 
 filled with the very inspiration of eloquence. While yet 
 a boy of seventeen he ventured to appear upon the pub¬ 
 lic rostrum before a great assemblage called together in 
 the suburbs of New York City to determine whether 
 delegates to the first Continental Congress should be 
 chosen by the people—or nominated by the representa- 
 of the British Crown. The occasion was most interesting 
 and important. Both sides of the controversy were well 
 represented, and the discussion was able and animated. 
 
 A well-known historian thus describes the scene: 
 “ At first the youthful appearance and diminutive form 
 of the orator operated strongly against him. He also 
 displayed that modesty and hesitation of manner which 
 is the usual attendant of the first inexperienced efforts 
 of great oratorical abilities. But he had not proceeded 
 far in his address, before he recovered his self-confideuce 
 and then the vigor of his thoughts, the clearness and 
 precision of his language, the force of his reasoning, his 
 eloquence, his pathos, his persuasive powers, as well as 
 the singular appropriateness of his delivery commanded 
 the most intense admiration. When he concluded his 
 speech, his ability and fame had been placed beyond 
 dispute or question.” 
 
 / ^ ' t ... ( • > 
 
 The reputation thus suddenly gained increased year 
 by year until at the bar, iu political debate, before the 
 Legislature of his State, in the Continental Congress and 
 
 4 
 
as a member of the convention wliicli framed tbe Consti¬ 
 tution of the United States lie stood tlie orator par 
 excellence; bead and shoulders above all compeers; 
 tbe acknowledged leader of constitutional debate; the 
 most convincing, impressive and successful advocate of 
 right, of justice, of liberty, of good government, and of 
 national union this land has ever known. 
 
 His pen was no less eloquent than bis tongue. He 
 contributed to the political literature of bis day a remarka¬ 
 ble number of essays, pamphlets and reports, which 
 remain masterpieces of their kind ; and from which the 
 statesmen and jurists of all subsequent years have drawn 
 vast stores of learning, logic, patriotism and common 
 sense. ' 
 
 He was an intellectual giant to whom the intricate 
 meshes of abstruse subtleties were cobwebs, and in 
 whose grasp the iron links of opposing argument were 
 ropes of sand. No matter how obscure a subject, he 
 sounded its darkest depths and revealed them plainly to 
 the dullest comprehension of ordinary men. 
 
 In the arena of discussion he wielded with equal 
 ease the flashing scimiter of Saladdin and the ponderous 
 battle axe of the lion hearted knight. The attic bee for 
 ever hovered on his lips—the fires of inspiration burned 
 along his pen. 
 
 It is impossible, without trespassing too far upon 
 your patience, to speak of Hamilton as a lawyer. 
 Though he rose to pre-eminence in his chosen profession, 
 yet the commanding figure he became at the bar is 
 dwarfed by his gigantic stature as a statesman. 
 
 It is his privilege and glory to be first among those 
 immortal few who wrought the miracle of bringing demo¬ 
 cratic government under the nile of a supreme law. In¬ 
 deed it may be safely asserted, that he originated the 
 constitutional idea; that he was the prime mover in ser 
 
 f 
 
 ' r O 
 
curing a convention; that he proposed most of the funda¬ 
 mental principles which gave life and power and endur¬ 
 ance to the governmentjand that he contributed by his un¬ 
 ceasing efforts more than any other man toward securing 
 the adoption of the formulated constitution by the reluct¬ 
 ant colonies. 
 
 The Revolutionary War was followed by years of 
 political chaos. Congress possessed no generally recog¬ 
 nized authority. It had created a war debt which the 
 States would not pay. There was neither revenue nor 
 credit. Poverty 7 , agricultural distress and business 
 stagnation filled the land. Without standing abroad or 
 power at home, the emancipated colonies were steadily 
 drifting toward anarchy 7 . At this critical time, Madison 
 writes, ‘‘It is quite impossible that a government so 
 weakened and despised can much longer hold together.” 
 Yon Holst says, “ ISot only the State, but even society 
 had actually entered on the process of dissolution.” 
 
 In this desperate strait Alexander Hamilton lit the 
 beacon light on the headland of national safety—and the 
 ship of State rode through the breakers and the storm 
 into the peaceful harbor of Constitutional Union. 
 
 It may be objected by some that I am giving him 
 sole credit for what was brought about by the joint 
 labor of many illustrious men. Others contributed ably 7 , 
 grandly, patriotically to the great work, but, his was the 
 master mind; the creative genius; the dominant spirit. 
 The learned historian Guizot declares, “that there is not 
 in the Constitution of the United States an element of 
 order or force, or duration which he did not powerfully 
 contribute to secure.” 
 
 As certainly as Moses, amid the smoke and flame 
 of Sinai, set up the supreme moral code of the ten tab¬ 
 lets; just so certainly did Alexander Hamilton, out of 
 the crude, conflicting, dangerous and anarchic theories 
 
of his day evolve and establish the great constitutional 
 code of supreme civil law, which will remain for all time 
 to come the model of permanent, popular government. 
 
 But his public services do not end here. The emi¬ 
 nent divine, Dr. John Lord, has said that “to him pre¬ 
 eminently belongs the glory of restoring or creating our 
 national credit, and relieving universal financial embar¬ 
 rassments.” Our financial sj stem was the work of this 
 one man, “who worked alone, as Michael Angelo on the 
 ceiling of the Sistiue Chapel.” “He struck the rock of 
 the national resources,” said Webster, “and abundant 
 streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead 
 corpse of the public credit and it sprang upon its feet. 
 The fabled birth of Minerva from the brain of Jupiter 
 was hardly more sudden than the financial system of the 
 United Seates as it burst from the conception of Alex- 
 der Hamilton.” 
 
 He was also the parent of protection to American 
 industries. He punctured those rainbow theories of the 
 collegians, which have so seriously threatened the pros¬ 
 perity of our country from the beginning to the present 
 time. He demonstrated the utter absurdity of limiting 
 the American people to agricultural and pastoral pur¬ 
 suits. His prophetic mind saw clearly that the upbuild¬ 
 ing and diversification of our industries could alone 
 secure the independence and permanent welfare of his 
 beloved people. “The one great national necessity was 
 protection, and this he made as clear as light.” He pro¬ 
 posed to legislate for America, not for Europe, for 
 America, not for universal humanity. “One of our 
 errors,” he said, “is that of judging things by abstract 
 calculations, which though geometrically true are prac¬ 
 tically false.” 
 
 We are the inheritors of his faith; we believe in the 
 American idea. We are willing to trust the stalwart 
 
 . 17 
 
Americanism of Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay and 
 James G. Blaine. ' ' 
 
 • Tlie ardor of my tberne has led me on until I fear 
 I trench upon the time assigned to others; and yet I 
 cannot close without referring to the great service Ham¬ 
 ilton rendered in combating, and for the time overcom¬ 
 ing those desperate attempts to break down the strength 
 of: the National Government, by the assertion of State 
 autonomy and the insistance upon the right of nullifi¬ 
 cation. He maintained the supremacy of the Union 
 even when Jefferson led the assault. Between the young 
 Republic and its political foes he interposed the shield of 
 those implied powers, the fullest exercise of which in 
 after years was necessary to preserve its life. ' 
 
 And so above the stormy ocean of tempestuous times 
 he rises lilte a mighty cliff; around its base tlie roaring 
 waters and the angry flood; about its peak the sunshine 
 and the stars. 1 
 
 Such characters as Alexander Hamilton are only 
 produced in some great crisis of human affairs; they are 
 not possible to the commonplace history of ordinary 
 times. For centuries before his day the government 
 of nearly all civilized nations was monarchial in form and 
 absolute in character. Submission and obedience to con¬ 
 stituted authority was the generally accepted doctrine of 
 all classes. The atmosphere of courts is not favorable 
 to the development of patriotic or creative statesmanship. 
 Royalty, rank and riches do not encourage incipient am¬ 
 bition iu those not born to the purple. Courtiers have 
 eyes only for the favor of Rulers, and the affairs of king¬ 
 doms are too often administered by those most willing to 
 prostitute mind, body and soul to the perpetuation of 
 the cherished prerogatives of the anoiuted race. 
 
 Look not therefore to any era of unchecked empire 
 for the manifestation of transcendent genius. Permanent 
 
 ' 8 
 
; f , * ~ 
 
 •r \ »■ ' . ??* < * ' 
 
 conditions, limited possibilities, patient servitude 
 breed pigmies. The dead level of mediocrity casts no 
 tidal wave upon the shores of time. But there are 
 epochs when God’s spirit moves upon the earth and 
 established things are rocked by the earthquake, shaken 
 , by the tempest of His Almighty will. Then thrones 
 crumble, dynasties fall and crowns are playthings for the 
 rabble. From the birth pangs of revolution and refor¬ 
 mation spring the giants of the human race. For every 
 supreme hour, Providence finds the man. Alexander 
 Hamilton was necessary to the divine plan of progress. 
 
 A broken column, an unfinished chapter tell the 
 rest. At an age when most public careers are just com¬ 
 mencing, his closed. His tragic, untimely death was a 
 national calamity. In the prime of life; wearing the fresh 
 laurels of accomplished greatness; still pressing upward 
 toward the snow-capped peaks of fame; his face to the 
 sunrise of his country’s glory, he fell, the consenting 
 victim of an infamous political assassination, to which the 
 sentiment of the time compelled him to submit. 
 
 But those great fundamental principles of abiding 
 popular government, to the securement of which he 
 devoted his best endeavors, did not fail. Supported by 
 the statesmanship of a Webster; consecrated by the 
 martyrdom of a Lincoln; confirmed by the sword of a 
 Grant, the Union of the Constitution remains forever, 
 the heritage of the American people, the hope of a 
 rejoicing world. 
 
 And the flag he waved above the captured parapet 
 at Yorktown, still holds the sky; its azure field 
 resplendent with increasing stars; its floating stripes 
 serene on freedom’s breeze. A million eager feet trod 
 the pernicious heresy of nullification and secession into 
 the irresurrectible dust, and a million loyal bayonets 
 
 9 
 
decreed the stars and stripes to be the banner of a 
 nation. 
 
 Under it the party of union, freedom and Ameri¬ 
 canism will go marching on; under it the Constitution 
 of the United States will be upheld ; under it American 
 honor will be maintained abroad and the rights ot 
 American citizeuship enforced at home ; under it Amer 
 ican prosperity will still bless the land and American 
 commerce yet sweep the sea; under it American institu¬ 
 tions, American industries, American labor and Ameri¬ 
 can homes will be protected by American laws. 
 
 In this hope Alexander Hamilton lived and died. 
 
 - To its fulfillment God give us strength. 
 
 10 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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ORATION 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE 
 
 Blaine Memorial Meeting 
 
 HELD AT THE 
 
 AUDITORIUM, CHICAGO, 
 
 _ / 
 
 V 
 
 February 2 8 t li, 1 8 9 3, 
 
 BY 
 
 Hon. John M. Thurston. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 * / 
 
 4 Vjj 
 
 
 
JAMES G. BLAINE. 
 
 Oration delivered by Hon. John M. Thurston, at the 
 Blaine Memorial Meeting held at the Audi¬ 
 torium, Chicago, February 28, 1893. 
 
 Our “uncrowned king” is dead, but there are none to cry 
 “ long live the king; ” for there can be no successor to James 
 G. Blaine in the loving hearts of his bereaved countrymen. 
 
 The Republic mourns its statesman; Humanity, its priest; 
 Liberty, its advocate; Americanism, its champion. All the 
 world unites in honor of his memory and regret for his 
 demise. But I turn sadly from the public demonstration— 
 expressing so fittingly the general recognition of his unparal¬ 
 leled achievements and the full measure of a nation’s loss—to 
 place one humble tribute of affectionate devotion upon the 
 heaped up earth that covers him who was my friend. Could 
 I but follow inclination, I would to-night give voice alone to 
 a deep sense of personal grief, in words as simple as my 
 sorrow is sincere. 
 
 The world moves on, and by the world the dead are soon 
 forgotten. A national character passes from the scene of 
 human action, and in the presence of an open grave the pop¬ 
 ulace is touched profoundly; but in the rush and fret and 
 strife for wealth and place and power, the tragedies of yester¬ 
 day, the tenderness of to-day, find scanty recollection in the 
 desperate earnestness and absorbing necessities of to-morrow. 
 History may perpetuate the salient features of a public career; 
 the orator and poet immortalize a name; but the preservation 
 of the sweeter, better, truer details of a profitable life 
 remains the sacred heritage of family and friends 
 
 It is said that a grain of wheat, resurrected from the cata¬ 
 combs of Rome, where it had lain buried beneath the 
 accumulated dust of centuries, exposed to the springtime rain 
 and sunshine, has germinated into green and beautiful life. 
 
4 
 
 So let it be for us, his living, tireless friends, to resurrect 
 from the catacomb of the years, each priceless seed of mem¬ 
 ory connected with the daily life and deeds of one so dear to 
 us, and with the rain of our tears and the sunshine of our 
 love, make them to bloom and blossom once again. 
 
 James G. Blaine stood for a quarter of a century as the dis¬ 
 tinctive champion of the American idea, of American interests 
 and of American measures. He has been nearer the affection 
 of the American masses than any other public man, except 
 Lincoln, and it can be said, without fear of contradiction, 
 that he was the real choice, not only of the republican party, 
 but of the people of the United States, for president, in every 
 presidential year from 1876 to 1892. Twice he was defeated 
 for nomination by political combination; twice he put aside 
 with his own hand the mantle of leadership, and once he was 
 robbed of election by a series of unfortunate circumstances. 
 Yet during all these years his fame has been most upon the 
 American tongue; and in every civilized corner of the globe, 
 thousands and thousands who could not name the president of 
 the United States, spoke of him with admiration and pro¬ 
 found respect. 
 
 Blaine was the political giant of the generation; the Amer¬ 
 ican statesman of his age; the popular leader par excellence; 
 the chevalier Bayard of American politics. One of the 
 severest critcisms on our popular form of government is 
 found in the fact*that he was pulled down so many times by 
 the pigmies, in order that mediocrity might climb to the 
 highest place. 
 
 The presidency could have added nothing to the enduring 
 character of his fame, but the failure to confer upon him their 
 greatest office, is a reproach upon his countrymen. The loss 
 is to the Nation, not to Blaine. The infinite pity of it all is 
 this: that history, in adding his name to those of Webster 
 and of Clay, will have emphasized both the impossibilities of 
 greatness and the ingratitude of republics. 
 
 Our ancestors, in the barbaric ages of the past, when vic¬ 
 tory had blessed the prowess of their arms, raised upon their 
 bloody shields the greatest hero of them all and crowned 
 him king. 
 
5 
 
 The hero of the nineteenth century.need no longer be a 
 man of arms. Brute force has ceased to rule. Conquest is 
 repugnant to the civilized instincts of the race. The cham¬ 
 pion of humanity does not wear a coat of mail or wield the 
 spear; and the sword can never again become divine author¬ 
 ity for the sceptre. But hero worship still exists, a deathless 
 sentiment of the human heart, demanding for the successful 
 champion of human rights the highest recompense of human 
 gifts. The hero worshippers of the United States, despoiled 
 Jjy death of further earthly hope, will see to it that in the 
 memory of men, James G. Blaine lives forever as the first 
 American statesman; as the originator of great national poli¬ 
 cies; as the prophet of the popular demand; as the hewer of 
 pioneer paths to national advancement, and as the friend, 
 the benefactor and the leader of the American people. 
 
 The poor, the lowly and the oppressed will especially cherish 
 his name. He had at heart, not the interests of the rich or 
 powerful, but of the toilers and the workers. Not alone was 
 his eloquent voice lifted for the welfare of those able to fight 
 their own battles, but for the weak and the helpless and the 
 struggling. It will be remembered of him, that he always 
 stood for the enforcement of the rights of American citizen¬ 
 ship and in favor of the dignity of American manhood. He 
 never doffed his hat to wealth or position. He proclaimed 
 the dinner pail in the hand of the mechanic as the*badge of 
 American nobility. The common people revere his character 
 most. They never stood between him and the realization of 
 his ambition. Politicians have, many times barred his path¬ 
 way, but the people,' never. 
 
 James G. Blaine was born in an eventful period of Ameri¬ 
 can history. His Gcd given powers; his capacity for public 
 affairs; his genius of leadership, might otherwise have re¬ 
 mained undeveloped and unknown. Providence sows the 
 germs of greatness broadcast among the sons of men, yet 
 generations sometimes pass away and no one climbs above 
 the level of the multitude. . In uneventful years the human 
 caterpillar hugs the earth and knows no instinct of expanding 
 wings. The chrysalis of human possibility is only broken by 
 the earthquake and the tempest. The womb of the centuries 
 
6 
 
 brings forth no giant except to meet some desperate human 
 need. 
 
 Had James G. Blaine come into the world a generation 
 sooner, or two decades later, the wave of his existence might 
 not have cast a ripple on the shores of time. He opened his 
 eyes at almost the identical hour which witnessed the birth 
 of the abolition party. The burning pen of William Lloyd 
 Garrison had just commenced to write the first chapter of the 
 new gospel of universal liberty. God’s child of justice, un¬ 
 heralded of men, lay in the manger of another Bethlehem* 
 destined to tread the wine press of persecution and revile- 
 ment for the sins of men; and personified respectively in 
 Elijah Parish Lovejoy, John Brown and Abraham Lincoln, 
 to suffer martyrdom in a holy cause. 
 
 Blaine’s cradle may almost be said to have rocked to the 
 eloquence of John Quincy Adams in the House of Represen¬ 
 tatives, insisting on the right of petition as inseparable from 
 free government and free citizenship. A little later and there 
 came to his childish ears the news that the philanthropist 
 Lewis Tappan had been mobbed in his own home by the 
 respectable and law-abiding people of New York City; and 
 that Garrison had been dragged through the streets of the 
 Athens of America, with a halter about his neck, by an im¬ 
 posing assemblage of distinguished citizens. 
 
 I'-ip 
 
 The spirit of the time entered into the soul of the boy. 
 The impressions of his childhood did much toward shaping 
 the development and character of the man. In after life he 
 became, and remained steadfastly the advocate of liberty, the 
 friend of the oppressed, the apostle of equal rights. From 
 the beginning to the end of his career he never compromised 
 with his conscience. The rights of man represented to him 
 such sacred and inalienable possessions, that nothing less 
 than their full recognition and unqualified enjoyment could 
 be tolerated in a government of the people. 
 
 From what has been said concerning the influences sur¬ 
 rounding his early life, it must not be inferred that Blaine 
 grew up an abolitionist, or that he ever really became an 
 advocate of the abolition cause. He had within him the 
 strongly marked characteristic of conservatism. He was 
 
7 
 
 in no sense of the word emotional. Not lightly swayed by the 
 philippics and anathemas of Wendell Phillips, or the eloquent 
 appeals of Frederick Douglass, his views upon the slavery 
 question were the result of mature study, reflection and de¬ 
 liberation. 
 
 His ardent and powerful support of the emancipation 
 proclamation in after years did not re^t on the moral, religious 
 or humanitarian aspect of the case; but upon the broad 
 proposition of the constitutional power vested in President 
 Lincoln to preserve the life of the Nation by whatever means 
 were necessary to the end. 
 
 The eventful incidents of Blaine’s youth had also much to 
 do with the growth of those convictions which impelled him 
 to become the ardent advocate and recognized champion of 
 American protection. Ten years of age when William Henry 
 Harrison was elected president of the United States, there is 
 no doubt the intense excitement, wild enthusiasm, and spec¬ 
 tacular character of the Tippecanoe campaign, made a strong 
 impression upon his youthful mind. A child in years, his 
 precocious intellect was aroused to an almost mature consid¬ 
 eration of those important economic questions upon which 
 the political battle of 1840 was fought and won. 
 
 It is altogether probable that the public discussions of that 
 period aroused him to thus early begin the study of political 
 economy as applied to American conditions; from which he 
 graduated a sincere convert to that federal revenue system, 
 formulated by the eminent financier, patriot, statesman and 
 constitution maker, Alexander Hamilton, and so ably sup¬ 
 ported by the fiery eloquence and irresistable logic of the 
 great American commoner, Henry Clay. 
 
 Whatever may be said by political friend or foe; however 
 much we may differ on the subject ourselves; no one will 
 ever question James G. Blaine's profound conviction—forti¬ 
 fied by years of practical experience, patient investigation and 
 patriotic consideration—that the ultimate prosperity of 
 American enterprise; the dignity of American labor; the up¬ 
 building of American industries, and the maintenance of 
 American institutions, could be best secured by a duty on 
 
8 
 
 manufactured products fairly representing the difference 
 between the scale of wages abroad and at home. 
 
 Let the final decision of the American people on the tariff 
 question be as it may, it is a matter of universal congratula¬ 
 tion that the subject has been so thoroughly expounded; so 
 brilliantly illuminated by the numerous, exhaustive and 
 statesmanlike utterances of James G. Blaine. No American 
 college library is complete, unless it contains a collection of 
 
 his tariff speeches; and their careful study and analysis should 
 
 * 
 
 be an indispensable requirement of American collegiate edu¬ 
 cation. 
 
 This is not partisanship; it is patriotism. Our country is 
 worth more to us than any party. If there shall ever be a 
 political organization which dare not turn the calcium light 
 of truth upon the convention platform; which dare not chal¬ 
 lenge free discussion; which dare not trust the enlightened, 
 patriotic judgment of an intelligent people, that organization 
 has no right to exist. Yea, and if any party, no matter how 
 glorious its past, forgets the supreme inspiration of its crea¬ 
 tion; abandons the sublime tenets of its faith; suffers its 
 solemn pledges to be broken; apologizes for a violated consti¬ 
 tution; becomes indifferent to wronged citizenship and no 
 longer stands for the welfare of the common people—for 
 God’s sake let that party die; the Republic can better live 
 without it. 
 
 Whatever else we are, we are Americans. For American 
 
 principles and American interests, first, last and all the time. 
 
 Let the American flag float over every American school house; 
 
 let the constitution of the United States be taught in every 
 
 public school; let loyalty to American institutions be the test 
 
 of American citizenship; set the stars of the Union in the 
 
 • * _ 
 
 hearts of our children, and the glory of the Republic will 
 
 remain forever. 
 
 Let the history of our country contain the true story of 
 every American battlefield from Lexington to Appomattox. 
 It does not matter whether the American cradle is rocked to 
 the music of “Yankee Doodle,” or the lullaby of “Dixie,” if 
 the flag of the nation is displayed above it. And the Ameri¬ 
 can baby can be safely trusted to pull about the floor the 
 
9 
 
 rusty scabbard and the battered canteen—whether the inher¬ 
 itance be from blue or gray—if from the breast of a true 
 mother and the lips of a brave father its little soul is filled 
 with the glory of the American constellation. 
 
 Open wide the gates of Castle Garden to every honest, 
 liberty loving, God fearing, government supporting, labor 
 seeking man; but close them at once and forever against all 
 whose blood, whose birth, whose condition, whose teachings, 
 whose practices, whose religion, would corrupt American 
 society; reduce the standard of American manhood; lessen 
 the opportunities of American labor, or menace the perman¬ 
 ency of free government. 
 
 Blaine graduated from college at seventeen years of age, 
 and immediately commenced active life as a teacher. At 
 twenty he was summoned home to attend his dying father. 
 By that father’s open grave he passed from youth to man¬ 
 hood. From that hour he was thrown upon his own resources 
 and faced the world alone. 
 
 The year 1850 is a memorable one. It marked a distinct 
 era in the political thought of the country and made a pro¬ 
 found impression on the minds of patriotic men. The north 
 and the south, the free states and the slave states, found 
 themselves arrayed against each other in violent and absorb¬ 
 ing conflict. The irrepressible warfare between right and 
 wrong, humanity and oppression, the Union and secession, 
 was fairly on. A convention of the slave-holding states was 
 called to meet at Nashville for the purpose of considering the 
 possible separation of the sections. The celebrated compro¬ 
 mise resolutions of Clay were before the Senate, and the crisis 
 of the situation was reached with the passage of the fugitive 
 slave law in September. When that infamous measure 
 became law, the clock of fate struck twelve for slavery. 
 
 The two contending theories of our government had at last 
 joined issue upon lines which made it impossible that there 
 
 should ever come reconciliation or security until the one or 
 the other was established throughout the entire length and 
 breadth of the land. Washington, Adams and Hamilton 
 stood for a federal government possessing whatever implied 
 constitutional powers were necessary to preserve its life. 
 
10 
 
 Washington in his farewell address, declared that “the Union 
 is the edifice of our real independence, the support of our 
 tranquility at home, our peace abroad, our prosperity, 
 our safety, and of the very liberty which we so highly prize.” 
 “For this Union we should cherish a cordial, habitual, im¬ 
 moveable attachment, and should discountenance whatever 
 may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be 
 abandoned. ” 
 
 / 
 
 Jefferson, on the other hand, maintained the sovereignty of 
 the state; insisted that the Union was no more than a volun¬ 
 tary confederation dependent upon the consent of each 
 commonwealth. Those who followed him in after years 
 carried his contention to its legitimate conclusion in the 
 assertion of the alleged right of nullification and seces¬ 
 sion. 
 
 These two theories might never have been put to the test 
 except for the existence of the institution of slavery and its 
 localization in one particular section of the Union. 
 
 The fugitive slave law broke up the whig party, After its 
 passage it was impossible that any political organization 
 should successfully combat the slave-holding power, which 
 did not stand in favor of free speech, free soil and free men. 
 
 At this trying period in the history of our Nation, its three 
 great statesmen and congressional leaders passed from the 
 
 scene of human action. 
 
 That Blaine had been a careful student of the lives, utter¬ 
 ances, principles and accomplishments of Calhoun, Webster 
 and Clay, is attested by his whole career. His judgment of 
 the men and his convictions upon the doctrines they so ably 
 expounded is best evidenced by his own words: 
 
 Of Calhoun he says: “To the majority of the people in 
 the slave-holding states he was as an inspired leader for 
 more than twenty years. He taught the philosophy and 
 supplied the arguments to the ambitious generation of 
 public men who came after him, and who were prepared, as 
 he was not, to force the issue to the arbitrament of arms. 
 * * * * * History will adjudge him to have been 
 single-hearted and honest in his political creed. It will 
 equally adjudge him to have been wrong in his theory of the 
 
11 
 
 Federal Government and dead to the awakened sentiment of 
 Christendom in liis views concerning the enslavement of 
 men.” 
 
 Of Webster, Blaine declares: “His speech in reply to 
 Hayne in 1830 was like an amendment to the constitution; 
 it corrected traditions, changed convictions, revolutionized 
 conclusions; it gave to the friends of the Union the abund¬ 
 ant logic which established the right and the power of the 
 government to preserve itself.” 
 
 Of Clay, Blaine has so fittingly written what history will 
 repeat of himself: “His memory is lastingly identified with 
 issues that are still vital and powerful; he advanced the 
 doctrine of protection to the stately dignity of the American 
 system. Discarding the theories and overthrowing the dogma 
 of strict construction, he committed the general government 
 irrevocably to internal improvements. Condemning the 
 worthless system of paper money imposed upon the people 
 by irresponsible state banks, he stood firmly for a national 
 currency. ****** Mr. Clay possessed 
 extraordinary sagacity in public affairs, seeing and foreseeing 
 where others were blinded by ignorance or prejudice. He 
 was a statesman by intuition, finding a remedy before others 
 could discover the disease. ****** Other 
 men have excelled him in specific powers, but in the 
 rare combination of qualities which constitute at once the 
 matchless leader of party and the statesman of consumate 
 ability and inexhaustible resource, he has never been sur¬ 
 passed by any man speaking the English tongue.” 
 
 With the practical dissolution of the whig party, in 1852, 
 it became necessary for the friends of liberty, humanity and 
 union, to found a new political organization. The quickened 
 conscience of the country brought into existence the repub¬ 
 lican party. James G. Blaine was one of its first members. 
 
 Having moved to Augusta, Maine, in 1854, he gave up his 
 profession as a teacher and availed himself of an opportunity 
 to enter the journalistic world, as editor of the Kennebec 
 Journal . In that sheet he first gave utterance to his political 
 convictions. In 1855, speaking of the republican party, he 
 said: “ Long may it live to protect our interests, develop 
 
12 
 
 / 
 
 our resources, and under all circumstances dare to do right, 
 and trust the consequences to Infinite Wisdom. Let it be 
 not merely the inauguration of a new party, but the exalta¬ 
 tion of principle above party.” This declaration is a true 
 index of the character of the man. 
 
 Blaine was always intensely in earnest; advocating only 
 what he believed to be right, fearlessly denouncing what he 
 believed to be wrong. He always urged his countrymen to 
 stand by their principles at the hazard of defeat, rather than 
 to surrender a single conviction for the promise of success. 
 
 If I could teach the youth of this land but one great pre¬ 
 cept, it would be this: It were better to go down into the 
 bottomless ocean of irretrievable political disaster, following 
 a great commander for a great cause, than to ride into the 
 harbor of political safety under the banner of expediency or 
 the leadership of a political dwarf. 
 
 The practical beginning of Blaine’s public career was in 
 1856, when he was elected delegate to the first republican 
 national convention. In 1858 he became a member of the 
 lower house of the Maine legislature, in which body he 
 remained until his election to congress, in the fall of 1862, 
 serving four consecutive terms — the last two as Speaker. 
 From the very start he developed that rare genius for leader¬ 
 ship which is the most distinguishing characteristic of great¬ 
 ness in every age. 
 
 His first important speech, which brought him at once 
 into national prominence, was delivered in the Maine legisla¬ 
 ture, March 7, 1862, in support of a series of resolutions 
 endorsing the administration of Abraham Lincoln in the 
 conduct of the war; insisting upon the constitutional right 
 and duty of congress to accept “ the services of all able- 
 bodied men of whatever status, ” and demanding the confisca¬ 
 tion of the estates of rebels, and the liberation of every slave 
 claimed by any person in arms against the United States or 
 aiding and abetting the rebellion. His most noticeable utter¬ 
 ance was as follows: “ I have said, sir, that the legislation 
 demanded is entirely within the power of congress, without 
 infringing the constitution, or rather, in direct pursuance of 
 the war power of that instrument as expounded by Hamilton 
 
13 
 
 and Henry, by Adams and Webster, by Marshall and Kent 
 * * * * * * But ] es t tp e gentleman should infer that 
 
 I shrink from the logical consequences of some propositions 
 which I have laid down as ultimate steps, I tell him abso¬ 
 lutely that if the life of the nation seemed to demand the 
 violation of the constitution, I would violate it; and in taking 
 this ground I am but repeating the expression of President 
 Lincoln in his message, when he declared that “it were 
 better to violate one provision than that all should perish.” 
 
 Blaine’s ardent advocacy of the Union cause, through the 
 press, from the rostrum, in the Maine legislature, and after¬ 
 wards in the congress of the United States, contributed 
 powerfully to the creation of that public sentiment in the 
 north, which brought to the war measures of Lincoln’s 
 administration the necessary support of a general public 
 approval. 
 
 Blaine entered the Thirty-eighth congress at the age of 
 thirty-three, on December 7, 1863. There for the first time 
 ho met young Garfield, direct from the army of the Cumber¬ 
 land, who had doffed the uniform of a Major-General only two 
 days before. From that hour they became devoted friends 
 and co-laborers in the maintenance of the Union cause and 
 the subsequent support of the republican part) 7 . Of this 
 congress Blaine says: “ The Thirty-eighth congress is pre- 
 eminently entitled in history to the designation of the war 
 congress. It was elected while the war was flagrant, and 
 every member was chosen upon the issues involved in the 
 continuance of the struggle.” 
 
 Blaine served in congress fourteen consecutive years. Of 
 that character of service he has truly said: “There is no test 
 of a man’s ability in any department of public life, more 
 severe than service in the House of Representatives. There 
 is no place where so little deference is paid to reputation pre¬ 
 viously acquired or to eminence won outside; no place where 
 so little consideration is shown for the feelings or the failures 
 of beginners. What a man gajns in the house he gains by sheer 
 force of his own character; and if lie loses and falls back, he 
 must expect no mercy and will receive no sympathy. It is a 
 field in which the survival of the strongest is the recognized 
 
14 
 
 rule, and where no pretense can deceive and no glamor can 
 mislead; the real man is discovered, his worth is impartially 
 weighed, his rank is irreversibly decreed.” Adjudged by this 
 test, Blaine is the grandest character of his time. 
 
 He achieved such distinction in the House of Representatives 
 as has been accorded to no other man in the history of the 
 Republic. He participated prominently in all the great de¬ 
 bates and was a powerful advocate of all those important 
 measures which secured the restoration of the Union; the 
 enfranchisement of the colored race; the settlement of all 
 grave questions growing out of the war; the maintenance of 
 the national credit and the soundness of the currency. Last, 
 but not least, he became the acknowledged champion of the 
 protective policy of the republican party, on the distinctive 
 proposition that American markets and American oppor¬ 
 tunities should, by the Federal Government, be secured to 
 American men. Blaine was the great parliamentary leader of 
 his time; the worthy successor to Clay, Douglas and 
 Stevens. 
 
 On March 4th, 1869, he was elected Speaker of the National 
 House of Representatives, which important position he held 
 for six years. All parties joined in doing him honor at the 
 close of his term. It can fairly be said of him that he was the 
 most successful Speaker in the history of congressional affairs. 
 Much of his deserved popularity came to him by reason of 
 the cool, courteous, decided and impartial manner in which 
 he performed the duties of that high position. Outside the 
 heat of debate he was never accused even by his political 
 enemies of unfairness in the speaker’s chair. 
 
 During all these years of arduous congressional labor, he 
 found time to prepare scores of political campaign speeches, 
 and many important addresses and magazine articles. His 
 speeches and writings constitute in. themselves a library of 
 American history, covering nearly half a century of time and 
 embracing the most critical periods of our national existence. 
 
 Blaine grew in popular favor more rapidly than any other 
 public man. In a decade filled with the robust patriotism of 
 Charles Sumner, Zack Chandler and Oliver P. Morton; the 
 inspired administration of Abraham Lincoln, and the heroic 
 
15 
 
 achievements of Sheridan, Sherman and Grant, it is marvelous 
 that the enthusiastic love and admiration of the Nation should 
 have turned so quickly, increased so rapidly, and become 
 attached so enduringly to the young Congressman who had 
 nothing to commend him except the developing splendor and 
 gen us of his congressional career. 
 
 Much of it was due to the stalwart courage and uncompro¬ 
 mising character of the man. Whatever cause he espoused, 
 he supported with his whole energy. He possessed, too, 
 a rare charm of manner. A pleasant, genial, whole-souled 
 courtesy always characterized his personal intercourse with 
 men. To know him was to love him; and once his friend, 
 always his friend. He represented, also, the young aggres¬ 
 sive element in the republican party; the youth of the coun¬ 
 try flocked enthusiastically to his standard. But all of this 
 only partially accounts for his remarkable popularity with the 
 masses. No other man has ever inspired so much personal 
 enthusiasm among the common people of the United States, 
 and no death has brought so keen a sense of personal loss to 
 so many individuals. 
 
 In the years following the close of the war, Blaine was 
 especially serviceable to his country. He took the strongest 
 possible position in favor of honoring every obligation of the 
 government, not only in the letter, but in the spirit of the 
 bond. His masterful exposition of the dangers of an irre¬ 
 deemable currency assisted immeasurably in hastening the 
 return of the government to the safe basis of specie resump¬ 
 tion. His strong support of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth 
 Amendments and his statesman-like defense of the extension 
 of suffrage to the blacks, will endear him forever in the affection 
 of a race whose battle for real liberty and ultimate advance¬ 
 ment is hopeless indeed except through the instrumentality of 
 the ballot. He remained to the end of his life the uncompro- 
 mising foe of every effort made, directly or indirectly, to 
 disfranchise the negro or deprive him of his constitutional 
 prerogatives. A single sentence of his ought to bq written 
 on every ballot box of the country. “For the ballot to-day, 
 imperfectly enjoyed as it is by the negro, its freedom unjustly 
 and illegally curtailed, its independence ruthlessly marred, 
 
16 
 
 its purity defiled, is withal and after all the strong shield the 
 race has against a form of servitude which would have all the 
 cruelty and none of the alleviations of the old slave system.” 
 He demanded that every American citizen, no matter how 
 poor or ignorant he might be, should be protected in his right 
 to vote. Not because poverty and ignorance are desirable 
 qualifications for citizenship, but because a race or class can 
 be most certainly raised from degradation, poverty* and ignor¬ 
 ance when their hopes and aspirations and desires are 
 quickened by the dignity of political equality and the respon¬ 
 sibilities of participation in government. He voiced a great 
 truth in the declaration that the disfranchisement of a man 
 would not “put him in the way of any development or 
 progress that would in time fit him for the suffrage.” 
 
 James G. Blaine is dead! The race whose future he labored 
 so arduously to secure, is still under the ban of political 
 proscription. But God reigns! His justice is still measured 
 out to man, and the honor of this Nation will yet be redeemed 
 and its constitution will be respected and enforced. 
 
 Blaine’s popularity marvelously increased, and the rank 
 and file of the republican party turned unhesitatingly to him 
 as a presidential candidate for 1876. Never in the history of 
 this country has so much spontaneous enthusiasm been 
 developed for a man as for Blaine in that and every succeed¬ 
 ing presidential year. 
 
 It is useless to discuss the causes which led to his 
 defeat in the Cincinnati convention. Impartial history 
 declares that the will of the people was nullified by the com¬ 
 bination of political opponents. It is not too much to 
 say that the uncertain result of the presidential election of 
 1876 was largely due to the protest of the masses against 
 those who had thwarted their desire. 
 
 Blaine defeated, was greater than in victory. He n'ever 
 sulked in his tent, or failed to do his whole duty to his party. 
 His was the first voice raised after every personal disap¬ 
 pointment, in advocacy of his successful rival. The grand¬ 
 eur of *his character was never so splendidly illustrated as in 
 the heroism and equanimity with which he accepted defeat. 
 
 
This quality, perhaps more than any other, endeared him to 
 his friends. 
 
 Those who followed him in 1876 have been with him and 
 for him ever since, demanding from every republican national 
 convention his selection as the presidential candidate, and 
 refusing to be comforted that his death has made it impossi¬ 
 ble for them to yet bring to him the full measure of his hon¬ 
 orable ambition. No such devoted followers ever rallied 
 around another man ; no such enthusiasm has ever been 
 aroused for any other name ; no such disinterested affection 
 has ever been bestowed, or so richly deserved, as that of 
 the American people for the great champion of American 
 principles. 
 
 Blaine’s nomination and defeat, in 1884, added another 
 remarkable chapter to the unprecedented history of his 
 politcal career. Never was such a scene witnessed as that 
 which followed the announcement of his nomination. The 
 great convention and the ten thousand spectators seemed to 
 go mad with joy. The nomination of no man has ever been 
 received with such general rejoicing as was that of Blaine 
 — a hosanna went up from ocean to ocean. The campaign 
 following it was also phenomena). The appearance of 
 Blaine in any locality was the signal for such gatherings as 
 never greeted any other public man. It seemed impossible 
 to doubt his election ; and the news of his defeat astounded 
 his enemies as completely as it did his friends. 
 
 Speaking only from the patriotic standpoint, I have no 
 hesitation in saying that a Blaine administration would have 
 been a national blessing. That his defeat was a misfortune 
 to the country. Not because of any failure on the part of his 
 successful competitor to satisfactorily carry on the govern¬ 
 ment, but because James G. Blaine undoubtedly possessed 
 such remarkable capacity for national and international 
 affairs; such a thorough understanding of the necessities and 
 possibilities of the hour; such an ambitiom for the welfare 
 of his country; such a genius fcr true statesmanship, that 
 his administration would have given a mighty impetus to 
 American interests and added a deathless lustre to American 
 glory. 
 
18 
 
 
 All true Americans have deeply deplored the slanderous 
 character of the 1884 campaign. Partisan malice seemed to 
 exhaust itself in the effort to conceive and fulminate damaging 
 charges against his private and public character. Never had 
 a candidate been so unjustly maligned, never so despicably 
 assailed. But thank God, he came through the fiery ordeal 
 unscathed; his character vindicated; his name untarnished. 
 Of him we may repeat what Conkling so eloquently and 
 truthfully said of Grant: “Vilified and reviled; ruthlessly 
 
 aspersed by unnumbered presses, not in other lands but in 
 
 # 
 
 his own; assaults upon him have seasoned and strengthened 
 his hold upon the public heart; calumny’s ammunition has all 
 been exploded” * * * * and the name of Blaine 
 
 “will glitter a bright and imperishable star in the diadem of 
 the Republic when those who have tried to tarnish it will have 
 mouldered in forgotten graves, and when their memories and 
 their epitaphs have vanished utterly.” 
 
 The later efforts of Blaine’s life were devoted to the im¬ 
 provement of our foreign relations, the extension of our 
 trade and commerce, the maintenance and enforcement of our 
 international rights. 
 
 As Secretary of State under Garfield and Harrison, he con- 
 
 $ 
 
 tributed vastly to our honor and power abroad. In that great 
 office he more fully rounded the measure of his matchless 
 fame. The recognition of the Monroe doctrine; the establish¬ 
 ment of reciprocal commercial relations with our American 
 neighbors, thereby greatly increasing the export trade of the 
 United States, and the practical securement of an interde¬ 
 pendent alliance of all American governments on a peace 
 basis, attest his genius for diplomacy. In all his dealings 
 with foreign nations he has maintained the dignity and credit 
 of the United States. Insisting upon ample reparation for 
 every wrong done to American interests, he neither imposed 
 upon the weak nor yielded to the strong. The fisherman 
 on the coast of Newfoundland and the sailor in the harbor of 
 Valparaiso, both received the full measure of American pro¬ 
 tection, and even the seal in Alaskan waters, thanks God for 
 the privilege of American domestication. 
 
 The American people will never forget those heroes of 
 
19 
 
 t 
 
 1776 who wrought the miracle of American liberty and rati¬ 
 fied the Declaration of American Independence with Ameri¬ 
 can blood. They will never forget the sailors and marines of 
 1812 whose daring made the deck of every American ship 
 American soil. They will never forget th£ volunteers of 1861, 
 who marched with Sherman to the sea; rode with Sheridan in 
 the valley of the Shenandoah, and stood with Grant for victory 
 and Union at Appomattox. Their immortal deeds have made 
 the Stars and Stripes the emblem of a Nation. 
 
 Peace hath her victories, as far reaching as those of war. 
 The statesman has done as much for humanity as the soldier. 
 And the American people will remember to the end of time 
 that the diplomatic wisdom and courage of James G. Blaine 
 advanced the prestige of the United States and sent the glory 
 of our flag into the remotest corner of the globe, until every 
 wave of %very sea and every foot of every land is an 
 accredited sanctuary for every American man. 
 
 Only three men have attained to the full stature of statecraft 
 in modern times—Bismarck, Gladstone and Blaine. Each 
 in his way has contributed greatly to the welfare and pro¬ 
 gress of the human race. 
 
 Bismarck, descendant of an illustrious line—companion of 
 princes—was limited in his efforts by the environment <pf 
 empire and the immobility of established things. Yet he 
 broke down the barriers of petty sovereignties; redrafted the 
 map of continental Europe; gave to united Germany a written 
 constitution, and put the ballot in the hands of the German 
 people. Intolerant of opposition; masterful and autocratic 
 in his methods—as ready with the sword as with the pen— 
 history in denying him recognition as philantropist or saint, 
 will rank him as amongst the most successful practical bene¬ 
 factors of the age. 
 
 Gladstone, scholar, author, orator, statesman—representa¬ 
 tive of the great conservative middle class which for cen¬ 
 turies gave sturdiness to English character, and stability to 
 English institutions—has been pre-eminently the patriotic 
 leader of that liberal, bloodless revolution which made of 
 En gland a real republic, although her emancipated people 
 still tolerate the spectacle of royalty. With an unselfish de- 
 
20 
 
 votion unparalleled in history, he has given the full measure of 
 his best years and greatest efforts to the undoing of the wrong 
 of centuries. Glorious indeed will be his memory among the 
 liberty loving people of the earth. For when England con¬ 
 cedes Home Rule t*o Ireland the millennium of man’s eman¬ 
 cipation must be near at hand. 
 
 Blaine, child of the Republic, rising of his own endeavor to 
 the highest station, consecrated his God-given powers to the 
 common people, that liberty, equality, opportunity and pros¬ 
 perity, should be a heritage to every American child, and 
 hopeful motherhood the glory of every American home. 
 
 Bismarck will be respected and admired ; Gladstone, hon¬ 
 ored and revered; Blaine, greater, grander, more human 
 than either, is beloved. * 
 
 Close by the shore of the farther sea, Tacoma’s mountain 
 rises from the plain ; its rugged outline cut against the east¬ 
 ern sky. Upon its snow-crowned peak the ardent sun kindles 
 a chastened splendor ; while above, only the soaring eagle 
 and the empyrean blue. Belched from the seething center 
 of a molten world, this mighty witness of the throes that 
 shook a firmament, serenely lifts its glacial face to greet the 
 cycling offspring of the universe. Those tiny atoms, classi¬ 
 fied as men, awed in its presence, acknowledge God. 
 
 To me, the character of Blaine is like Tacoma. Rugged 
 and grand, it rises high above the level of the multitude, 
 clear cut against the sky of fate. Over the clouds and 
 storms and tempests of human affairs it towers in the sun¬ 
 shine of heaven’s indicated will; serenely smiling down upon 
 the world of men, a benediction and a blessing to the human 
 race. 
 
 » 
 
 Blaine’s domestic life was pathetically sweet and simple. 
 He never permitted the shadow of his great ambition to fall 
 across the threshold of his home. A loving, faithful hus¬ 
 band ; a kind, devoted father ; his wife and children were his 
 dearest companions and his heartstone the holiest of shrines. 
 
 The patriots, heroes and statesmen God gave the republic 
 in the consecrated years of ’6o-’65, have nearly all departed, 
 and soon the last survivor will have ceased to bless us with 
 his living presence. But the undimmed lustre of their deeds 
 
m 
 
 21 
 
 V 
 
 on earth still casts refulgence on the Nation’s upward path, 
 
 and their shining faces from the realms beyond still beam 
 
 benignant on the land they saved. 
 
 Pardon me a word of personal retrospection. Blaine’s 
 
 death recalls to my mind the republican national convention 
 
 of 1888. On the opening day I rode from my hotel to the 
 • • 
 
 convention door with Walker and Emmons Blaine; both 
 strong, vigorous, splendid men. In four short years James 
 G. Blaine added to his cup of political bitterness, that deeper, 
 more deadly poison of great personal loss, in the death of a 
 beloved daughter and two stalwart sons. I have no doubt 
 that by their open graves his great heart broke. And yet he 
 bore up bravely; consoled and comforted his loved ones as 
 best he could; serene and jgtient through the weary days and 
 agonizing nights, until God’s mercy gave him rest. Blessing 
 the Nation with his latest breath, he heard the final summons 
 with exceeding joy, and turned to his Creator as to a friend. 
 A wife’s impassioned kiss upon his lips, the peace of heaven 
 upon his brow, the miracle of the infinite wrought at last, 
 and “all is well.” 
 
 We cannot peer into the impenetrable shadow; we listen in 
 the eternal silence, and there is no sound; but the mystic 
 cable of human hope stretches from shore to shore. Over it 
 we send the message of our deathless affection, and with the 
 ear of faith we catch an answering echo from the soul beyond. 
 
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