Yale University Library

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LIFE

SPEECHES AND ORATIONS

OF

DuRBiN Ward

OF

OHIO

COMPILED BY HIS WIFE

Elizabeth Probasco Ward

Columbus, O.
A. H. SMYTHE.

Copyright 1888 by Elizabeth Probasco Ward.

Printed by
HANN & ADAIR,
Columbus, O.

DEDICATION

to the
SURVIVING POLITICAL FRIENDS OF
DURBIN WARD,
who, in his lifetime,
Admired Him for His Talents and Eloquence,
Honored Him for His Incorruptible Patriotism
AND Unswerving Devotion to Principle,
This Volume, containing His most
Important Public Utterances,
IS inscribed.

CONTENTS.

MEMOIRS, .... . . IX
1. EULOGY UPON GOVERNOR MORROW.
Delivered in the House of Representatives of Ohio, 1852. . . 1
2. AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.
A Fourth of July Oration, delivered' at Everton, Indiana, July 4,
1857.  6
3. POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY IN THE TERRITORIES.
An essay, published in 1860, on the constitutional power of the general
government in the federal territories. ... 25
4. OBJECTS OF THE WAR FOR THE UNION.
Address to the people May 23, 1861. ... 49
5. LETTER TO A UNION MEETING AT HAMILTON, OHIO.
Published in the Cincinnati Commercial, April, 1863. . . 54
6. SPEECH IN THE SCHENCK CONGRESSIONAL CANVASS.
Delivered extempore at Hamilton, in opening the canvass, August 31,
1866. ...... .63
7. RECONSTRUCTION POLICY.
Speech delivered at Hillsboro, Ohio, September 23, 1867, and circu
lated by the Democratic State Central Committee of Ohio as a
campaign document. ...... 89
8. RADICAL TYRANNY.
Speech delivered at Lebanon, Ohio, September 12, 1868, and circulated
as a campaign document by the Democratic State Central Committee
of Ohio. . . .... 112
9. THE SOUTH— LET US HAVE PEACE.
A speech delivered at the Army Reunion Banquet at Chicago, Decem
ber 16,1868, in response to the sentiment, "The South — Let us be
Friends." ....... 138

contents.

10. AGAINST THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT.
A speech delivered at Mason, Ohio, September 18, 1869, and circulated
by the Ohio Democratic State Central Committee. . . 140
11. SHERMAN'S MARCH TO THE SEA.
A response to that toast at the Banquet of the Society of the Army of
the Cumberland, at their Reunion at Indianapolis, December 16,
1869. . . .... 171
12. MEMORIAL DAY ORATION.
An address delivered at Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati, May
30, 1870, at the decking with flowers of soldiers' graves. . 174
13. THE PERFECTION OF MANHOOD.
A Masonic oration, delivered on St. John's Day (June 24), 1870, at
Batavia, Ohio. ...... 181
14. THE NEW DEPARTURE.
An extract from a speech delivered at Hamilton, Ohio, September 10,
1870, and circulated by the Democratic Slate Central Committee of
Ohio, as a campaign document. .... 194
15. UNIVERSAL AMNESTY.
A speech delivered in the Senate of Ohio, March 29, 1871, on Hunt's
Resolutions. . . . .199
16. THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF PRINCIPLE.
Substance of a speech delivered at Elyria, September 9, 1871, and
published in the Cincinnati Enquirer, September 11, 1871. (Details
omitted.) ....... 214
17. STATE RIGHTS, A REPLY TO GOVERNOR MORTON.
A speech delivered at Greenwood Hall, in Cincinnati, October 5, 1871,
and published. ...... 233
18. GRANT AND GREELEY.
A speech delivered at Lebanon, Ohio, August 29, 1872, and circulated
as a campaign document. ..... 248
19. SECTIONAL RECONCILIATION.
A speech delivered at Shelbyville, Indiana, September 21, 1872 . 271

contents.

20. ARMY REUNION ORATION.
An address delivered at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, September 17, 1873,
before the Society of the Army of the Cumberland. . 291
21. MEMORIAL DECORATION.
A speech delivered at the Soldiers' Home at Dayton, Ohio, May 30,
1874. ........ 304
22. HARD MONEY AND BANK CURRENCY.
A speech delivered at Lebanon, Ohio, August 21, 1875. . 308
23. CENTENNIAL ORATION.
An address delivered at the Exposition Hall, in Cincinnati, July 4,
1876. . . . .... 341
24. EULOGY ON HON. GEORGE E. PUGH.
Delivered at a bar meeting at Cincinnati, on the occasion of the decease
of Hon. George E. Pugh, July 24, 1876. . . 362
25. WHO FOUGHT THE WAR ?
The conclusion of a political speech delivered at Loveland, Ohio,
October 7, 1876. ...... 366
26. LEGAL METHOD OF THE ELECTORAL COUNT.
A speech delivered at a citizens' meeting, at Pike's Opera House, at
Cincinnati, December 20, 1876. . . . .372
27. RIGHT OF THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS TO COUNT
THE ELECTORAL VOTE.
A speech delivered at Columbus, Ohio, on taking the chair of a Pop
ular Convention, called to consider the electoral frauds, January
8, 1877  390
28. HARVEST HOME.
A speech delivered at Cheviot, Ohio, before the Harvest Home Asso
ciation, August 24, 1877. ..... 397
29. REMONETIZATION OF THE SILVER "DOLLAR OF THE
FATHERS."
A speech delivered at Marietta, Ohio, August 29, 1877. . . 405

viii contents.

30. THE BUREAU OF INDUSTRY.
A speech delivered at Morrow, Ohio, on the Republican proposition to
establish a Bureau of Industry, September 10, 1877. . . 428
31. AMERICAN COINAGE AND CURRENCY.
An essay delivered before the American Social Science Congress, at
Cincinnati, May 22, 1878. ..... 448
32. THE NATIONAL DEMOCRACY.
A response to that toast at the 8th of January Banquet, 1879, at' Colum
bus, Ohio. . .... ,464
33. DEMOCRACY AS A SOCIAL FORCE.
A lecture read before the Normal School at Lebanon, Ohio, July 24,
1879. ....... 469
34. BAYONETS AT THE POLLS.
A speech at Dayton, Ohio, September 2, 1879. . . 493
35. CITIZENS' MEMORIAL.
An oration delivered at Cincinnati, Ohio, May 30, 1881. . 535
36. SELF-GOVERNMENT. A Fourth of July oration delivered at Hamilton, Ohio, July 4
1882. ....... 539
37. ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM.
A speech delivered at Gallon, Ohio, August 25, 1883. . . 555
38. DECORATION SPEECH.
An oration delivered on Decoration Day, May 30, 1884, at Memphis
Tenn. ....... 582

MEMOIR.

Durbin Ward was born in Augusta, Kentucky, a little
village on the Ohio river a few miles above the birth place of
General Grant, February 11, 1819. He was the eldest child
of Jesse Ward and his wife, Rebecca Patterson. His father
was of an English family. Episcopalian in faith, which settled
on the eastern shore of Maryland about 1734. His mother
was of Welsh extraction, and Methodist in faith.
General Ward inherited his soldierly qualities. His father,
his father's father, and his mother's father were all soldiers of
the war of 1812-15. His father fought under the flag which
floated over Fort McHenry and suggested Key's " Star Span
gled Banner." Augustus Ward, youngest brother of the
General, left Miami University at the age of seventeen to join
the Union Army, rose to be Adjutant of the Seventeenth
Regiment, O. V. I., became a lawyer at Cincinnati, and died
a young man, a member of the Legislature. All of Durbin
Ward's brothers and sisters died before reaching middle age.
Alfred Ward, one of his brothers, was a promising lawyer at
Brookville, Indiana.
Jesse Ward, the father, was a native of Maryland, and the
youngest son. Owing to the existence of the law of primogeni
ture in Maryland, he inherited no property, and, being poor,
he moved westward when a young man to Bracken county,
Kentucky, and established himself at Augusta, where he
met and married his wife. His eldest child was christened
Jesse Durbin. The given name, which he preferred and by
which he became known as a soldier and orator, was received
from the distinguished Methodist divine. Rev. Dr. John P.
Durbin, an intimate friend of his mother and her schoolmate
in one of the log school houses of Kentucky, and for whose
talents, eloquence, and zeal as a minister of the gospel she

X memoir.

ever retained the highest admiration. Dr. Durbin, who be
came the president of a college and one of the most famous
pulpit orators of his time, had entered the ministry in Ken
tucky before receiving a classical education in the same year
in which General Ward was born. He was soon after sent to
Ohio, and while preaching at Hamilton pursued his studies at
Oxford, in the same college which Ward afterward attended;
he also preached when a young man at Lebanon, Ward's
future home.
When his eldest son was about four years old Jesse Ward
removed with his family to Fayette county, Indiana, and pur
chased a farm not far from the little post-town of Everton,
where he and his wife lived the remainder of their lives.
Here Durbin Ward spent his youth in a new country, with
few opportunities for education and intellectual culture. He
received his primary education in the rude school-houses of
the early settlers. For a time he attended a school taught in
a log building erected as a Quaker meeting-house and known
as the "Poplar Ridge log meeting and school-house." The
History of Fayette county, Indiana, published in 1885, in
giving an account of this old building, describes a large rock
not far from where it stood, upon which five or six school-boys
had chiseled their names, and underneath a sentence in Latin
and the date 1838. The rock formerly stood on the brink of
a precipice, but had fallen into the gully below and was so
imbedded in the earth that all the names could not be made
out, but one of them was Jesse D. Ward.
He pursued his studies farther than his teachers could take
him, and without the aid of instructors, he learned the rudi
ments of Algebra, Geometry and Latin. His desire for
knowledge was insatiable; he became an omnivorous reader,
and at the age of eighteen, before entering college, he had
read every book he had ever seen. At this time he acquired
that love of books and laid the foundation of that knowledge
of literature which characterized his after life. In the maturity

MEMOIR.

of his powers, he more highly prized the culture and knowl
edge he had derived from his reading at home in boyhood,
than all he had acquired at school or college. Before the
study of the History of the United States had been intro
duced into the common schools, and without the aid of text
books intended to make the subject attractive to the young
mind, he acquired a comprehensive view of the history of
the American continent from its discovery, and of the origin
and history of the Constitution and Government of his
country. In his boyhood he learned to love the Republic
and to revere its fathers.
At the age of nineteen he entered Miami University, then
under the presidency of Robert H. Bishop, and the leading
educational institution west of the Allegheny Mountains,
where he spent two years. Among his fellow-students was
George E. Pugh, upon whom, after his early death, he pro
nounced a beautiful eulogium. At college he exhibited some
of those powers of oratory and logical argument in debate
which in a broader field gave him distinction. He was one
of the founders of the Beta Theta Pi college fraternity,
which still exists with chapters in twenty-five or more
American colleges.
He left college with the determination to become a lawyer,
but being compelled to rely on his own exertions, he taught
school in country districts west of Lebanon, Ohio, and then
commenced the study of law at Lebanon, first under the
direction of Judge George J. Smith, and afterwards of Gov
ernor Corwin. He was admitted to the bar at Lebanon on
May 5, 1843.
We here leave the youth of Durbin Ward, distinguished
for self-reliance, self-sacrifice, industry and an honorable
ambition. At the age of twenty-four he put on the robe of
manhood and entered his chosen profession. Although he
had spent but two years in a seminary of learning, it is prob
able that he came to the bar with a better intellectual

xn MEMOIR.

equipment and practical preparation for professional labors
than most graduates of the classical and law departments of
the universities. He had already formed exhaustive and
painstaking methods of study. He had diligently pursued
his studies all the time he was engaged in teaching. As a
law student he studied the great principles of the law. He
was a reader of the standard works on history, and had care
fully studied the constitutional history of England and his
own country. His youthful speeches were characterized not
less by their spirit-stirring eloquence, than by a philosophic
thought and an ardent but broad patriotism.
When Mr. Ward entered the profession there was at Leb
anon a bar of exceptional ability. Thomas Corwin, lately re
tired from the office of Governor, but not yet a United States
Senator, Judge George J. Smith, A. H. Dunlevy, J. Milton
Williams and Judge John Probasco, jr., were all in the full
tide of a successful practice in the Courts of Warren county.
Among such men, and others nearer his own age, who have
since acquired distinction at the bar or on the bench, young
Ward soon made his mark both as an orator and a lawyer.
In his earliest efforts at the bar, whether addressing the court
or the jury, he brought to his aid a wealth of legal, historical
and miscellaneous information which were the result of his
youthful years devoted to study and reflection.
Immediately after his admission to the bar he was honored
with the proffer of a partnership in the practice of the law
with his preceptor. Governor Corwin, which he gladly
accepted. The connection thus formed continued for nearly
three years, and until Mr. Ward's entrance upon the duties
of the office of Prosecuting Attorney of Warren county, to
which office he was elected in October, 1845. He was twice
re-elected to this office, and discharged its duties with faith
fulness and ability for six years. In 1851 he was elected
Representative from Warren county, in the first General
Assembly under the present Constitution of Ohio.

MEMOIR.

In the Legislature he was an industrious member and drew
attention to himself by his able and well-digested speeches
and papers. He made a report against capital punish
ment, which was a strong and able argument, and although
a majority of his constituents were in favor of the death pen
alty, his strong convictions led him to have the report pub
lished and given a wide circulation. He gave effective oppo
sition to the proposal to loan the arms of the State for the
assistance of the Hungarian exile, Kossuth, which was favored
by such able Ohio men as Judge Bellamy Storer and Wm.
M. Corry. On March 22, 1852, ex-Governor Jeremiah Mor
row died at his home in Warren county, and the next morn
ing, when the customary resolutions of respect were intro
duced into the House, it devolved on Mr. Ward to speak
on the life and character of the deceased. His remarks were
necessarily made without much time for preparation, but they
proved to be a beautiful eulogium, characterized by appro
priate and impressive eloquence. His words of eulogy came
from his heart; he revered the memory of the departed man.
While a law student he had first seen Governor Morrow, then
more than seventy years of age, addressing his fellow-citizens
in a speech in which he declined to be again a candidate for
office and asked to be excused from longer public service.
When a young lawyer he had visited the venerable man in his
plain country home, listened to his instructive conversation
and looked over the rich treasures of his extensive library.
The occasion was one to inspire the youthful orator; the mem
bers of the House were generally in their seats; the Sen
ate had passed its resolutions of respect and adjourned ; Sen
ators and well-known citizens were present in the Represen
tatives' Hall. There was profound stillness in the hall as the
speaker proceeded, and tears in the eyes of his listeners when
he concluded. When he sat down a member rose and moved
that Mr. Ward be requested to commit his remarks to writing
and that they be entered on the journal of the House; the

MEMOIR.

motion was agreed to and the House adjourned. This eulo
gium is the earliest of General Ward's speeches which has
been preserved and is placed first in the following collection.
Mr. Ward served but a single term in the Legislature ; he
declined a re-election, and devoted himself to his profession.
He established a law office at Cincinnati, where he extended
his reputation as a lawyer. During this period Wm. M.
Ramsey, a young lawyer, came to Cincinnati with a letter of
introduction to Mr. Ward, who, as Mr. Ramsey afterward
said, received him with much kindness and accorded him a
friendship which lasted until Mr. Ward's death. They
formed a partnership in the practice of law which continued
until Ward entered the army.
For some years after his retirement from the Legislature
he was not much in politics; though he continued to be a
close observer of current political events, he took no part in
the public discussion of party questions. Having been a
student in the law office of Corwin, it is not strange that he
entered public life a Whig, and was first elected to office by
the Whigs. But that party was fast approaching its dissolu
tion. Before it passed away the Know Nothings sprang up,
as it were, in a night, and spread like a prairie fire. In the
midst of intense public excitement growing out of the night
meetings and proscriptive policy of the secret political organ
ization. Ward felt impelled to speak, and he publicly de
nounced the new party, its principles and its methods in an
assembly on the street in Lebanon at the risk of personal
violence. Though opposed to slavery, his views on the constitutional
powers of Congress in the Federal territories prevented his ally
ing himself with the new Republican party, into which most of
his old Whig associates finally passed, and about the year the
Republican party in Ohio was organized and presented its
first State ticket he united his fortunes with the Democratic
party. At this period he was often in company with his old

MEMOIR. XV

preceptor. Governor Corwin, both of whom had their law
offices in Cincinnati, but retained their residences in Lebanon.
Corwin 's views on the great questions growing out of the
slavery agitation continued to be in unison with those formerly
advocated by him as a Whig, and differed from those both of
the Republican and the Democratic psrty. When the Repub
licans presented Fremont as their first candidate for President
in 1856, Corwin supported his old Whig friend, Millard Fill
more, but without hope of his election. Ward supported
both the Democratic National and State tickets, and in that
year accepted the norfiination of the Democrats for Congress
in his district. Two years later Corwin was elected to Con
gress in the same district by the Republicans, although he ex
pressly dissented in his speeches in the canvass from some of
the views held by the party which nominated and elected him.
He was re-elected to Congress and received high office from
the Lincoln Administration and the great Whig orator may
be said to have died a Republican. His pupil and law part
ner, Durbin Ward, remained until his death steadfast in the
Democratic party.
When the earnest convictions of Mr. Ward carried him
into the Democratic party, it was a minority party in his own
town, his own county, his own Congressional district and his
own State. When he first accepted the nomination of the
Democrats for Congress, it was only to lead the forlorn hope.
His district, then the Seventh, was composed of the counties
of Warren, Clinton, Greene, Fayette and Madison, every
one of which was Republican. Aaron Harlan, of Greene
county, the Republican candidate was elected. In 1857 Mr.
Ward was placed in nomination by the Democrats as their
candidate for Attorney General of Ohio, but, with his ticket,
was again defeated. The next year he was tendered the can
didacy for Judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, which, he
declined. In 1860 he was a delegate to the National Demo
cratic Convention, which met at Charleston and reassembled

XVI MEMOIR,

at Baltimore. He went an ardent advocate of the Douglas
doctrine of popular sovereignty in the Territories as the only
solution of the momentous question which threatened the
union of the States. When he saw at Charleston the disrup
tion of the Democratic party on the question of slavery in the
Territories, he returned to his home with dark forebodings
of the future, and predicted the over-shadowing calamity of
civil war. He, however, went into the Presidential canvass
in behalf of Douglas with spirit and vigor, and during the
canvass published in a pamphlet an essay on Popular Sov
ereignty in the Territories.
Durbin Ward was the first volunteer of his county in the
civil war. When President Lincoln's proclamation calling for
troops for the suppression of unlawful combinations was read
in Lebanon, he was trying a case at the Court House. He
hastily drew up a paper containing something like the follow
ing: "We, the undersigned, hereby tender our services to
the President of the United States to protect our National
flag." He signed it and proceeded with the case. He was
one of the speakers at the first war meeting in Lebanon, and
was a member of the committee which drafted the resolu
tions adopted by the meeting, one of which was as follows:
''Resolved, That we will stand by and support the adminis
tration in the 'most vigorous methods to put down rebellion
and punish treason at whatever expense of men and money."
Whatever concessions he might before have been ready to
make by recognizing the constitutional rights of the slave
States, and the repeal of all laws of the Northern States
which hindered or obstructed the enforcement of the Fugitive
Slave Law, there was with him no talk of coaxing or pleading
with men who had aimed their cannon at the flag of the
Union. He enlisted as a private. Going into the service of
his country as a Democrat, and one who had vigorously op
posed the election of a Republican President, and believing
that his example and influence would be more potent in unit-

MEMOIR. XVll

ing all parties in support of the war measures of the Govern
ment if he entered the army as a private soldier than as an
officer, he declined the captaincy of the company first raised at
Lebanon, and was mustered into the service for three months
as a private, at Columbus, and after the President's second
call for troops was again mustered in as private in Company
F. 12th O. V. I., for three years, or during the war, at Camp
Dennison, June 19, 1861. He served with his regiment in
West Virginia, performing the duty of a private, although
for a time he was detailed as a member of General Schleich's
staff. While a private soldier he published an address to the
people on the objects of the war, which will be found in this
volume. When the 17th Regiment, O. V. 1., was organized, he was
commissioned Major of that regiment, on August 17, 1861,
and with his regiment served in the campaigns of Buell,
Rosecrans and Thomas from Louisville to Atlanta. He took
part in the battles of Wild Cat, Mill Springs, Corinth, Perry
ville, Stone River, Hoover's Gap, Tullahoma and Chicka
mauga. On the afternoon of the second day of the last
named fight he was shot through the body just above the
left lung. His left arm was disabled for life and for a time he
was thought to be mortally wounded. He was found on the
battle field by General J. B. Steedman, who, seeing his ex
hausted condition, took out his canteen and gave him a
drink, which so revived him that he was able to be carried
back to a farm house, where he rallied, and soon after was
able to be brought home to his friends. He attributed the
saving of his life to this one act of his noble friend.
While at home waiting for his wound to heal he was, with
out his knowledge, mustered out of the service, on account
of disability. On hearing this the brave soldier was deeply
chagrined ; he went to Washington and personally entreated
President Lincoln to countermand the order. His request
was granted ; he returned to the field, assumed his old com-

XVlll MEMOIR.

mand, carrying his arm in a sling during the Atlanta cam
paign. Near the close of this campaign his disabled arm re
ceived another injury, and he was finally compelled to resign,
November 8, 1864. Notwithstanding his release from the
service, when Nashville was threatened by the army under
Hood, he remained to assist in the defense and acted as vol
unteer aid on the staff of General Schofield. He had been
promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, December 31, 1862, and
Colonel, November 13, 1863, and was brevetted Brigadier-
General on November 18, 1865, "for gallant and meritorious
conduct at the battle of Chickamauga."
While doing his duty in the field his pen was not idle. In
Reid's "Ohio in the War" it is said of Ward that "some
of the most fervid and effective addresses from the army to
the voters at home, came from his pen." Of General Ward
as a soldier, a book of Ohio Biographies says, "throughout
his military career he was a bold, zealous, fighting officer,
having the full confidence of his men. " After his death some
of the surviving members of his old regiment said of him:
"As a soldier he was as brave as the bravest; as a com
mander he was efficient, always commanding the love and
respect of those who had the good fortune to serve under
him. The lapse of time since the close of the war, and the
separation of those who composed his regiment, have only
strengthened our attachment for him, and we shall cherish
his memory until we, too, shall be called to answer the last
roll-call." No man went into the civil war with firmer or
more sincere convictions of duty. While in the field he was
called on by the young men of his district to become a candi
date for Congress, but he promptly declined, believing it his
duty to remain at the front.
In his last will and testament General Ward bequeathed
his jewel-mounted sword, so highly prized by him because
given him by the privates of his regiment, to his niece in
trust, to be delivered by her to her oldest son, and with it.

MEMOIR. XIX

in the language of the will, ' ' the charge from me never to
draw it in a bad cause, and to never leave it sheathed should
a good one require its aid." He bequeathed to his little
grand-niece his New Testament and Book of Common
Prayer, both of which he- carried with him in the army; to
a friend his army pistols, ' ' with the ardent hope that war
may never require him to remove the rust of peace from the
weapons;" to a namesake, son of a fellow-officer in his old
regiment, his gold badge of the Society of the Army of the
Cumberland, and to the drummer- boy of the Seventeenth
Regiment, O. V. I., his old rebel canteen, picked up on the
battle-field of Jonesboro, Georgia, "not because it is of any
value in money, but to remind him that I have not forgotten
the true-hearted boy who could brave danger and suffer
wounds with the fortitude of a man."
At the close of the war General Ward established a law
office at Washington, D. C, where he remained until the
autumn of 1866, except a short time spent in Memphis, —
all this time, however, he was a citizen of the State of Ohio.
While in Washington the great question of how to deal with
the States lately in rebellion arose, and he was called on to
choose between the policy of Reconstruction of President
Johnson and that of the relentless Thaddeus Stevens, into
which the dominant party in Congress was driven under the
lash of that extraordinary parliamentary leader. Ward's
choice was soon made. He sided with the President. Those
who knew the generosity of his nature and the broadness of
his statesmanship, could have foreseen his position. He
believed that the policy of the President in dealing with the
South was the same as that which Lincoln, in an inchoate
form, had resolved to adopt, and this is supported by the
testimony of General Grant and Henry Ward Beecher.
Having maintained that the object of the war was the per
petuation of the Union and the supremacy of the Constitu
tion, when peace was proclaimed, he advocated with voice

XX MEMOIR.

and pen the complete reunion of the people of the North
and the South, and opposed all schemes of confiscation, the
reduction of the Southern States to military dependencies,
and the degradation of the people of the South by political
disabilities. While in Washington he assisted in founding
the Union Club, an organization in full sympathy with the
policy of the President. He took a prominent part in the
proceedings of the National Union Convention at Philadel
phia, known as the " Arm-in-Arm Convention." He was
also a delegate to the Soldiers' Convention at Cleveland in
the autumn of 1866.
In 1866 General Ward was the Democratic candidate for
Congress in the Third Ohio District, composed of the coun
ties of Warren, Butler, Preble, and Montgomery. The
district was strongly Republican, and his competitor. General
Robert C. Schenck, was elected, but Ward succeeded in
cutting down the Republican majority at the preceding elec
tion more than seventeen hundred votes. The canvass was
Conducted with great ability on both sides, and General
Schenck, who was a leader of his party in the House of Rep
resentatives, found in his competitor a foeman worthy of his
steel. Immediately after this canvass, and on November 27,
1866, General Ward was married at Lebanon, Ohio, to Miss
Elizabeth Probasco, daughter of Rev. John Probasco and
sister of Judge John Probasco, jr. The marriage was without
issue. He was a devoted husband, and the affection between
him and his wife, who survives to mourn his loss, is described
by those familiar with their domestic life as something more
than the common love of husband and wife.
In November, 1866, General Ward was appointed by Presi
dent Johnson United States District Attorney for the South
ern District of Ohio. On his accession to this office. Colonel
L. H. Bond, Assistant District Attorney under Ward's pred
ecessor, spoke to him of their difference in politics and sug
gested that another assistant might be desired. General

MEMOIR. XXI

Ward replied: "So long as your official service is satisfac
tory, I shall make no change." He discharged the duties of
this office with ability and faithfulness until General Grant's
accession to the Presidency, when he was removed for politi
cal reasons. In 1870 he was, against his expressed wishes,
elected a senator in the General Assembly of Ohio from the
district composed of Warren and Butler counties to fill the
unexpired term of Hon. Lewis D. Campbell. He served in
this office for one session of the Legislature, and was tendered
a unanimous renomination, which he emphatically declined.
During the years succeeding the war he made many
speeches on great public questions and became widely known
as an eloquent and effective public speaker. For years he
was the most popular campaign orator of his party in Ohio.
Yet he discussed public men and public measures as a philos
opher and a statesman rather than as a partisan and politician.
Profoundly interested as he was in the triumph of the politi
cal principles he advocated, he was, at least in his maturer
years, possessed of remarkable powers of self control and
was not easily thrown off his balance or carried away by ex
citement. He looked to the future rather than to the pres
ent, to the ultimate rather than the immediate results of pop
ular movements. This, combined with his catholicity of
knowledge and opinion, gave a careful poise and a judicial
temper to his discussion of great questions agitating the
minds of the people. Even amid slander, personal abuse
and shameless misrepresentation, he remained tranquil, dig
nified and courteous.
He had a large personal following, and the masses loved to
hear him on the hustings. His fine voice well fitted him to
address large public assemblies. An illustration of his ability
to command and hold the attention of a public meeting was
seen at a large State political convention at Columbus several
years before his death, at which he was present as a delegate.
After the reports of the committees, the adoption of the plat-

XXll MEMOIR.

form and the nomination of the head of the ticket, as is usual
in such conventions, interest in the proceedings flagged. It was
growing late, and members were anxious to depart. Speakers
placing names of candidates in nomination were limited to
five minutes, but most orators were called down by the impa
tient delegates before reaching the limit of their time. Under
such circumstances, by request, General Ward took the stage
to second the nomination of a candidate for a minor office.
The sound of his voice at once arrested the attention of the
whole convention. Delegates who were in the act of leaving
stopped and stood in the lobby. After speaking, as he sup
posed, the allotted time, he proposed to stop, but cries of
"go on," "go on," came from all parts of the large hall,
and he was compelled to continue.
It was not merely in political campaigns that he was a
favorite speaker. Invitations poured in on him to speak at
army reunions, on Decoration Day, on the Fourth of July, at
harvest homes, at the laying of corner-stones, and the dedi
cation of public edifices. Few men have delivered so many
addresses on so great a variety of subjects. Occupied with
the labors of an exacting profession, he found time to discuss
great questions of constitutional law, the tariff, taxation,
American coinage and currency, and was always thorough
and profound. His intimate friend and admirer, Hon. A. G.
Thurman, has said of him: "The most marked trait of his
able mind was his resolute purpose to go to the bottom of
everything, whether it was law, politics, literature, or what
not. It may be truly said that he was as thorough a man as
we had in the State." He was an unflinching advocate of
hard money. He spoke in favor of the remonetization of the
silver dollar, and first used the expression "the dollar of the
fathers," which became a part of common political parlance.
He held no civil office after his retirement from the Ohio
Senate, in 1871, and the best history of the last fifteen years
of his life is to be found in his speeches and orations ar-

MEMOIR. XXlll

ranged in chronological order. Here are found the high
thoughts of his intellect, clothed in his own noble diction
and on them his fame must rest.
His speech on "Hard Money and Bank Currency,"
delivered in 1875, was an exhibition of his moral courage
and independence. In that year the Democratic party in
Ohio in its platform gave in its adherence to the greenback
theory in opposition to its own traditions, and the teachings
of General Ward and most of its ablest leaders. Knowing
the tyranny of party, and that any opposition to the platform
would bring upon him the denunciations of heated partisans
and influential journals of his own party, his course of action
was determined by his individual notions of right and convic
tions of duty. He announced his adherence to the principles
of the Democratic party, and his intention to support its
nominees in Ohio, but early in the canvass he delivered and
published this ."speech reiterating his former views and contro
verting those of the currency plank of the Democratic
platform of that year.
General Ward was an ambitious man. He aspired to the
highest positions in the gift of the people of his State, but his
ambition never led him to stifle his convictions or to deviate
from any one great principle. It was not his fortune to
sit in either House of Congress or to be elected to any office
by the people of the whole State. He was often defeated,
but he learned to bear " the stings and arrows of outrageous
fortune " with equanimity. He remained steadfast in his
principles, never doubting their final triumph. Referring to
his rigid adherence to principle, one of his eulogists says:
" He was a grand man, generous, sincere, animated always
by truth and right. Had he been crafty and time-serving,
he might have been more successful in politics, but if he had
possessed these qualities he would not have been the lofty
statesman that he was; he would not have been Durbin
Ward."

XXIV MEMOIR.

In 1877 a wide-spread desire pervaded the Democracy of
Ohio to honor General Ward with the candidacy for Gov
ernor, but Hon. R. M. Bishop obtained the nomination and
was successful at the polls. Again in 1883, when there was
good reason to anticipate the success of Democratic principles
in Ohio, his name was presented to the State Convention for
the same office. He had received such assurances of success
that he and his friends scarcely doubted his nomination ; but
he was again doomed to defeat. After an animated contest,
in which the opposing forces were nearly equally balanced,
Judge George Hoadly was declared nominated and he was
subsequently elected. The failure of General Ward at this
convention was a sad disappointment to his friends, who felt
that his long services in behalf of the principles of his party
merited the nomination. The scene in the convention, when
the defeated candidate was brought upon the stage, will not
be forgotten by those who witnessed it. Strong men were
moved to tears as they heard his familiar voice and remem
bered his unselfish and unrewarded devotion to his country
and the interests of the people.
In 1884 he was a candidate for the United States Senate
and stood second in the triangular contest between Payne,
Pendleton and himself. He was one of the delegates at
large from Ohio at the National Democratic Convention at
Chicago in 1884, where he spoke in favor of the nomination
of his friend Ex-Senator Thurman, for President. He took
an active part in favor of the nominees of the convention in
the ensuing campaign, as he had done in every Presidential
campaign since 1856, except in 1864 when he was in the
army, and was often called to speak outside the limits of his
own State.
He continued the practice of his profession until his last
sickness. It was the vocation by which he earned his daily
bread. He had no other means of gaining a livelihood ; the
only offices he ever held from which he could derive an in-

MEMOIR. XXV

come were State's Attorney, when a young man, and United
States Attorney, in his maturer years, both of which were in
the line of his profession. Laborious as were his services,
and extensive his travels in political campaigns, he never re
ceived pay for political speeches and always paid his own
expenses. He loved the higher walks of his profession. He
was a useful member of the Ohio State Bar Association, was
once its president, and often chairman of its important com
mittees. He drew up the plan of the present Circuit Court
system of Ohio, and did more, perhaps, than any other one
man to secure the adoption of the judicial amendments to the
Constitution by which that system was established.
When wearied with professional labors he found rest and
recreation in his books. His library contained the largest
and best collection of books of the private libraries of Leba
non. When here he would be as he said, "talking with my
best friends, the old authors." He read with pencil in hand,
and his thoughts as he read may be traced in his library. All
through the books he most loved may be found significant
passages marked with some approving or dissenting comment.
In his later years he sometimes expressed the hope that he
might be able to retire from the turmoil of political and pro
fessional life and devote the remainder of his years to literary
work. He felt when in his library that "after all the only
true fame is in a book." He meditated a work on the
Study of History, and one on constitutional law, to be en
titled the " Federal Institutes," neither of which he lived to
complete. Few men ever studied the Constitution of the
United States and its history more than he. His view of the
relations of the States to the Federal Government, which may
be gathered from his speeches, differing, as it does, from that
of both Webster and Calhoun, is worthy of the careful atten
tion of students of constitutional law.
He took great delight in his suburban home, which was
one of a cluster of houses on a beautiful hillside at Lebanon,

XXVl MEMOIR.

called Floraville. With fond memories of his boyhood days
he called his place Everton, after the little hamlet in Indiana
near which his early youth was passed.
A newspaper writer gives a pleasant description of his
home: "One of the pleasantest of the handsome residences of
that part of Lebanon called Floraville, is that of General
Durbin Ward. The house was built more than forty years
ago by J. Milton Williams, once a prominent lawyer of Leb
anon. It is a large, old-fashioned, square brick building,
with a spacious hall running through the center, large rooms
on each side of the hall above and below, with wings on the
east and west sides of the house. The grounds are large,
terraced prettily, in the rear of the house a capacious kitchen
garden, in which the General, though not much devoted
to horticulture, raises a variety of cantaloupes of superior
quality, and in which he takes no little pride. Beyond the
garden spot is a fine apple orchard, which is just now 'a
thing of beauty,' with its pink and white blossoms. The
front yard with its pretty, graded slope to the stone wall,
built to prevent the encroachment of water at the foot of the
hill, the broad, well-kept walk in the center, leading up to
the house, the carriage-way, winding through the clumps of
maple, elm and walnut trees, from which one catches
glimpses of the entrance gate; the gleaming, willow-shaded
stream, that creeps lazily through the peaceful, incomparable
valley beyond, all combined make a charming picture, ever
new and ever delightful, reminding one of a remark of good
old Bishop Soule, who after traveling far and wide, pro
nounced the Turtle creek valley the garden-spot of the
world. The east wing of the house is occupied as a library,
and with its well-filled shelves of handsomely bound books
of history, travel and belleslettres, busts of eminent authors
and statesmen, relics and mementoes of the late war, its
inviting easy chairs and lounge, is an attractive room, in

MEMOIR. XXVll

which many an hour of pleasure and profit can be spent.
Here General Ward may be found, sometimes with a copy
of Burns (of whom he is an appreciative reader), in his hand,
or busy with his pen."
General Ward's love of little children was one of the
brightest traits of his aimable nature. They would gather
about him with delight at the hotel or in the cars, and there
was not a little child on the hillside where he lived but
showed grief at his death. The demands upon his time from
persons seeking his aid and influence were numerous, but he
patiently heard all appeals and generously advanced fhe in
terest of others while he neglected his own.
In the spring of 1885 he was attacked with rheumatism
and for a number of weeks was confined to his room ; he
rallied from the attack but never wholly recovered. In the
spring of 1886 he was again prostrated with the same disease,
and after being confined to his house for more than eight
weeks, died on May 22. The immediate cause of his death
was supposed to be blood-poisoning, superinduced by the
failure of the kidneys to perform their office, but the primary
cause was rheumatism.
The fatal result was entirely unexpected, as his case was
not considered a serious one until a short time before his
death, when the dangerous symptoms appeared. Thus
passed away one of nature's noblemen, whose life was still
unfinished, for he had many plans and hopes which were
still unfulfilled.
The promise of his early days was not realized if the at
tainment of office is to be considered. But if the character
of a cultured man, a learned lawyer, a great statesman and a
true, honest man fill up the estimate that the world cares for,
then General Ward's hfe was filled with honors. The pos
sessors of official position are remembered during their occu
pation of the place in most instances. General Ward had

XXVIU MEMOIR.

won his way to the hearts of the people and will live when
many of the place holders are forgotten.
The funeral of General Ward was a touching and appro
priate tribute to the memory of one who had earned the title
of "the Tribune of the People." The people of Lebanon
sorrowed for the loss of their most distinguished citizen,
and thousands of his old friends and neighbors from the
town and country gathered to follow his remains to the grave.
From distant parts of the State came men distinguished at
the bar and on the bench, and comrades in arms. The
Mayor of Lebanon, by proclamation, directed that the Public
Hall be draped with emblems of mourning and recommended
that all places of business be closed while the funeral cortege
passed through the streets and until the body of the distin
guished dead was laid in its final resting place. The mem
bers of the Grand Army of the Republic took charge of the
obsequies of their departed brother. On the morning of the
day of the funeral the body of the dead soldier was removed
from his residence to the Public Hall, and lay in state, just
forward of the stage, guarded by a detail of the G. A, R.
Post at Lebanon. At one o'clock in the afternoon the large
auditorium was densely packed, while the funeral service of
the Presbyterian Church was read and a brief sermon deliv
ered. The funeral procession was formed in the following
order :
The Lebanon Band.
George H. Thomas Post G. A. R., Cincinnati.
Granville Thurston Post G. A. R., Lebanon.
Representatives of the Israel Ludlow Post, Commodore
Foote Post, U. S. Grant Post, Wm. H. Lytle Post, Fred C.
Jones Post, and the J. H. Lowe Post.
The Hearse.
Pall-Bearers for the Bar— Judge Haines, of Dayton, Hon.
L. A. Russell, of Cleveland, Hon. A. G. Thurman, of Co
lumbus, Hon. James E. Campbell, of Hamilton, Judge Geo.

MEMOIR. XXIX

R. Sage, of the U. S. District Court, and Judge James M.
Smith, of the Circuit Court of Ohio, Lebanon.
Pall-Bearers for the Grand Army of the Republic — William
H. Pugh, William J. O'Neil, James Beggs, and Lewis Der
rick. Family and relatives in carriages.
Members of the bar of Cincinnati, Lebanon, Dayton, Ham
ilton, etc.
Dayton band.
Jackson Club, of Columbus.
Jefferson Club, of Dayton.
Old Guard Club, of Dayton.
Miami Club, of Hamilton.
Citizens on foot and in carriages.
At the grave the funeral service of the Grand Army of the
Republic was read. The last resting-place of General Ward
is in the quiet and beautiful Lebanon cemetery, not far from
the grave of Thomas Corwin. In no cemetery can be found
the graves of two more eloquent and patriotic men.
[The following just estimate of General Ward is from the pen of George
W. Houk, and was adopted by the Montgomery county bar as a tribute of
respect to his memory.]
"Many of us have been so long familiar with the person
and character of General Ward through social and profes
sional intercourse, and have so highly esteemed him for his
many estimable qualities, it is not strange that a common de
sire should have prompted us as his professional brethren and
neighbors to take action as a body upon the sad occasion of
his decease.
"Although he was not a member of this bar, he has fre
quently been called professionally into our courts, and never
failed to leave the impression among us of his ability as a
lawyer and his courtesy as a gentleman. His last visit here
was during the recent annual meeting of the Ohio State Bar

XXX MEMOIR.

Association, of which he was one of the most distinguished
and influential members.
" He was ever ready and willing to bear his share of the
burden of any work which had for its object the enhance
ment of the usefulness or the elevation of the character of
our chosen profession.
"He looked upon it as one of the great instrumentalities
to secure the rights and promote the prosperity of the people
by rendering speedy and certain the administration of justice
and diminishing its costs.
"Although General Ward was a studious and well-read
lawyer, loving his profession and never neglecting any oppor
tunity to exert his influence to maintain its purity and dignity
not less than its usefulness, he gave much time and thought
to the study of political questions. He was inclined in his
intellectual processes, whether in law or politics, to consider
and apply comprehensive general principles. From his first
entrance upon political life as a member of the Ohio House
of Representatives, in 1852, up to the day of his de&th, he
was a conspicuous figure in the politics of the State and
county at large. He was a student of politics in-the highest
and best sense of the word. He had the patience of industry,
the purity of purpose to deserve, but not the dexterity of
stratagem to secure political success.
' ' He was one of the leaders of his party in the Legisla
ture. He commanded respect for his fidelity to principle
and for his integrity of character. His ability as a debater
and his rare gifts as an orator made him one of the most
influential and useful members of the General Assembly.
"After the dissolution of the Whig he attached himself to
the Democratic party; but only after a long and earnest
scrutiny into its fundamental principles.
"He never approached the consideration of any political
question except with a view of honestly ascertaining its
bearing upon the public welfare.

MEMOIR. XXXI

"As a student in the office of Thomas Corwin and for
many years of his early life associated with that great and
gifted man, he had imbibed many of his ideas, ethical as well
as political. He became a wide reader and philosophic
thinker, especially upon fundamental, political, social and
moral questions.
"He was hostile to the institution of slavery, but con
servative in his views of the rights of the States under the
Federal Constitution.
" He was a warm supporter of Mr. Douglas for the nom
ination for the Presidency in the Charleston-Baltimore Con
vention in 1860; but when the irrepressible conflict came
between what was known in the current political language of
the day as freedom and slavery, and precipitated the war, he
is said to have been the first man in his county to offer his
services to the government for the preservation of the Union.
"With that uncalculating, unsophisticated simplicity of
character that distinguished him as much, perhaps, as any
other trait through life, while others were looking for com
missions he offered himself and was accepted into the service
as a private soldier. His record throughout the war was
honorable to his courage and patriotism. His personal
sacrifice to the cause was a paralyzed arm, which he carried
to the grave. It was this grievous and painful wound which
no doubt caused or aggravated the acute attack which re
sulted in his death, for General Ward was but little past
the meridian of life.
"General Ward's ambition never betrayed him into the
use of any dishonorable or even questionable means to gratify
it. He would resort to no corrupt methods, stoop to no dis
simulation, no abandonment of principle, no sacrifice of a
friend, to secure distinction for himself
"There was not an hour or an occasion in his life when he
would not rather have chosen defeat than to have achieved

XXxii MEMOIR.

success by a dishonorable or unfaithful or corrupt act, or by
the betrayal of a friend.
"We all know that in the usual parlance of political life
General Ward was not successful — but we all know, too, that
' in the corrupted currents of this world,' it is often far more
honorable to deserve than to secure success. Nor did he ever
acquire wealth — but what was far better, he acquired mastery
over the passion for its acquisition. The simplicity of his
tastes accorded with the purity of his principles.
" He could say in the language of the Roman Ambassa
dor, Fabricius to King Pyrrhus, who sought to corrupt him
by a bribe :
" 'The people honor me for that very poverty which you,
O King, seem to pity and despise. They know the many
opportunities I have had to enrich myself without censure.
They, are convinced of my disinterested zeal for their pros
perity, and if I have anything to complain of it is the excess
of their applause. Always attentive to the discharge of the
duties incumbent upon me, I have a mind free from self-
reproach and I have an honest fame.'
"The character of General Ward was in many respects
rare and remarkable. He was a man of unquestioned per
sonal courage, but gentle as a woman. He was an intellec
tual athlete, but simple-hearted as a child. He was true
as steel to his convictions, and faithful to his friends. He
was a master of political principles, but utterly incapable
in the management ahd strategy of politics.
" Had he been called only to the encounter oi merit in his
contests for political preferment he would often have won the
honors that were bestowed upon the less deserving.
" But after all how many there are who seem to have been
fortunate in attaining what they have pursued only to be
disappointed in its possession. How many struggle for
distinction; how few are rendered happy by securing it.
"How often do worldly honors of wealth and fame, fair

MEMOIR. XXXni

to the eye, like the apples of the Dead Sea, turn to ashes on
the lips; and how little do we really know of that inward
and unseen development of those essential and immortal
qualities of human character which must proceed in every
individual to qualify him for the full enjoyment of another
and advanced state of existence after the termination of this?
"Do we not make a serious mistake in the establishment
of our standard of a successful life? Is it wise to substitute
worldly acquisitions, either of wealth or official honors as
that for which men should struggle, rather than the attain
ment of that purity and gentleness and sterling worth of
character which is the foundation of individual and social
happiness, and most in accord with the attributes of that
Divinity to which we ascribe our origin?
' ' When this fitful and feverish competitive struggle we
call life is over, as it now is with this genial and gifted man,
whose death we deplore; when the mouth honor of the
world shall have subsided into silence ; when its green laurels
shall have faded into the sere and yellow leaf; when its
praises shall have passed into oblivion, and all its tinseled
insignia of distinction faded into nothingness, there will sur
vive alone those essential qualities of simple manhood ; those
virtues of character which the individual experience of life
has developed.
" Although no long list of official honors attained by Gen
eral Ward can be presented, it can be said of him with truth,
that his deserts through life far exceeded his rewards ; that
he was a brave, patriotic and public-spirited citizen — always
ready in a spirit of self-sacrifice to promote the public
welfare; he was a considerate and polished gentleman, lib
eral, generous, courteous and just. He was an able lawyer,
thoroughly informed in general and political literature as well
as in the learning of his profession . He was pure in heart,
a true friend, and above all else an honest man."
The Ohio Democratic Association of Washington, D. C,

XXXlV MEMOIR.

in their expressions of sorrow say that ' the State of Ohio
has lost one of its most valued citizens, the Democratic party
one of its ablest and most eloquent advocates, and the bar of
the State one of its ablest members. '
The Darke county, Ohio, bar speak of him as follows:
' That in General Ward's ability and integrity as a lawyer in
his directness and earnestness of purpose as a statesman, in
his bravery and self-devotion as a soldier, and in his simple-
minded honesty and kindness of heart, as a man and a citizen
we looked upon him with pride.'
His comrades of the Grand Army of the Republic add
their estimate: 'A man who in his person exemplified the
teachings of the Grand Army in being all that the words
mean, fraternal with his comrades and associates, loyal at all
times and in all places to the Union and the flag, and charit
able both to his unfortunate comrades and to the conquered
foe in the hour of their defeat; that his profession has lost a
bright and shining light and his political party one. who, while
eloquent and active in defense of its principles, yet one to
whom no taint of dishonor or corruption has ever attached,
and whose honesty and abiHty was at all times conceded by
his political opponents.'
The lawyers of Butler county, Ohio, who knew him well,
say: 'He was a citizen endowed with great intellectual
powers, a gifted orator and learned statesman. He was a
true patriot, who attested his love of country on the field of
battle in the hour of her gseatest trial, and enriched her soil
with his blood shed in her defense. His voice was ever heard
with no uncertain sound in the fearless advocacy of those
policies and public measures which he conceived to be for the
honor of his country and the prosperity and happiness of her
people. In a long life of activity and controversy at the bar,
in the political forum and amid the passions of war he always
followed his honest convictions and leaves a reputation un-

MEMOIR. XXXV

sullied among all who knew him, whether political friend or
foe.' The members of the profession in his own county (War
ren) pay this tribute : ' General Ward was a man of more
than ordinary talents. He was truly an orator, a fluent
speaker, made fine points and argued them with skill and
ability. In private life he was generous, liberal, and kind-
hearted, had a high regard for truth and honor, was patriotic,
loved his country more than he loved himself. He was a
learned, able, and acute lawyer, and a brother who was
always gentlemanly and courteous in his deportment. '
His legal brethren at Cincinnati pay to his memory this
tribute : ' He was a profound student of constitutional law
and political science, and was accustomed to speak and write
upon these and kindred subjects with great ability. He was
an eloquent orator and was fond of addressing the people
upon public questions. He disdained the arts of the dema
gogue, and in his popular addresses gave utterance to his
sincere convictions only. He was ardently devoted to repub
lican institutions, and deplored the manifestation of any ten
dency toward that which would weaken or destroy them. In
private life he was affable, sincere, simple-hearted, and up
right.'

EULOGY UPON GOVERNOR MORROW.
[Delivered in the House of Representatives of Ohio, 1852.]
On March 23, 1852, the House of Representatives re
ceived the following message from the Senate :
Mr. Speaker : — The Senate has passed the following joint
resolutions, in which the concurrence of the House is re
quested :
J. R. ; In relation to the decease of Jeremiah Morrow, late
Governor of Ohio.
Attest: Charles B. Flood, Clerk.
The question being upon the adoption of said Senate joint
resolutions as follows:
Resolved, by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio,
That this General Assembly has heard with deep sensibility
the annunciation of the death of Jeremiah Morrow, late of
the county of Warren, one of the early pioneers of the West
— one who has filled the office of the Governor of Ohio, Sen
ator in Congress, and other important trusts under the Terri
torial and State governments, and one of the framers of the
first Constitution of Ohio.
Resolved, That this General Assembly deeply sympathize
with the family of the deceased, on this melancholy occa
sion. Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions, signed by the
President of the Senate, and Speaker of the House of Rep
resentatives, be forwarded to the family of the deceased.
Pending the question, Mr. Ward, of Warren, addressed
the House as follows:
Mr. Speaker — I hope that the preamble and resolutions
which the Senate has just sent us will be unanimously adopted

2 speeches and orations of durbin ward.
by this House. And that, in token of our veneration for the
illustrious man whose death is just announced, we will, like
the Senate, adjourn till to-morrow.
Mr. Speaker, I need not stand here to pronounce an eulogy
upon the late Governor Morrow; his own life, his public ser
vices, his private virtues, his spotless character, are his best
eulogy. Perhaps no man in the West — certainly none in
Ohio — has been so universally respected, so generally loved
as a statesman, as a Christian, as a neighbor. He has en
joyed the confidence and respect, the admiration and the love
of all who knew him; and now, full of years and full of
honors, his body has sunk to the grave, and his spirit has
arisen to the bosom of his God.
Governor Morrow, in early manhood, nearly sixty years
ago, removed from Pennsylvania and settled upon the
banks of the Little Miami, in Warren county, Ohio, then in
the Northwestern Territory, which was almost a wilderness.
Few white people were in its present borders. The deceased
came into a new country, and settled down in the very out
post of civilization. He came with the chosen partner of his
bosom to plant himself and his rising family in the vast for
ests around him, and subdue the vil-gin soil to the husband
man's culture. He had no wealth — no inheritance but his
own strong energies — no frierids but his own sterling virtues,
and no abiding hope but in God and his own right arm. The
home which he chose for himself upon the bank of the Little
Miami, and upon which he reared the rude cabin of the
Western pioneer, remained his residence to the time of his
death. When he settled there Cincinnati was a little village ; the
very Indians yet lingered around his home. He came not
to seek greatness; he panted for no distinction. He sought
only to provide for his own household, and to make himself
useful and obliging to his neighbors. But neither the
obscurity of his pursuits, nor the modesty of his demeanor

EULOGY UPON GOVERNOR MORROW.

could conceal from his rude but far-seeing fellow-citizens, his
talents or virtue.
He was called from his farm to his country's councils, and
was ever afterwards, during his whole life, in public employ
ment whenever he would consent to be so. He was the first
Representative of the State of Ohio in the Congress of the
United States ; a member of the first Constitutional Convention
of Ohio, a member of the Legislature and Governor. He
was in both branches of Congress, and was always a vigor
ous, active and industrious public servant. In his earlier life
he neither sought nor declined office. This was no affecta
tion, for he really set no value upon the "pomp and
circumstance" of official station. I well remember when
the venerable old man declined serving longer in Congress.
With that gravity of intonation for which he was so remark
able, he announced to his assembled fellow-citizens that he
wished to be excused from serving them longer. That he
had lived through his age and generation, and served it as
best he could. That new men and new interests had grown
up around him, and that it was now proper for him to leave
those interests to the keeping of the present generation, who
better understood, and who more warmly sympathized with
the wants of the present age. He made the same response
when solicited to take a seat in the late Constitutional Con
vention. He said he had assisted in forming one Constitution.
It was now worn out and he was worn out with it. The new
one ought to be, formed by men who were to live under it.
Few indeed are the statesmen who ever feel themselves too
old for public service, though others may think so. Gover
nor Morrow thought himself too old when all others believed
him to be quite young enough to be the safe guardian of their
every interest.
Mr. Speaker, another patriarch has fallen — another of those
pioneers who reared for us the structure of our greatness as
a State, is gone! What remarkable scenes have passed

4 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
under the observation of this venerable old man ! How much
that the world calls great has come and gone during his life !
He was born in that remarkable year 1769 — remarkable for
giving birth to Napoleon, and Wellington, and Soult, and
many others of that galaxy of great men who enchained the
attention of the world for so long a period. He read of the
mighty convulsions of the French Revolution — of the
brilliant battles of Napoleon, not in the musty pages of
history, but in the damp sheets of the gazette.
He remembered the stirring events of our own glorious
revolution, not as the story of a revered parent tottering
upon the staff, but as the sacred memorial -of his own early
youth. He was in the public councils of the Nation when
the elder Adams and Jefferson and Madison held the desti
nies of his country. He was familiarly acquainted with the
fathers of the Republic. The very Government has grown
up under his eye, and he had watched its every movement
up to the present day. He had seen his beloved country a
colonial dependency, girded by the Ocean and the Alle
ghanies, and he lived to see it a mighty Nation, second to
none upon the earth, and extending from Ocean to Ocean.
In Ohio he had seen more magical changes still. The for
ests have, under his eye, become fruitful farms, beautiful
villages, and busy cities. The very spot upon which he first
settled, then in hearing of the war-whoop, he lived to see in
the hearing of the railroad whistle. And he was an active,
busy participant in all this magical change. He was ever
foremost in promoting his country's interest, physical, intel
lectual, and moral. He kept up with the progressive spirit
of the age. The president of associations for the internal
improvement of his country, he would receive no compensa
tion but his expenses for the services he rendered.
The college, the school, and the church each were objects of
his beneficence and care up to the very close of his life. This

EULOGY UPON GOVERNOR MORROW.

winter, old as he was, he traveled across the whole State to
attend an educational meeting.
But he seemed unconscious of any merit in himself. He
had risen from obscurity to distinction, but amid all his suc
cess, amid all the honors that were heaped unsought upon
him, the simplicity of his life, the modesty of his demeanor,
the purity of his heart remained unchanged. The breath of
detraction was never breathed upon his fair fame. Amid the
fiercest partisan struggles his motives were not impugned, for
his character was known to be impregnable, and his political
opponents vied with his friends in acknowledging his virtues.
No party can appropriate him ; his services are the heritage
of the whole people. As he lived,- so he died, and so will
his memory live green in the hearts of his countrymen — a
patriotic statesman, a true-hearted man, and a fervent Chris
tian. Mr. Ward, of Warren, having concluded his remarks, said
resolutions were unanimously agreed to.
Mr. Hitchcock offered for adoption the following, which
was agreed to:
Resolved, That Mr. Ward, of Warren, be requested to pre
pare the remarks he has made announcing the death of the
Hon. Jeremiah Morrow, and that they be entered upon the
journal of this House.
On motion of Mr. Haley, the House adjourned.

AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.
[A Fourth of July Oration, delivered at Everton, Ind., July 4, 1857.]
The memory of a great event has called us together to-day.'
As often as this anniversary has dawned upon us, it has been
hailed by grateful miUions with every demonstration of joy.
In city and town, in hamlet and country; on the land and
upon the sea, at home and abroad, wherever beat American
bosoms, wherever floats our country's banner, whether at the
mast-head of the gallant war-ship, or over the tardy whaler,
each return of this sacred morning has been greeted for two
generations by roaring cannon and the martial airs of the
Republic. The Revolution has receded from us year by
year. But with each returning anniversary hundreds of
thousands have been added to the mighty family of Amer
icans who have upon this day gathered round the shrine of
their country and offered the incense of patriotism upon
freedom's holy altar. While we now stand here, twenty-five
millions of freemen are glowing with grateful remembrance
of the founders of the Republic and offering up "solemn
thanks and supplication" to Him who rules the destinies of
nations. Now that we are two generations from the Revo
lution, burns the flame of patriotism in our souls as it
did in those of our fathers? Have we the same kindling
devotion to our country, to her institutions, to freedom, to
equality? If we have, the mighty tide of American great
ness is destined to flow on and on, for generations yet to
come. But if we have not, the seeds of dissolution and
decay are already sown, and our children, if not we, will reap
the baleful harvest. That nation which abandons the
principles giving it organic life, and ignores the elemental
fountains of its greatness is on the high road to ruin. It

AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

may survive for a time, even a long time, as an apathetic,
inert mass, too ponderous and cemented from its former
magnitude and perfection of organism to be immediately
dissolved, but the true life of the nation, its political and
moral momentum, is well nigh at an end. Let us, then, on
this hallowed day, commune together and study how best
we may preserve in full life, and perpetuate forever the true
spirit of American freedom.
On a day like this, when we are especially reminded of the
obligations of citizenship, and when, by a natural association,
we call to mind the principles of the government under which
we live, the Revolutionary struggle possesses a peculiar inter
est. It is not alone that we venerate our ancestors ; it is not
alone that we remember their patriotic devotion, their toils
and sufferings and privations for our freedom ; it is not alone
that we admire their military prowess and their civic virtues —
¦ battles as brilliant have been fought elsewhere ; hardships as
great have been endured elsewhere. It is not from any of
these, therefore, that to the philosophic eye the Revolution
derives its chief interest.
There has been no contest perhaps in the recorded annals
of man, so thoroughly a war of principles as the American
Revolution. The wars of the Reformation, though pro
fessedly fought to establish a principle, were not unfrequently
controlled by the mere caprice of the Pope or the Emperor,
and the piques and jealousies of the German princess. The
wars of the English Commonwealth were rather a conflict
between a bloated and senseless absolutism on the one hand,
and an infatuated unreasoning bigotry on the other. The
French Revolution was but the furious shouts and insane
revenge of a great people, goaded to madness by a despotism
so crushing as to leave its victims no confidence in man — no
faith in God. That a mighty principle was in each of these
struggles being unconsciously evolved is undeniable, but in
neither of them was there a controlling principle so fully

8 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
recognized and acted upon by the great body of the people
as in the American Revolution. Our revolution was emi
nently a contest of principle. Whatever wrongs are detailed
in a moment of excitement by the fervid pen of Jefferson, it
must be admitted our ancestors had felt comparatively little
of the iron heel of power. Indeed, it is the greatest com
pliment that can be paid the leaders of the Revolutionary
movement, that they resisted the very first approaches of
tyranny. The claim to tax those not represented was in
violation of the Magna Charta of EngHsh liberty, and the
resistance came not to the tax but to the power to levy it.
The elements of the Revolution were principles. Prin
ciples of political, civil, commercial, intellectual and religious
freedom. Principles of social progress. Principles v/hich
when organized into a government constitute a harmonious
unity, securing alike the natural and acquired rights of the
citizens, and fostering alike freedom of thought and of
action. Such are some of the principles which found their
development in the achievement of our National Independ
ence. But the elaboration of these, though it might be well
enough suited to the occasion, is no part of my purpose
to-day. The highest intellect, after the most careful study,
might well decline the attempt to crowd into an hour the
discussion of so lofty a theme. But if we cannot now pause
to discuss the principles of the Revolution, to elaborate its
essential elements — the right of self-government and the
checks and balances of true Republicanism — we may at least
endeavor to renew within ourselves something of the lofty
spirit which animated that struggle — the spirit of patriotism.
The world is governed by ideas. No form of human
organization, political, social or religious, can long exist
which does not rest on the approval of the people. Hence
it is that patriotism is so important an element in national
greatness, and that a government soon ceases to exist when
its subjects are no longer animated by love of • country.

AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.

Patriotism has existed from the foundation of human govern
ment; and it will be as enduring as the human race. Like
every other sentiment, however, it has received countless
modifications from race, government, and situation. The
wild legends which so abound in the early history of primi
tive races tinge with a romantic hue the patriotic ideas of
many nations. The early Greek heroes were in the popular
estimation descended from the Gods; the nymph Egeria
inspired with wisdom the Roman law-giver; the mythical
stories of the Cid, of Clovis, of Roland, of Arthur long had
a place in the popular heart of primitive Europe. But how
ever useful in a rude age this romance of patriotism rnight
have been, it has little place in modern times. And though
we may not wish the return of such faith in mere legendary
heroes, any nation may well cherish the holiest reverence for
its founders and its great master spirits. Nay, it is not impos
sible that a greater obscurity of origin than any with which
even imagination can invest our people might cultivate a
desirable element in our national character. If the spirit of
practicalism and commerce has given the national mind some
thing of hardness, might not a traditionary descent that
linked us to the dim and misty past where legend supplies
the place of history, give at least a more poetic cast to
American patriotism ? But if our people are without a tute
lary Divinity, a patron Saint, it is not to be forgotten that
we have little need of one. The Greek or the Roman, the
Arab or the Crusader stood on a plane of intellectual exist
ence so much lower than the man of this age that he needed
the fabled aid of his heathen god, or the invocation of his
favorite saint to hold up his arm or kindle his devotion.
Now the nations have the Ruler of the Universe for their
Divinity, and appeal to Him as the Omnipotent Defender of
the right. If ancient patriotism then, had something more
of romance in it than is found in American love of country,
it was also disfigured by a superstitious ignorance from which

10 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.

we are fortunately free. And if the patriotism of the ancients
was allied to poetry, American patriotism is the offspring of
principle. Our ancestors came to this country strangers, exiles from
the land of their fathers. They came not as savages to toil
up step by step from ignorance to knowledge, from barbar
ism to refinement, but they brought with them all the ele
ments of a high Christian civilization. They tore themselves
from the homes of their childhood, bade an eternal adieu to
the graves of their forefathers, and came here to battle with
the savage men and the more savage hardships of a bound
less, wilderness and a bleak climate. They came to seek
liberty and homes for themselves and their children, and to
plant in this new world the civilization which had been
maturing for thousands of years in the old. Mystery of
descent, romantic legends are peculiar to the ruder stages of
social progress, but cannot color the patriotism of a nation
like ours. A regular history of every movement in the
settlement of the country has been preserved. The motives
for emigration, the virtues and the faults of the colonists, the
political principles and the religious prejudices which they
brought with them, their legislation, their Indian wars and
treaties, in short everything connected with the origin, or
the colonial period of our national existence has been spread
upon the page of history. Our early national archives are
complete. This can be said of no other nation that ever
existed. Even the Hebrew finds the first two thousand
years of his nation's history compressed into a few pages of
Genesis. When therefore the idea of a separate national existence
first dawned upon the American mind it came not as a dim
memory of the past, gliding back imperceptibly into the
shadows of forgetfulness, like a man trying to remember his
own birth, but it sprang up in the colonial heart "full
armed," like Minerva from the brain of Jupiter. The colo-

AMERICAN PATRIOTISM. 11
nists' patriotism before had been the love of England — their
country before had been a part of England. They had
brought their religion, their liberty and their civilization from
England. All was English but the soil on which they stood,
when the glorious Declaration which immortalizes this day,
made that soil their country and the love of that country
their patriotism. And when the reverence which they had
felt for England as their country became concentrated upon
the new national existence, it was the Republic, the consti
tution of government they loved rather than the country in
which they lived. Attachment to their country's institutions
became the essential . element of Revolutionary patriotism.
And so it has remained fortunately for us to this day. Re
publican liberty, the Constitution, the Union are the Triune
Divinity in the political faith of the American patriot. The
country was founded upon principle and its patriotism rests
upon principle. Millions of men of foreign descent have come
among us since the revolution and mingled their blood with
ours. They left their old homes where they had no institutions
they loved; republicans at heart, they threw off the shackles
of old prejudice and became Americans in spirit because the
true nationalism in this country is not so much love for the
spot as devotion to the constitutional liberty of the republic.
The mere serf attached by hereditary bondage to the soil
may love that soil as the fountain of all his hopes and the
boundary of all his aspirations. But the proud freeman is at
home upon the whole earth where floats the national banner.
That is his native sky where its stars are over his head. His
country is not a mere locality ; it is the glory, the institutions,
and the power of the nation.
If we pause to analyze for a moment this sentiment we
find it accordant with the sublimest philosophy — the simplest
common sense. What is an enlightened patriotism? Is it a
blind devotion to kings and nobles "booted and spurred" to
ride on the backs of the people and govern them by divine

12 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
right? Is it adoring submission to the subtle tyranny of
hooded priests ruling infallibly by the grace of God? Or is
it a mere naked attachment to the land of one's birth? No!
No ! a true love of country is higher and nobler than all these.
First in importance in the elements of a national patriotism
is a just appreciation of the country's institutions. It is
sometimes said, and perhaps with no little truth, that each
people makes its own government; that even despotisms
only exist through the weakness, ignorance, or licentiousness
of the subject multitude; that the rulers are not more to
blame than the people. It is often flippantly said that every
nation has as good a government as it is capable of. In a
very limited sense this is true; but if all governments are more
or less founded on popular consent, it is also true that gov
ernments more or less shape and control popular opinion.
Each has a reflective effect upon the other. Those having
power might easily be dethroned if the unconscious masses
were not kept ignorant of their strength and unused to the
habit of self-government. It may perhaps more nearly ap
proximate the truth to say that the institutions of a people
are not always — indeed, are hardly ever — the creatures of
their own voluntary action. They spring not up in a year or
an age, but, like the rocks that rib the great earth, are the
silent accretions of many eras. The elements from which
our institutions mainly spring are a thousand years older than
the war of the revolution. The venerable common law had
existed among our fathers "time whereof the memory of
man runneth not to the contrary." The Wittena Gemote, or
old Saxon Congress, legislated for their constituent warriors
in the woods of Germany long before these tribes had found
even the humblest place upon the page of history. The trial
by jury and the habeas corpus seem always to have been ac
knowledged rights of the humblest. From time immemorial
these rude warriors elected their princes and leaders and de
posed them at their pleasure. From these great roots of

AMERICAN PATRIOTISM. 13
freedom, growing deep in a hardy Saxon soil, when trans
planted to this country, cultivated by the hands of our patriot
fathers and watered by the blood of the revolution has tow
ered towards heaven, that mighty tree of liberty whose
branches now spread over a continent and afford shelter for
the oppressed of the whole earth.
But let us not mistake; suth institutions are not planned in
a day. They grow as grows the oak from the acorn. France
tried republicanism once, and again, and again, and France
failed. She could frame a constitution in less time than a
joiner frames a house. But the clumsy structure would
not bear its own weight and tumbling down buried its
builders under its ruins. It was not that France did not love
hberty; she blindly adored it. But with her it was an
exotic. Her people's minds had not been familiar with the
elements of freedom. Royal and ecclesiastical tyranny had
for so many ages in despotic darkness brooded over the land,
that the eyes of the people, like those of the hoary prisoner
freed by the storming of the Bastile, were unable to bear the
sunlight of freedom, and they suffered themselves to be led,
by the chains of prejudice they still carried about their
necks and could not cast off, back again into the prison
house of monarchial bondage. Could they have learned and
practiced one political truth after another till the full vigor of
freedom had been communicated to the whole body politic,
like the trained gymnast, vigorous, agile and self possessed,
they might then have wielded successfully the weapons of re
sistance to the tyrants who enslaved them ; and might have
reared for themselves a permanent and well-proportioned
Temple of Liberty.
When we see the mighty river upon whose broad bosom
float the streaming sails of commerce, we know that it
gushed not out of the mountain-side with this majestic vol
ume. We know it has poured down for hundreds of miles,
increasing as it flows from a gently rippling brook, till it

14 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.

becomes the great "Father of Waters." So the stream of
Hberty, flowing down from the far-distant and classic past,
fed by the Hmpid riUs of German freedom, and enlarged by
the less pure but stronger current of English republicanism,
rolls its majestic tide in America, not, like the Nile, over
flowing its banks, but confined in its rock-bound channel by
the checks and balances of constitutional compact. Our
freedom is not a theory, not an experiment. It is a practical
fact. Is not the love of such institutions a just element of
patriotism? An American must be recreant to all .that is
sacred in human nature who does not glow with an enthusi
asm above all Greek, above all Roman example in contem
plation of the perfection of his country's government.
But another important element in our patriotism, though
not so strictly national, has a development seldom attained
elsewhere. The material and intellectual progress and great
ness of our country is a theme of unceasing gratulation for
the true patriot. The wilderness has disappeared under the
hardy stroke of the pioneer. Thronged cities, active villages
and teeming fields fill the broad land with plenty and banish
want from every industrious household. Wealth and comfort
have accumulated and been diffused beyond all example in
the past history of the world. A hundred years ago Ameri
can art, manufactures and commerce had no existence. Now
every sea is covered by the sails of our commerce, and the
products of our industry find markets all over the world.
New England is a vast workshop ; the products of the fields and
forests and mines of the great West supply the everyday
wants of millions at home and abroad, and the cotton crop
of the South pours its life-blood into the world's commerce.
A hundred years ago our largest colony, the Old Dominion,
had less population than now swarms in a single Atlantic
city, and even all the colonies combined in the revolution
had fewer inhabitants than now flourishes in a single State.
Our great commercial metropolis has more wealth than all the

AMERICAN PATRIOTISM. 15
colonies possessed when independence was declared. New
York is in her very youth the third city of the world in
wealth and population and the first in commercial position
and importance. Nowhere else on earth are two cities
of equal size with New York and Philadelphia located less
than a hundred miles from each other. No nation has so large
a commerce inland, coastwise and foreign as ours. Two
thousand millions of dollars are annually received into the
ample arms of trade in this wide spread land. Not even
England, the famed " Mistress of the Seas," has so many
vessels afloat, at home and abroad, on sea, and river, and
lake, as this young giant of the West. We have more miles
of railroad, more miles of telegraph, than all the world be
side. All this has come upon us so suddenly that it seems to
be the magic work of some enchanter's wand or only "the
baseless fabric of a vision." And yet it is all real. This im
mense structure of material greatness rests upon the solid
foundations of knowledge, skill, industry and enterprise, in
dividual and national. We have subsidized the arts, energy
and population of every country into our service. We have
opened new fields of industry to the patient German, the
hardy Scandinavian and the impulsive Celt. We have erected
a less crowded workshop for the vigorous Briton and clothed
our hills with vines and verdure to tempt to our shores the
volatile Gaul. If we have answered the world's demand for
tropical productions, by tearing from his home the barbarian
slave of Africa, we have at least softened his servitude com
pared to what he suffered at home, and have brought him in
contact with a civilization which has raised him above
mere barbarian ignorance. If we have swept as with the
besom of destruction the wild red man from his cherished
hunting grounds, we have at least made those wilderness
grounds to "bloom and blossom as the rose." The master
idea of material greatness early seized our people and the
unbounded empire we now enjoy or anticipate is but the

16 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.

development of that idea. And if we have sometimes too
rudely disregarded the rights of feebler tribes, so has every
nation under heaven. The Jews exterminated the Canaanites,
the Greeks enslaved the Helots, the Spaniards destroyed the
Incas, and the British pillaged the East Indians. Our pro
gress has been marked with fewer stains than soil the
escutcheon of any other nation. Nor is this great material
progress to be attributed solely or even mainly to acquisitions
from abroad. We have paid back very much that we bor
rowed. We have contributed our full share to the stock of
utilitarian ideas, as well as the sum total of facts in modern
achievement. The spinning jenny and the power-loom in England made
little progress till Whitney with his famous cotton-gin cheap
ened the raw material. The steam engine was not a locomo
tive power till Fulton launched his steamboat upon the Hud
son. FrankHn, like the fabled Prometheus, stole fire from
heaven and played with it as the child of his love, and Morse
taught the lightning to read. In every branch of mechan
ical ingenuity and practical knowledge Americans may justly
claim equality with any people. But it is. not alone in the
characteristics of mere business ability that we have achieved
distinction. As an additional ingredient of patriotic feeling
we may be justly proud of the scientific achievements and
literary attainments of our nation. Already many American
works have taken rank in the front shelves of the learned
men and polite scholars of Europe. The writings of Irving,
Prescott, Webster, Cooper and a host of others are read
wherever classic beauty finds an admirer. Behold the noble
Capitol of the Union ! Its mighty dome was moulded by
the plastic hand of American genius. Look with delight
upon the matchless beauty of Girard College, the elegant
spire of Grace Church, or the Doric majesty of the New
York Custom House, and remember with pride they were
reared by American hands. Gaze with raptured eye upon

AMERICAN PATRIOTISM. 17
the downcast but indignant face, the swelling bosom and
rounded proportion of the "Greek Slave," or the yet
Diviner models of the mother of mankind, and glow with a
patriot's enthusiasm that the hand which chisled the breath
ing marble into such exquisite types of loveliness was
wielded by a penniless boy from our own West, who, aided
by one like himself, the architect of his own fortune, is now
the greatest of living sculptors. When kings and princes
and statesmen are forgotten, Hiram Powers, the humble
stone-cutter of Cincinnati, will hand down to all coming ages
his country's artistic greatness, and his works shall take their
place beside the Apollo, the Laocoon, and the Venus. Art
and poetry, eloquence and literature, grandeur of concep
tion, elegance of design and perfection of execution are alike
characteristic of the American mind. Among our people
are found not only the hardy habits of business, but the
politer tastes of scholarly refinement; and if we have less of
the latter than our ambition for excellence prompts us to de
sire, it is only because we have been too busy with the rough
struggles of material conquest to devote full time to the cul
ture of the more graceful faculties of the mind.
When we have subdued the soil and subjected it to the
dominion of productive industry, then will the politer arts
spring up and flourish as the flower-garden succeeds the grain
field. We must not, however, forget in exalting these just
sources of patriotic emotion, the holy reverence we feel for
the sacred spots and the national glory of the Republic. He
is no patriot who can stand unmoved upon tKe battlefields
where his country's independence was won. Have you stood,
my fellow-citizens, upon the fields of Saratoga, or Cowpens,
or Yorktown, and felt no quick throbbing of the heart, when
rose up before the mind's eye the contending hosts and when
fell upon the mind's ear the confused din and shouts of the
battle ? If there be such let him open his coward veins and
drain out the last drop of bastard blood that pollutes the fair

18 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
image of God stamped upon his brow. How unspeakable
are the emotions of a true man when he looks upon the field
at New Orleans, or Tippecanoe, or San Jacinto, and remem
bers the heroic courage and iron endurance of his country
men! Go, if you have not already gone, to the plains of
Chippewa, or Lundy's Lane, or to Queenston Heights while
the giant voice of Niagara is thundering in your ears and a
foreign soil lies under your feet, and catch the spirit of hero
ism which animated your countrymen when the roar of the
cataract was silenced awhile by the louder roar of the battle.
Go to Independence Hall and kindle the patriotic flame at
the very altar of freedomi Who can stand there and not
inhale the inspiration of the place? The cracked old bell
that pealed the joyful note of independence, the venerable
desks where sat Jefferson, Franklin, Adams and their com
peers ; the sacred little room where they consulted ; the very
stones on which they walked ; all — all are instinct with life
and eloquence and patriotism. But when the young Ameri
can pilgrim approaches for the first time his country's holiest
shrine, where sleeps the only idol of his country's heart —
Washington — see with what sacred awe he silently moves to
the consecrated ground where rests the ashes of the dead ;
how heaves his ingenuous bosom, how trickles the tear down
his manly cheek, until with gushing gratitude and veneration
he turns away to indulge in solitude the unutterable fullness
of his heart ! From that sacred tomb he can bear away no
sectional jealousies, no party strife, no sinister ambition ; but
returns to the duties of life baptized anew into the political
faith of the fathers and fifled with the spirit of his country's
glory. American patriotism is not a mere sentiment; it is an
essential and controlling element of national strength; — of
national progress and happiness. Should the beleaguering
minions of despotism dare to invade our sacred soil of free
dom, how soon the artisan, the merchant, the husbandman

AMERICAN PATRIOTISM. 19
would become the citizen-soldier. In other countries the
government is kept upon the necks of the people by the
bayonets of a standing army. Invasion may change the
rulers but not the despotic subjection of the people. They
have little personal interest in the conflict. It is not a war
between the people of the contending nations, but only a
series of battles between the trained armies of their kings.
But here we need no standing armies. We have no battles
of kings to fight. Every tenth or twentieth man in royal
governments is a soldier; here not one in five hundred.
A few to ke:ep our forts and arsenals in order, a few to chas
tise the red men of the west, a few to curb the licentious
dregs of our cities, what else do we want with soldiers?
The whole people are so attached to the country and its in
stitutions that any serious danger converts the whole land
into a military camp. The farmer's plow and the mechanic's
hammer are exchanged for the' sword and the musket, the
dress of the, citizen for the uniform of the soldier, and at
once he stands forth a match — an overmatch for the disci
plined mercenaries of a foreign foe. His only fault is too
great bravery, and his only fear is that the foe may elude
him. A successful invasion of such a country is impossible,
for when the "star spangled banner" waves over an Ameri
can with arms in his hands
" No power can save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight and the gloom of the grave."
And when the protection of our rights and interests requires
an offensive instead of a defensive war the American citizen
is no less a soldier abroad than at home. On the field of
Buena Vista, before the battlements of Vera Cruz, or in the
Halls of the Montezumas, our citizen soldier is alike brave,
magnanimous, invincible. How else could he be? Is he
not the descendant of a long line of warlike ancestors? Is
he not a sovereign ruler of the mightiest nation on earth?
Is not the dominion of his country his own dominion? And

20 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
is not the glory of his country his own glory? He has the
strength and majesty of conscious power wherever he goes,
for the love of his country is ever present with him and the
sense of his own sovereign independence fires his heart and
nerves his arm in the sternest hour of battle. An enlightened
and pervading patriotism, then, animating the bosom
of the humblest citizen, cannot be too much fostered
in a country like ours, where the government springs directly
from the people and the nation's protection is placed exclu
sively in their hands. But it is not alone in the field of battle
that this sense of individual power gives national strength.
In the private walks of life, in the hall of legislation, and on
the page of literature, the true American is a missionary of
liberty. He commends it, talks of it, swears by it, until the
whole community is glowing with republicanism. We im
bibe it to satiety — almost to nausea. ' 'As steel sharpeneth
steel so doth the countenance of man his brother." The
colder and less sensitive natures are warmed up, the laggard
patriot is quickened, the doubting Thomases are confirmed,
the ardent are inspired anew, till like the contact of positive
and negative magnets, a healthful equilibrium of patriotic
ardor everywhere prevails. And in a country like ours, where
thousands of foreigners are every year added to our native
population, it is impossible to estimate too highly this propo-
gandist tendency of the American mind. So strong does it
render the national spirit that we absorb the multitudes that
come to us from abroad, and in a few years their very pres
ence is imperceptible. They become incorporated with our
nationality, and make a part of the body politic as silently
and as surely as the germinating plant imbibes from the sun
light, the air and the earth, those gases and solids which are
distilled in its secret alembic till they ripen into the golden
harvest. A nationalism so strong and pervading tends to
consolidate our Union, to intensify the spirit of Republi
canism, to unite in one harmonious brotherhood the diverse

AMERICAN PATRIOTISM. 21
element of our wide spread population and to make the
patriotic heart beat as warmly on the Pacific coast as on the
Atlantic shore. A nation that is strong and energetic must
necessarily be progressive. Change is the law of all things;
and nations not less surely than men are receding if they are
not advancing. The progress may be slow or the retrogres
sion may be slow, but it certainly exists.
France and Austria are falling back in the world's line of
march so slowly that their decadence is only noticed by the
close observer; while Spain and Italy, and Turkey and Mex
ico are so rapidly sinking into decay that they are already
like the barren fig-tree — cumberers of the ground. On the
other hand, British power advances so stealthily and with
such leg-weariness as if each step were the last, that we can
not but expect the tide of British greatness soon to ebb,
while the United States and Russia, the young giants of
either Hemisphere, are striding into sovereign control with
resistless energy.
We fought the Mexican War with the mere overplus of
our wealth and population. Agriculture, manufactures and
commerce, not checked in the least, were during all the time
rapidly advancing and seeking new fields of enterprise. It
cost the people scarcely more in aggregate time and money
than a Presidential election. How wonderfully does this ex
pansion of territory, this vigorous progress tend to enlarge
the area of industrial action ! Millions of acres of rich and
virgin soil are inviting the hand of cultivation ; the restless
enterprise of our people is covering the prairies of the West
with farms, studding the streams with mills and factories,
and everywhere planting the vigorous germs of our national
civilzation. The American goes forth in peace as in war, con
scious of his nation's strength .and his own, and carries with
him the spirit as well as the many-handed industry of his
country. New lands are acquired, new markets are opened
by the prowess of the diplomacy of the Government, be-
5

22 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.

cause the people are the Government, and seek new avenues
to wealth and advancement. Industry, economy and thrift
are natural characteristics, chiefly because the people are so
much respected and labor so well rewarded.
The preservation of our beneficent institutions, enterpris
ing habits and lofty national spirit ought to be the cardinal
object of a pure and vigorous patriotism. These have made
us what we are, and will make us yet greater if we are true to
ourselves and to the memory of the past. Republican lib
erty has an expanding and elevating influence on the popular
mind, of which no student of history, no observer of the actual
present can be ignorant. All other things being equal, that
nation is the greatest and happiest which has the most en
larged and best regulated freedom. Our liberties are the
vigilant guardians of all our interests, and patriotism is the
palladium of those liberties.
But even our hallowed freedom is only a means unto an
end. The far-seeing and philosophic patriot who looks
through the shams of outward form to the inner significance
of political institutions, looks on them only as ministering
agents in the moral, intellectual and social development of
the commonwealth. Constitutional Republicanism gives
greater scope to the right adjustment of all man's complex
faculties than any other government, and is, for that reason
alone, the most perfect organization of the body politic yet
devised by the wisdom of man. The ultimate end of all
human institutions and human effort is to bring to perfection
as near as may be, every individual of the whole human
race. From this enlarged point of view what nobler govern
ment can exist than ours? Individual responsibility, individual
culture, and individual happiness are the primary aims of our
political and civil regulations. Equalit)/^ begets individuality,
and individuality begets personal independence of thought
and action. How happy that form of polity which, while it
protects each, leaves each so much personal independence !

AMERICAN PATRIOTISM. 23
So that while the political structure is fitted together like the
nicest clock-work and revolves by the annual action of the
people in perfect harmony, each component part is a man,
equal, sovereign and independent. He has only delegated
his sovereignty, and has a right to resume it when that dele
gation is abused.
Remembering the past and looking out upon the present,
who can adequately anticipate the future of American great
ness? Already our natural resources exceed those of any
other nation. We have more leagues of arable soil, more
exhaustless stores of mineral wealth, more ocean coast, more
channels of internal communication by river and lake. Our
natural advantages are literally unbounded. But this is not
all. The Roman God Terminus was not more certainly
marching perpetually outward with the boundaries of Rome
in his hands than our "Manifest Destiny" strides forward
with colossal step towards continental dominion. The co
hesive attraction of republican sentiment will in due process
of time unite Canada to the States.
The Queen of the Antilles will soon fall from the palsied
grasp of Spain, and by inevitable affinity add another star to
our constellation. Mexico and Central America are ours
whenever we choose to march over and possess the goodly
land. There be those present who will live to see our empire
spreading all over North America from the Atlantic to the
Pacific, from the Arctic sea to the tropic gulf, and the rocky
barrier of Panama torn away by American hands, that the
enamored oceans may rush across the isthmus into each
other's embrace and flow on forever in wedded unity. The
future shall behold a hundred stars above the horizon of this
sea-girt island continent and a hundred millions of freemen
busied in the vast hive of productive industry. But the fu
ture shall exult in the yet grander epoch of the omnipotence
of American ideas. The march of republican opinions is
onward, "conquering, and stiU to conquer." We are in the

24 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
vanguard, but miflions of others, though under monarchies,
are silently falling into rank. Public opinion has a voice even
where the people's political power is not recognized. The
force of our example, the fame of our prosperity, the influ
ence of our literature, the instinctive popular recognition of
the truth of our political ideas, are everywhere doing their
perfect work. Ancient prejudice is giving way to enlightened
reason, and, as knowledge is diffused, the love of liberty goes
with it into every bosom. As the head is enlightened the
heart is warmed. Already thrones and dynasties and hier
archies are tottering to their fall. The infallibility of the
church and the divine right of kings shall soon cease to
frighten the timid or ensnare the ignorant. And When the
fullness of American power shaU be accomplished at home
and the pregnant atmosphere of American ideas shall fifl the
earth as the waters cover the sea, the tiara and the crown
shall be only the antiquated emblems of a scarce remembered
tyranny, while the people of the whole world shaH be enlight
ened and all the nations repubflcan.

POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY IN THE TERRITORIES.
[An essay, published in 1860, on the Constitutional Power of the General
Government in the Federal Territories.]
Since the government of the Federal Territories is now the
subject of much debate, it is proper to consider the question,
so far as may be, in the light of acknowledged principles.
And in whatever respect no such principles can be shown to
be applicable, the rule of government must be deduced from
such analogies as are furnished by our State and Federal
Constitutions. Whatever may be the theories of speculative publicists, it
is an axiom in American political ideas that all rightful gov
ernment springs from the consent of the governed. Govern
ment is a delegation of power from the only sovereignty —
the people. The people can not, in the social condition, re
main inorganic ; this sovereignty, therefore, by a law of inev
itable necessity, organizes itself into the State, and delegates to
that State certain powers of government. From this organi
zation flows all the powers which civil and political magistrates
possess. But sovereignty is never surrendered to the govern
ment. Nothing more than a delegation of powers ever is, or
in the nature of things, ever can be made. The people are
at liberty to resume these powers and return them to the
residuum of undelegated sovereignty at pleasure. And though
this be revolution it is a right, inalienable as existence, and
sacred as humanity. It must result that as the people always
retain their inalienable sovereignty, the State is merely an
organic agency, possessing powers such as are delegated to
it, and none other.
It does not require a limitation to restrain the powers of
Government — it requires a delegation to confer them. The

26 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.

very nature of Government, as an institution, at least, when
considered from an American point of view, circumscribes
its authority within the limits of its delegated powers. How
ever, it may be subdivided into Legislative, Executive,
Administrative or Judicial, still, every function of the Gov
ernment is but an agency — general or special — employed to
represent, for the time being, its principal — the people. In
the proper sense, then. Government is never sovereign ; it is
only Supreme. Supreme as to the poHtical and civfl rights
and obligations of the individukl living under it, but subor
dinate to the Sovereign People who gave and can take away
its power. These are the ideas and principles that are im
bedded in the Declaration of Independence — that underlie
the structure of American Constitutions, State and Federal,
and that pervade the whole popular heart of the Union.
Before the Revolution the American people were organ
ized into separate provinces, owing allegiance to the British
crown, but not otherwise politically connected with each
other. When the War of Independence severed this con
nection, these provinces became separate States, possessing
such attributes as had been delegated to them by the ex
press or tacit consent of the people of each ; and such States
were not otherwise politically connected than as they were
bound together by the Articles of Confederation. These Ar
ticles did not blend the inhabitants of the respective States
into one aggregated people possessing Sovereignty, but left
the people of each State as sovereign as before it was
formed. When the present Federal Constitution was established it
sprang from the people of each State, acting through its re
spective State Government. So that the people of each
State originated and assented to the Federal compact, not
only in their original sovereign capacity, but also through the
agency and consent of the State Government. In other
words, the people of each State, as the residuary and inalien-

POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY,™ THE TERRITORIES. 27
able possessor of original and undelegated sovereignty, and
the organic State as the people's depository of specific dele
gations of sovereign power, each conjointly acceded to the
Federal compact. So that the General Government is the
offspring of the States and of the people. That Government
is the creature of the Federal Constitution, and derives all
its powers therefrom. Subject always to the people's inhe
rent right of revolution, it is within the limits of that Consti
tution supreme over States and people; outside of its dele
gated powers it is totally without authority. Who shall de
termine what powers have been delegated ? This is a question
of great difficulty and has not been authoritatively settled in
the American mind. If the Federal Government, in any of
its departments, has the right to determine the question so
as to legally bind the people and the States, then the people
and the States are at the mercy of the General Government,
if all its departments sustain the encroachments of each
other. Eo converso, if the people and the States have the
right to determine the limits of Federal ^ower, then the Gen-
feral Government is at their mercy. Perhaps there can be no
settlement made of this question, but by the final arbiter of
nations and peoples — force — revolution, if ever a contest of
sufficient magnitude shall occur to precipitate this ultimatum
of conflicting opinions and passions. But the discussion of
this question is not necessary to the consideration of the sub
ject now to be treated of.*
The people have established for themselves two forms of
Government — State and Federal ; and have delegated to each
such powers as it possesses. These governments were in
tended to work harmoniously, and without conflict, and so
long as a proper fraternal feeling exists among the people of
the several States the National and State power are in no
danger of coming into serious collision.
In discussing Federal power in the Territories, the first
question naturally is, has the Federal government the right

28 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
*
to acquire territory? If so, from what clause of the Consti
tution is that right derived?
If, in the light of the principles already stated, we come to
consider the construction to be given the Federal compact,
we shall find, in strictness, no such power in the General
Government. Or, if such power is to be deduced from the
power to admit new States, from the treaty-making or war-
making power, it presents the strange anomaly of the most
important powers of government being derived by mere im
plication from a Constitution which expressly declares that
the powers not "delegated" to the General Government are
"reserved " to the States or to the people. No constitutional
instrument was ever more carefully guarded and its delega
tions of power more strictly defined. The whole system of
territorial acquisition and government is, on strict constitu
tional principle, a mere Federal usurpation, finding no warrant
in the Constitution of the RepubHc. Human government,
however, is a practical agency, and not merely a set of
political theorems. When, therefore, under our present
Constitution the first necessity (in the case of Louisiana)
arose for the acquisition from a foreign government of new
territory, America's greatest statesman pointed out this want
of authority, and recommended an amendment to the Con
stitution, conferring the required power. But the necessity
for immediate action was great, on account of the unsettled
condition of French affairs, and Jefferson, rather than risk the
loss of so rich a prize by delay, yielded his constitutional
scruples, and the acquisition was made without an amendment
to the Constitution. Repeatedly, since, acquisitions of ter
ritory have been made, and it is now too late, as to those
acquisitions, at least, to dispute the power of acquiring terri
tory. Such a power is. it must be admitted, very advan
tageous to the Republic, and has, perhaps, in every instance
been wisely exercised. Let it be conceded, then, for the
argument's sake, that the power, though theoretically want

POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY IN THE TERRITORIES. 29
ing, practically exists by the unanimous acquiescence of the
American people in the Federal assumption of its exercise,
and by the numgrous treaty relations with foreign govern
ments which have sprung from such assumption.
Territory being acquired, what is the power of the General
or State Governments, or of the people, in relation to its
government? No clear-headed thinker can claim for a
moment that the State as such — the* States in their corporate
capacity — can have any power at all over such territory lying
outside of their limits. No State law or State power extends
into the territory of the Federal Union. State laws are
bounded by their own limits, except in cases where they are
recognized and enforced by the Federal Constitution, or are
recognized and acted upon by the governments of other
States, in the spirit of cortiity between independent States
and Nations. Nor can it, with any greater show of reason, be
claimed that the citizens of the several States, while remain
ing in those States, and not being settlers in the Territories,
have any constitutional right whatever over the government
of the Territories, except as it may be exercised by their
agent, the Federal Government. They have no direct power
or direct right; both their power and their right are those
only which are delegated to the Federal Government.
Neither the States, then, as such, nor the citizens of the
States, as such, have any power at all in the Federal Terri
tories. When the General Government acquires territory that
Government, and such citizens of the States as settle in the
Territory, have the whole jus imperii therein. The citizen,
by settlement therein, ceases to be a citizen of the State from
which he came and becomes a citizen of his new domicile,
and not of his old. Thus the General Government and the
citizen, each having entered the Territory, the next inquiry
relates to their respective rights.
The Federal Government goes into the Territories with
whatever powers are delegated to it by the Federal Constitu-

30 speeches and orations of DURBIN WARD.

tion; and the people go with that residuum of sovereign
power retained by them and not delegated to the national
government. It is difficult to see how thesa propositions can
be denied. If the General Government can rule the Territo
ries without being controlled by the limitations of the Con
stitution, it may institute monarchy, establish a rehgion,
withhold the right of trial by jury and the writ of habeas
corpus, deprive the citiz'en of his life, liberty or property,
without due process of law; in short, inaugurate a com
plete despotism. It must surely be conceded that any
Federal right of government over the Territories is
to be within and limited by the Federal Constitu
tion. That Constitution declares itself to be the "su
preme law of the land." Now, it is one of the qualities
of a LAW to operate uniformly and equafly throughout the
jurisdiction of the power ordaining it unless by a special clause
it is given a more limited operation. This "supreme law,"
then, operates uniformly and equaHy, where it operates at
afl, unless otherwise specially provided. It extends over all
the States with a uniform and equal operation, for it is not
otherwise provided. And now the question is, does not this
"Supreme Law" cover the Territories as well as the States?
If it does not, no shadow of power is possessed by the Gen
eral Government over the Territories, for all its power is
derived from that Constitution. It cannot, therefore, be
successfully denied that the Territoric? are a part of the
"land" over which the Constitution is the "supreme law."
Hence it must operate uniformly and equally upon the States
and Territories of the Federal Union, except as it is taken
out of this general operation by some special provision. It
cannot confer powers or create limitations upon the General
Government in one which it does not create or confer in the
other. It cannot be made to contract or expand when its
powers are sought to be applied to one part or another of the
"land" over which it is the "supreme law." Whatever the

popular sovereignty in the territories. 31
General Government can constitutionally do in a State, sub
ject to the exceptions already mentioned, it may constitu
tionally do in a Territory : and whatever it cannot do in a
State it cannot do in a Territory. Whatever of its powers
or restrictions relate to States operate upon States, and what
ever of its powers or guarantees relate to the people operate
upon the people, whether in a State or in an organized or an
unorganized Territory of the Federal Union.
What are the powers of the General Government within
the States? No question is, or can be raised as to very many
of these powers. The General Government evidently has
power in a State to survey and sell the public lands, establish
postoffices and postroads, levy taxes and impost duties,
establish custom-houses, raise armies and navies, constitute
courts, define and punish certain crimes, and exercise many
other powers. All these it can do in a Territory, organized
or unorganized, and it can constitutionally do no more, ex
cept there be cases as already stated, where the Constitution
makes provision therefor. What provisions are there for the
government of waste territory, or the people organized upon
territory which are not equaHy applicable to the people of a
State? It is indisputable that there is no such express
provision. If the Federal Government has a right to acquire territory,
if that is one of the "powers vested by the Constitution in
the Government," Congress has power "to make all laws nec
essary and proper for carrying into execution " this power of
acquisition. Is the right of governing territory a necessary
incident to the right of acquiring it? The right of extend
ing Federal government over it would seem necessarily to
follow ; but it would not necessarily follow that the right of
local, municipal State government would be an inseparable
incident to the acquisition. In the first place local municipal
government is not one of the objects for which the Federal
Government was established. It is by the Constitution left

32 speeches and orations of durbin ward.
in almost every particular to the authority of the States, re
spectively. It could hardly be claimed, then, that the
acquisition of territory would attach, as a necessary incident,
powers, the execution of which formed no part of the objects
for which the government was created ; in short, enlarge its
power. Besides, such municipal control can subserve none
of the purposes for which territory may be acquired, and can
therefore, in no sense be "necessary" or "proper" incidents
to the acquisition of territory. If the territory be a mere
wild, unsettled domain, it needs no municipal government
untfl settlers come upon it; and when they do, it is their
presence, and not the acquisition, which gives the right of
municipal organization and control, if it exists at all. But
the territory acquired may already have a municipal organi
zation and local laws, and then surely these mere local,
municipal, «o«-federal laws, usages and regulations would not
be necessarily abrogated by the treaty of acquisition and the
people left without government until Congress should insti
tute laws for them. It is a well-settled principle of public
law that when an organized people, with laws and usages,
are transferred to another government, those laws and usages
remain in full force, unless abrogated by the new government
under which they are placed, or unless they directly contra
vene some law of the new sovereign. If we acquire an
organized province from a foreign government, its laws and
usages are of course subject to the subordinating control of
the Constitution and laws of the United States; but in other
respects they remain unaltered until some power having
municipal sovereignty changes them. We are inquiring
whether this "rnunicipal sovereignty" can spring necessarily
from the mere acquisition of the territory, and we find that
if it does, it must do so because it is a necessary and proper
incident to the possession and enjoyment of the territory.
But we find that the general government has no right to
the acquisition itself, or its possession and enjoyment, except

popular sovereignty in the TERRITORIES. 33
for Federal purposes. Its soil may be used for Federal pur
poses, and its people may be subjected to Federal laws.
Beyond that the general government is powerless so far as
any authority derived from this clause is concerned.
By the acquisition the jus proprietatus in the soil is indis
putably in the Federal Government. Whatever power this
right of ownership confers legitimately belongs to that gov
ernment. But this power over the public domain is no
greater in an unorganized Territory than in a State. In
many of the States the general Government owns lands, but
it can not be claimed that such ownership gives any greater
power of government over these States or the people thereof
than is possessed in those States where the general Govern
ment owns no part of the soil. So it is clear that the mere
ownership of the soil gives no right to govern it, whether in
State or Territory. From this source then the general Gov
ernment can derive no right to govern the people of a Terri
tory. The clause authorizing Congress "to make all needful
rules and regulations respecting the Territory " clearly, both
from the language and the grammatical construction, refers
only to the "Territory" as property, and confers no power
of government over the people. Indeed, a claim that it does
is too ill-founded for serious argument, and is rarely put forth
now by any logical thinker who recognizes as correct the
doctrine of a strict construction of the Constitution.
There is only one other clause in the Constitution from
which the power to govern Territories is ever sought, with
any plausibility, to be derived ; and that is the clause provid
ing for the admission of new States into the Union. This
claim would seem to rest on the assumption that the right to
admit a State confers the right to create one in order that it
may be admitted. Here again we are driven into the inimit
able regions of implication, without compass or landmark.
It must be admitted, however, that there is no clause in the
Constitution from which the power to institute territorial gov-

34 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
ernments by Congress can be so plausibly derived as from
this. The admission of a new State is unquestionably a
Federal "power," and was one of the original Federal ob
jects contemplated by the framers of the Constitution. It
must be conceded too that it is in accordance with the whole
genius and spirit of our institutions that the Territories shall
not be held as perpetual dependencies, but shall ultimately
grow into States and be admitted into the Union. It may,
therefore, be . a necessary exercise of power for Congress to
mark out and define such territorial districts as may be of
convenient size of such federal powers of government as
Congress has over the Territory and the people living upon
it. And so in defining the boundaries of Territories, it may
be kept in view that they wifl ultimately become States of the
Union. Such definition of the boundaries of Territories, or
inchoate States, is not an unfair implication from the power
to admit new States, inasmuch as the extent of the area of
new States may very properly enter into the consideration of
their admission. There is no Constitutional guaranty that a
State shafl be of any particular extent of territory or amount
of population, and so these may be considerations entering
into the poHcy of admitting a State into the Union. It
might be so large as to preponderate unduly in the Federal
councils, or it might be so small as to check unduly in some
Constitutional exigencies the popular wifl of the larger
States. But when the Federal Government has thus, for the
exercise of its own present powers over it, and with a view
to its future admission as a State defined the boundaries of a
Territory, it is difficult, if not impossible, to find any Consti
tutional authority to go further and dictate the local forms
and powers of municipal government for the people of a Ter
ritory, any more than the same thing can be done in respect
to a State. There is no clause in the Constitution from which
it is possible by any fair construction, however liberal, to de
rive the power of Congress to make local laws for the people

POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY IN THE TERRITORIES. 35
of a Territory. ^ Such a power is nowhere expressed, and is
by no possibility necessary to carry out any power which is
conferred upon Congress ; for it is clear that no power of in
ternal government over a State, even at the time of admis
sion, can be exercised by Congress, except to require its
government to be republican in form. If the right to organ
ize a territorial government, in order to prepare a new State
for admission, is a power incident to the admission of new
States, still it would give no municipal power over the Terri
tory so organized, for Congress has none over the State to be
admitted, and by no correct reasoning could the incident be
more potential than the power out of which it springs. It
follows, by an inexorable logic, that such power of Congress
does not exist. Besides, no power of municipal legislation
is given to Congress, except in the District of Columbia and
in a few other special instances. "Expressio unius exclusio
atterius." We come to examine the rights of the people in the Ter
ritories. The right of self-government is inherent in the peo
ple everywhere, and their rights in the local government of
the Territories might be placed on that ground, if it rested
on no other. But they are not driven to abstract principles
in search of their rights. Those rights are expressly recog
nized and guaranteed by the Federal compact. It is de
clared by the Constitution that ' ' the enumeration in the Con
stitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or
disparage others retained by the people," and that "the powers
not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor pro
hibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively
or to the people." The right of municipal government is thus
recognized by the organic landmarks of our Republican sys
tem as residing in the people as a Sovereign. If they have
delegated it to any political organization it rightfully belongs
to that organization, otherwise it belongs with the people.
Such power has clearly never been delegated to the Federal

36 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
Government over either State or Territory. It follows that
by virtue of the Constitution the people who settle in a Ter
ritory take with them all the rights recognized and guar
anteed by the Federal Constitution, and hence as full a right
of self-government as they have in the States. Every mu
nicipal law and every municipal officer springs from the peo
ple and not from Congress. They legally originate their own
government. To aflow them less power is, on strict Consti
tutional principle, a Federal assumption of unwarranted
authority. True, if Congress has usurped power to make
laws and appoint officers for them, and the people acquiesce
in the authority of these laws and officers, they may become
legitimate by this acquiesence of the people, in the same way
that he who removes into a State having its Constitution and
laws already enacted is bound to obey them, though he. took
no part in their formation.
It is often claimed that this principle may be carried much
further, and that the acquiesence of the people, since
the foundation of the Government, in the assumed power
of Congress to institute Territorial Governments, practic-
afly confers the power the same as though it had been
originally granted by the Constitution — that a construction
had been thus given by which the people and the Govern
ment are both bound. It may be answered that this is not
a Government of precedent, but one of Constitutional lim
itation. And within a few years the Supreme Court of the
United States has decided that so important a municipal
power as the control of the relation of master and servant in
the Territories, though repeatedly exercised from the founda
tion of the Government, is not within the power of Congress.
The repeated exercise of the power was not held to render it
legitimate. But if it were conceded that this long continued
exercise of the powers of the Government over the Terri
tories did tend to create a presumption that the people un
derstood that the Constitution conferred such power and

POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY IN THE TERRITORIES. 37
intended to acquiesce in it; and if this acquiescence could
make it legal, it must be remembered that if the people could
be estopped by their long acquiesence to deny the powers
claimed and exercised by their Government, still that estop
pel must be strictly construed, and can not be extended by
mere implication. Practically the local concerns of the Ter
ritories have been left, in the main, to their own control.
Though the power to annul their laws has been claimed, it
has scarcely ever been exercised. The right of Congress,
therefore, to do so can not, with justice, be said to have been
acquiesced in by the American people. And so it has been
with the other local interferences of Congress with the affairs
of the Territories. On strict principle their is no power even
to institute these governments; but the people needing some
organizing hand in their new settlements to give them politi
cal form and provide municipal machinery for their infant
State, the powers of the General Government — at least after
so long an acquiescence of the people — may, perhaps, con
sistently with the spirit of the Constitution, if not its letter,
be exercised for so beneficent a purpose. But this power of
organization, if it be conceded to exist, can not be carried
beyond the necessity for it, and is always in subordination to
the Constitution. As a practical question it does not, there
fore, matter whether the power to initiate a Territorial or
ganization be exercised by Congress, or spring sua sponte
from the people; for in either case the people must be left in
possession of all the rights guaranteed to them by the Con
stitution, and must subordinate their government to that in
strument. It is not intended to be claimed that any munici
pal law of a Territory, any more than of a State, can contra
vene the Federal Constitution, or any valid law of Congress.
It is only claimed that whatever may be the origin of the
laws under which the Territorial organization is effected,
when that organization once exists the laws which it constitu
tionally enacts have within the Territorial limits the same force

38 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
and effect as the laws of a State within its limits — no more,
no less — and these laws derive their legitimacy from the same
source — the People. This is true Popular Sovereignty.
This yiew of the subject, it is admitted, is attended with diffi
culties ; and so is every other view that can be taken. This
is inevitable, because the Constitution was not established
with any reference to the acquiring or governing of Terri
tories. No provision was made on the subject, and the dif
ficulty arises from the necessity of applying the provisions
of the Constitution to a subject-matter nowhere contem
plated in the instrument itself. The Ordinance bf '87 pro
vided for all the territory the General Government had when
it was formed, and the Constitution contemplated no other.
But when territory is acquired, whether constitutionaHy or
not, some practical method must be adopted for its govern
ment, and none, it is contended, is at aU reconcilable to the
letter or the spirit of the Constitution except to leave to the
people therein, in analogy to those of the States, the full
power of local self-government. Whatever Federal power
controls more than this comes of usurpation. The old Ordi
nance of 1784 is equal to all the wants of the Federal Ter
ritories. It is true there are numerous clauses in the Constitution
where limitations are imposed upon, or powers reserved, to
"States," in which, if the framers of the instrument had
contemplated what are now known as Territorial Govern
ments, it is apparent that the word "Territory" would have
been coupled with the word "State." Wherever it is appar
ent that such is the case, by giving the word "State," as it
stands in the Constitution, the additional meaning now
attached to the word "Territory," (where it is used to signify
a temporary government), every provision of the instrument
becomes accordant with the Territorial system here contended
for. This can not be considered as a strained construction
when it is remembered that Territorial governments, though

POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY IN THE TERRITORIES. 39
not provided for by the Constitution, must still be conformed
to it, and reconciled to its provisions; and when it is also re
membered that the word "Territory," to signify a govern
ment, was entirely unknown when the Constitution was
formed. Moreover, the Courts of the United States, in
relation to the Fugitive Slave Law, and all other statutes,
have already, whenever it was necessary and proper, accord
ing to the established rules of construction given the present
word "Territory," the meaning of the word "State," so as
to give force to the Constitution and laws of the United
States within such Territory. The Territories, and the peo
ple within them, are subject, then, like the States and the
people within them, to the Federal Constitution, and are en
titled to all the privileges and immunities it secures.
The discussion of the power of the General Government
over the people of a Territory, and the power of the people
of such Territory over their own local laws and institutions,
derives its chief importance now from its bearing on the
domestic relation of master and slave, as the same is recog
nized and enforced in the slave-holding States of the Union,
and the assumed right of the people of those States to carry
their slaves with them into the Federal Territories and hold
them during the existence of Territorial Governments therein.
It is claimed by certain statesmen of the slave-holding States
that by virtue of the Constitution of the United States the
Federal Territory is the common property of the people of
all theStates, or, as it is sometimes expressed, the common
property of the States. There can be no legal sense in which
this claim is true, as stated. As shown already, neither the
States, nor the people of the States as such, have any right
whatever in the Federal Territories. Whenever any citizen
settles within a Territory he has whatever right belongs to a
citizen thereof, but his right is not derived from citizenship
of the State from which he came, nor does he carry with him
any particular privilege, power or immunity, derived from

40 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.

the State of his former residence. Before he can become a
citizen of a Territory he must surrender his citizenship, and
consequently his right of citizenship in the State in which he
heretofore lived, and so does not carry with him any of the
rights appertaining to his former citizenship. The best ad
vised advocates, however, of what are sometimes called
"Southern Rights," place their assumed claim on a more
plausible ground, and only hold that the people of afl the
States have an equal right to settle in the Federal Territories
— which are common property — carrying with them and hold
ing therein whatever, by the laws of the State from which
they came, is recognized as property; and that during the
existence of the Territorial Government it can not prohibit
them from so doing. They further claim that whenever it
is necessary Congress has the right and is bound to protect
them in their claim to introduce and hold slaves against the
consent of the legally constituted authorities of the Territory.
This leads to the discussion directly of the power of the
people of a Territory, through their Territorial Government,
springing, as already claimed, from themselves, and during
the Territorial existence, to legislate on the subject of slavery
therein. It has already been shown that the legislative power,
whatever it is over all subjects of local municipal legislation,
is vested in the people of the Territories through their legiti
mately constituted government, and not in Congress. What
power of municipal legislation exists then over slaves or slavery
in the Territories? When the General Government acquires
new territory that territory may come with or without a local
law on the subject. If it should happen that there prevailed
no positive law at all upon the subject, as Congress can make
none, it would be open to the introduction of slaves, till the
Territorial Government should establish some law, and being
introduced, they would be slave or free, according to the law
of nations. Some dispute exists among publicists whether
in such case the law of nations would require a positive law

POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY IN THE TERRITORIES. 41
to justify and legaHze their enslavement. But it is generally
conceded that the law of nations recognizes slavery as a
natural relation, not illegal where no positive law prohibits
its existence. But still the nature and extent of the relation,
how it shall be enforced, and what are its consequences, are
not at all regulated or defined by the law of nations, and are
always found either in the common law of the place, or in
positive regulations upon the subject. It may perhaps be
affirmed as law, that whatever relation the slave bore to the
master, or whatever obligation that relation enjoined upon the
master, would be recognized and enforced like any other
domestic relation, according to the law of the master's orig
inal domicile while he was in transitu, and not domiciled in
another place. But after a new domicilation, his right would
cease to be governed by the law of the old domicile.
But this is not of much consequence, as the Federal
Union is not likely to acquire, as it has never heretofore ac
quired, any Territory in which no local law on the subject of
slavery exists. If territory be acquired in which at the time
of its acquisition slavery is recognized, then, until the Terri
torial or State Government has altered the law, slavery may
be legally introduced. All slaves so legally introduced, or
existing there at the time of the acquisition, are subject to
the legislative regulations of the Territorial Government as
much as if they were in a State. But the Constitution of the
United States imposes, among others, one important limita
tion upon both States and Territories. Neither can divest the
property in slaves. The introduction of slaves may be pro
hibited, and the prospective abolition of the slave relation
may be provided for in a Territory as in a State. But no man
can be deprived of his property without full compensation
and due process of law. Any community has a right to pre
vent the introduction into its midst of any property or any
institution which it regards as subversive of the public morals
and detrimental to the public good. But it must act in good

42 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
faith. Having allowed the introduction of that which at the
time it chose to treat as property, it cannot afterwards rob the
owner of its title on any pretext of subserving the public
good, unless it also make him full compensation for his loss.
As the Territorial Government has plenary power upon
the subject, if Territory be annexed in which slavery is pro
hibited by positive law, that law may be repealed by such
government, and the right of property in slaves protected and
enforced, if the Territorial Government chooses so to do. But
if no such protection is given, and the old law of prohibition
is left in force, then slaves cannot be legally introduced and
held in such Territory any more than in any one of the non-
slaveholding States of the Union. The right of property in
slaves is not derived from the Constitution of the United
States. It stands exactly on the basis of any other property,
so far as the Constitution is concerned, both in the States and
in the Territories. It is, like all property, subject to the muni
cipal regulations of the community where it exists, or is •
sought to be introduced. Whatever regulations the Terri
torial Legislature may make in regard to other property, may
be made in regard to slaves. AH the laws relating to the title,
estate, descent, conveyance, enjoyment, and so forth, of lands
in a Territory, it has always been conceded, may be made by
the Territorial Government. So the rate of interest on money,
the statutes of frauds and perjuries, of wills, the laws of mar
riage and divorce, laws concerning parent and child ; indeed,
afl the mere municipal laws concerning the various relations,
contracts and obligations arising in social and civil life and
cognizable in the courts, have always been conceded to be
•within the purview of Territorial regulation. So have the
laws relating to mere poHce and the punishment of crimes and
offenses. Has it ever been, or can it reasonably be, claimed
that no law of a Territory could prevent a man from recover
ing in court the same rate of interest on money allowed by
law in the State from which he came? or that he could not be

POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY IN THE TERRITORIES. 43
punished for an offense, because the same act was not punish
able in the State from which he came? So preposterous a
claim has never yet been set up. Besides, if slave property
did go into the Federal Territories not subject to this Terri
torial regulation, the absurd result would follow that it would
be subject to no regulation at all, or that the slave property
coming from each State would in the Territory be governed
by the laws of the State from which it came, and the laws of
the Territories would be as diverse and contradictory as the
laws of the States. On one plantation the slave would be
personal property, and on another real. One master would
be bound to furnish so much food, clothing, and so forth, to
his slave, and another different quality. One family could be
separated and sold, and another could not. It is apparent
that this cannot be, and that some power of government over
the Territory must regulate the enjoyment and the incidents
of slave property as well as all other property. It must be
admitted, however, that if this power be vested in a Terri
torial Legislature, that Legislature may refuse to protect slave
property, and there is no means of compelling the exercise of
this legislative power. No mandamus or writ of procedendo
can coerce a legislative assembly. It is apparent, then, that
if 9. slave owner could legally carry his slave into a Territory,
and retain his property therein after such Territory had, by its
Legislature, prohibited slavery, still his slave could be ren
dered worthless by such prohibition, unless some power out
side of the Territorial Government can provide laws to enforce
his claim of property, and enable him, by protecting statutes,
to enjoy that property. And this consciousness has led to
the assertion of the right, on the part of slave holders, to
have such laws passed by Congress, if no adequate protec
tion is afforded by the Territorial Governments, as shall en
able them to carry into the Federal Territories and hold
therein their slaves, without the consent and against the posi
tive enactments of the Territorial Legislatures. If this right

44 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
exists it cannot but exist as to every other species of property.
This surrenders to the National Congress the complete right
of municipal government over the Federal Territories. It
has already been shown that no such right exists under
the Constitution. Its exercise would be a Federal assump
tion infinitely more flagrant than any stretch of power at
tempted in the loosest and darkest days of ' ' Old Feder
alism;" and in comparison with it all subsequent abuses of
Federal power, by bank, tariff, and internal improvement
laws, pale into insignificance.
Another claim for this power of intervention has been set
up through the medium of the Judicial Tribunals. It is said
that the Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott case, having de
clared slaves to be property, (a proposition never denied by
a lawyer,) the Constitution protects property in the Terri
tories. Grant it; but the Constitution does not create prop
erty, nor determine what property is. Nor does the Consti
tution extend more protection to property in the Territories
than in the States. If, then, the right of property enables,
by virtue of the Costitution, a master to carry his slave into
a Territory and be protefcted against the local law, it equally
enables him to carry such slave into a State, and be protected
there against the local Constitution or laws of the State; for
the Federal Constitution is the "supreme law of the land,"
"and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any
thing in the Constitution or laws of any State to the con
trary notwithstanding." If the Constitution then enables
Congress to protect slaves when carried into a Territory be
cause they are property, it equally enables that body, for the
same reason, to protect them when carried into any State.
The property in the slave is the creature of some law or legal
recognition of the State from which he came, and if this
property is protected against the local law of prohibition in
one place it must be in another: or else the Constitution has
greater force in one part of the "land," over which it is the

POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY IN THE TERRITORIES. 45
"supreme law," than in another. But the inference drawn
from the Dred Scott case is not justified by the case itself,
and it need be referred to no further.
But there is another view of Popular Sovereignty in the
Territories equally conclusive. All concede that when the
people come to form a State Government they may, at
pleasure, exclude or tolerate slavery and regulate all their
other local concerns. Whence do they derive their authority
at that particular point of time, if they had it not before? It
evidently does not come from Congress, for if Congress had,
in order to make their action valid, to grant the people
power to form a State Government, that would apply to
States as well after admission as before. Nor can it come
from the Federal Constitution, for that is the mere creature
of the States and the people, and confers Sovereignty on no
one. How can the Constitution be a barrier prohibiting the
people from exercising their sovereign power of self-govern
ment up to the moment they ask admission into the Union,
and not continue to be a barrier still? If the popular will can
revoke the Constitutional inhibition, then why could it not do
so before? It cannot be the power of numbers that makes
the difference, for Minnesota had two hundred thousand and
Florida but fifty thousand people when each formed its State
Constitufion»and came into the Union. Besides, a State is
not bound to have a Constitution at all. Its government
must be Republican in form, but that form may consist of
mere laws, subject to change every year; and the whole
powers of government, as well Executive and Judicial as Leg
islative, may be vested in the General Assembly. Nay, as
in Athens, all power may be lodged in the assembly of the
whole people, and subject to their alteration • at pleasure.
Still the government would be Repiiblican, and the State, so
far as that is concerned, would be entitled to admission.
How can the forming of a Constitution, then, give the State
or its people greater municipal power? Or how can admis-

46 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
sion into the Federal Union confer on a people greater power-
over their local concerns ? It may and does confer power over
Federal Concerns, but cannot over their own internal affairs.
The formation of a State Government is undoubtedly an act
of Sovereign power; and as undoubtedly that power does not
derive its origin from the Federal Government. The truth
is, the people, sua sponte, and not from any extrinsic grant of
power, may form a government for the inchoate State, or
Territory, and by a like exercise of inherent sovereignty they
may ask admission into the Federal Union in order to have
Constitutional voice in the control of Federal affairs. If this
admission be granted by the other States the Territory then
Constitutionally becomes a co-State in the Federal Union.
If not granted — and there is a coercive power to compel ad
mission — the Territory remains an inchoate State, not in the
Union in the Federal sense and to enjoy Federal powers, but
stfll subject to Federal laws and control. But neither admis
sion nor rejection can give Federal power any greater con
trol over the «o«-Federal — the mere State concerns and laws
of the people. If it could, the interest of the Federal Gov
ernment would then be to increase its power and patronage
by keeping the new States permanently in the Territorial
condition. But such an interest cannot spring up if the Fed
eral power is no greater before admission than afterwards;
and though the possible abuse of a power does not prove
that it does not exist, yet where its existence is indisputably
doubtful such liability to abuse is a strong argument against
its existence.
This doctrine of Congressional intervention is, however, as
unsafe as it is unconstitutional. Under the specious name of
protection control of the whole system may be taken. The
measure and the manner of protection is subject to the dis
cretion of a legislative body not interested at all in favor of
making that protection effective, and in very many instances
determined to deny it altogether. And if the protection is

POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY IN THE TERRITORIES. 47
refused, what is the remedy? Evidently none. No power
of the Government can coerce the legislative arm into action
against its will ; nor can it control the discretion by which that
action may be moulded and determined. If the power of
protection to slave property in the Territories rests in Con
gress, it may, and probably would, regulate the food, cloth
ing, education, marriages, separation, labor, rest and punish
ment of slaves and every other incident of slave property.
The slaveholder better have it prohibited by law at once!
The truth is, the only protection slavery ever can or will
receive must come from the community in which it exists,
and who are interested in it. Where the people want it, it
will be protected ; and where they are opposed to it, no power
can force it upon them. It will naturally go into, and be
protected in, such Territories and such only as are suited to
its existence by. the habits of the settlers, the character of the
sofl, climate, productions, and other elements necessary to
make it desirable and profitable. It has done so in all time
past in this country, and it will do so in the future. In Kan
sas, where the people did not want slavery, they have pro
hibited it, and in New Mexico, where they did want it, it
has been protected. There let the matter rest.
It must be conceded that the General Government has not
acted upon these doctrines of non-intervention in the affairs
of the acquired Territories of the Union. Following the
example set by the old confederation, the new Government
assumed to institute local governments for the people settled
in the new Territories, and in a few instances to govern them
with a most arbitrary and despotic sway. The Ordinance of
1787 was made the pattern of all the territorial governments
for many years. In some instances Congress allowed slavery
to go, or remain, in the organized Territories, and in some
instances it was prohibited ; and so the power to veto the laws
of a Territory was continued to be claimed till very lately by
the Federal Congress. And even up to the present time, the

48 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
General Government continues to organize territorial govern
ments, appoint governors and judges, and exercise many
other unwarranted powers ; though in the language of General
Cass, this assumed power is " a foundling vainly wandering
through all the clauses of the Constitution in search of paternity''
The distinguished senator from Illinois, however, while chair
man of the Committee on Territories, did much to bring the
practice of the Government, in this respect, to a sounder
system, although he has not placed it on the principle con
tended for in this article. When assumptions of power have
once become hoary, they are generally regarded as the legiti
mate offspring of their reputed parentage and are consecrated
by the " odor of sanctity" hanging around ancient abuses, so
long continued and so often repeated. It may be that in this
respect the General Government will never be brought down
to its naked, constitutional simplicity. And perhaps the
most that can be expected is the practical limitation of the
Federal power to a mere organization of Territorial Govern
ments, and the remission to the people in the Territories so
organized of full power to enact their local laws and to regu
late and establish their own local, social, and civil institutions
as they choose, ' ' subject only to the Constitution of the
United States."

OBJECTS OF THE WAR FOR THE UNION.
[Address to the people, May 23, 1861.]
Fellow Citizens of the Seventh District:
The partiality of some friends suggested me as a suitable
person to fill the vacancy in Congress occasioned by the
resignation of Governor Corwin. To those friends I return
my sincere thanks. But upon full reflection I am satisfied
that my past political relations, aside from all other objec
tions, disqualify me in the minds of the great majority of the
district for this branch of the public service. I therefore de
cline to be considered a candidate. I am glad to know, how
ever, that the interests of the district can not suffer, since
there are so many others abler and not less willing than my
self to surrender their private interests, to the public demand
for their services in the arduous, if not over-dangerous position
of representative in Congress. I rejoice, too, to know that I
can remain in that humble but useful position in the national
service, where I shall neither be questioned as to past poHti
cal opinions nor jostled by aspirants anxious to relieve rfie of
my musket. The post of usefulness is the true post of honor.
I acknowledge the right of my fellow citizens to assign me
the place for which they think me fitted, and I shall cheer
fully and, I trust, bravely maintain the honor of the flag they
have placed me under. If I. can do anything, however little,
to defend the government of our beloved country, or protect
the homes of those who have shown me so many years of
kindness, the performance of these duties will be its own re
ward. If it be my fortune to fall, I ask no greater honor than
to be buried, if they fs^H, in the same trench with those brave
and generous young men with whom I am associated in the
service. And if I should return again to civil employment,

50 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
I shall return with a higher appreciation than ever of the para
mount duty of all those taking part at all in public affairs, to
labor unremittingly for our great and generous-hearted sov
ereign, the people. Highly as I have always estimated the
masses of the people, I have been so long occupied with pro
fessional pursuits, bringing me in contact too often with the
least ennobling passions of the human heart, that I have been
both surprised and delighted when I have mingled as a fellow
soldier with them to find how noble a people we have. The
great masses of the soldiers, especially from the country pop
ulation, .are characterized by frankness, courage, energy, in
telligence, patriotism and generous unselfishness of high order.
I am proud of the privilege of serving in the ranks with them
and sharing their fortunes ; or, if I should ever be called to
command them, I shall not forget how much they are entitled
to respect and confidence.
And now, my fellow-citizens, 1 am cojistrained to say a
word more. I have for years seen and foretold the present
Revolution, and with steady purpose, at whatever sacrifice to
myself, labored to avert the storm. I have always believed,
and stifl believe, that wise counsels would have done so.
What I have considered as wise counsels, have not been fol
lowed by either of the political parties. And yet I cannot re
frain from saying that the Democratic organization of the North
has, in my judgment, at aU times shown a high and unswerv
ing devotion to the Constitution and the Union, which can
be doubtfully claimed by their successful rivals. And now,
when the tocsin of war is sounded, true to their life-long de
votion, the gallant and patriotic Democracy have rallied in
numbers fully equal to the dominant party. Here, at least,
they are allowed to serve their country.
As to past political connections, I have to say that untfl
these unhappy troubles are ended, I shafl recognize no party
but the party of the Union. If, when they are over, there
shafl be, as must occur, differences of opinion as to questions

OBJECTS OF THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 51
of constitutional power, or of governmental policy, 1 shall
act with that party, as I have always heretofore done, which
best accords with my opinions, whether that party constitutes
a majority or minority of the people. And I have implicit
faith that when that time shall come, the Democratic party,
ever true to popular rights, will then, as now, be entitled to
confidence and support.
But in the present great struggle for the Nation's very ex
istence, it is our duty to rally, without distinction of party,
around the Constitutional authority, now lodged in the hands
of the Federal Administration. 1 would levy the last dollar
of money, and enlist the last able-bodied man, to maintain
the Constitutional existence and power of the Federal Gov
ernment over all the States of the Union. I would sacrifice
everything but liberty upon the altar of the Union. For the
hour, if need be, let commerce be swept from the seas, let the
busy looms and factories be silent, let cities be desolated, and
grain fields be trampled in the dust; let the civil vocations of
life be but accessories to the tented field; let the women make
clothing for the soldiers and lint for the wounded, or cool the
feverish brow of the dying; let countless millions of money,
and myriads of men be sacrificed — if it must be, let every
hilltop be lighted by burning houses ; make every valley a
graveyard, and drape every household in mourning, and all
this desolation will be richly compensated, if from this bap
tism of blood the Union of the States and the fraternal affec
tion of the people can arise regenerated, purified and eternal.
The American Union is the palladium of our great and
peculiar civilization, The different sections, fitted for com
merce, manufactures, agriculture, planting, mining, and every
industrial pursuit, with such variety of climate and produc
tions, all harmoniously blending into one whole, give us, if
united, more elements of material greatness than were ever
before the heritage of any people. But in that still greater
greatness, the moral and intellectual attributes of a people.

52 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
we are equally pre-eminent. Made up from the most vigor
ous and hardy of the best nations of Europe, our people
possess, constitutionally, the most active and powerful
national mind which has yet appeared in the history of the
world. The South, with its chivalry and its delicate sense
of honor, the North, with its enterprise and diversified intel
lectual culture, each blending with the other, by family alli
ance and social intercourse, would, if bound together by a
common Union, cemented by affectionate respect, carry for
ward American civilization to the highest point of human
capability. For the full fruition of this grand future I have
labored in civil life and now struggle in the field. If the
Union is broken up, no word or act of mine, shall appear in
judgment against me. If the great American Nationality is
to perish, its blood will rest upon the garments of those who
have arrayed section against section, who have taught
brethren to hate and not love each other. I war upon the
institutions or social relations of no State or people; slavery
or anti-slavery opinions or sentiments weigh not a feather in
the balance of my judgment in the present contest. The
Union is worth more than slavery or anti-slavery — worth
more than party triumphs or defeats. I implore my friends,
therefore, to forget, for the present, all party aflegiance. If
others will not forget party, surpass them in generosity as
you have excelled them in patriotism. Forget me. One
man is nothing in the great tide of human events. Think
only of your country and the great institutions we are bat
tling to transmit, unimpaired, to posterity.
If you, and the Democratic party generally, act promptly
and vigorously in carrying forward the war, this object wiU
be attained. Thus far the movement has been simply a
Union movement; it has not sought to interfere with slavery,
or any other domestic institutions of the States. The true
and the only honorable objects of the war are the vindication
of the National Flag and the perpetuity of the Union. Let

OBJECTS OF THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 53
us unite in the Revolution, and make it permanently a strug
gle to reconstruct the tottering nationality, and not a raid
upon slavery, and then, and then only, will the .Union be re
stored, and the greatness of the American Republic handed
down, with its constantly increasing splendor, to future gen
erations. Durbin Ward.
Camp Dennison, May 23d, 1861.

LETTER TO A UNION MEETING AT HAMILTON, OHIO.
[Published in the Cincinnati Commercial, April, 1863.]
Headquarters 17th Regiment, O. V. I., \
Near Triune, Tenn., April 12, 1863. j
Thomas Millikin, Esq., and Others:
Gentlemen — Yours, mailed the 28th ult., reached me here
on yesterday. I can not but fe^l complimented at a request
from those who have known me so long, to address the people
at this momentous crisis. And I am made doubly grateful
for this mark of your confidence by the remembrance that
some of you are the intimate associates of my boyhood, when
the futLire of our lives was all sunshine and hope, and when
the horizon of our country's future was as cloudless as our
own, and that others of you were arrayed on a different side
from myself in the great political struggles through which
our country has passed. But, grateful as it is, your invitation
must be declined. We are in the face of the enemy, and I,
therefore, can not quit the field for any purpose. Here I
might appropriately close ; but will embrace, with your leave,
the opportunity your invitation affords to say something upon
what I conceive to be the real issues of the day, and the real
magnitude of the questions involved.
Let us appeal to principles ; and at the same time regard
these questions from a Democratic party stand point. The
three great ideas that ought to be interwoven into all Ameri-.
can political systems are. Democracy, Constitutional Liberty,
Federal Union.. These three great ideas have ever consti
tuted the cardinal principles of the Democratic party. In
moments of passion or of party triumph they may have been
temporarily forgotten or ignored, but when calmness ruled

LETTER TO A UNION MEETING IN HAMILTON, OHIO. 55
the hour the party returned to its lifelong fealty. Democratic
equality, constitutional guarantees, perpetual Union; these
were the watchwords of the party, and the touchstone of
every system of government or of policy. After years of
sober thought and patient observation, I am unalterably com
mitted to these three old Democratic axioms. / am a
Democrat. Let us see how these principles are made applicable to the
present contest, and what duty is imposed upon one who ad
heres to them. Democratic ideas defined as constituting the
original element of American institutions, can hardly be
claimed to be in serious jeopardy, and to make it a specialty
now to maintain them would surely be a work of supererog
ation. The whole tide of American thought must be cor
rupted by generations of false teaching before popular ideas
can be incrusted into the dead formulas of aristocratic belief.
Nor is there any permanent danger to constitutional liberty.
We are in the midst of an exciting rebellion, and it is not
strange, looking to the history of the past in afl nations, that
there should be those who are not sufficiently observant of
the constitutional rights of such as may sympathize, or be
supposed to sympathize, with the rebellion. Honest oppo
sition to what may be thought or may be arbitrary, unjust, or
unconstitutional measures, will be very likely to be mistaken
for disloyalty to the Government, and denounced or pun
ished as such. These are evils, and are to be deprecated,
and, so far as may be, prevented. But the calm, impartial
observer can not feel that there is any intention on the part
of the Government to overthrow — though its agents may not
always sufficiently regard — the great bulwarks and guarantees
of constitutional liberty. Hot-blooded spirits, intemper-
ately opposing Administrative measures, may be something
too harshly dealt with, but it can hardly be expected, that in
.the hour of deadly conflict, when the poignard of the trai-
torious assassin is feeling for the vitals of the nation, the pub-

56 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
He pulse shall beat as cool and regular as in the hour of
national repose. Whoever may yield to the employment of
arbitrary or illegal measures, to further the national defense,
the thoughtful patriot must regret it, but wifl, nevertheless,
adhere to his country's cause, through evil as well as through
good report. It is not appropriate to express an opinion,
whether such measures or acts have been resorted to or not.
My allegiance to my country is equally the same. The
courts are open for redress to the aggrieved, if such there
be; and the ballot-box is open for a change of rulers, if
those in power are not trusted. No enlightened patriot,
then, ought to withhold or stint his support of the Govern
ment, whether he approves its policy or not.
But there is another view of our constitutional obligations.
If our rulers are restrained by the limitations of constitutional
power, they are also obligated by the grants of power which
the Constitution confers. That instrument is not merely a
net-work of negatives. It clothes the Government in the
panoply of national power ; it affirms, as wefl as denies ; it
creates a government, and imposes on that government the
duty of self-preservation ; and for this purpose that govern
ment has a right to use all the legal means at its command.
He who hesitates to afford, or opposes the legitimate use of
these means, if not legally, is, at least, morally, a pubHc
enemy; and if he should happen to be denounced or pun
ished beyond the legal code, I may be sorry for the infraction
of the law, but I shafl not be sorry for him. Let it not be
supposed that, even in this rebeflion, public measures are not
open to comment. Free discussion is frequently an element
of wise decision. But the Hne of demarkation between free
discussion and factious opposition often becomes too well de
fined to be mistaken. While the expression of honest differ
ence of opinion is not only to be tolerated, but is entitled to
high respect, factious opposition is worthy only of contempt.
Let not, then, this fancied peril lead us from an earnest

LETTER TO A UNION MEETING IN HAMILTON, OHIO. 57
survey of the real danger. Of afl that is good and great in
the past and future of American national life, it is the Federal
Union alone that is menaced with permanent danger. Mo
mentary aberrations of opinion or ebullitions of passion, may
sway the multitude, and place this or that party in or out of
power. These are matters of small account. They are events
of a day. But it is the perpetuity of the Union that is now
the matter of permanent interest. This absorbs all other
questions within itself.
What, then, is the duty of a Democrat (if we must still
remember party distinctions) in this hour of peril to the
Union ? Shall we, who have always claimed to be, par ex.
cellence, the party of the Union, abandon her fortunes now?
If there were no patriotism, nothing but party fealty in
volved, I should still be amazed at my Democratic associates
for giving the war so cold a support. I tried, for a long
time, to believe that it was not so ; that they were slandered ;
that they favored, and did not oppose, the war ; but the evi
dence thickens upon the country too much for doubt. The
body of the party is, I am sure, at heart right, and I hope
most of the leaders are too; but many of them, it is but too
apparent, are opposed to coercive efforts to restore the Union.
Of two things let all such be apprised : Nothing but the vig
orous application of force can ever subdue the rebellion, and
every teaching to the contrary aids and abets Jeff Davis and
his rebel government. There is a possibility that even force
may not restore the Union ; it is a certainty that nothing else
ever can. The Rubicon is crossed, and nothing is left but the
forcible destruction of the rebel power or the recognition of the
Confederate States. Whoever is not willing to have recourse
to the one, ought, at once, to propose the other. In this
hour of war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt, half-way
measures are not only useless, but mischievous. "He that
is not against us, 'must be' for us" in passionate earnest, if
he means the country shall have faith in his sincerity.

58 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
And now let me abandon, if it may be, the tone of thought
which springs from mere party ideas, and breathe, if I can,
the pure inspiration of patriotism. Disguise it as we may,
we are now embarked on the stormy sea of revolution.
Where that rushing tide may bear us no human sagacity can
foresee. Unlikely as it may now seem, "the inexorable
logic of events " may ultimately require changes in the details
of our Constitutional organization. It may come that a new
Constitutional Convention may be called ; that slavery may
be blotted out in every State ; or that the smaller States may
be blended into each other, so that eight States, less in com
bined area, and, in another generation, less populous than
Illinois, shall not cast sixteen votes in the Senate against that
young giant's two. Or, the President and Senate may be
chosen by the people. All these things could occur without
overturning the general principles of the Constitution, or the
security it affords to civil and political liberty. But, whatever
changes may be forced upon the country, by the necessities
of thirty millions of people, struggling through the storms
of war, to readjust their relations, every patriot ought to ac
quiesce in them without a murmur, whether distasteful to
him or not, if the great principles of constitutional and civil
liberty remain intact, and the Federal Union, over every
State and every foot of the Federal domain is thereby perr
manently re- established in peace and harmony. Nothing less
should satisfy the patriot ; nothing more should be demanded.
I am now, and ever have been, unconditionally and at every
sacrifice, save national honor and constitutional liberty, in
favor of the perpetual existence of the Union. Compared
with that, negro slavery or no negro slavery, in any or all the
States, is to me as nothing. I know this is not a popular
view of the subject, but truth ought not to be sacrificed to
popular error or caprice.
In this world's history — in the general progress of human
civiHzation, the American Union is worth more than all the

LETTER TO A UNION MEETING IN HAMILTON, OHIO. 59
negroes that ever lived on the face of the earth. While other
races, Asiatic or European,, have at some stage of their ex
istence, contributed something to the general volume of civ
iHzation, the negro, in contact, for thousands of years, with
the highest forms of civilized life — Hindoo, Egyptian, Greek,
Roman, and Modern European and American, has added
nothing perceptible to the general stock. The race lias con
tributed, in all its life, nothing to the sum of knowledge.
What longer contact with superior races may do is yet to be
seen ; but all past history would seem to indicate that no cul
ture could ever remove the inferiority of the negro to the
Caucasian. Certainly, he will for ages be unfitted to do
more than follow in the path of progress that others may
point out. Why, then, on his own account, at least, should
his status be made an element of any very grave considera
tion, in determining the relation of the States to each other,
or to the General Government? As the negfo is not equal,
intellectually or physically, to the white man, and can not, at
least, for ages, if ever, become so, a wise statesmanship
would not, voluntarily, introduce him, since his place could
be better occupied by a more intefligent and vigorous inhab
itant. But that is not the problem. The presence of the
negro is a stubborn fact, and his status is of less consequence
than his presence. He must be dealt with. He must be fed,
clothed and governed. Either as a slave or as a free man he
can be used as a producing agent, if given intefligent guidance,
and, for a long time to come, he can subserve little other
purpose in the world's economy., He is nowhere admitted
as the social equal of the white man, at least, in this country ;
and if the subject be looked at only with reference to him,
there would seem to be little reason to make or prolong war
on his account. But, nevertheless, so far as he is an element
of strength to the rebellion, it becomes a ihatter of grave
account what shall be done with him. 1 am clear that the
Federal Government has no right to interfere with or control

60 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
the local institutions of any State of the Union; but how far
it may, by its military authority, affect the status of persons
living in States whose constituted authorities have solemnly
declared them out of the Union, is a proposition of public law
which I have neither time nor inclination now to discuss.
The right to confiscate, by law, the property of rebels in arms,
in whate'ver State they may be, slaves included, can hardly be
denied by any one. And what statesman, who really wished
to sustain his Government, would object to a prudent and
discriminating exercise of the right? All nations have as
sumed and acted upon the power.
There is nothing, therefore, it seems to me, in this slave
question, viewed in any aspect which ought to withhold the
patriot from using force to restore the Union. If slavery
falls before it, the rebels have precipitated the war, and let
them take the consequences. If the industrial interests of
the country be ruined, we shall regret the necessity, but not
forget that it is a just punishment for rebel arrogance and
treason, and feel that when the Union is restored its pros
perity will revive. If slavery continues in the South after
the war is over, as it possibly will, we ought to be content
to let it work its way out, as all social evils have done, by the
decay incident to its own radical weakness ; or remain perma
nent if that weakness does not exist. That the general spirit
of the age is against slavery, as an institution, is undoubtedly
true, and it is equally true that it is only tolerated in the
democratic ideas of this country, on account of the admitted
inferiority of the black race, and the sacred obligations of the
constitutional compact to leave the subject to the control of
the respective States. When a State has broken that com
pact, it is hard to make a loyal citizen feel that he is bound
to protect the right of a rebel, who claims the benefit of a
compact his State has broken. We make no war upon
slavery, as such; but then, slavery must make no war upon
us. We shall not aim a blow the less at the rebellion, lest

LETTER TO A UNION MEETING IN HAMILTON, OHIO. 61
that blow should wound slavery, and not a blow the more,
actuated by opposition to slavery. We defend ourselves
against it, or we seek to destroy it when it is made an instru
ment of attack upon us, but we fight affirmatively only to re
store the Union and to punish treason.
In every patriotic heart the Union should be valued above
all price. What shall be the fate of this great land if that
Union be once permanently broken up? Who shall har
monize into one peaceful confederacy these great and popu
lous States, if the nicely-balanced structure of the Revolu
tionary patriots be now buried in ruin? Shall these once
happy States, "now discordant, dismembered, belligerent,"
beat in perpetual conflict against each other with chaotic
madness for all coming time? Look at Germany! Look at
the rival States of Italy ! Look at Ancient Greece ! Look
anywhere, and behold how petty principalities beget national
feebleness and internecine wars! But the peculiarity of our
position will make dissension even more ruinous to us than it
has proved in those examples from the Old World. That
great inland sea, the Mississippi, is a natural bond of Union
which can never be permanently severed. The great valley,
destined to be the most productive and populous on the
globe, must be the home of our nationality, and, whether it
requires a year or a century to accomplish it, no peace can
be durable which does not make this the corner-stone on
which it rests. It is a necessity of our position, and must
be secured should it cost a million of lives. Can the mighty
North-west, hardly yet grown into vigorous infancy, allow
itself to be cut off from the gulf? Would not the East soon
seek to cut us off" from the Ocean? Would we, if this could
be accomplished, be more than isolated and wealthy provinces,
subject to the caprice or tyranny of our haughty neighbors
on the South and East? Every export and every import
would be taxed. The shores of the Mississippi and lakes
would groan under custom-houses and bristle with bayonets.

62 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
Think not that no causes of disquietude would come but this
ever-recurring slave question ! Human passion and interest
have ever made enemies of nations that are rivals, and our
neighbors would not prove exceptions to the rule. Causes
of war in the opinion of each would be abundant, and deso
lation would often spread its dark wing over this fair land.
May God deliver my native country from such a fate !
But how glorious is the prospect of perpetual Union ! A
nation of confederated States, as large, and ultimately as
populous, as afl Europe, rises in majestic grandeur upon the
horizon of the future. Bounded by oceans, and gulfs, and
lakes, the mightiest on earth — teeming with the richest agri
cultural productions of every clime, its rock-ribbed hills and
snow-clad mountains, full to repletion of the most precious
and useful minerals, blessed with climates genial and diversi
fied as the earth itself, drained by rivers, beside which the
"Danube and Volga are rills," and abounding in every plant
and animal needful for use or ornament to a nation that might
be a world in itself! But these are only the rude elements
that may be worked up into the most solid and gorgeous
fabric of greatness that any people have ever reared. When-
New York shall equal London, and San Francisco rival Paris,,
and the "song of steam" shall be heard over the Sierra
Nevada as it screams along the iron bars that shall thread a
continent and unite the Orient and Occident; when our sails
shall whiten every sea on the habitable globe ; when the pro
ducts of our looms and factories, our mines and fields and
fisheries, shall be masters of every mart of trade ; when we
shall dictate to the nations of the earth peace or war ; when
our language shall be heard upon every shore, and our power
felt in every clime ; when our science, and art, and literature
shall pervade and animate the civilization of the world, and
when the fame of. our greatness shall cover the earth as the
waters cover the great deep, then will be fulfilled the mission
which destiny has in reserve for the American people.
Very truly, Durbin Ward.

SPEECH IN THE SCHENCK CONGRESSIONAL
CANVASS.
[Delivered extempore at Hamilton, Ohio, in opening the canvass, August
31, 1866.]
Fellow- Citizens : — Through the partiality of that great
party heretofore and now known as "Democratic," and
through the like partiality of that portion of the party
which during the war was called "Union," and who
now support the administration of President Johnson, I
have been placed, without having solicited the position, in
the attitude of a candidate in this canvass. As to my per
sonal claims, I will only say to you, my fellow-citizens, that
after so long a residence in the midst of this district — a dis
trict which has at one time or another been represented by
some of the first intellects of the land — I might, with my
modesty, well feel I am allowing my friends to ask for me a
place beyond my abilities. Pitted in the lists against the
present imcumbent, General Schenck, who has served with
distinction at home and abroad in the National Legislature
and in the field, I ought to feel proud enough if the public
did not overshadow my personal claims in the comparison.
But this district has had for its representative, from time to
time. Governor Morrow, Judge McLean, Governor Corwin,
Governor Weller, Mr. Campbell and Mr. Vallandigham —
names that have national reputation and which will continue
to live in the history of the country — and when I remember
the long train of great names that have gone before, the
compliment of my nomination is still greater and the con
sciousness of my humbler talents still more embarrassing.
There is another embarrassment. Although I was at one
time accustomed to public speaking, I have now for a long

64 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
time been silent. The mere trick of oratory, the capacity to
catch the ears, of the crowd and produce shouts, which I
might have had at one time, has long since passed away, and
during the solid, stern, earnest conflict of the past five years
— involving, as 1 believe, the issues of the life or death of the
Nation — a conflict in which words were not the missiles used
— I became too earnest to indulge in the light and trifling
discussions we are too apt to practice on the "stump." At
some future time, when I have become again accustomed to
pubHc speaking, I may treat public topics less gravely, but
not now. To-night I can only — anxiously earnest as I feel —
deal solemnly with the great principles I conceive to underlie
this conflict. Treating with perfect fairness and respect the
opinions of those who differ from me, I ask your patience
whfle I show, as best I can, which is the true side, and ask
you to espouse that side, not because of any personal merit
in myself, but because of the principles I accept and defend
and which, if elected to Congress, I hope, with others, to
put into the law of this land.
We are, my feflow-citizens, just emerging from a great war,
and, like all wars which uproot the foundations of former in
stitutions, that war was brought about by the conflict of opin
ions. That conflict was between the two sections — North and
South — upon an exciting topic, which has more or less dis
turbed the country from the very foundation of the Republic.
I allude to the question of slavery. We all too weH know
that whatever differences of opinion existed, whatever other
principles might have been involved, which had something,
more or less, to do with the conflict, the great struggle at last
turned upon slavery. The North had, from the first, been
becoming more and more opposed to the institution ; and the
South, in consequence of that very opposition, more and
more suspicious of interference and apprehension of danger,
and determined to enlarge and extend the institution and its
influence. Discussions in and out of Congress took place.

SPEECH IN THE SCHENCK CONGRESSIONAL CANVASS. 65
Bitter recriminations were exchanged, until finally it came to
the enactment of the Fugitive Slave law — and resistance in
some of the Northern States — the Nebraska bill, and civil
war in Kansas, personal liberty laws in many States, the John
Brown raid, the disruption of the Charleston Convention, the
election of Lincoln, and to a final culmination in the acts of
secession in the Southern States. The great conflict of
opinion at last became a conflict of arms.
The gentleman who preceded me, and who so kindly intro
duced me to this assembly, informed you that I entered the
service with the musket on my shoulder. I claim no especial
credit for that. I only claim that I was in earnest, and in favor
of the restoration of this Union, and not having previous
military experience, I felt it my duty to learn the profession
of arms as I had learned all else, by commencing with the
alphabet and proceeding upward as best I might. I entered
that service upon the very day upon which the President of
the United States issued his proclamation cafling for troops.
That proclamation declared that certain States, and the citi
zens thereof, had arisen in insurrection against the Constitu
tion and the laws of the United States, and that the purpose
of calling for those troops was that he might compel the peo
ple of the seceded States to again submit to the laws and the
Constitution of the United States. It was not a proclamation
by which he meant to deprive the people of the Southern
States of self-government. It was not a proclamation declar
ing that he intended at that, or any future time, to regard
them as subjugated and conquered provinces, and to treat
them as a foreign nation would treat a country that had been
captured and conquered. It was simply a proclamation of
the President to the effect that certain States had arisen
against the Government of the United States, and calling for
whatever troops he supposed necessary to repossess the Gov
ernment of all the property which had been taken from us,
and compel the people of those States to come back into the

66 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
fold of the Union. In the following July Congress was called
into session, and in that Congress both branches of the legis
lature distinctly and clearly avowed that the purpose for
which the war was carried on was to re-establish the union of
the States, and that they intended to leave to each State the
right of local self-government that they had before; and that
every State was to enjoy equal rights and dignity under the
Federal Government. And, my fellow-citizens, I avow to
you now, that during the long and weary years of the war,
from the time "that those two important steps were taken, the
proclamation of the President and those resolutions passed
by the separate houses of Congress, from that time, I repeat,
to the close of the war, the platform, if I may so term it,
upon which the Government of the United States proclaimed
to the world, that they entered upon this great contest, was
never changed. True, the President, at a subsequent time,
proclaimed the abolition of slavery in certain revolutionary
districts in the South, but he was careful not to proclaim that
he had a constitutional right to do so, but that it was a war
measure rendered necessary by the fact that the Southern
States were using the slave population as an element of
strength in carrying on the war.
So much for the lamented Lincoln, than whom no truer
patriot ever lived; mistaken sometimes, as who is not? Led
astray, sometimes, by the heat and passion of the conflict
that surrounded him — and who has not been ? But a man
that from first to last labored earnestly and continuously,
simply for the restoration of the Federal Government upon
the basis upon which each State formerly stood. And what,
in the meantime, did the Congress of the United States do?
Through the whole of that contest, at all times, from the
time the war began till it closed, Congress, as wefl as the
President, recognized that those States were members of the
body politic ; they refused to admit that secession had legal
vaHdity, but maintained that the Constitution of the United

SPEECH IN THE SCHENCK CONGRESSIONAL CANVASS. 67
States was the supreme law of the Southern States, and in
every act of the legislature they recognized and enforced
that claim.
The census of the United States had been taken in 1860,
and when Congress came to pass laws to apportion among
the several States the representation to which each State was
entitled, every State was apportioned the representation to
which it was entitled under the Constitution as existing prior
to the proclamation of the President. I will not detain you
with the minor acts of Congress; but every act of ' legislation
proclaimed that the war was carried on for the restoration of
the Union and nothing else. What is the signification of that
term? In the popular heart of American soldiers and citizens,
the Union is that form of government guaranteed by the
Federal Constitution. The Union is not a combination of
States at the will of a central power. Congress is not an un
limited parliament for the enactment of the laws and Consti
tution of the several States. But what is meant by the Union,
as has been expressed both in the logic and rhetoric of the
country, is, that many States are united in one, each having
its own local power, and as the poet beautifully expressed it:
" They are many as the billows, but one as the sea."
That is what the Union is; and it is one of the points upon
which I shall dwell in every speech that I may make from
the beginning to the close of this campaign, that the Union
has no existence except as agreed to and guaranteed by the
Federal Constitution, and I affirm that he who seeks to hold
the States together by any other bond than that of the Con
stitution of the United States is a disunionist, whatever he
may call himself, whatever term he may invent by which to
put his enemy under his feet. Though he may call the man
who advocates the reconstruction of the Union under the
Constitution a sympathizer with the rebellion, a Copperhead,
or any other name he may choose to apply, I simply retort

68 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
that he who seeks to hold these States together by any other
power, or by any other bond than the Federal Constitutino,
is a disunionist.
I have, my fellow-citizens, shown you that up to the close
of this war there was no effort on the part of those in power,
of that which was sometimes called the Union and sometimes
the Republican party, nor on the part of those who held the
reins of government, to attempt the overthrow of the Con
stitution of the Union; but on the contrary, I have shown
you that they fought simply to establish the Constitution,
and to consolidate the Union that was formed under it. Af
ter the war had closed, after the weary years, during which
many who now hear me were doubtless lying under the
canopy of heaven as their only shelter, with the ground for
their bed, many having come home diseased and disabled for
life, and leaving many of their comrades in graves unmarked
upon the soil of the South ; after the victory had been won,
the ruling party, seeing that victory had perched upon the
standard of the country, began to impose new terms, to indi
cate new conditions, and propose new plans for the govern
ment of the country.
There is one subject upon which I must make a remark,
and that is, that after slavery had become practically abol
ished by the action of the army in the Southern States, when
thou.'sands of slaves had entered the army, when thousands
and hundreds of thousands had abandoned their masters and
could not be reclaimed, it was proper then to settle the ques
tion. An amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery,
was therefore proposed; that amendment was adopted by
Congress, was sent forth to the several States for ratifica
tion — to the Southern States just as much as to the Northern
States — and when it received a majority of three-fourths of
all the States — not three-fourths of the States that did not
secede — then, and not till then, was it proclaimed as a part
of the supreme law of the land; and as such, I, for one, now
regard it. That question is therefore settled.

SPEECH IN THE SCHENCK CONGRESSIONAL CANVASS. 69
During the continuance of the war, I am well aware,
though 1 was little at home, that there existed in the North
those who were opposed to the prosecution of the war, who
did not believe it right — one for one motive, another for an
other motive — but there were three principal motives which
induced opposition to the war. One, which was that of the
great body of these men, some of them very intelligent,
some of them, I have no doubt, virtuous, some of them de
siring to do right, was a belief that force could never restore
the Union. They did not believe it a possible thing for the
armies of the United States to invade the South and conquer
so wide-spread a territory, or conquer such large armies; and
they believed that before the contest was closed, the coun
tries of Europe, who were anxious to break up this Republic,
would interfere in behalf of the South. They therefore be
lieved that the prosecution of the war was a useless expend
iture of life and treasure. Gentlemen, I entertained no such
opinion as that; I believed all the time that force could re
store the Union, and that force would do it.
If any one will take the pains to examine a letter I wrote
in 1863, he wifl find that 1 then believed, as I do now, that
force was one of the means by which the Union could be re
stored, and that any efforts to restore it by outside negotia
tions, would utterly fail. That was an opinion of mine,
though others thought differently. There was another cause
of opposition to the war, and it was one in reference to which
I must be frank enough to say as a man who loves the Con
stitution, and who loves the whole country, I could not but
have some sympathy ; and that opposition arose from certain
illegal arrests, and certain violations by subordinate officers
of the Government, of the vested rights of citizens under the
Constitution of the United States.
Gentlemen, I was opposed to all that. I have been
already advocating to-night, and I hav© always advocated the
supremacy of the Constitution and the laws of the United

70 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
States, and no man ought to be arrested and tried except by
the law and the Constitution. So far as that opposition went,
I thought there was some excuse for those men, but I did
not believe then, and I do not believe now, that it justified
them in their opposition to the war; because I thought then,
as I think now, that those were but temporary violations
of the law, due to an ebullition of passion which would pass
away. If a man is unjustly arrested, let him defend himself
against illegal arrests in accordance with the law; but when
the life of this great nation is at stake, let no man say
that any private wrong of his own shall prevent him from
standing by the Federal Union.
There was another cause of opposition to the war, and that
was, that it was being conducted expressly for the purpose
of abolishing slavery. I do not, my feflow-citizens, propose
discussing this question, whether it was right or wrong, nor
do I propose to discuss either of those other grounds of ob
jection to the war, tor the reason that they are now dead
issues, gone forever; and it is the duty of every earnest man
and patriot to act so that he may secure that which may be
the most beneficial in the end. As was eloquently said by
that gifted pen which drew up the cafl at the late meeting at
Washington, addressed to the soldiers of the United States,
"I would rather act with those that are now right, though
they may have been wrong, than act with those that were
once right and are now wrong," and that is now what I pro
pose to do ; and therefore, I say to you all, in perfect frank
ness, that no man can alarm me further by any taunt of
voting with "Copperheads," and "sympathizers with the
rebeflion." There was a time when such taunts had a sting,
but that time is now past forever. I now strike hands with
every man who is willing to fight with us, in the great issue
upon which, in my opinion, is to turn the perpetuity or de
struction of our institutions.
But I said that during the war there was no issue but the

SPEECH IN THE SCHENCK CONGRESSIONAL CANVASS. 71
restoration of the Union ; and I said, also, that when the war
closed new issues were raised. But why were they raised?
Let us treat with perfect frankness the opinions of those who
differ from us, as we demand perfect frankness fropn them to
us and our motives. After every inch of soil was again
under the flag of our country, and there was not an armed
foe anywhere, why was it that they began to raise new issues?
There were two reasons, both of which were the promptings
of the human heart. In the first place, hatred and revenge;
a disposition, even in the minds of the generous, not to be
perfectly fair to an antagonist, still rankled in the heart of the
country. We could not forget that we had been at war with
this people ; that they were subdued and were now willing to
submit to the laws of the country. We could not forget all
they had made us suffer. I confess I could not do it either.
I do no not know that I have even yet done it. It is not in
human nature, perhaps, that any of us should do so. But I
know that it is right, that just as far as we can, we should do
everything in the future for justice, for mercy, and nothing for
mere revenge. [Applause.]
But there was still another motive which prompted men to
change the issues.
That was, the loss of power, which would perhaps be a
natural grievance to any body. 1 do not know but any
other party would have done the same as has been done by
the party then called Republican, but which is now without
a name, and deserves none, and is known as the Radical
party. [Laughter.] I do not know but that the Democrats
might have done it, or that the Johnson men might have done
it, had they been in power. But you, gentlemen of the jury,
gentlemen of the national jury, it is for you to decide this
question between these parties. The love of power, then,
was the next motive that prompted new measures. They
knew full well if peace came it might assuage the passions
of the multitude, and make them forget their revenge, and

72 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
forget the wrongs that had been inflicted ; make them feel
again as a band of brothers, and be again united as one under
the Federal Constitution. They feared that the power that
they wielded would slip from their hands. I hear men claim
ing to be Radicals asserting that this war was fought by them ;
that they are responsible for it, and for its successful termina
tion ; and I know some of my Democratic associates are will
ing to admit it. But we know that in every regiment, and in
every company, of those who served in the army of the
United States, he who had been a Republican, and he who
had been a Democrat, stood shoulder to shoulder; in the fight
they fell, and were buried side by side in the same grave.
And we know, too, that of the leading generals, a very large
number, I will not say a majority, but a very large number,
were men who, in the party conflicts, had fought under the
banner of Democracy. It is not, therefore, true that the
Radical party is entitled to dictate terms, because they fought
the war. I deny the proposition. The great people of the
United States, without distinction of parties, fought this war.
I know that there were politicians on both sides ; there were
public men seeking to get or to retain office, that took differ
ent sides, and tried to lash the people into fury upon one side
or the other ; but in the great popular heart of the country
dwelt that love of the Union which they inherited from their
fathers ; and it is a slander upon that great people to say that
a particular party carried through the great struggle.
Now, desiring to perpetuate their power, what measures
do they resort to? No sooner did Congress meet than, in
utter subversion of all parliamentary usages, in utter defi
ance of the Constitution of the United States, the question
of reconstruction was taken out of Congress; they took
it out of the hands of Congress as a legislative body, and
turned it over to what Johnson very appropriately called a
"central directory," to-wit: the Committee of Fifteen, when
the Constitution provides that each House shafl act indepen'd^

SPEECH IN THE SCHENCK CONGRESSIONAL CANVASS. 73
ently, and not that the Senate shall rely upon the House, or
the House upon the Senate. In defiance of the Constitution,
and in defiance of the parliamentary usages of this and of all
countries, they transmitted all power on that subject to an
irresponsible committee of fifteen, a Jacobin club, which took
possession of all the powers of the Government. Why was
that done? Does not everybody know? It was because if
they left each House to judge upon that question, the mem
bers would take their sides upon the floor of the House and
Senate, and would expose the injustice that was done, and
the misrepresentations that agents sent to the South were
constantly making in regard to the condition of things there,
and the loyalty of the people toward the Government. Old
Thad. Stevens — and I don't know to whom in the world to
liken him; I could liken him to one who shall be. nameless —
succeeded in getting this subject referred; and for eight
months the most important subject which was before the
legislative bodies of both Houses was withdrawn from dis
cussion, from debate, and from everything which might en
lighten the minds of the country, or enlighten the minds of
either House, and kept locked up in the closet of the Jacobin
Club of Fifteen! Is not that true? Can any man deny it
who appeals to history?
My fellow-citizens, it was my fortune, during a large part
of the war, to be in the State of Tennessee, and a number of
those men who were excluded from Congress were personal
acquaintances, and, I am proud to say, friends of mine.
They claimed their seats upon that floor, for they were loyal
men, and not only were they loyal, but Tennessee had organ
ized a loyal State Government, which had been so recognized
by everybody ; it had be^n established a year or two before
these members were elected and sent there by their constitu
encies, and who were they? Who was Cooper? In Septem
ber, 1862, when Bragg, by his grand flank movement from
the Tennessee river to the Ohio, had compelled the fafling

74 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
back of Buell and his troops, it was my fortune to move with
my regiment through the little town of Shelbyville, the resi
dence of Ed. Cooper. In that town, as we retired, and as
the very drums of the enemy were beating within our hear
ing, not less than ten thousand starry banners were flung out
to greet us, in the very face of the invading foe. The people
met us with open arms, and with shouts for the Republic,
although the enemy were after us. And when, after the
battle of Murfreesboro, we lay for nearly six months within
thirty miles of the beleagured hosts of the enemy, they occa
sionally took prisoners from us and carried them to the little
town of Shelbyville, the citizens fed them, the ladies brought
them the daintiest things to eat, and every attention was
shown them right in the face of the rebel army. That people
sent up Ed. Cooper as their representative, and he stood at
the door of Congress and knocked for eight long months, and
the only answer they gave him was, Tennessee is not entitled
to be represented upon the floor of Congress. Why was
that? Would not Cooper have voted for the Union? For
laws to preserve the peace and prosperity of the Union?
Assuredly he would. But they knew that if they broke the
phalanx, if they admitted one State before they devised a
policy, which would exclude the rest, there was no logic by
which they could be excluded, and they would not have that
boasted two-thirds majority with which to vote down the
President. But they did not stop there. They .proposed a national
poor house. [Laughter.] They established the Freedmen's
Bureau, or sought to do so ; and at last they got a lease of
life and the privilege of selling to commissaries and quarter
masters for two years longer. But, my fellow-citizens, they
passed a law making perpetual, or in other words, making it
as any other law not limited by any period of duration, a
Freedmen's Bureau, which would have cost this Government
from fifty to sixty millions of dollars every year, to be paid

SPEECH IN THE SCHENCK CONGRESSIONAL CANVASS. 75
out of the taxes you pay to the Government, increasing the
expenses, if it had become the law of the land, about sixty
millions of dollars a year for all coming time, unless the party
which now seeks to turn them out of power succeeds. But
it was to be the law of the land; not a law to exist for one,
two or ten years, but a permanent statute upon the statute
book of the United States, never to be repealed without the
consent of both houses of Congress and the President. Here
was a deliberate scheme for plundering the pockets of the
American people to the extent of fifty or sixty miflions of
dollars every year indefinitely, for the purpose of feeding the
Black Prince of the South, and, as somebody in the North
calls them, "the poor white trash." And it was to that law
that Johnson, Andrew Johnson, President Johnson — the
bravest spirit that has risen up to stem the tide of radicalism
and revolution, which was seeking to submerge your institu
tions — to that scheme, 1 say, Andrew Johnson gave the
death blow! But after that was done, they continued to wax
hotter and hotter in their war with the President, and they
continued also to wax hotter and hotter in their schemes to hold
on to the power they had obtained; and the Committee of
Fifteen succeeded in passing, by a two thirds majority, a new
Freedmen's Bureau Bill, which taxes you now for two years
to pay for the support of the negroes of the South. Why
is that? Because the scheme of these men is a bid — a bid
to the black population of this country. North and South, to
join with them in their endeavors to hold the power in this
country indefinitely hereafter.
Then again, in order that they may have agents every
where that shall advance the interests of their schemes, they
adopted the Civil Rights bill, and passed it over the Presi
dent's veto. What is the Civil Rights bfll, my fellow citi
zens? Have you read it? Do you understand it? Do you
know that it established a court for the negro, that it does
not give you? That you, my white brother, are well enough

76 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
off, if you get a petty State court to settle your rights, but
that the supreme negro has the sove'reign power of the United
States to protect him ? Do you know that he may assert his
rights in one court and you yours in another? And that if
you knock down a white man, you will be tried by a justice
of the peace, but if you knock down a negro, you have to be
tried by another tribunal? He has a tribunal which you have
not. I do not wish, my fellow citizens, to appeal to your
passions, or arouse any antagonism toward the courts or the
negro, but I allude to this subject because it is a part of the
same general scheme v/hich has run through all the legisla
tion and all the action of Congress from the time they met; a
scheme to win over to them the colored population of the
country; a scheme by which they will subjugate the rights
and powers of the States ; a scheme by which they seek to
accumulate power in the Federal government, so that if this
system were allowed to be carried out, the States must
become mere provinces, subjected to the unlimited power
which would be lodged in the Congress of the United States.
And further than that, having by these two laws, the
Freedman's Bureau bifl and the Civil Rights bfll, done all
that they could in that direction to win over the negro to
their side, then they exclude the Southern States from the
Union until they have agreed either to submit to unequal
representation in Congress, or enfranchise the negro. What
does that constitutional amendment amount to but that?
Turn it over in any form you will. The first clause that gives
to the negro the same rights that a white man has is only
intended to bribe the negro over to their side ; because we
know very well that the civil rights of the negro are as wefl
secured now in almost every State of this Union as are the
civil rights of the white man.
One word as to what the "rights" in question are.
Rights are properly divided into those that are natural and
those that are conventional — those which God has given to a

SPEECH IN THE SCHENCK CONGRESSIONAL CANVASS. 77
man, and those which the organization of society gives to
him. Now that the negro has natural rights, the right of
life, liberty and property, I have never questioned, and hav
ing a natural right to life, liberty and property, a court ought
to protect him in that right, for these are the rights that are
protected by civfl laws. But poHtical rights are matters of
convention ; they are matters of agreement. All white men
have their political rights in this country. A woman has no
political rights ; she does not vote, nor has she the right to be
elected to office or to make laws. These are rights denied to
women and children because the experience of the world has
shown that, for reasons unnecessary to discuss now, they are
unqualified for the task which political rights would impose
upon them. The woman is unsuited by her nature and cir
cumstances to exercise political rights, and so is the child.
Political rights then are denied to these classes of the com
munity by our laws as they exist in Ohio and in most of the
States of this Union. They are also denied to that race
which is yet in the childhood of its civilization, and as yet
unable to take its part in the great and sacred political obliga
tions imposed upon you, my fellow-citizens. I do not believe
there is any race of people upon the face of the earth capable
of representative self-government except the Caucasion race,
of which we form a part. By Asiatic and African races this
has never been done, and it has only been successfully done
by us after ages of experience. Our forefathers in the old
countries of Europe a thousand years ago had no such repre
sentative government as we are blessed with now. On!y step
by step, and after hundreds of years of experience have we
learned the art of self government. Even in our own country,.
for two hundred years, while we exercised local government,
we were steadied by the parent hand of England till at last,
after this long schooling, we had learned the way and earned
the right to rule ourselves. And do you beHeve it possible
that the negro, who has been held in slavery from time

78 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
immemorial, whose ancestors a hundred years ago were rude
savages in Africa, is instantly on manumission fit for suffrage?
Do you suppose it possible that such a people is capable of
taking an -intelligent part in the government of this country?
— a country where the government is that of the people.
Kings govern easily because they govern by force; but in a
country which is governed by the virtue and intelligence of the
voter, and which depends for its stabiHty upon the knowledge
of the voter how to vote, upon his habit of obedience to, and
instinctive love of law, upon his instinctive sense of person
ality and self-respect; when it takes all that to establish and
perpetuate a government like this, think you it is possible or
reasonable to suppose that the rude, ignorant African is
capable of taking a part in such a government?
The constitutional amendment to which I have referred is not
the only one which has been proposed; not, less than about a
hundred amendments were proposed by that rump Congress.
[Laughter.] In the time of the French revolution when they
beheaded their King, without having had the experience
which I have shown we have had, they concocted a new
government and a new constitution every year or so till after
about ten years Napoleon, tired and disgusted with such in
efficiency in the government, and with the conflicting jumble
of systems proposed, toppling down one to set up another
seized the reins of the government and governed the people
by his own wifl. Now 1 don't say that even if the Radicals
succeed such a thing will happen here. I have too much
faith in the American people and in their inherent love of
Hberty to beHeve that such a thing could happen here. The
past furnishes us with instructive lessons, if we wifl but heed
them, and the world has passed its judgment upon the crude
schemes of the revolutionists of France, and has been taught
that the outbursts of radical and fanatical instincts should be
put down. We have a Constitution made by our fathers,
dictated by experience, founded on justice, and so nicely and

SPEECH IN THE SCHENCK CONGRESSIONAL CANVASS. 79
wisely securing to every citizen his every right, that it would
be ignorance and madness for us to abandon its guarantees
for any undigested scheme of these Radicals. Under our
glorious Constitution we have enlarged our boundaries and
increased in population and in the number of our States till
from thirteen we have risen to thirty-six. Nay, pardon me,
to twenty-six ! There are only twenty-six stars in the Radi
cal banner, although I confess we have thirty-six stars in
ours, and, if we succeed, there will be thirty-six stars in our
banner and thirty-six States in our Union. If the Radicals
succeed there will be but twenty-six States in the Union.
[Cries of "They won't succeed."] Do you want to break
down that system of government? Do you want to abrogate
the Federal Constitution? Do you want to amend the Con
stitution till it shall become Hke Joseph's coat of old, known by
the many colored patch-work ? Is that the kind of patch-work
you desire to have made of your Constitution? Do you not
rather desire to escape from the conflict of Radicalism and
come back to the sacred principles of constitutional liberty
we have derived from our fathers?
From all "this jumble and conflict, from all these wild
schemes of Radicalism, from all these efforts to build up
power in the Federal Government, to subjugate the Southern
States, to give them unequal representation to establish a
national poor-house, to establish courts exclusively for the
negro, in which the white man has not his rights, from all
this the people recoil with horror; they instinctively feel that
all this would finally end in another revolution. The people
were alarmed, and, as when all feel alike upon a subject, the
very first man who speaks is followed by all the rest ; so when
somebody proposed that we should endeavor to escape from
the threatened danger by bringing representatives from all the
States of the Union, to see whether they could, without
quarreling, . talk over in peace, the great questions that
agitate the country, the proposition met a warm reception.

80 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
It was in that spirit that a number of gentlemen in Wash
ington organized a National Union Club ; they soon found it
was popular, and that almost every man thought as they did.
In a short time it was resolved to hold in Philadelphia a Con
vention representing all the States and Territories of the
Union, and so well did the Democratic Representatives in
Congress see that this was the road out of the anarchy that
surrounded us, that with a magnanimity equally rare and
honorable, they gave us their potent aid, though the move
ment did not have a Democratic origin.
President Johnson's friends, desirous of furthering the great
cause of the re-establishment of the Union, gave us their
vigorous support. We made our call for the convention.
The Democratic party in Congress in both Houses issued a
call recommending their constituents to send delegates to the
convention to meet the Southern men who were practically
out of the Union and talk over their troubles, and see if there
could not be devised some solid basis of future action, upon
which the country could stand and upon which, on going to
the people, they could peacefully turn these Radicals out of
power. These movements led to the conventiori. It met in
a spirit of harmony. The North and the South once more
embraced as friends. The Confederate leaders struck hands in
friendly grasp with the gaflant soldiers of the North who had
conquered the Southern armies. It was attended by men who
supported Lincoln and Johnson, and by men who supported
McCleflan, but they met as a band of brothers. There were
there the wisest heads (unless I exclude Brother Campbell
and myself), intent not on making new parries, or a new
President, or to establish a new order of things, but to consult
together how best to act in concert to bring back the Govern
ment to its old basis and, thank God, no man that looked
into that great wigwam, with its sea of ten thousand heads,
would apprehend that there was any danger ahead. All little
selfish considerations were laid aside and the stern resolve

SPEECH IN THE SCHENCK CONGRESSIONAL CANVASS. 81
and calm purpose of the convention was unmistakably evinced
that nothing should stand in the way of the restoration of
this Union. The late " rebels, " too, were there ! They came
forward and renounced secession, repudiated the rebel war
debt, and guaranteed civil rights to the negro. They acted
in concert with the Northern men, sat at the same table,
conned over the resolutions which were to be passed, studied
them over word by word, and carefully framed the address.
They then said to us, " Upon that we can go to our people;
we can say to them that in the North there are men who are
willing to receive us back into the Union without our being
made slaves;" and the good tidings, my friends, have already
gone to the country.
Let no man suppose that it is the purpose of the supporters
of Andrew Johnson, whether they belong to the party usually
called Conservative or to that which is called Democratic, or
that it is the purpose of any of those who now act in concert
with him, to allow rebels to make their appearance upon the
floor of Congress. I know that is charged against us ; it is
said by those who desire to howl us down by hard epithets;
but no such proposition has been made. I am not going to
defend the President — he needs no defense; but 1 hurl back
the charge with indignation when it is said that the President
has announced any such thing. I say here, what will be said
hereafter more fully, that the time will come when all test
oaths will be repealed ; there must come a time when they
will be repealed, and we shall only require a man to be loyal,
when he takes his seat and when those only that have not
been pardoned will be kept out. That time will come,
but at present we are desirous of removing the test oaths, be
cause we have no desire that men who have been opposed to
the Government shall come into Congress and make laws. It
can not, and wfll not, be done. I assert this because it has
been said that we propose to fifl the halls of Congress with
rebels. I say we mean to have men who are true to the

82 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
Government and the Constitution of the United States, and
not rebels.
But I will not detain you too long. What is to be, the re
sult of all this? What is to be the end of this excitement
upon the subject? Are we to succeed, or are we to fail? If
we succeed, I know what will be the result; I know that
peace, and union, and order, and harmony will prevail in this
broad land. If we fail, I desire to be no prophet of evil; I
desire to predict no future civil wars; but, gentlemen, let us
not forget that when the people have once learned to settle
their disputes by the sword, it is a lesson which their passions
will be very ready to teach them again.
What do you suppose will be the result if the radical pol
icy is carried out? Suppose they get a majority in the next
Congress, and suppose they exclude every man from the
Southern States, no matter how loyal he is, unless he has
made himself a slave by accepting a constitutional amend
ment which is dictated to him at the point of the bayonet.
Suppose they exclude from the counting in the next Electoral
College the votes of the Southern States; and suppose it turns
out that the National Convention that nominates a candidate
for the Presidency — I care not whether you call him a Union
man or a Democrat ; I know you will not call him a Radical,
because they can not have a National Radical Convention,
but by whatever name it goes, such a convention wifl be held
— suppose that convention nominates and elects a candidate,
that is, should give him a majority of all the electoral colleges,
and it should happen that he claims to be President, and sup
pose on the other hand, the Radicals hold their convention
representing twenty-six States (without representation from
the South) and elect a President of the United States — that
is, elect a man who has a majority of the Northern colleges,
not a majority of all — I make no threats ; I make no predic
tions ; but I leave any man to guess whether or not, in a case
like that, those who represent the majority of all the colleges

SPEECH IN THE SCHENCK CONGRESSIONAL CANVASS. 83
in the United States would not insist that their man is legally
the President of the United States. Was not that just the
case with Lincoln? Lincoln had received a majority of the
colleges of the United States ; he had more electoral votes than
all opposed to him, and was he not legally President? And
did not I, and thousands of others, go out and fight to enforce
the doctrine that when the people of the United States elect
a President by a majority of the colleges, they have a right
to inaugurate him as President? But if a Northern party
should elect a President, and the Radicals should count only
those who voted on their side, do you suppose that the people
would quietly sit down and not rebel against it?
I throw out these hints simply as warnings to the men of
this country; to the hardworking farmer, to the merchant
and man of business — never mind the politicians, they can
swim in dirty water and not drown, but it cannot be so with
the business men of the country — and I ask you, when, by
repeated instances of the fact, you have once taught the
people that elections are to be settled by force, what better
are we than Mexico? But, my fellow-citizens, I will not
dwell upon this dark picture, for I know but too well that
the good common sense of the American people will prevent
any such catastrophe. I know there wifl be such a voice
from the masses of the people, as well as from those who sup
ported Lincoln and Johnson as from those who supported
McClellan, as will teach this Radical faction that they have
got to abate from their demands, they have to come down
and admit that the Constitution is the supreme law of the
land, and not the mere dictum, the mere dogma of a party.
Let none who are with us be alarmed for the result. The
soldiers are with us; the President is with us, and I am con
fident that the leading generals of the United States take our
side in this matter. I have no authority to speak for these
men; you have heard and seen what I have heard and seen.
When the committee went into the east room at Washington,

84 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
to present the address of our late convention to President
Johnson, standing at his right hand was General Grant with
his staff. Subsequently, at a meeting of the soldiers, in
which I took part, for the organization of the meeting to be
held at Cleveland, one of the members of General Grant's
staff was present. General Grant and his staff, as well as Ad
miral Farragut, have gone with the President on his tour.
Think you that there is any ill feeling between those men?
Think. you that the President takes one side and General Grant
another? I feel they are in accord ; and I feel confident of the
end. How are we going to fail? The great leaders of opinion
are with us. Many men who supported Lincoln and Johnson
repudiate these dogmas, and stand fast by the old ideas and
the old Constitution. We will not then fail. If we do not
elect a majority in Congress — which I hope we will — we will
elect enough to hold them in check, and prevent them from
going any further in that mad radicalism in which they are
now running ; and if we do not succeed this time in carrying
a majority of the whole people, so as to elect the majority of
the North, we wifl do it in the future, and thus save the
country from ruin.
There is another subject to which I must call your attention
for a moment, before closing. In addition to the many things
which the Radicals did for the purpose of securing power
through the instrumentality of the negro, they endeavored to
get power through the instrumentality of the soldier. They
thought they would equaHze his bounties, and win him over
by that. I have no objection to equalization. The man who
went out in the early part of the war, from motives of patriot
ism, got no reward for it, and he ought to be put upon an
equality with the soldier who went out at a subsequent time,
and received a high bounty for going. But it would have
been wiser, on the part of Congress, had they passed a law
making it practical ; it would have been well had they passed
a law to pay the soldier, for they are disputing at Washing-

SPEECH IN THE SCHENCK CONGRESSIONAL CANVASS. 85
ton whether it is legal to pay him or not, and it is now in the
hands of the legal authorities at Washington. So eager
were they to catch the ear of the soldier, they were in such
a hurry — for they were at the same time increasing their own
pay from ^3,000 to ;^5,000 — that they paid no attention to
the particular form in which they got up the Bounty Bill for
the soldiers. They got their own ^5,000, but it is very
doubtful if the soldier wifl get his. But there is another
curious thing. They thought that if the soldier was to be
paid more than he bargained to have, so great a favor could
not be granted to him unless they soothed over their own
consciences by paying themselves more than they agreed to
receive. They agreed to work for ^3,000, and so they voted
to have $5,000 instead. If they agreed to pay themselves
more for the future, all well ; when I get there, it will be all
well. Mr. Campbell — If they don't repeal it; they didn't vote it
for you.
General Ward — I have not examined carefully the law, but
I inquired of a gentleman at Washington, and he said he
thought the law was general ; that it was not merely for them
selves. It would have been a richer joke if they had merely
put it into their own pockets. They thought they would be
sure to get back, and they seemed to have great confidence
that they can just run over this country and hold it. They
believe that you are excited, and revengeful; that you will
not forgive your enemies, and that you will continue to keep
them in power just to spite what they cafl the "Copperheads."
They shout and howl about the "sympathizers with the rebel
lion," and "Copperheads," and dig up from the rotten sheets
of the press every stinking thing they can find, and throw it
at their rivals, in order to vote them down. But I am satis
fied that they can not do it. Here and there a man may be
defeated ; I think they will not beat me. But ' ' let not him
that putteth on the armor boast as he who putteth it off."
9,

86 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
They will find that there are blows to give as well as blows
to receive ; and they will find if they beat me for Congress,
they wifl have beaten a tolerably tough stick. There is
a great deal of tenacity in the way in which I hold on and
fight; I have been perfectly respectful to General Schenck,
and I propose to be so throughout the campaign, because I
believe that the best way to convince the people and get
their votes is to show them that their candidate is in
earnest; that he believes he is in the right, and means to
be successful.
(During a momentary pause by the speaker, a voice, evi
dently Milesian, inquired, "What about the Fenians?")
I was going to touch the "Finnigans" in a moment
I understand that my respected rival anticipates making
a great deal of capital out of the Fenians. I understand
that he appealed to them at Dayton, som? time ago, and
said he expected to get their votes. In this, I think he
was wise; he threw out the best bait he had. It is not
wise to boast, so I must not blow my own clarion; but
if you examine the records of both of us in regard to secur
ing the rights of the Irish and German population, if my
record does not stand the test, when compared with his, I
am willing to be defeated. In 1854, when a Know-Nothing
Lodge was established in my county, I was, from the first,
one of its most steadfast opponents. But I have nothing to
say about securing the votes of Irishmen or Germans. It
matters not to me whether a man, if he be loyal, was born
in Ireland or Germany, or in one or other of the States
of this great Republic. Upon the dispute between the
leaders of the Fenians, I know nothing ; but it is an old sen
timent of mine that the time wifl come when Ireland will be
free from the power of Great Britain. I fear they are not
strong enough now to accomplish such a result. I fear they
have not arms and money enough ; I fear there is not com
munity of action sufficient to secure success ; but just as sure as

SPEECH IN THE SCHENCK CONGRESSIONAL CANVASS. 87
that the oppressed will some day rise and strike the oppressor,
just as sure will Ireland in the future be rid of the tyranny of
England. I am much obliged to you for your long and patient at
tention to my remarks. I do not intend in addressing my
fellow citizens, to appeal to mere passion. I have endeav
ored in this, the first speech I have made in the canvass, to
state fairly my position, and what I conceive to be some of
the leading issues that are involved in the present contest.
And are they not, my fellow-citizens; contained in a mere
nut-shell? They are but two. Shall the Union be restored?
Shall the star spangled banner wave over the thirty-six or
twenty-six States? Shafl the Constitution be sacredly re
tained as the great legacy our fathers gave us, or shall we
permit it to become a patch-work, reflecting but the passions
and phrensy of revolutionists? And the second issue is,
shall this great Anglo Saxon race inhabiting this continent,
the authors of our institutions, our literature and our laws,
the founders of our cities and our civilization, the great,
thoughtful, intelligent body of the people, the owners of
property, the people who have the intefligence and the
capacity to govern, shall they continue to be the governing
power in this land, or shall the schemes of radicalism suc
ceed, and the negro be bribed over to help them by the
Bureau Bifl, by the Civil Rights' Bill, and by the tender of
the right of suffrage? These are the issues. Upon both of
these great issues the rival candidate has taken ground that,
in my opinion, will, if successful, ultimately ruin the insti
tutions of this country. He has taken the ground of the
most radical. He contends that the Southern States shall
not be admitted till they have consented to terms that are
dictated to them by force, and he has gone as far as the farthest
upon the subject of negro suffrage. In the District of Co
lumbia, which, as you know, is under the control of Con
gress, and where one-third of the population is black, he,

88 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
with his Radical coadjutors — in defiance of the public senti
ment of that community, in defiance of the remonstrance of
the resident population of that city, which lay at the mercy
of Congress, and without representation upon its floor, whose
citizens were simply bondmen, having no right to go to the
polls, but wholly at the mercy of such men as you may send
there — he took that population, thus bound hand and foot,
and, against their consent, forced upon them, as far as he
could by his vote, negro suffrage. That settles the question
as to where he stands, and further settles that if he had the
power he would enforce a similar law in Ohio, he would en
force a similar law in Kentucky, and in every one of the
Southern States. There is no escaping from the conclusion
that if he thought it right to enforce negro suffiage upon the
people of the District of Columbia against their consent, he
would be equally willing to enforce it upon any other people
or State without their consent. These, my fellow-citizens,
are the issues, and it is for you to decide whether this Gov
ernment shall be one of mongrel races, one in which there
shall be constant conflict between the two races; where
the negro shall sit in the jury box, shall preside on the bench
and plead at the bar, and be put in all things upon a political
equality — I say nothing about social equality. It depends
upon you, and others like you, to decide these momentous
questions, for I tell you, dodge it as they may, cover up the
real issue as they may, it is this that underlies every single
action of the Radical party. General Schenck has stated his
position ; I have indicated mine. Judge ye. Will you follow
the lessons of the fathers ? Will you hold fast to the Consti
tution ? or will you go off" in the frenzied radicalism of rev
olution? These, my last words, I leave to-night solemnly
with you ; perhaps, at some other time during the canvass, I
may again be heard.

RECONSTRUCTION POLICY.
[Speech delivered at Hillsboro, Ohio, September 23, 1867, and circulated
by the Democratic State Central Committee of Ohio, as a campaign docu
ment.]
Fellow Citizens:
Seven years ago I was asking popular sanction of the great
principles of a party whose creed was the Constitution, and
whose history was that of the Republic. For Douglas, a
most Catholic spirited American, I then cast my vote. The
clouds of war were already gathering and blackening upon
the National horizon. Our party foresaw the rising storm,
and did all that such instrumentalities could do to appease
the angry blasts of sectional fanaticism.
We had for years preached brotherly love and mutual for
bearance. We had for years told the people of the North
and of the South that crimination and recrimination were
producing estrangement, and would culminate in war. At
Charleston, in the very heart of that rebellious sentiment,
which was already secretly organizing revolution, we boldly
avowed our purpose to stand by the Union against Southern
secession no less than against the fanatical madness of the
North. But our teachings and onr warnings were alike un
heeded. The fanatic befligerents, each goaded on by
wrongs, fancied or real, and oftener fancied than real, rushed
to arms. To the sword was committed the final arbitrament.
Anxious as I was for peace, and faithfully as I struggled to
avoid war, there was never a moment, my feflow-citizens,
when I would not have spurned peace at the expense of the
Union. The United States, that political organization created and
guaranteed by the Federal Constitution — the baptismal

90 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
name of the great Republic — is the synonym of union, and
inspires a reflgious veneration shrouding all beyond its life
with the dreary terrors of death.
Actuated by this sacred love of the Union, the whole North
was touched as with an electric spark by the first flash of
artillery at Sumter. For months the Nation had stood still
and held its breath. Anxiety now deepened into certainty.
The whole country sprang to arms. Brethren stood poising
their weapons and gazing at each other in a strange frenzy of
commingled affection, dread and hate; and their voices grew
hoarse with rage and emotion as they thought and spoke of
shedding each other's blood. Here there was seen a stray tear
for the families to be riven; there a sullen taunt was muttered
by each that it was the other's fault; and then was heard the
steady tread of the determined hosts and the thunder of
battle. Dark, sulphurous clouds, lurid with the light of
burning cities, enveloped the land, and the shout of the vic
tor, the moan of the dying, and the wail of the widow and
the orphan, mingled their triumph and their dirge with the
cannon's roar. The struggle is over; the Union is victorious;
the Nation lives! But, ah! how many graves! How many
bleeding hearts! How much desolation, povery — ruin!
And now, my fellow citizens, having done the sad and
painful work, which causes beyond our control made it our
duty to perform, and which it is our glory that we have done
so well, let us at the dawn of a new era take a brief retro
spect, even though we may be but imperfectly able to cast
the horoscope of the future.
Great and lasting changes in the form of government or the
spirit of society are never the result of "light and transient
causes," though the unthinking may often suppose so. The
crusades, the consolidation of monarchy in Europe, the Re
formation, the English Revolution of 1688, the French Rev
olution, and our own independence, were each but the out
growth of principles long before sown, and from whose harvest

RECONSTRUCTION POLICY. 91
the world reaped permanent changes. And so the secession
rebeflion had its seeds in the soil of the olden time, which
grew up into a rank crop of error only to be mown by as
bloody a scythe as Time ever wielded.
When the civilization of Europe came to this continent, it
brought with' it and settled in the English colonies "two hos
tile races from the antipodes of the human famfly." The
one was the highest type of man ; the other was the lowest.
The one was, and had been for immemorial ages, free ; the
other had, through all time, been enslaved. The white race
had borrowed from all the nations of the earth the civiliza
tion of every age and of every clime. It had become familiar,
so as to make them a part of its very moral and intellectual
organization with whatever was noblest in the art, science,
laws, religion and philosophy of the past. The Hindoo and
the Persian, the Chaldean, the Jew and the Arab, the Egyp
tian and the Greek, the Roman, the Celt and the Northman,
had each poured his stream of ideas into the thought of mod
ern Europe. This European race had grafted upon the
rude, war like, restless energy of the middle ages the culture
of the ancients, and in the prime and vigor of its youthful
manhood it founded those colonies which have grown into
that mighty nation whose destiny is now in our hands.
The black race, on the contrary, were brought here from a
state of ignorance, barbarism and slavery (in their own coun
try), which had existed from the earliest records of time. They
had founded no nationalities, originated no civilization, in
vented no arts, systemized into a faith no religious ideas. As
they had been for thousands of years, so they continued, un
civilized slaves and cannibals.
That such £t people, in the midst of civilization, must be a
discordant element'^-if not a source of danger — no thought
ful man could well deny. And the growth of these two un-
assimilating elements in our country is the real cause of our
late troubles, and the question of their future relations is the

92 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
great problem of the hour — of the age, rather — for no mere
expedient of the hour can serve. Great principles alone can
settle, permanently, the "irrepressible conflict of the races."
To assert that the black man is as much entitled to his rights
as the white man, is merely to announce a truism. The real
question is, what are the rights of each? and is each entitled to
the same rights? Rights may properly be divided into those
that are natural, and those that are conventional. That all
men have an equal right to whatever nature endows them
with, is conceded by all who follow our own Declaration of
Independence, the first article in the magna charta of Ameri
can rights. No just government, and no just man can ac
knowledge a natural right, and if it needs it, refuse to give
that right legal protection. Most natural rights do need
legal protection ; those of the black man equally with the
white, and that protection should be and will be given in
every section of the country, and by every appropriate arm
of the Government, both State and National.
Conventional rights, on the other hand, are those created
and recognized by law or by social usage. The legal rights
of men are usually classified into civil and political. Civil
laws always, when just, protect and guarantee natural
rights; and political institutions, besides their other purposes,
guarantee civil rights to afl justly entitled to them. That the
civil rights of all should be equal whose natural rights are
equal, is indisputable. In that sense afl men are equal be
fore the law. Each has the aegis of legal protection thrown
around him. His life, liberty, property, freedom of thought
and opinion, equal right to appeal to the tribunals for the
assertion of justice or the punishment of wrong, all these are
to be sacredly protected, whether he belong to one or another
race. The right to those things is natural ; and to preserve
them, civil rights are instituted. Political institutions and
social usages, however, rest on quite another basis. They
are conventional, not natural. The faculty to create them is

RECONSTRUCTION POLICY. 93
natural, as the faculty to learn languages is natural. But
language is no more artificial and the creature of surround
ing circumstances than are governments and social life. Each
is the embodiment of the ideas and civilization in the midst
of which it exists. Government is the creature of positive
law and society of voluntary unconscious compact.
The form of every government ought to be adjusted, and
will, in the end, adjust itself to the ideas, the traditions and
the interests of those who constitute the body politic. Gov
ernments are not erected like temples; they grow like the
century-living oak. The common and, indeed, the inevitable
form of government over a rude and ignorant people must be
some modification of monarchy. In such a community there
is neither intelligdnce enough to govern, nor material interests
enough to require that nice constitutional balance which is the
perfection of political organization. Force must take the
place which opinion holds in more enlightened communities.
But even in enlighted communities republican government is
rarely ventured upon. It is a form of government requiring
so much intelligence and virtue, so difficult to wisely organize,
and employing such complication of agencies in its adminis
tration that many of the wisest in all ages have doubted
whether it could long practically endure, or be made really
more beneficial to the people than simpler forms. Republics
have rarely been more than well ordered systems of aristoc
racy, where the governing class was very small, the great body
of the people taking little part in the government. And even
including these aristocracies, how rare have been republics in
the whole history of the world ! Self-government is an art
not easily learned. A people have to become habituated to
it by degrees. It is acquired by little, as a child learns to
walk alone. For ages our ancestors had been learning in the
jury box, the parish vestry, the hundred, the county and the
Parliament in England, or, earlier still, in the ruder forms of
old. German life, before they essayed self-government in the

94 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
colonies; steadied even then in their tottering steps by the
potent hand of England. At last, after generations of ex
perience in the minor detafls, they ventured upon the grand
experiment we are now making. There is no race in Europe,
it may well be affirmed, except that inheriting the instinctive
love of order and the political aptitudes of our own, who have
ever shown themselves capable of representative self-govern
ment in the popular sense.
That instincts and capacities are inherited from ancestors
no less than are color, features or mental and moral charac
teristics, who can doubt? Is it possible, then, that the Afri
can — the descendant of immemorial slavery and barbarism —
most of whose ancestors less than a century ago were in utter
ignorance of every form of civilization, can leap at one bound
into the highest state of enlightenment?
If that race were, by natural organization, the equal of the
Caucasian, it would be against all experience to expect it to
pass, in an age, from savage ignorance to the highest culture.
But it is too certain to admit even of question that the negro
race is organically and unalterably inferior, on the average,
to the European race in physical and mental capacity for im
provement. If these things be true, then the solution of
the problem, which now demands to be solved, and which,
like the Sphynx of old, will destroy us if we solve the riddle
wrong, is to acknowledge the truth of the natural and just
supremacy of the white race, and organize all our institu
tions, political and social, accordingly. Give the black man
all his natural and civil rights, but exclude him from political
and social equality. In a free government the one necessarily
brings the other, and both wfll be alike destructive in the end
of our free institutions.
In politics the poor negro would be but a pipe for dema
gogues to play on, and any attempt to enforce social equality
would be the tocsin for perpetual social war.
What then is to be the fate of this poor outcast? He who

RECONSTRUCTION POLICY. 95
holds in his hands the destinies of races and of nations alone
knows. But judging from the past we may safely infer that
as the Indian disappeared from our civilization, fading almost
imperceptibly, so will the African. He was greatly bene
fitted by being transmitted from slavery in Africa to slavery
in this country, whatever the motive that prompted his extra
dition. He has also flourished better slave than free, as the
census tables show. It would doubtless have been better for
him if slavery had worn out by natural causes, instead of by
sudden revolution. He is now without preparation for it,
subjected to the most intense competition, with superior in
telligence, sharp, vigorous enterprise, and too often to the
remorseless cupidity which is always seeking to overreach
the simple-hearted. And he is by nature of that slow, slug
gish temperament which ill fits him for the constant activity
and the sleepless avidity with which his courageous white
competitor pursues his object.
If he is not ground to powder between the upper and the
nether millstones of avarice and prejudice, the lessons of the
past are indeed illusive. But, if he has more adaptability to
our habits of life than the Indian, and continues to increase
in numbers, let it be so. Treat him kindly and justly. Open
to him the avenues of improvement, and if in the far future
he should disappoint the teachings of all past history and
philosophy, and really put on our high civilization, it will
then be time enough to admit him into the temple to minis
ter at the altar of political equality. But, after all, this is a
question with which we of the Northern States have constitu
tionally little to do, since the great body of the race are in the
South, where they are better understood than here. The
race is of tropical origin, and will naturally gather round the
gulf where its future home, if it survives, is in the main to be.
The form of our institutions leaves their status in the States
to 'the States themselves; there let it rest. And if we can
not but feel that the future of this race is dark let us trust to

96 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
time and to natural causes. Their assimilation with our own
race we know is at present impossible, whatever may befall
them ; keep up the peace between the two races and leave
to the future all else. The world has often been taught that
what seemed to be inextricable difficulties noiselessly solve
themselves, and so may this question.
But, my fellow-citizens, the negro was not only the remote,
but the chief immediate cause of the war. Slaves had been
introduced without their consent into all the colonies, and
slavery at the date of our independence existed throughout
the country. In the formation of the Federal Constitution,
although the subject was little debated, slavery was recognized
as existing, and protected as an institution the States might
tolerate. Even the slave trade, at the instance of New Eng
land and the newer Southern States, was allowed for twenty
years; and more than half the ancestors of the present
negroes were brought from Africa to the Southern States
during the twenty years by the slave traders of New England.
The cotton gin and the spinning jenny, both Northern inven
tions, made the cotton planter and the cotton manufacturer
each a prince, and cotton a king.
The abolition of the slave trade in England and this country
simultaneously, was foflowed in that country by an agitation
to abolish slavery itself. The effort was finally successful,
and immediately the agitation was transferred from Old to
New England,'and soon spread all over the Union. Abolition
societies were everywhere formed in the North. Pamphlets
and papers were sent South. The tables of Congress groaned
under petitions. Each party became angry. The discussions
were furious in and out of Congress. Occasionally mobs oc
curred. Duels were fought. The efforts of the wisest to
oppose passion were vain. One. party claimed to annul, and
the other to enforce, the fugitive slave law. One party
claimed the right to exclude slaves frorn territories ; the other
the Constitutional right to take them there. Quasi civil war

RECONSTRUCTION POLICY. 97
in Kansas followed. The Dred Scott decision, the Lecomp
ton Constitution, the John Brown raid, the rupture of the
Charleston Convention, the election of Lincoln by one sec
tion. Popular passion could bear no more. Who was right
or wrong in all this it boots little now to inquire. Since the
fabled dispute between the wolf and the lamb, there has been
no quarrel in which each side was not to blame. If it was
true that the Englands — Old and New — were principally re
sponsible for slavery in America, it was true, too, that the
institution became obnoxious to the general spirit of the age.
If it be true that the North made as much wealth out of it as
the South, it is equally true that it was a system of labor
deleterious to the interests of the South. If it were true
that constitutionally it belonged only to the States, and one
had no right to interfere with another, it is also true that in a
free country popular discussion can not be repressed. In
every sense, then, slavery was contrary to the spirit of the
age, and had to go to the wall.
Here, then, I rest this branch of the subject, and by this
record of opinion I am willing to be judged while I live, and
if I am remembered when dead, "still it is written."
Scarcely le.ss potential in the popular mind than the slave
question, and still more politically important in the mind of
the real thinker, was the question as it is popularly called,
of "State Rights." As the right to protect slavery was the
State right most vigorously assailed by the general tone of
Northern opinion, so, naturally, the intensest adherence to
the reserved rights of the States was in the South. But it
was not so because of any inherent difference in the mental
organization of the two sections. It resulted from a differ
ence, real or supposed, in the interests of each. The North
ern States supposed their prosperity would be advanced by
allying themselves, as closely as might be, with the Federal
Government, and, using the machinery of its powers to foster
their industrial interests and subserve the purposes of their

98 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
ambition, they felt themselves growing strong enough to hold
the political power and to dictate tariffs and trade regulations.
By having a majority of the electoral college and a majority
in Congress, the more they could strengthen the General
Government — the more it would be their own instrument.
The South, on the other hand, being simply an agricultural
and planting people, and having peculiar interests in the pat
riarchal institution of slavery, naturally dreaded the power of
the Federal Government. If the local concerns of the States
were surrendered to it, and just in proportion as they were
the Southern man felt that he became simply a hewer of
wood and a drawer of water; a prey to the astute and cun
ningly devised revenue systems of the traders and manufac
turers of the Northern States. He wanted, therefore, as
little power and patronage in the Federal Government as
would suffice to keep the peace. Each by his interests,
therefore, reasoned himself into his own political creed. The
one was the peculiar advocate of the Federal Government,
and the other of the State Government. In the mind of the
one the State Governments existed only by sufferance of the
General Government, and in the mind of the other the Fed
eral Government held only a revocable power of attorney
from the State. The organism of our Federal Government
is so peculiar that even the acutest reasoners have not been
able to fix the exact limitation of its powers. Whenever it
became their interest to do so, many in both sections have
claimed the Constitutional right of secession. The Hartford
convention — whose records are now as obscure as the author
ship of Junius — claimed the right half a century ago. The
great name of Quincy can be cited in support of the doctrine
twenty years before it was ever broached by Calhoun.
That the present Chief-Justice, as well as most of those
who resisted the fugitive slave law, entertained at one time
the doctrine of "State sovereignty," is a matter of history.
So that by the side of South Carolina n unification stands the

RECONSTRUCTION POLICY. 99
Hartford Convention, and by the side of the acts of Southern
secession stand the personal liberty bills of the Northern
States. Each was the offspring of the same doctrine — the
superiority of the State over the Federal Government. And
so far had this heresy poisoned the public mind that the Gen
eral Government, when the late attempted secession began,
stood motionless and let it proceed. The leading journals,
in what was thought to be the Northern interest, both in
New York and Cincinnati, advocated for months letting the
Southern States go out peaceably. And it is even said, and
has never been denied, that in the Cabinet of Lincoln the prop
osition was gravely made and entertained. All this diversity
of opinion weakened the General Government and tended
to precipitate war, and from all this chaos the conquest of
secession has relieved us. The supremacy of that Govern
ment, under the Federal Constitution, is now universally
acknowledged, except by a class of disturbers who never at
heart loved the Federal system.
My fellow-citizens, it is now my duty, ungracious as the
task may be, to call your attention to the antecedents of
those Radical disturbers who at present control the public
opinion and government of the country, and whose rule pre:-
vents the return of peace, and menaces the existence of our
institutions. What is now the American Union was, before the Revolu
tion, a series of colonies, independent of each other, and
only connected by allegiance to a common sovereign — Great
Britian. During the Revolution they were held together
merely by a confederation — a league. When independence
was achieved, it became apparent that this system of govern
ment was impracticable. The common danger having passed,
the mandates of the Federal Government became practically
powerless, and the wisest sought a closer union and a more
powerful central government.
When, however, the convention which framed our present

100 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
Constitution met, great diversity of opinion was found to
prevail. Every divergence existed between favoring a mere
revocable league and a complete consolidation. No question
existed then in the minds of any that the States were "sov
ereign." The only question was what they should become
in the future.
A wise compromise was finally effected — each conflicting
idea yielded something, and the Federal Constitution resulted.
It was a dual sysX&xn of goverment. Under it "State" came
to have a peculiar meaning not known to other political sys
tems ; while the General Government was supreme in foreign
affairs, in all that related to mere municipal concerns, the
States remained under the Constitution sovereign. The Fed
eral Government acquired no powers conferring general mu
nicipal authority. It could not regulate or define the relative
rights of persons or property — laws concerning marriage, di
vorce, descent, title, evidence, courts, crimes, punishment,
police; in short, all that constitutes what is usually called
civil or municipal laws remained, as a general proposition,
under the exclusive control of the States. To this system
a large party made the most strenuous opposition. They in
tensely hated this simple, republican system of leaving the
government near the people for whom it was instituted, and
sought to consolidate all power in one central government,
by turning States into provincial departments and crystal-
izing all authority into one mass of consolidated powers.
To this end they struggled to give the Federal Congress the
right to supervise all State legislation, and place, in Federal
hands, the right to control all State action. The upper house
of Congress was to be chosen by the lower for life, and not by
the States. State Governors, judges, etc., were to be elected
by the Federal Senate, and not by the people. In short, the
States and their governments were to be the mere creatures
of the Federal center. Though this party failed in the Con
vention, it was stifl powerful in the country, and from that

RECONSTRUCTION POLICY. ' 101
day to this, the same class of thinkers has sought to so model
the policy, if it could not so remodel the Constitution of the
country, as to cripple and overturn State institutions, and en
large, strengthen and make absolute the control of Federal
action. Step by step the party gained popular favor, until
at last, through the folly and' wickedness of the Southern
leaders, in precipitating war, they have gained absolute con
trol of the distracted, if not perishing nation.
The great talents and the wise leadership of Democratic
statesmen had for two generations guided the ship of State
through all the storms that had threatened it, until it was
stranded at last upon the rocks of slavery, from which, per
haps, no political wisdom could have saved it. As the doc
trine of secession — so hateful to the great popular mind — had
inaugurated a bloody civil war, so, by a reflex wave, natural
enough in such case, the popular heart became too much en
amored with the seductive fallacies of central supremacy, and
the victorious North, fired by hatred of rebellion and treason,
surrendered the Government into the hands of those who
have always opposed the real principles of the Federal sys
tem, and now seek to remodel the whole framework of Ameri
can institutions. To prove this, my fellow-citizens, "let facts
be submitted to a candid world."
Jn the popular mind, until Ra:dical Abolitionism took pos
session of the National brain, the natural and just supremacy
of the white race was almost without exception conceded. The
teaching which equalizes the two races fundamentally changes
American political ideas, and necessitates a fundamental change
in American institutions. Under the old system, which left
nature to determine and assign inferiority to the African race,
each State might fix the political status of its own inhabitants.
Under the new system, which abrogates the law of nature
and enacts the absurdity that races, naturally and unalterably
unequal, shall be politically equal — yoking the steed with
the ox — of course each State must be deprived of the right
10

102 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
to fix the political status of its own inhabitants. Political
rights, even as to State organizations, are no longer to be left
to the people of the several States, but are to be created and
defined by National action. This fundamentally changes the
frame-work of American institutions. States become vassals
only of the Federal Government, instead of co-ordinate
branches of the same general system.
But, my fellow-citizens, subversive as this is of the great
elemental principles of American Constitutional organization,
it sinks into insignificance when compared with the still
broader assumptions of the Radical revolution. It is affirmed,
in various forms and with more or less distinctness, in and out
of Congress, that the States " have no rights which the Gen
eral Government is bound to respect." The proposition is
not distinctly affirmed in terms, but the principle is every
where practically avowed, and the whole legislation and policy
of the Radical party is based upon it.
Under our system what is a State? Does its existence or
its potver depend upon the pleasure of the General Govern
ment? May its rights be limited or enlarged simply by the
action of the Federal Government without the intervention or
assent of the State organizations? Not at all. By our dual
system of government both the States and the Nation are
guaranteed by the Federal Constitution ; and the existence,
powers and rights of each are indestructible and eternal, so
far as either seeks to affect them without the co-operation of
the other. The States can not throw off the Federal Gov
ernment, and the Federal Government can not absorb the
States. Each has equal right to existence, and both are alike
co-ordinate branches of the same system. Each citizen is a
citizen of each government. The Nation and the State can
each punish him for treason to itself, and neither can punish
him for treason to the other. Each can tax him for its own
purposes, and neither can tax him for the support of the other.
When the rebellion was suppressed, therefore, each State

RECONSTRUCTION POLICY. 103
as an integral part of the Union, bore just the same relation
to the General Government that it did before it began.
Neither Government had gained or lost prowess except so
far as the Federal Constitution had been legally amended.
While the war lasted the Federal Government could un
questionably exercise belligerent powers as defined by the
public laws of war. But by no conquest did it acquire any
new rights over the State organizations. Whoever had com
mitted treason against the Federal Government was amena
ble to Federal punishment as a traitor. The war was against
traitors, not against States. The Federal Government has
no more right to make war against a State than a State has
to make war against the Federal Government. Each may
conquer and punish traitors, but neither can deny the legal
existence or control the Constitutional action of the other.
To do so is to overturn the framework of American institu
tions. But, gentlemen, the Revolution assumes still more; the
Constitution is not admitted to be of binding force. No
law is considered sacred but the will of the dominant major
ity. What it ordains is the supreme law, anything in the
Federal Constitution to the contrary nowithstanding.
Congress has Constitutionally no right to enact municipal
systems for the States. But RadicaHsm has established an
elemosynary institution which feeds, clothes, educates and
furnishes seperate courts for four millions of people in the
midst of the States. The States have the Constitutional
right to originate their own civil institutions. But radical
ism makes civil rights the creatures of Federal legislation.
The States are entitled to representation in Congress; but
Radicalism excludes them from their seats. The States have
the right to elect their own Governors and Judges; but Radi
calism removes them at the pleasure of a military comman
der, and by a military order supplies their places. The consti-

104 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
tution makes the military subservient to the civil power, but
Radicalism subordinates all civil power to mflitary rule.
Each State has a right to frame its own constitution ; but
Radicalism repeals that constitution by act of Congress and
substitutes military despotism for civil authority. The Con
stitution guarantees to the citizen the habeas corpus, trial by
jury, freedom from iflegal arrest; but Radicalism arrests
without warrant, imprisons without cause, and executes by
military commission. The Constitution guarantees the free
dom of speech and of the press; but radicalism gags the
voice of popular remonstrance and suppresses too outspoken
a newspaper by a file of soldiers. The judgments of the
courts are constitutionally the final arbitraments of litigated
rights; but Radicalism, through a subordinate Lieutenant,
revokes them by a military ukase.
The Constitution makes the President the Commander-in-
chief of the armies, but Radicalism, by law, forbids the
army to obey his orders, and assigns the command to an
other. The Constitution ordains a government of co-ordi
nate branches and limited powers ; but Radicalism supports
by the bayonet, that worst of all consolidated tyrannies, the
unlimited despotism of an irresponsible majority.
Fiercely denouncing treason, it punishes no traitors ; with
canting praises of the Union, it strives to keep the States,
"discordant, dissevered, belligerent;" with deafening cries of
"loyalty," it tramples under foot the Constitution, and
with the siren voice of Hberty, it robs the people of their
rights, and passes them under the yoke of servitude. Sup
port of the party is "loyalty;" defense of the Constitution
is "treason;" and to perpetuate party rule, slavish barbarism
is enfranchised and given the reins of power in ten States.
A party ' ' whose conduct is thus marked by every act which
may define a tyrant is unworthy to be the rulers of a free
people." Thus, my fellow-citizens, it is apparent, at least to me,

RECONSTRUCTION POLICY. 105
that the difference between the two parties is that the Demo
crats seek to maintain the Federal system in its integrity,
and the Republicans seek to overthrow it, and found upon
its ruins a system of consolidated centralization. The one
is conservatism, and the other is radicalism. For myself,
however, I am little influenced by mere party cries. I would
never consciously conserve that which is wrong, and never
wiflingly oppose what is radically right.
The movements of the Radical party have, for many
years, been plainly unconstitutional in scope, and unmistaka
bly revolutionary in spirit. But I acknowledge the right of
revolution, and concede that opposition to it cannot be justi
fied, simply because it is revolution. I may scoff at the
hypocrisy which invokes the Constitution to justify measures
known to be simply revolutionary and repugnant to every
principle of Constitutional law, but I shall not scoff at the
revolution itself.
If wrong in its objects, it may be my duty to oppose by
word and act in the political forum, or, if need be, in the
tented field; but I will not deny the sacred right of every
people, in a just cause to reconstruct their governments by
legislation, or, in the last resort by force.
And now, my fellow-citizens, is this Radical attempt at
revolution either just or wise? I denounce it as uncalled for,
unjust, anti- Republican, tyrannical!
The downfafl of the Southern Confederacy destroyed two
things forever: the existence of slavery, and the doctrine of
secession. Everybody North and South knew this to be so,
and accepted the result. Nay, it was without a murmur ac
quiesced in by all parties. This was the logical outgrowth of
the overthrow of the rebellion. It was the grave of the ' ' lost
cause." It was the commencement of a new era. And the
business of statesmanship was to make it an era of peace
and brotherly love.

106 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
Never in the world's history did a conquered people so
cheerfully lay down their arms, and never did a conquering
people so magnanimously accept the surrender. The popu
lar heart of the North held out the olive branch to the
prostrate and bleeding people of the South, poured oil into
their wounds, and was ready to kill the fatted calf at the re
turn of the prodigal son . But as of old the jealousy of the
pharasaic saint, who had, at least in his own estimation, not
sinned, marred the feast. Peace between the contending
brothers might make new heirs to power, and even the poor
prodigal might now and then claim "a crumb from the table
of patronage. The minions of power, therefore, snatched
ruthlessly the savory viands from the eager hands of the
rebel penitent and dashed the cup of reconciliation from his
lips. They proclaimed that the war was not over; that the
most important part of the struggle remained ; that the political
power and influence of the recreant South must be destroyed;
that the ideas and institutions of the conquering section
must replace those of the vanquished, and that no peace
should be made till every vestige peculiar to the social, in
dustrial and political life of the South should be blotted out.
From this foul, corrupt spring of sectional and partisan ambi
tion and lust of power has flowed the waters of that poisoned
chalice which Radicalism now commends to the thirsting lips
of the nation.
Gentlemen, the war had removed every obstacle to Nat
ional unity, and all that true statesmanship required was to
allow the people to follow the road to peace in which they
had already commenced to travel. That passionate resent
ments growing out of the war should still exist, and not at
once subside, was natural; and the popular judgment and
true policy aHke suggested "that treason should be made
odious." But every sentiment of humanity and every dic
tate of reason also demanded amnesty to the great body of
the people. One of England's noblest statesmen appro-

RECONSTRUCTION POLICY. 107
priately said: "You can not execute a whole people." The
axe may fall upon the taller heads, but the rudest sense of
justice — to say nothing of humanity — revolts at the slaugh
ter of a whole nation.
My judgment may be worth little, but from the first I had
only one policy. That 1 felt the resentments common to
others I, rather with pride than otherwise, admit. 1 profess
not that christian forbearance which, when one cheek is smit
ten, turns the other. 1 had fought the war in grim earnest.
I sought to destroy the enemies of my country's union. I
remembered my dead comrades; my friends languishing in
loathsome prisons. My own suffering prompted me to de
mand punishment and a sense of justice seconded the
demand. My plan was to single out the leaders — the ruling
spirits who made the rebellion — ten, a score, whatever num
ber a wise discretion should select, and while remorselessly
putting them to death, grant universal forgiveness and am
nesty to all others. Nothing in what has since occurred has
in the least tended to change that opinion. I would have
put to death all whom I did not pardon, and I would have par
doned all whom I did not kill. No confiscation, no robbing
of political equality, no passing under the yoke — sub jugum.
Death or forgiveness should have awaited all. The latin
historian of early Rome tells the story of the Candine Forks.
An old Samiote king, stricken in years, had surrendered the
crown to his son and lived in peaceful retirement. The son
made war upon the Romans, and by fortunate strategy in
closed their whole army in the Candine Forks. They were
completely in his power. The young king, doubtful how to
treat so warlike an enemy, sent to his father for advice. The
old man sent word to his son to tear down his barricades and
let the Romans peacefully return to their own city. The
son, unwilling to lose such an advantage, refused the advice,
and sent again to his father, who now advised him to kill
every one of them. As the former advice seemed too lenient.

108 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
SO this seemed too cruel, and the father was brought to camp,
that he might explain his contradictory counsels.
Said he, " 1 know this Roman people, they are brave and
generous; but they are also proud and relentless. If your
magnanimity serids them home undisgraced, they will be
your firmest allies. If you are not generous enough to do
that, put them all to death ; for if, as the custom is, you put
them to the shame of passing under the yoke — subjugate
them — you will make them your mortal enemies, and Rome
will never rest till not one stone lies above another in the
city of Samnium."
Still the son, in the hot blood of victory, would not take
his father's advice. The Roman army was passed under the
hated yoke, and sullenly retired. But they burned to wipe
out the disgrace. They refused to enter the city of Rome —
would not see their wives or children, and clamored to be led
back, that they might blot out the insult in the blood of the
Samnites. Rome was aroused. New legions were levied and Sam
nium razed to the ground, and is now remembered only for
the wisdom of the old King and the folly of the young one.
Let the story be commended to Radical ears. History is
philosophy, teaching by examples, and history often repeats
itself. The conquered rebels may not be Romans, but in
justice, tyranny, subjugation do not tend to cultivate broth
erly lOve or insure National repose.
My fellow-citizens, what justification or excuse is there for
the Radical policy? Has not the fiery track of war desolated
the fair fields of the South? Have not hundreds of thousands
of their best sons been buried under their sofl? Does not the
whole industrial fabric of their society lie in ruins? Are
they not everywhere submissive to Federal power?
For two years not an armed hand has been raised against
your authority. Do you demand more? They have recog
nized the freedom of the negro. Do you demand more?

RECONSTRUCTION POLICY. 109
They have surrendered the right of secession. Do you de
mand more? They have acknowledged themselves con
quered. Do you demand more? They have acknowledged
the Federal and repudiated the Rebel debt. Do you de
mand more? They have secured the civil rights of the late
slave. Do you demand more? Almost the whole army are
camped on them, and most of their fat civfl offices are held
by Northern men. Do you demand more? All over the
South Northern adventurers, who go down to get rich and
come back, conduct the business of the country. Do you
demand more? Millions of negroes are fed at the public
expense. Do you demand more? Thousands of white wo
men are at starvation's door. Do you still demand more?
What more? Can the cravings of vengeance never be satis
fied? In the name of the patriot fathers, whose erring sons
they are; in the name of our common humanity; in the
name of Him, through whom we all hope for mercy, have
they not suffered enough?
I must admit, my feflow-citizens, that it is with much of
reluctance, I take any personal part in the political conflicts
of the day. Ever since the dissolution of the Whig party,
at the feet of whose Gamaliel — Henry Clay — I was brought
up; I have been, as you all know, a "Democrat" in the
party nomenclature of the time. The party known, how
ever, as Democratic, has ever been the peculiar advocate of
Constitutional liberty. Sometimes conservative, sometimes
radical, always truly progressive.
During the war there was much in its course, as its leaders
well know, which I did not approve. But all its errors leaned
to the side of Constitutional liberty — its pole-star. Some of
its prominent men opposed — even intemperately opposed —
the war. But the great body of its rank and file, and even of
its leaders, contributed their full share of "moral and ma
terial aid" in the great struggle. They did not approve of
some of the objects for which Republican leaders sought to

110 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
conduct the war, but no just man can claim that they lacked
loyalty to the Constitution, or devotion to popular liberty.
Th'ey may not always have been just to the negro, for they
felt him to be naturally an inferior and an element foreign to
the body politic while he was at the same time the peculiar
stock in trade of their political antagonists.
It would hardly be in human nature, under such circum
stances, to be always just. But now that the war is over,
the great absorbing question of the day is, whether the Cour
stitutional rights of the States and the people shall continue.
On this subject I am in hearty accord with the Democratic
party, and irreconcilably opposed to the Radicals. It is
sometimes painful to bear the odium of acting with a party
whose opponents denounce them as in sympathy with traitors,
and still oftener painful to be separated from those who stood
with us in the serried ranks of war. But in my inmost heart,
I feel that popular liberty is at stake, and it would be cowar
dice to be driven by odium from the support of its friends.
" Ariosto tells a pretty story of a fairy who, by some mys
terious law of her nature, was condemned to appear at cer
tain seasons in the form of a loathsome and poisonous snake.
Those who injured her during the period of her disguise
were forever excluded from the participation in the blessings
which she bestowed. But to those who, in spite of her
loathsome aspect, pitied and protected her, she afterward
revealed herself in the beautiful and celestial form which was
natural to her, accompanied their steps, granted all their
wishes, filled their houses with wealth, made them happy in
love and victorious in war. Such a spirit is liberty."
In conclusion, my fellow- citizens, it is when popular rights
are most in danger, most assailed, that the man of true
moral courage ought most actively and persistently to defend
them. In the fair weather of popularity they need no de
fense ; when the storms of popular passion assault liberty, and
her benignant voice is drowned by the infuriated shouts of

RECONSTRUCTION POLICY. Ill
partisan vengeance, then the steady adherence of her votar
ies is worthy of the blessings she brings them in the hour of
her triumph.
Gentlemen, my political opinions are not the impulses of
momentary passion or personal interest. They are the
convictions of a lifetime. They may be- wrong to others,
to me they are right. No man is true to himself who does
not follow his own convictions. They may be unpopular;
they may not command a majority of voices, but no man can
be strong who does not follow them. There is nothing
true but truth ; where that is the victory will finally be, and he
is a coward who does not follow its lead. Passion will sub
side, reason will return, peace will again spread her halcyon
wings from the lakes to the gulf, justice will pervade the
land, brotherly love inspire the popular heart, and constitu
tional liberty once more be the supreme law of the land.

RADICAL TYRANNY.
[ Speech delivered at Lebanon, Ohio, September 12, 1867, and circulated
as a campaign document by the Democratic State Central Committee of
Ohio.]
My Fellow-Citizens :
It is one of the incidents of free government, that those
exercising suffrage become divided into parties. Sometimes
these party lines seem but to mark the shifting boundaries of
opinion between different systems of temporary policy. Of
ten they are founded upon mere questions of administration,
of finance, or of the ambition or caprice of political leaders.
But all such parties are evanescent. To make a party per
manent, it must be founded upon some principle or theory
co-existent with the government, or growing out of a dispu
ted exercise of its powers; or, deeper still, it must spring
from something inherent in the bosom of society. Such
struggles finally become in their nature revolutionary, and
continue until constitutional changes have conformed public
law to the popular will or the popular conscience, or until
force has taken the place of assent as the sanction of
government, and despotism the place of liberty as its prin
ciple. These institutional struggles went on in the ancient
and middle age republics, till they were lost in that common
grave of popular liberty, party faction. They have existed
in one or "another form in all the limited monarchies of
Europe, and scarce a modern age has passed in ^hich they
have not engulfed some nation in civil war. In our country,
too, history has but reflected itself The colonies were plan
ted in a spirit of resistance to arbitrary power, and our inde
pendence was begotten and born in a struggle for the consti
tutional liberties of the people. And from the foundation

RADICAL TYRANNY. 113

of the Federal Government to this hour the popular heart
has only been touched to its innermost chords when some
great principle of popular right or of constitutional organi
zation was, or was thought to be assailed.
When the old Federal party sought to invade popular free
dom, great and virtuous, as in many respects it had been, it
was hurled from power by an indignant people ; and it was
not until more than a generation had passed that party divis
ions, founded upon constitutional and social questions, again
seriously disturbed the public peace. Then arose that fearful
struggle, not to be depicted now, springing out of the doctrine
of the right of secession, and the existence, and the opposi
tion to the existence, of slavery in the Southern States. It
boots us little at this late day to inquire who was right or
wrong in all this; and I shall notice before I close but one
phase of the old questions, and that only because it is still a
disturbing element in the popular mind. I mean the rights
of the States over their own affairs and their own people.
The existence of parties, then, while it is one of the safe
guards, is also one of the necessary evils of free government.
This existence practically places the Government, for the
time being, in the hands of a party. So that the people
hav.e in fact come to govern, not by their own direct action,
but by the intervention of parties organized on ideas of gov
ernment and of policy. To place a party in power is to give
its ideas and its policy the ascendancy in affairs. Till this
lease of power expires, the people have abdicated and the
party rules — subject only to the right of revolution, the
anathemas of that political pope, the press, and a wholesome
fear of the next election.
For a generation before the beginning of the late war
there were three parties in this country, the Democracy, the
Whigs and the Anti-Slavery party. The last, whatever name
it assumed, always was, and as an organization now is, a
minority of the American people. But it always had vast

114 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.

inorganic power. Opposition to slavery though latent, ex
isted in other parties ; and constitutional protection, and pop
ular consciousness of negro inferiority, alone saved it from
earHer overthrow. The downfall of the Whigs and the divis
ions of the Democrats, placed the Anti-slavery party, em
bracing a little more than one-third of the American people,
in absolute possession of the Executive Department of the
Federal Government, and the immediate secession of eleven
Southern States gave it control of both the other depart
ments — Legislative and Judicial. This Anti-slavery RepubH
can party was, from its birth, eminently revolutionary in
spirit and tendency. It sought the overthrow of slavery as
the primary object of its organization. Many of its more
conservative members thought this might be done by degrees,
and by curtailing the assumed political power of "the insti
tution;" but the soul and brains of the party befleved that
the overthrow of the Federal Government could alone ac
compHsh the result; and each alike made ultimate emancipa
tion the "one idea" of all political movement. Constitu
tions, State rights, laws, industrial systems, commercial in
terest, public tranquflity, all alike must give way to the
Ithurial spear of Abolition philanthropy. It was natural to
expect that such a party would be but little checked by the
established institutions or hallowed memories of the past.
Its more Radical element scoffed at the biblical sanction of
slavery, jeered at the memory of Washington, and denounced
the Constitution of the United States a "covenant with
Death, and a league with Hell." Even the more conserva
tive winked at the vehemence of their colleagues and justified
it by the like vehemence of the Southern slaveholder. These
things are alluded to not as a matter of reproach, but as matter
of history.
On the other hand, the Constitution was the lode-star of
the Democracy. Traditionally and practically it was the "one
idea" pervading afl its theories of government, of institu-

RADICAL TYRANNY. 115

tion, of policy. Its preservation and enforcement were the
cardinal motives of Democratic action. Its distribution of
power between the two co-ordinate branches of the Federal
system — the General Government and the States— its guar
antees of freedom to the people, its adaptability to the wants
of a great continental republic superior to all the nations of
the earth in practical liberty and individual prosperity, and
inferior to none in the grandeur of its national power, made
it to the Democratic mind the perfection of human wisdom.
But this party too had its fanatics. These were those whose
secession theories would, if practically carried out, have
made the Federal Union a rope of sand, and the Federal
Constitution but a power of attorney, revocable at the pleas
ure of any State. These hotheaded zealots, or misguided
political abstractionists, taught the people of the South that
the Federal Government was its enemy, and that in separa
tion alone could their institutions or their prosperity be pro
tected. When the Republican party, therefore, assumed
power — elected as it was by one section against the unan
imous protest of the other — who could have hoped that
there would be wisdom enough on either side to avoid a col
lision? I long foresaw and earnestly warned my fellow-citi
zens of the coming storm. But no warnings availed, nor
was it possible that any should. The most inveterate antago
nisms of opinion existed between the two sections on the
subject of slavery and secession, and nothing but blood or
disunion could appease the angry controversy. Whoever
supposes that either party was entirely right or entirely
wrong, has read without impartiality the history of the past,
and studied to little purpose the philosophy of human nature.
There was something of good and something of evil in each
party, and so there is at this day. Unalloyed good is found
nowhere but at the throne of God, and unmixed evfl can
find no home dark enough but the breast of Satan.
The humble part which I took in these great revolutionary

116 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
movements, both in the forum of politics and in the field of
battle, is known, obscure as it was, to you afl. Whatever
before the war I could do, without yielding national honor
a"nd constitutional principle, to appease sectional strife and to
cultivate fraternal feeling, I did. In the primary assemblies
of the people, in the Conventions, State and National, of
my party — wherever called to act or to speak, I labored
untiringly, by voice and pen, to preserve the Constitution,
the Union and the peace of the country. When the intoler
ance of the North and the madness of the South rushed the
two sections, like two wrathful clouds, positively and nega
tively electrified, into hostile conflict, every antecedent of
my life, every impulse of my nature, carried me instantly,
passionately, and without heeding personal consequences or
seeking personal advancement, to the protection of my
country's flag — to the defense of my country's Union. I
then foresaw — for it took no gift of prophecy to foresee — that
the struggles of parties at home would lengthen and embit
ter the contest, and might endanger the result. If it were
known at the South that there were those at the North who
wished them success, who did not know that, like Aaron up
holding the hand of Moses, that knowledge would revive the
flagging arm of rebellion. When, therefore, while serving
under a musket, I was proposed as a candidate for a vacancy
in Congress, I declined, and in a public letter urged with
whatever power I <had, my poHtical associates to support the
war, to keep it within constitutional limits, to throw their
weight into the scale and control it for National preservation,
and not aflow it to be divirted from its true objects to the base
purposes of partisan or sectional aggrandizement. And I
warned them that if they failed to sympathize with and aid
their country in her hour of need, the party itself would sink
to an unhonored grave. The advice I gave I took for myself.
Throughout the war I never cast a vote. Unfaltering in my
adherence to every Democratic principle, I believed that the

RADICAL TYRANNY. 117

army in the field should not be wielded to control politics at
home. With the deepest sadness I learned that crimination
and recrimination were rife in the North, where nothing but
unity ought to have existed. Notwithstanding the pungent
apothegm of Douglas, that during the war there could be but
two parties — " patriots and traitors " — opposition to the war
was fast developing itself. The two parties continued to
struggle for power, and by a law natural to such organizations
they drifted asunder — the Republicans into intense abolition
radicalism, and many of the Democrats into bitter and relent
less opposition to the war. Each party had conservatives in
it, but each, as is usual in such revolutionary times, was led
and controlled by the most unreasoning and radical. The
war came to be a crusade against the institution of slavery,
and a like crusade against the Democracy of the North.
During all this I preserved perfect equanimity. I was op
posed to changing the war from one against rebels to one
against "institutions," but I felt that nothing could save the
Union but a continuance of the war. And I was alike op
posed to that despotic tyranny which mobbed the press,
gagged free speech, imprisoned obnoxious leaders, and tram
pled under foot the most sacred constitutional guarantees;
but I felt that intemperate opposition, narrow-minded, partisan
bigotry, and sometimes even actual sympathy with rebellion,
had done much to provoke these outrages. The great heart
of the Democracy was right — "loyal." The ranks of the
army was as full of Democrats as of Republicans. Each
party stood shoulder to shoulder in the serried ranks, and
slept side by side in the same grave. In the army we were
neither Democrats nor Republicans — we were soldiers. Had
the Democracy of the North followed the advice of Douglas,
and heartily supported the war, it would have saved the
country thousands of lives and millions of treasure, countless
infractions of the Federal Constitution and the personal rights
of the people, and stifl more from that flood of radicalism

11

118 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
which has now submerged the institutions of eleven States.
Perhaps no party, so situated as the Democracy then was,
could have had wisdom enough to follow the advise of their
greatest statesman. But these divisions of the Democracy,
bad as they were, were not unmixed evils. While the Dem
ocracy in the field battled for the Union, the Democracy at
home defended the Constitution. And now that the cause of
the Union has triumphed, so far as arms could save it, let us
bury our past dissensions, and fight manfully to restore the
Constitution to its pristine vigor.
My fellow-citizens, while marching to the far South, or
lying around the campfires, I could not be unmindful of
political affairs at home, though refusing to vote. No period
of my life was more thoughtfully devoted to the study of the
great principles of human liberty and of constitutional organ
ization. Almost without books to read, I still had time to
think. The new Testament, the Federal Constitution, Wash
ington's Farewell address, and Mill on liberty, were my
constant companions, and their spirit, I hope, my constant
guide. I feel sure, and I could honestly so say it at the bar
of final judgment, that I struck not one blow in sectional
malice, nor one blow to destroy the constitutional right of
State Government in the South, and not one blow uninspired
by devotion to peace and liberty, the Constitution and the
Union. In 1863, the very midnight of this dark struggle,
when the Federal cause seemed everywhere to falter, and
even our lives, as well as the life of the nation, seemed to
hang trembling in the balance, when to go forward seemed
to be death and national ruin, and to go backward was per
sonal disgrace and humfliation, I could not but wield my pen
as well as my sword in support of the national cause. In
letters written to public meetings at home I announced my
steadfast adherence to the great constitutional principles of
the Government, and at the same time again implored my
fellow-citizens to forget party and look only to the perils of

RADICAL TYRANNY. 119

the country. And now, fellow-citizens, though my name is
too humble to find a place in that illuminated page where the
glorious deeds of McClellan, Sherman, Grant, Sheridan,
Thomas and Farragut attract the eager eyes of all coming
^gcs, yet, whatever may be my future, whatever of distinc
tion or enjoyment may await me, I shall always look back to
these four years of obscure service in my country's cause as
the proudest period of my life. When the great popular
heart of the nation throbbed to its very depth, when the fires
of patriotism blazed brightest, when Christian charity and
woman's tenderness alike beat responsive to the swelling tide
of warlike ardor in the soldier's breast, I would not have my
name off" the muster-rofls of the "defenders," for afl the
civic honors the mightiest nation on earth could bestow.
" When the twilight settles round us in life's evening cool and gray.
Among our children's children we'll describe the battle day;
They'll cluster to our knees to hear the story never old.
And watch our trembling veteran hands point out the names enrolled
On the Roll of Honor, boys! on the Roll of Honor, boys!
And they shall see our names will be on the Roll of Honor, boys."
Eight years ago the people placed the Government in the
hands of the Republican party, and there it has remained
ever since. Our institutions recognize the people's right to
call their public servants periodically to an account of their
stewardship. It is the Republican party then which is now
called to account. It seeks power for four years more, and
before we again acknowledge its claims to confidence, let us
inquire how it has administered the trust heretofore reposed.
There is one prominent fact which bursts upon us at the
threshold of the inquiry. And that is, that when the people
gave it power, they were prosperous, happy and peaceful.
The sails of our commerce whitened every sea; we had a
monopoly of the most important staple of the commercial
world ; we had a currency equal to gold ; a Government out
of debt; a galaxy of self-governing, fraternal, united States,
and Federal taxes so light, no man felt that he paid them.

120 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
But now the people have ceased to be happy and fraternal,
their industry is weighed down by extortionate taxes, the
Government is loaded with an exorbitant debt, our ships have
almost quit the seas, our great staple has ceased to be "king"
of commerce, our eleven Stales — the Ireland of America —
no longer self-governing, now have "reconstruction" State
Governments pinned upon their reluctant backs by Federal
bayonets. There is another fact not to be overlooked . Many of the
noblest and most gallant of those who sustained the Repub
lican party during the war have abandoned it in disgust, and
now oppose its policy and continuance in power. The pres
ent Chief Magistrate, elected by the suffrages of Republicans,
has long since cut loose from their fortunes, and is the object
of their bitterest malice. The Chief Justice of the United
States, one of the godfathers of the party, is no longer found
in the Radical ranks. Nor do they stand alone. Where now
stand the Adamses, the Ewings and the Blairs? — Where are
the great Senators, Doolittle, Cowen, Dixon and Norton?
Where are Seward, Stanbery, Evarts, Browning and Randall?
Where are that legion of gallant Generals, officers and sol
diers who lately composed the National Soldiers' and Sailors'
Convention at New York? My fellow-citizens, of whatever
party you may be, what means the withdrawal of these mas
ter-spirits from the Republican party? Are they not honest?
Or, if selfish policy could govern them, had not the Repub
Hcans all the power of the country? Let us be candid. There
must have been something to alienate this great number of
patriotic men from the party with which they were acting. Is
it not true that a little dispassionate investigation will show
this abandonment to have arisen from the fact that the Re
publican party, like afl revolutionary parties, degenerated into
fanaticism, and trampled under foot the very ideas and policy
it formerly professed? In the hour of victory it forgot the
promises it made in the hour of struggle. It violated its

RADICAL TYRANNY. 121

solemn faith, and with derision and scoffing, it cast away as
waste paper the Federal Constitution it had sworn to support;
and it has for three years been governing the country outside
of this Magna Charta of American Hberty.
My fellow-citizens, allow me in the spirit of candor to dis
cuss some of the measures of the Republican party, that we
may see whether it is entitled to public confidence and sup
port, or whether the government of the country ought not
to be taken out of its hands. I shall touch with brevity the
Republican policy during the war, because I am willing to
forget, so far as justice and patriotism will allow, the errors
of that trying period. On the 22d day of July, 1861, the
next day after the defeat at Bull Run, the venerable Critten
den, of Kentucky, introduced into the House, and afterward
Andrew Johnson introduced into the Senate, the following
resolution, which was adopted by both Houses, each for
itself, by an almost unanimous vote :
"Resolved, That the present deplorable civil war has been forced upon
the country by the disunionists of the Southern States, now in revolt
against the constitutional Government and in arms around the capital; that
in this national emergency Congress, banishing all feelings of mere passion
or resentment, will recollect only its duty to the whole country; that this
war is not waged upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any pur
pose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering
with the rights or established institutions of those States; but to defend and
maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and to preserve the Union with
all the dignity, equality and rights of the several States unihipaired; that as
soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease."
This is the only authoritative announcement by Congress
of the objects of the war. It was in fact our declaration of
war against the rebels. It was an announcement to the
South, to the nation and to the world, that the war was car
ried on in no spirit of oppression and for no purpose of con
quest or of "overthrowing or interfering with the rights or
established institutions" of the Southern States. It was even
more than that; it was a solemn declaration plighting the
National faith to the whole civilized world that we fought

122 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
 Hef=-  ¦
only "to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitu
tion and to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality
and rights of the several States unimpaired ; and that as soon
as these objects were accomplished the war ought to cease."
Not even our celebrated Declaration of Independence was
a more solemn appeal to the people and the world. The
American Congress made it solemnly to assure the Southern
States that their rights were safe in the Union, even under a
Republican Administration, and to assure the people of the
North that the men and money they might give to the war
were not to be wasted in revolutionary schemes against the
institutions or the State Governments of the South, but for
the noble and patriotic purpose of National self-preservation.
This great elemental declaration of Government — this legisla
tive proclamation of the war — remained in full force till the
close of the war itself. , Under its protecting wing and
nerved by its noble spirit, the Unionists in Maryland, West
Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri battled for the Federal
cause. Trusting to its patriotic promises the people of the
North — by the million, and without respect to party —
crowded into the ranks of the National army and poured
with a lavish hand their treasures into the public money-chest.
Foreign nations, respecting the American plighted faith to
restore the Union and not oppress the South, refused recog
nition to the Confederacy or intervention in her favor. But
for this Crittenden Resolution, I most earnestly believe the
Union would never have been restored. Lukewarmness at
home and interference abroad would have closed the struggle
against us. The exigencies of the war were thought by
Lincoln to justify the proclamation abolishing slavery, but it
proposed only to be a war measure — a military necessity.
We claimed it only as a means of strengthening the Federal
cause by bringing the slaves who were being used by the
rebels against it to be allies of it, and not as a means of
changing or overthrowing the right of the States over their

RADICAL TYRANNY. 123

own institutions. Whether correct or otherwise, that was the
reasoning on which the measure rested, and it was claimed to
be no departure from the objects of the original declaration
of the war. The war party then, during the war, considered
themselves at all times bound by the Crittenden Resolution.
But Congress, my fellow citizens, did not stop there; they
interpreted the resolution by their subsequent acts. In every
form they recognized the seceded States as stifl within the
Union. They levied a direct tax upon the States — all the
States, seceding and adhering alike; under the new census
of 1860, they by law apportioned Representatives to all the
States alike ; and under this law, Tennessee, Virginia and
Louisiana were actually represented long after the States
had seceded, and when the Confederate Government was in
full operation at Richmond. Not only so, but an amendment
to the Federal Constitution — the very highest recognition of
statehood under the Federal system — was submitted for adop
tion to all the States, South Carolina no less than Massachu
setts. A new State, West Virginia, was formed within the
limits of Virginia, and by her express authority. Thus, in
every form in which it could be done. Congress, throughout
the war, not only acknowledged, but claimed, that all the
States were still in the Union, and entitled to all the rights
and subject to all the obligations of States. Even in the acts
which prohibited their votes being counted in the Presidential
election of 1864, it is expressly declared that they are States
of the Union, and are only prohibited from voting while re
maining in insurrection. Nay; a citizen residing in Tenn
essee, one of these very seceding States, was elected Vice-
President during the rebellion, which was electing a foreigner,
if Tennessee was not within the Union. But not only Con
gress, but the President, the Judiciary, and the people, acted
on the same principle. The proclamations of Lincoln to the
South, the statement of Seward to foreign nations, and the
action of the people in electing President — all affirm, in the

124 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
most unequivocal manner, that these States, as political or
ganizations, remained in the Union, and were possessed as
such of all the rights of Federal States under the Constitu
tion. True, there were found here and there, in and out of
Congress, some hair-brained Radical who treated secession as
in some mysterious way taking them out of the Union, not
legally, but iflegally — by " suicide " — whereby the State or
ganizations were forfeited as deodands to the nation ! But it
was not until the close of the war that any considerable num
ber of Republicans became bedlamites enough to adopt such
a theory, and by no one act had the Government or the party
taken such untenable ground.
My fellow-citizens, you all remember the close of the war.
Richmond fell, Lee surrendered, Johnson, capitulated, the
Fort Sumter flag was raised again in triumph, amid the
jubilant shouts of a nation. Lincoln — downright, rough,
patriotic Lincoln, at once a boor in his manners, an adroit
manager of politics, and sometimes a child in the tenderness
and simplicity of his heart — had uttered the immortal words
of his last inaugural, and fallen by the hands of a madman.
Everywhere the rebels laid down their arms and returned to
their allegiance. Not an armed hand was raised against the
Federal flag, waving in victory over every foot of national terri
tory. The nation hailed with delight the return of peace. Presi
dent Johnson followed the reconstruction policy of Lincoln,
and appointed Provisional Governors to aid in restoring the
late befligerent States to their "practical relations" with the
old Government. They were everywhere successful. The
seceded States, by their own action, abrogated their secession
ordinances and abandoned their secession doctrines, abolished
slavery, repudiated the rebel debt, adopted the thirteenth
constitutional amendment — their State Governments took
the oath of allegiance to the Federal Government, com
menced the payment of the delinquent tax, joyfully accepted
Custom House officers. Internal Revenue Collectors, Post-

RADICAL TYRANNY. 125

masters, Federal Judges, and every incident and arm of the
National Government; and, as the crowning act of peace
and submission, elected Representatives to the Federal Con
gress. The "era of good feeling" seemed dawning. Repub
lican Conventions everywhere lauded the President's course.
Trade, commerce and fraternal feeling were rapidly reviving
between the sections and joyous hope everywhere beat high
in the popular heart. But in December, 1865, Congress
met, and that Radical cloud, at first not bigger than a man's
hand, which had been slowly rising above the Republican
horizon, soon swelled into a portentous earthquake gloom,
overshadowing the whole political heavens, and bursting
upon the devoted country in a wild, desolating storm of Rad
ical fanaticism. In 1864, the first gust which presaged the
storm had been distinctly felt. Ben. Wade, Winter Davis,
Wendall Phillips and others had, through the Cleveland con
vention, put forward Fremont for the Presidency, because
Lincoln was not sufficiently radical, and though their candi
date was afterward withdrawn, their agitation never ceased.
Sumner had, even before the death of Lincoln, declared that
the Union should never be restored till universal negro
suffrage was the unqualified law of the land.
This brief review is made, my fellow-citizens, for the pur
pose of presenting to you, in bold relief, the real issue which
RadicaHsm has tendered since the war. That issue is univer
sal negro suffrage in the South. To attain this end every
pledge made in the Crittenden resolution and recognized by
every act of the Government and the people during the war
has been most unscrupulously violated. But it is no part of
my purpose to discuss the question of negro suffrage. North
or South. My opinions on this question have been hereto
fore fully expressed, and last year you settled the matter in
Ohio, it is hoped, for the future. Nothing but a spirit of the
most malignant bigotry could turn over the bleeding South,
bound hand and foot, to the tender mercies of a race of slaves

126 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
but lately emerged from barbarism and fired to vengeance by
the remembrance of their former wrongs.
It is the means by which this wrong is sought to be con
summated, and not the extent of the wrong itself, which I
propose to consider.
You will remember, gentlemen, that it was once fashionable
in Radical circles to croak about making "treason odious,"
and we were told that rebels must be punished. They ap
pealed to you by the memory of your slaughtered soldiers,
your moaning widows and weeping orphans, to avenge their
wrongs in the blood of the traitor. They invoked the gal
lows and the faggot and confiscation. Yet not one man has
been hung or quartered, or his substance confiscated since
the close of the war for treason against his Government. All
their clamor has been "sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Not an example has been made anywhere. Traitors have
everywhere gone acquit. Whatever measures have been
adopted were not aimed at persons, but at States; not at
traitors, but at institutions. The " one idea " pervading all
that has been done and left undone, has been the enfranchise
ment of the negro. Afl that miserable batch of legislation
known as the "reconstruction laws" has aimed at this and
nothing more. The acts of 1866, and on their failure the
infamous mihtary despotism of 1867; the fourteenth constitu
tional amendment; the exclusion of those States from Con
gress, have pursued invariably the same object and been
animated by the same spirit. And the one simple purpose
of this enfranchisement is the perpetuation of Radical power.
There may be those — here and there a transcendental
dreamer — who believe in the capacity of the colored race for
self-government, and support these measures to carry out in
good faith their conscientious convictions of duty and of
right. And there may be others who sincerely believe that
not otherwise can the civil rights of the late slaves be secured.
But how can the great body of the thinking men of the party

RADICAL TYRANNY. 127

believe that a race so utterly ignorant, so beggarly poor, and
so long trained to subordination, are fit custodians of a great
and complicated government? That they do not think so, is
proved by the fact that in the North, where the negroes are
much more enlightened and much less numerous, they are
denied the right of suffrage. The Radicals themselves vote
it down wherever made an issue — in Connecticut, Ohio,
Michigan, Minnesota, Kansas. And the same party commit
the absurdity of declaring in their National platform, that
while the North may do as it will in the matter, negro suf
frage, must be forced upon the reluctant South ! It is thus
too plain for argument, that it is sought to be made in the
South an engine of political power, and is not the dictate of
settled conviction or of patriotic motive.
But, my fellow-citizens, the most startling of all the arbi
trary and revolutionary measures of the Radical party are the
means resorted to to accomplish this end. They are no less
than the overthrow of the Federal system in ten States, and
its fraudulent modification in afl. This is strong language,
but it is used on full consideration, and with a conscious re
sponsibility to the public opinion of the present and the
future. What is the Federal system, and how have the
Radicals changed it? STATE RIGHTS.
The Federal system consists in the union, through a con
stitutional Government of delegated powers, of separate, in
dependent and sovereign "States." These States became
such by three stages of progress.
1. England granted separately, and at thirteen different
times, colonial existence and colonial rights to thirteen sep
arate and distinct bodies of men to organize thirteen separate
and distinct colonial governments. Each colony had its own
local laws, and neither had any right in or control over any
other. And so they continued till the American Revolution.
2. The declaration, and the subsequent recognition by the

128 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
mother country, of the independence of the United States.
The treaty so recognizing their independence by England,
recited that they were such in the following clear language:
" His Britanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States,
to wit: New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay," and so on,
naming individually every one of the thirteen States, "to be
free, sovereign and independent States ; that he treats with
them as such," &c.
3. By their federative connection with each other, origin
ally by the Articles of Confederation, and subsequently by
their adoption of the Federal Constitution, it wifl be. per
ceived at once that the States are older than the General
Government The States originated first; and the people of
the several States, acting not as one consolidated mass, but
separately through their respective State organizations,
created the Federal Government. It was a government of
limited and delegated powers, and it derived all its authority
from the Constitution. The States did not give up their ex
istence or their right over their internal concerns. The
States, then, have as much right to their existence and their
local laws as the General Government has to its existence
and its general laws. Both derive their authority from the
people, and both are recognized and guaranteed by the
Federal Constitution, not as superior and inferior, but as co
ordinate branches of the same Government. Each is alike
entitled to existence, and an overthrow of either is alike
treason to the Constitution and the Nation. Shall a Southern
secessionist seek by force to overthrow Federal power in his
State, and be denounced as a traitor, and a Northern consoli-
dationist seek by force to overturn the State Government in
the same State, and not be equally guilty? This is not
spoken figuratively, but literally. If the power of the State
and of the Nation are equally sacred, equally established by
the Federal Constitution, I affirm, as a legal proposition, that
the forcible overthrow of either is equally treason, and the

RADICAL TYRANNY. 129

actors equafly traitors — legal, punishable traitors. There is
no escape from this conclusion, except by assuming that
these two Governments — State and Federal — are not equally
entitled to existence under the Federal Constitution. The
right of secession must exist, or each — the Federal and State
Governments — must be alike perpetual and sacred under the
Federal Constitution. To prevent secession was the struggle
of the late war; to prevent consolidation is the struggle of
the present hour.
I solemnly believe, my fellow-citizens, that the present is
the more important of the two. If secession had succeeded,
you would have been shorn of national glory, but personal
liberty and local self-government, its guaranty, would have
remained; but if consolidation succeeds, all the guaranties of
your personal rights are placed under other control than your
own, and subject to the caprice of strangers to your wants
and interests. Dearer, far dearer to every true lover of indi
vidual liberty is the right of local self-government, with even
national obscurity, than the mightiest national grandeur with
out local and responsible protection from the minions of its
power. Do you intend, then, to surrender your State organ
izations, or do you intend to maintain them ? The Radicals
openly and boldly assail, and have, in fact, overthrown the
principle on which they rest. If the General Government
can not legally overthrow, or at pleasure remodel the States,
then every act of Radical "reconstruction" is revolutionary
and void. Sir, I affirm that all these measures are treason,
and the actors in them traitors as much in law as the ordi
nances of secession were acts of treason, and the Confederate
leaders traitors. This is said in no spirit of malice, but be
cause truth requires the same things to be cafled by the same
names. FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT.
My fellow-citizens, one of the boldest and most revolution
ary of all Radical measures is the Fourteenth Constitutional

130 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
Amendment. It was extorted from the Southern States as
completely — far more completely — by force than was the
British recognition of American independence. The mother
country was simply wearied out in a long and expensive
struggle for dominion abroad, but the personal rights and
liberties of the people at home were not assailed. In yield
ing our independence, she yielded only national pride, not
the individual rights and interests of her people. But how
was consent to the Fourteenth Amendment extorted from
the prostrated and desolated South. When the war was over
she yielded all that had been demanded of her. Her exist
ing State governments had been reorganized as valid, and
they had ratified the Thirteenth Constitutional Amendment.
But as fast as one thing was yielded something new was de
manded. Still recognizing their State organizations as valid.
Congress submitted the Fourteenth Amendment. They re
jected it, as they surely had a right to do if they had a right
to ratify it.
The Radical Congress, enraged by the refusal, abrogated
the State governments, and, by a pretended law, placed the
South under a most galling military despotism. Every guar
antee of constitutional liberty was set aside. Trial by jury,
habeas corpus, freedom from arrest, right to take part in gov
ernment, and every other right known to freedom, was either
abolished or held at the pleasure of irresponsible mflitary
rulers. Military commissions were established, judgments
of civil courts set aside, and in short no law recognized but
the sovereign law of military force. Provision was made for
the organization of new State governments by disfranchise
ment of almost the whole body of intelligent citizens and
enfranchisement of the whole mass of ignorant blacks ; and,
to crown afl, this slavish despotism was to continue until
these States should ratify the Fourteenth Amendment.
When, since the days of ancient barbarism, was a more gall
ing, humiliating despotism forced by the bayonet upon any

RADICAL TYRANNY. 131

wretched people? And how can we of the North look the
civilized world in the face without shame, or invoke the
blessing of God on our heads, without bowing our mouths to
the very dust in contrition? Stand we idle while force and
tyranny desolate the fair South, and galling, scathing despot
ism enslaves and humiliates her defenseless and repentant
sons? Stand we idle while the Constitution of their fathers
and of ours is trodden remorselessly under foot? Shall Vir
ginia, the eldest born of the sisterhood of States, who gener
ously gave to the Federal Government five mighty States in
the Northwest, be excluded from the National councils by
the same Federal Government, until she has surrendered
rights not derived from that Government, and nearly two
hundred years older than the Federal Government itself ? —
Shades of our patriot fathers, was it for this you dared and
died? Shades of my late comrades in arms, sleeping at
Antietam, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, arouse! gird on again
your armor, inspire your yet living brethren to rescue your
graves from the foot of the tyrants that threaten to desecrate
them by the tread of political slaves, or you have died in a
" lost cause! "
True, my feflow-citizens, the rebellious South deserved
punishment. The unholy arm of secession needed chastise
ment. But has not the South been punished? — Are a half-
million new-made graves nothing? Are the countless house
holds clad in mourning nothing? Look to her desolate
fields, her smouldering villages, her wretched poverty! Think
of her humiliated pride, her disordered industry, and the
long years she must labor to regain the prosperity of the
past, and who could demand more of his worst enemy?
AMENDMENT IN OHIO.
But, gentlemen, this is not merely a matter which affects
the South ; it reaches you in Ohio. Last year you refused tO
enfranchise the negro, and this fourteenth amendment pun-

132 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
ishes you for that, by taking from you one member of Con
gress. True, the amendment has not been practically en
forced, but it has been declared to be legally adopted, through
the intervention of these revolutionary governments of the
South ; and when it is practically carried into effect it robs
you without your consent of one member of Congress, and
your State must be re-districted accordingly. How, then,
has Ohio lost this member of Congress, this voice in the
national councils? By her own act? Not so; but by the
Radical use of Federal bayonets in the South. Revolu
tionary State Governments were created in the South for the
express purpose of ratifying this very amendment, and be
cause the former State Governments had refused to do it ; and
these new State Governments, dominated by negroes and
"carpet baggers," ratified this amendment, and subjected
Ohio to a constitutional provision, conceived in fraud, brought
forth by force, and cradled in the lap of revolution. You
have always heretofore regulated suffiage for yourselves;
hereafter the General Government regulates it for you. You
vote down the Radicals in Ohio, but they still rule you by
voting you down through negro votes in the South. Already
the work of consolidation has begun. It will end, I warn
you in time, by State lines being blotted out afl together, un
less the Radicals can be driven from the high places of power.
The revolution is, indeed, already accomplished. The old
Government is already in part overturned. Whether we
shall ever undo the work of the revolution, and bring back
the Government to its pristine glory, who can tell? The
fourteenth amendment is the offspring of force and fraud;
but it has been declared adopted, and how it is ever to be an
nulled is a question too grave for popular discussion. If it can
never be undone at afl, it behooves the disciples of State
rights — another word for individual rights — to cHng to and
defend stifl more tenafciously the tottering wreck of constitu
tional liberty and constitutional balance of power yet left us.

RADICAL TYRANNY. 133

In proportion as the tendency to centralization gains strength,
we should work the more zealously to keep alive and
strengthen, in the minds of the people, devotion to the right
of local self-government, the sheet anchor of hope for the
people. IMPEACHMENT, ETC.
My fellow-citizens, I might advance from the discussion of
these great wrongs to those of scarcely less magnitude, but
time will not suffice for more than a passing allusion. The
well-ordered balance of power among the several departments
of the Government, ordained by the fathers, has been like
wise assailed, and for the time being overthrown. The Ex
ecutive Department has been almost annihilated; the com
mand of the army, the power of appointment, the superin
tending control of administration, have been taken away, and
the President made a head clerk to Congress. The Judiciary
has been crippled and subordinated, and its judgment fore-
stafled. Congress has usurped practically the whole admin
istration, and in effect claims to be the Government. If the
people send Representatives who Congress fears will be
troublesome, they are expelled. Neither Stockton nor
Voorhees nor Morgan could be tolerated. They threatened
to impeach a Supreme Judge because it was intimated he be
lieved one of their pretended laws unconstitutional, and they
did impeach the President for exercising a constitutional func
tion. Congress recognizes no law but its own pleasure, and
bows to no authority but its own wfll. While the Senate sits
as a Court of Impeachment — by law required to do impartial
justice — Radical politicians demand that popular meetings
throughotit the country shall instruct the Court to convict.
But why prolong the recital of this dark catalogue? The
past is committed to history, and some future Tacitus wifl
consign these Radical leaders to the eternal odium they
deserve. My old neighbors and friends, I cannot conclude without a

12

134 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
word to you irrespective of parties. Almost a generation
ago I came among you a stranger and a mere beardless boy.
Your greatest citizen kindly took me by the hand, and by
his counsels and influence aided me to a respectable place
among you. You gave me yotir confidence, and conferred
upon me repeatedly places of trust and honor. For all this
I am neither forgetful nor ungrateful. With the lapse of
years the party with whom I thus acted ceased to have a dis
tinctive existence. Most of its leaders, and its rank and file,
after giving the gallant old Whig party decent burial. Went
into the anti-slavery organization, and now constitute the
bulk of the Republican party. I could not conscientiously
follow, but after years of mature investigation and reflection,
attached myself to the Democracy.
My Republican neighbors may think this wrong-headed-
ness, but they know it to be the result of honest conviction.
I could name men who left the weak for the strong side
("and verfly they have their reward " in popularity and pub
lic honors); but you afl know, and can't but do me the
justice to acknowledge, that no cause seemed more thoroughly
lost than the cause of Democracy when I attached my for
tunes to the party in 1855. The party was in what seemed
a hopeless minority in my State, Congressional District,
county, township, viflage and school district, and in almost
every State of the Union. My most intimate friends became
RepubHcans. I stood alone, with scarce a companion but
my own convictions of right, and without a poHtical hope
for the future. I aflude to these things, gentlemen, simply
that you may be reminded of what you so well know ; that
had my motives been political promotion, I should have
known better where my interests lay than to join the Demo
cratic party; and to assure you, now, when every political
aspiration is forever ended, you wifl find me a no less steady
adherent to Democratic principles. Why, then, will you
not listen to my voice? Have I any interest which you have

RADICAL TYRANNY. 135

not? Are not the institutions and peace of the country
equaHy dear to us all? Have I not shown as much disposi
tion as any of you, both in peace and in war, to preserve
them?-^Let us, then, reason together. Hear what I have
said, and ponder it well.
One word more. The war destroyed slavery and seces
sion. This is acknowledged by all, at the South no less than
at the North. Were not these things all that the most rad
ical among you asked for during the war? Why should you
ask more now? Should you demand negro suffrage? You
deny it yourself, why ask it of them ? But there is one thing
more you should ask. One thing more the whole country
asks — peace. Oh, when will the white- winged messenger
come with healing in his wings, and hover in mercy over this
distracted land? When shall the sword and spear of sec
tional strife be beaten into the plowshare and the pruning
hook of brotherly love? Do you conscientiously believe,
my Radical brother, that the present policy of your party
can ever bring real peace ? Pause and reflect ! No ! No, it
can never be. The history of the past, the whole nature of
man, is against it Whenever such experiment has been
tried it has failed, and, on the soundest principles of common
sense, it must ever fail.
Would Ohio tamely submit to the overthrow of the internal
organization of her government if we had been conquered by
the South? If every man who had sworn to support the
Federal Constitution in Ohio was by the conquering rebels
driven from power, and an oath to support the Confederate
Constitution required, would there not be heart-burning, re
venge, resistence ? It matters not that you may say we were
right and they wrong in the late war. They thought them
selves right, and you have to deal with the fact and not with
your own theories of the case. But if they acknowledge
they were wrong, as many of them do, does that justify you
in taking from them the right of self-government, older than

136 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
the Government they sought to cut loose from, and not de
rived from it? It does not, either on principle or policy.
Can we learn nothing from other nations? Poor, old, gallant,
generous Ireland, conquered five hundred years ago, still re
sists the oppressor, and is just succeeding in throwing off" the
ecclesiastical yoke of the foreign tyrant. Within a few years
Italy has driven the foreign invader from beautiful Venice,
and restored Italian laws to her Italian people. Hungary —
long-struggling, heroic Hungary — has just achieved the res
toration of her rights. Even the dark despotism of Austria
has at last learned that she can better rule in love than by
force. The descendants of those gallant Huns, who hurled
back the Moslem power from Eastern Austria and Italy, or
shouted, " We will die for our King, Maria Theresa! " have
proudly upheld the glory of their sires. The Emperor of
Austria now takes the oath as King of Hungary, and a Hun
garian Parliament and laws are restored to that long-suffering
people. Can you expect, my fellow-citizens, that the people of the
South will not continue to clamor for the local right of self-
government, coeval with their very existence ! Will they be
less devoted to their rights or less constant to them than the
Hun? Be wise in time, and abandon this effort to overthrow
the State Governments of the South. Leave them their local
laws as old Rome always did to the provinces she conquered.
You have gained afl for which you fought; be content; mag
nanimously leave them the government of their own people,
and your generous treatment will be the cement of a lasting
peace. Whatever may have been your feelings, or whatever
may have been true policy at the close of the war, it is now
too late to think of mere punishment. The trial of Jeff" Davis
would be a farce — his execution a thing not to be thought of.
Let universal amnesty and unconditional restoration be now
the seal of peace. Lasting peace will never come without
them, but wifl come at once with them, "and come to stay."

RADICAL TYRANNY. 137

But these things can never come under Radical rule. The
party in power must be displaced. In the hour of revolution
it may have had its use ; but in the day of peace it is an un
mitigated evil. Radicalism is organized war upon the people
and the institutions of the South. Democratic success is
peace. Allow me to say, without malice, but prompted by
the depth of earnest conviction, that I do not believe peace,
prosperity and brotherly love can return to the country while
a sectional party rules it. It was the conflict of sectional ideas
and sectional passions which produced the war, and true, per-
mant peace can not come till a broad, generous, forgiving
spirit again animates the national councils. A party must rule
which has the confidence of every section — aye, which knows
no section and which recognizes the equal sanctity of the
Federal Government and of the States. That party is the
Democratic, and no other. Let Seymour and Blair be
elected, and the white flag of peace will at once everywhere
float by the side of the National banner.

THE SOUTH-LET US HAVE PEACE.
[A response delivered at the Army Reunion Banquet, at Chicago, 111., De
cember 16th, 1868, in response to the sentiment, " The South — Let Us
Be Friends."]
Mr. President and Comrades :
We have conquered secession, but we have not vanquished
the South to servitude. We have only redeemed it from re
bellion and war to union and peace. Who, that took part in
the strife, does not know that even in its darkest hours a love
for the old flag lingered in the breasts of the rebels them
selves? When most defiant, did they not model their State
and National Governments on ours? In their maddest
moments, they remembered with reverence the old forms of
institution and copied their very flag from our own. Like
lovers parted by a sudden quarrel, the old affection between
the sections was secretly cherished by each, and was
stronger than either knew. In returning again to the open
arms of the Union, the defeated South has nothing to con
quer but its wounded pride, and we ought, by our magnani
mity, to make that no difficult task. The victory of arms is
ours. All that stood in the way of Union and peace is
buried in the grave of the "Lost Cause.'" Let its only epi
taph be, "To err is human, to forgive Divine." The
victors can afford to be generous, and the truly brave are
always generous to the disarmed. The merciful terms of
Grant and Sherman to their conquered foes do them as much
honor as their grandest victories. Nay, they are their grand
est victories.
Fellow-soldiers, in the heat of conflict, we may have felt
the animosities of civil war, but we ever staunched the wounds
of a captured foeman or cooled the lips of a dying enemy.
And now, in the hour of victory and peace, we are called
on to bind up the wounds of a conquered section, and teach

THE SOUTH  LET US HAVE PEACE. 139
our former enemies to cultivate friendship by cultivating it
ourselves. We are brethren of the same blood. The gallant
Southron struck for what a false theory taught him were his
"rights," and bravely fought for them, while resistance to
superior force was possible. And the same ardor will nerve
his arm in the National service, now that the elements of
sectional strife have perished on the field.
Men of the South: If we are true to ourselves, how glori
ous is the National future. The graves of your Revolutionary
sires are sacred soil, no less in our affections than in yours.
The services of your great men in times past, in peace and
war, are as dearly cherished by us as by you. Your ancestors
and ours went hand in hand to the council boards, and stood
shoulder to shoulder on the battle fields of the Revolution.
You and we were once friends in peace and war. Your valor
and ours were the common price of our dominion and glory.
Once more, "Let us be friends." The great future is yours
and ours, and with it the hopes and destinies of a common
country. If we would make that future peaceful and grand,
let us both, as soon as possible, forget the animosities of the
late war, and vie with each other in developing to the utmost
the spirit of brotherly love and National patriotism. We have
the best institutions and the richest sources of National wealth
of any people on earth, and we need but peace, fraternal
confidence, and wise councils, to be the ruling power in the
family of Nations, and at the same time the home of the
freest and happiest people the world ever saw.
Comrades of the Union Armies : Counseled by the lessons
of the Divine Master, let us bury the "dead past." Nerved
to the arduous duties of the "living present," and inspired
by the stirring hopes of a magnificent future, let us strike
hands with all of every section, who ' ' keeps step to the music
of the Union," and, in the spirit of a catholic patriotism, send
greeting to the whole country, universal amnesty and per
petual friendship.

AGAINST THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT.
[A speech delivered at Mason, Ohio, September 18th, 1869, and circulated
by the Ohio Democratic State Central Committee.]
Fellow-Citizens :
I had hoped last year not to be again required to speak in
defense of the Constitution of the Fathers. I had hoped that
victory would then perch upon the Democratic standard —
the standard of constitutional liberty and domestic peace.
But we were disappointed. The fires of passion burned yet
too deeply in the popular heart for such an achievement.
The country had not yet suffered enough from the revolu
tionary frenzy of Radicalism to return to the old landmarks
of law and justice. Yet a while the vengeful passions of
sectional bigotry must hold the conquered States of the South
prostrate by the bayonet, and impose on them a despotism
at once ruinous to them and dishonorable to their oppres
sors. And so the people continued the Radicals in power.
Again we must rally the Democratic hosts to another battle
for popular liberty — another assault upon the minions of des
potism and oppression. A great author has said that next
to victory it is the noblest achievement to die fighting to the
last, with one's feet to the foe. So the true Democracy wfll
"spring harmless up, refreshed by blows," and battle on
manfully for their principles through victory or defeat. True,
my fellow-citizens, we cannot but deeply regret that the battle
for our constitutional rights has stifl to be fought again. The
great financial problem is looming above the horizon in dark
and portentous clouds, and we feel that the storms of finan
cial convulsion are at hand. The mutterings of the not dis
tant and approaching thunder admonish us that the flood
gates of the financial heavens may soon be opened, and the

AGAINST THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT. 141
business world submerged in a bankruptcy so deep that the
wild storms of Repudiation can alone clear the commercial
atmosphere. We are all eager to avert this national disaster,
and would willingly devote our undivided attention to the
financial question if our institutions were once safely moored
in the harbor of the Constitution. But we value our rights
and their constitutional guaranties as "above all money and
above all price." Till they are secure their defense is, in the
language of the German maxim, the duty nearest to us.
And, therefore, my fellow-citizens, I am here to-day to speak
to you as neighbor to neighbor, for the Constitution and
against the Fifteenth Amendment.
Gentlemen, it was apparent during the war that, if success
ful, one of its results would be to strengthen the power of
the Federal Government. As the war was fought to prevent
the disintegration of the Union, so its success would not only
consolidate the Union, but have a tendency to enlarge its in
fluence. The passions and resentments of the people being
aroused against a certain phase of the doctrine of "State
rights," their affections were naturally cooled towards the
rights of States as such ; and the tendency of popular thought
was toward the opinion that the fewer rights a State had the
better for the peace and harmony of the Nation. The stability
of the Government was more warmly cherished than the se
curity of the people's liberties. That danger to our beloved
Union should have arisen from the action of States, was
thought to be sufficient reason why those organizations should
be distrusted. The pressure on the people had come from
secession, and this naturally begot a reflex action in the direc
tion of consolidation. States had endangered the existence
of the Federal Government, and, in turn, the Federal Gov
ernment now endangers the existence of States. Even during
the war I foresaw all this, and pubHcly and privately sought
to impress on my countrymen the importance of remember
ing and adhering to through all the heat of passion and the

142 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
agony of struggle, the great fundameiital landmarks of our
poHtical system. I saw the rising tendencies to consolidation.
When the centrifugal motion was checked, it would rush back
with centripetal velocity towards the center. The very drift
of thought would float towards centralization . It would require
activity and labor to confine the machinery of government
to its old orbits of motion. We all knew that from the foun
dation of the Federal Government, the system itself had had
enemies. That there were those who desired a strong central
Government, in which States should be mere provinces ; but
we hoped that the numbers now were few and their influence
small. But I must confess I was not prepared to expect or
ganized opposition to a restoration of the old Government.
No sooner, however, was the war over and a consultation held
among the Radical leaders, than it became too apparent to
the observing to be denied that there existed a strong party
desirous of remodeling the central Government. They knew
full well that the people would be startled into overwhelming
opposition, if an attempt was made to abolish the State Gov
ernments. The project had a place in the brain of the party,
but it was too certain of defeat to be then announced to the
people. They must be educated up to it step by step. They
must be taught to walk before they were asked to run. The
leaders knew, however, that such was the exasperation of the
masses against the South, that almost any measures would be
tolerated against them; and that in the name of " reconstruct
ing dead States," there was no principle, however unconstitu
tional or tyrannical, which the body of the party would not
sustain. The experience of the past had encouraged them in
this. Lincoln had abolished slavery by mere proclamation,
and the whole country had acquiesced in the "military neces
sity. ' ' The Thirteenth Amendment had been made a condition
of the rehabilitation of the seceded States. This amendment
was principle, at war with every element of the American
system of government; for control of slavery in a State, ac-

AGAINST THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT. 143
cording to that political system, was incapable of being dele
gated without a surrender of the sovereignty of the States,
an integral element of the system itself But the country.
North and South, had sullenly, but unresistingly yielded to
that revolutionary measure. Here, for one, I had hoped —
nay believed — the Radical party would stay their hand in
amending the Constitution; but I was mistaken, this was
only the beginning; "the end is not yet." Not by direct
words, but by acts stronger than words, they have proclaimed
from the house-top a deliberate purpose to overthrow the
Federal Government, and estabflsh in its place a consolidated
Imperialism. To prove this design, no testimony is neces
sary except the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments,
which they are forcing upon the country. These amend
ments, not only in principle, but in practical application, over
throw the States as poHtical organizations for the government
of the people residing within their limits. They may retain
the name, but they no longer possess the attributes of ' ' States "
in the Federal system of America. This is strong language,
but it is the language of truth. After these amendments,
Ohio will be no more a " State " in the sense of the Constitu
tion, than a consul under the Roman Emperors was a consul
in the spirit of the Republic.
My fellow-citizens, that we may fully understand the
scope and spirit of these amendments, and particularly of
the last, let us recall some of the principles on which the
American system rests. The first article in the American
political code is, that the people are the primary source of all
power. That they alone can rightfully make and unmake
governments. The people are sovereign — all governments
are simply delegations of power. Whatever portion of their
sovereignty the people choose to confer on the Government,
that alone it can rightfully wield. The residue the people
retain. They possess the residuum of undelegated sovereignty.
The Government cannot either enlarge, alter or diminish its

144 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
power without usurpation. But the people, through the right
of revolution, one of the attributes of sovereignty which they
never delegate to Government, may alter or abolish their
Constitution of Government at pleasure. The "people"
then are the constituent members of the only stable, undying
political corporation. When organized, they are generally
known by the name " State;" and as government is a neces
sity, the people always become organized into some form of •
State. Not to detain you with a mere general disquisition,
it is enough to note briefly the origin of the American polit
ical system.
When this country was settled by Europeans, it was done
mainly under thirteen separate grants or charters by the Gov
ernment of Great Britain to thirteen separate colonies. The
different terms of these grants, the modifications of the char
ters and other minor matters are of no moment in the pres
ent discussion. Under these grants there grew up thirteen
separate colonies, each disconnected with and separate from
the other, having its own internal government, laws, institu
tions and habits ; but each owing a common allegiance to the
British crown. This system was the nucleus of that which
exists to-day, if under the innovation of Radicalism, any can
be said to exist. We see in it the germs of our Federal sys
tem. These colonies came to be States, and the Fedpral
system succeeded the British crown. Not afl the principles
are preserved, but the outline is. It will thus be seen that
from the first, the American system was a quality. It had a
common Government for all the infant States, and a separate
Government for each.
The Revolution sundered these colonies from the mother
country, and success made them "States." During the rev
olutionary period, and under the Articles of Confederation,
these States were clearly and unmistakably in technical law,
as the Declaration of Independence, and of the Articles of
Confederation style them, "free and independent;" and so

AGAINST THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT. 145
they were admitted into the famfly of Nations by the treaty
of peace with Great Britain acknowledging their independ
ence, and absolving them from allegiance to the British
Crown. But it is nevertheless true that in all, or, at least, in
most National concerns, they acted jointly, and in the minds
of the people their union made them one Nation in the affairs
of the world. They had consulted jointly as to their griev
ances, and jointly declared their Independence ; they jointly
fought the Revolutionary war to a success, and were jointly
acknowledged by the mother country and the world as a
Nation. The original bond of their Union may have been,
and was, ill-defined, but it existed, and existed more in the
hearts of the people than by written confederation. The
common dangers and glories of the war held them together
more firmly than the subsequent articles of confederation.
Those articles, however, were tolerably specific ; but, as often
happens, the spirit of the people outran the letter of the law,
and bound the States much more closely than a loose political
confederation. They loved each other, and sought a closer
alliance. With these surroundings, and in this pervading
popular atmosphere, the Convention of 1787 met, professedly
to revise the Articles of Confederation. From that Conven
tion sprang our present Federal Constitution.
Now, my fellow-citizens, it is so important to have clear
and definite ideas as to the true grounds of opposition to this
Fifteenth Amendment, that we must dwell a little more upon
the great elements, out of which grew the Constitution now
sought to be overthrown. The Revolution had made colo
nies "States," and throughout the whole struggle, each State
had maintained a most sharply defined sense of its existence,
its individuality, its "statehood." At the same time a sense
of weakness, and the attraction of common origin, language
and religion, kindred institutions and habits, and the glories
of a common struggle for independence, made the States
gravitate towards a closer union. Nay, the history of the

146 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
period furnishes no trace of disunion sentiments. The only
contest was whether the States should confederate or consoli
date; none wished them to separate. There was a strong
party in inteflect and influence, though not in numbers, who
desired what was called a National, in contradistinction to
what was called a Federal Government. The former sought
"to aboHsh the States ; the latter sought to retain them. The
Federals again were divided into two sections: those who
favored a simple Confederacy, operating on the States in
their corporate capacity only, and the advocates of a Feder
ative Government, which should operate directly upon the
people. These three parties, in their action and their re
action upon each other, made the Constitution what it is, a
confederate social compact between the people of the several
States, cementing them into one federative community for
National purposes, but leaving them at the same time distinct
communities for State purposes. This gives the Government
a duplex character. A part of the sovereign power has been
delegated to the Federal Government, and a part to the State ;
each is the complement of the other ; each is the offspring of
a social compact, as the publicists call it, and each is an
"everlasting covenant," subject only to the right of revolu
tion and inalienable attribute of sovereignty never delegated
by the people to any Government.
Out of what elements of opinion, of interest, and of
political organization these parties sprang, would, if gone
into in detail, carry us far beyond the limits of the present
discussion. It is enough to say that the old confederation
was worn out. It commanded neither the respect of the
people of the States, nor of foreign nations. It was without
a revenue, an army, or a navy. It could enforce obedience
to its mandates from nobody. The members appointed to
its Congress cared not to attend; the Congress itself boxed
the compass, sitting sometimes at Philadelphia, Princeton,
Annapolis, New York, Few foreign nations would make

AGAINST THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT. 147
treaties with the Confederacy ; the States neglected to pay
their assessed quota of taxes, or give to the Confederacy the
power to collect from the people its own taxes. The interest
on the debt of the Confederacy remained unpaid, and no
appeals to the States could induce them to furnish Congress
with the means to redeem the Confederate honor. The old
Confederacy was completely bankrupt; practically dead. It
was but the shadow of a Government. Well might Webster
say the present Union "had its "origin in the necessities of
disordered finance, prostrate commerce and ruined credit."
On the other hand, each State felt itself too feeble to stand
alone. Republics were not popular members of the family
of nations. Fear of foreign aggression to overthrow Repub
licanism in the States, was the skeleton at the hearthstone
of the people, and their strongest incentive to union. They
felt, too, that the States themselves, might become belliger
ents, and union was internal peace. These were motives
enough to prompt a union of some kind, and the character
it finally assumed, though the result of a compromise of
views and interests among all parties and all sections, is
mainly to be traced to the existence of the State organiza
tions. The States were the original native governments of
America. They were the cherished institutions of the peo
ple, and their direct offspring. The people of the State was
the only sovereignty, and the State itself the only live
government. Let these considerations, my fellow-citizens, be impressed
fully upon you, and you will be prepared to see why the
constitution assumed the character of a confederate social
compact between the "peoples" of the States, and not a
Constitution springing from the people of the States consoli
dated into one aggregate mass. There was, as before said, a
party that desired to blot out the States and blend the whole
people into one consolidated mass, so that all power and all
laws of every character should be the offspring of a Central

148 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
National Government. But it was soon found that the States
were too dear to the people to be surrendered by them in ex
change for any National Government, however Democratic
and powerful that could be founded upon their ruins. The
people would have submitted to disunion, rather than to the
abolishment of the States. All parties soon agreed then that
the new Government, whatever else it did, should recognize
and guarantee the continued existence of the States. Upon
that original corner-stone the Federal Constitution was
founded, and all the powers of the Federal Government were
organized in conformity to that principle. That much was
settled. There was also a party who sought to frame the
new Constitution on the model of the old, and make the
Government simply a confederation — a mere political com
pact between sovereign States with no sanction except the
good faith of each. But this had been tried and found to be
an utter, lamentable failure. At this point in the action and
re-action of parties, the National party came to the aid of
that wing of the Federals who desired to make the laws of
the new Government operate on the people of the States di
rectly, and not on the States in their organic character, and
the triumph of those parties was complete. It was conceded
that the laws should operate on the people and not on the
States. This was the second great, corner-stone of the con
stitutional fabric, and upon that principle, too, the Federal
Government was accordingly organized.
Lord Brougham, with great force and justice, says that a
representative government is a modern discovery in polit
ical science, vastly improving the system of the ancients, and
enabling a free government to extend successfully over a
large territory. He might, with even greater propriety, have
given our system the credit of first introducing a federative
government, whose laws operate on the people of the feder
ated States directly and not on the States in their corporate
character. This American improvement, when grafted on

AGAINST THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT. 149
the representative principle, and accompanied by a wise bal
ance between the powers of the local and Central Govern
ment, may safely give to a federative republic an indefinite
extension of territory. It may as well keep the peace and
allow the development of a continent of a hundred distinct
communities as hold in harmony a half dozen petty States.
Two other principles complete the essential elements of
the Federal Constitution, and they were adopted with little
difference of opinion. These were that the Governments,
State and Federal, should be republics ; and that the powers
of the Federal Government should be distributed like those
of the States already were into three co- ordinate branches,
legislative, executive and judicial — as the correlative constitu
ent parts of a perfect government, executing all its functions
by its own agents. These principles conformed the Federal
Government to its prototoype — the State Government.
Four general principles were thus established as the funda
mental landmarks of our constitutional system:
1. That two complete governments should be established,
State and Federal ; the one supreme in foreign affairs, and the
other supreme in domestic affairs.
2. That each of these governments, as co-ordinate arms
of a duplex organization, should rest on the social compact
of the people, and operate directly on them, each arm being
the complement of the other and each sovereign in its own
sphere of action.
3. That each of these governments. State and Federal,
should be representative republics in form and spirit.
4. That the powers of the Federal Government should be
organized into three co-ordinate branches: legislative, execu
tive and judicial, each supplemental to the other, and all com
bined, making a complete government, while the Federal
Constitution should impose no restraints on the specific con
stitutional organism the government of a State'might assume,
so that it remained Republican in form and spirit.
13

150 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
Acting on these principles, the convention proceeded to
frame a Constitution for the United States. And throughout
the whole instrument there is no trace ot the consoHdation of
the people of the several States into one aggregate com
munity. On the contrary, every element of the Constitution
and of the Government organized under it, is based upon and
flows out of the confederate union of the people of the re
spective States. When the convention had framed the Con
stitution it was remitted to the Congress of the Confederation,
by whom it was to be sent to each State respectively, for
its ratification or rejection ; and that ratification or rejection
was to take place by the action of conventions of the people
of each State acting in their original sovereign capacity and
was not to be the act of the organized State Government.
The Congress accordingly transmitted the new Constitution to
the several State Governments, and these governments called
the required State conventions of the people and submitted
the Constitution to them. And thus, by the several action
of the sovereign people of each State, the Federal Constitu
tion was ratified by the social compact of the people of the
several States, and became the funds mental "supreme
law of the land." If the Constitution of a State is a
social compact in the sense in which the term is used in pub
lic law, so is the Constitution of the United States, for each
has the sanction of a ratification by the direct action of the
people. But there is this distinction : The Constitution of
a State is formed by the direct action of an aggregate peo
ple acting en masse; the Constitution of the United States
was ratified by the direct action of a federate people act
ing not en masse, but federatively ; and the compact there
fore is federative and not aggregate. Whfle both are
social compacts, the one is an aggregate social compact
among the people of a State, and the other a federative social
compact among the people of the United States. The one
organizes in the special sense of the American system, a

AGAINST THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT. 151
"State" having State sovereignty, and the other, the United
States, having National sovereignty. These distinctions,
though they may sound technical and fitter for the judicial
than the popular forum, are pressed upon you, my fellow-
citizens, because of their great practical importance. For if
it be true that the Federal Constitution does rest upon a
social compact, does spring like a State constitution from the
bosom of the people and is their voluntary sovereign ordi
nance, it is an "everlasting covenant " and can be revoked
only by the right of revolution, a revolution bloodless or
otherwise, as those who seek to revoke or maintain the con
stitution may choose to make it. The right of secession has
no place in a government founded upon popular social com
pact. But this is not all. The distinction between an aggre
gate and a federate compact becomes equally important. If
the American people are consolidated into one aggregate
mass, then they have in the aggregate, sovereign control of
every constitution and government. State and Federal, in
the whole land. States may be abolished, their governments
abrogated and new ones instituted ; or States may be divided,
or several States consolidated into one, at the sovereign
pleasure of a majority of this aggregate mass — the people of
the United States, in like manner as counties or townships,
or city charters may be abolished, enlarged or remodeled by
the action of a State Government. The majority of an
aggregate people can make the Government what they please.
It becomes, therefore, a matter of very great practical im
portance to decide the true nature of our Federal compact;
and it is not more so to the judge than to the voter. Nay, it
is the more important to the elector — for after all, every offi
cer. State or Federal, is but a servant of the voter, who is
an integral element of the only sovereign power — the people.
Feflow-citizens, I maintain that the Federal Constitution,
being in its nature 2. federate social compact, its adoption fed
erated the people of the several States into one federative

152 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
community, cemented on the principle of the compact into
one "nation," not in the general sense of the word "nation "
as used in the language of publicists, but in a special sense
consonant to the attributes of sovereignty belonging to the
federative community. Those attributes of sovereignty are
all found in the Federal Constitution ; whatever of sovereignty
is not found therein is reserved to the people of each State
respectively, and either retained in their own hands or dele
gated to the State Government. This federal community,
therefore, may exercise whatever sovereignty it has, without
let or hindrance from the State. It may, by amendment to
the Constitution, made in the prescribed manner, change or
remodel the details of the Government instituted by it; but
it cannot acquire any additional element of sovereignty with
out the assent of every State in the Union. It acquired
whatever sovereignty it has by the unanimous social compact
of the people of all the States, and can acquire no other
element of sovereignty without a like consent ; because that
people could not be sovereign from whom an element of
sovereignty, however insignificant, could be taken without
their consent.
We are now prepared, my fellow-citizens, to advance one
¦step further, and inquire what are the elements of sovereignty
inherent in this federative community and not belonging to
the respective State communities. As before remarked, afl
these are found in the Constitution of the United States.
We find that the instrument provides for a Federal republi
can government of co-ordinate branches. That this Govern
ment is clothed with certain specificafly enumerated powers,
and the incidental right to exercise such other powers as may
be necessary to carry into effect the enumerated ones. These
boundaries mark the entire limits of Federal sovereignty.
All powers lying beyond are in the domain of State sover
eignty. What are these enumerated powers? First, the
power to institute a government for the United States with

AGAINST THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT. 153

the enumerated and other appropriate officers. Second, the
power by legislation to call into efficient action all the dele
gations of sovereignty made by the federative community to
the Federal Government. A careful examination of all the
enumerated powers found in the Constitution wifl show that
they relate either to the organization and support of the
Federal Government and its power over its Own property, or
to the external relations of the United States, or to the
relations of the States with each other and with the Fed
eral Government. The Federal Government, therefore, in
addition to organizing itself, has the right to levy and
collect taxes, duties and imposts, to pay the debts and
provide for the common defense and general welfare, to
borrow money, to regulate commerce, naturalize foreigners,
coin money and punish counterfeiting, establish a postal sys
tem, institute Federal courts, punish piracies, offenses on the
high seas and offenses against the law of nations, to make
treaties, declare war, raise armies, provide a navy, punish
treason, govern the land and naval forces, call out the militia
and provide for its organization, and have exclusive legisla
tive power over forts, arsenals, and all places ceded by a
State to the United States, and to make afl laws necessary
and proper to carry these powers into effect. It also has
power to govern the territories, to admit new States, impeach
Federal officers, propose amendments to the Constitution,
guarantee republican governments to the States, defend them
against invasion or insurrection, and give the citizens of each
State the privileges of citizens in the several States. It will
be seen that all these are either national powers stricti juris,
growing in some form out of the foreign relations of the
country, or powers necessary to keep the peace among the
several States of the Union, or powers necessary to the
organization and support of the Federal Government. This
enumeration contains the whole body of sovereign authority
with which the Federal Government is clothed, except that

154 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
it has exclusive power over bankruptcies, and may concur
rently with the States regulate weights and measures, and
encourage knowledge and the useful arts by granting patents
and copyrights. But it will be readily seen that even these
apparently local laws are, in fact, general; since bankrupt
laws impair the obligations of contracts and so affect the
rights of foreigners or citizens of different States, and are not
necessarily local in their application ; and laws regulating
weights and measures, and granting patents and copyrights,
belong, in their essential nature, to commerce between the
States and with foreign nations. So that, critically consid
ered, the Government created by, the Federal Constitution is,
in all its parts and provisions, general and national, and not
in the nature of any of its powers, local and State.
My fellow-citizens, the human mind is not omniscient, but
full of imperfection and error in its wisest estate. Hence, no
constitutional frame-work could be, by human reasoning,
made so perfect as to perform its intended functions forever
without amendment. Provision is, therefore, wisely made
for the amendment of the Federal Constitution. This
amendment is provided for by the federative action of the
States, but not by the action of the aggregate mass of the
people of the United States. All the States were required
to make the Constitution; three-fourths of them may amend
it. There are now thirty-seven States in the Union. Twenty-
eight may amend. The twenty-eight smallest have less pop
ulation than the remaining nine largest. So the Constitution
may be amended by the action of less than half the Ameri
can people. On the other hand, the ten smallest may pre
vent an amendment, and these ten smallest have less than a
tenth of the whole number.
This makes it apparent that ours is not a Government, as
it is sometimes called, of the majority. It is the Govern
ment of Constitutional organization ; not that of a majority
of the people en masse. What, then, is an amendment? Is

AGAINST THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT. 155
it the creation of a new Constitution, or merely correcting
the defects and supplying the deficiencies of the old? The
present Constitution sprang from the consent of all the States.
Could a new Constitution spring from a less number and yet
bind all? Certainly not. Then an amendment is not the ac
quisition of any new attribute of sovereignty, but only a
modification of the exercise of the sovereignty already ac
quired from that federate social compact — the Constitution
of the United States. We have seen what the Federal
powers of the Constitution are, and an amendment can only
operate on them. The organism for their exercise may be
perfected or modified in any respect, because they are ele
ments of sovereignty belonging to the federal community;
and this is the whole extent of the power of amendment.
Could three-fourths of the States establish monarchy, and
make that the Constitution for all, including the remaining
fourth? Could they abolish the Christian religion or establish
Catholicism? Could they turn the non-concurring States
back into territories, and govern them as such or cede them
to a foreign power? No, my fellow-citizens, not so. The
right to amend the powers they have, does not give the fed
erate community the right to usurp others retained by the
States. The amending power may reorganize or modify the
functions of the Federal Government, but can not acquire
new sovereignty.
For instance, the term of office of the President might be
extended to eight or shortened to two years. The Senators
might be required to be fifty years of age; or the Judges to
have a property qualification. The House of Representatives
might be required to originate all bills, or pass no laws with
out the concurrence of two-thirds ; afl these, and many other
amendments, wise or unwise, are certainly within the amend
ing power provided by the Constitution, and all States, con
curring or not, would be bound thereby. But to go further
and assume by a pretended amendment new sovereign

156 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
powers, is simply revolution, which is only peaceful because
non-concurring States choose submission rather than re
sistance. Now, my feflow-citizens, what are the rights of the States
as recognized and guaranteed by the Constitution of the
United States ? They have, first of all, the absolute right of
existence, and the sovereignty of their own people, either
confederate or aggregate, over their affairs. National and
State. Confederate National sovereignty in common with
the people of the other States over the National Government,
and aggregate State sovereignty in all other respects. The
Federal powers are few and simple, while the State is the
great general depositary of sovereign delegation. The Gen
eral Government has no functions by which to create or regu
late a civil code for the government of the people. All these
matters belong exclusively to the several States. The State
determines the laws regulating the rights of person and prop
erty; laws fixing the rules of descent, distribution, primo
geniture or equality of division ; how property shall be held,
and the details concerning it; wills, deeds, contracts, the rate
of interest on money, statutes of limitation, rules of evidence,
etc., are all matters of State cognizance, and so our personal
relations and concerns: marriage and divorce, the period of
full age, laws of infancy, and of husband and wife, guardian
and ward, employer and employe. In fact, everything re
lating to the civil rights of the people, either to life, liberty
or property, springs from the State. Do we owe our right
of trial by jury to the Federal Government? Not at all; it
is older than all our governments. Do we owe our habeas
corpus to the Federal Government? No; it is older than all
our governments. Do we owe our right of exemption from
unreasonable searches and seizures to the Federal Govern
ment? No; it is older than all our governments. Do we
Owe our right to the common law system of jurisprudence to
the Federal Government? No; it is older than all our gov-

AGAINST THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT. 157
ernments. These great elements of civfl liberty our ances
tors enjoyed from time immemorial. Nor do we derive our
freedom of speech, of tiie press, of religion and of person
from the Federal Government; they are State rights.
The Constitution of the Union nowhere provides that a
State government shall not curtail freedom of speech or free
dom of the, press. Ohio can regulate both by her constitu
tion if she chooses. A State can establish a religion ; many
of them have done it at different times before, and some have
practically done it since the adoption of the Constitution of
the United States. It is not many years since religious disa
bilities were removed in New York, New Hampshire, and,
perhaps, in other States. Jefferson boasted, as well he
might, that he led in giving religious freedom to Virginia.
Nay, perfect freedom of religion does not exist in all the
States even today? You all can remember when it did
not in Ohio. There was a time, and that lately, in Ohio,
when, however honest he might be, no man could testify
who did not profess a belief in God and a future state of
rewards and punishments. So that, though his neighbor
might assault his wife or child with intent to commit rape
or murder, his voice could not be heard in a court of justice.
The one speech of my Hfe, of which I am proudest, was
made in favor of the right of a professed skeptic to testify
in court. The great guaranties of your personal liberty
are found in your State constitution. There it is you have
secured to you freedom of speech, of the press, of religion;
the right of petition, freedom from arrest without probable
cause, the habeas corpus, the trial by jury, a speedy trial,
process for witnesses, immunity from being twice tried for
the same offense, protection from excessive bail, and the
right of bearing arms in your defense. ,
The great body of the civil rights of the people spring
from, and are protected by, the State. The State is the
guardian of every social interest and domestic relation.

158 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
It sets a watch about our houses, and guards our fields. It
throws its kind and protecting arm around us at the hearth
stone. It is the cherishing mother pf the people. It goes
with us to the house of prayer, and the altar of Hymen. It
educates our children; feeds our poor; asylums our helpless,
and sanctifies our graves.
But, my fellow-citizens, not only do you owe your civil
rights to the State, but the State furnishes you the political
machinery by which you protect them. I have dwelt so
long upon the organic nature of the Federal Government,
and upon the primary importance of the States, because the
very statement of these principles prepares us to see the full
significance of the Fifteenth Amendment, and constitutes
the strongest argument against its adoption. The State
being the author and guardian of the civil rights of the peo
ple, its sovereignty ought to be as much dearer to them
than that more distant power, the Federal Government, as
the civil rights it protects are dearer than the political privil
eges conferred by the Federal Union. While both should
be dear to every patriot heart, and, in our affections, "one
and inseparable," the State is our domestic government, and
has about it the odor and sanctity of home.
The right to organize the State Government according to
the pleasure of its own people, was never invaded till the
Federal Government fell into the hands of the party now in
power. By that party it has been a right constantly
ignored, and is now, by the Fifteenth Amendment sought to
be overthrown.
If we consider the right of regulating suffiage with which
this amendment proposes to deal, we shall at once demon
strate the truth of this last statement. Under our constitu
tions of government, all political power resides in certain
officers cafled "electors." The voter — the elector — is essen
tially an officer in the Government, and reafly the most
important officer in it. Like other officers, he is required to

AGAINST THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT. 159
have certain quaHfications for the exercise of his official
functions. These electors — voters of the people — are the
primary fundamental officers, whose suffiages, directly or in
directly, choose all other public agents. Chosen themselves
by the Constitution, they elect all other officers. Each
State Constitution fixes the qualifications of "electors" for
that State, and the Federal Constitution, as it now stands,
makes the electors in each the electors also for Federal
officers. To give the Federal Government, therefore, the control of
suffiage, is to place the sovereignty of the States under the
control of that Government, and to change the very organic
nature of the American system.
The whole people in no Government, however democratic,
have ever been electors. In our country they are about one-
fifth or sixth of the whole population. The power, then, of
deciding who shall be electors, is the power of deciding the
whole character of the Government. An English statesman
once said, "Let me make a people's songs, and I care not
who makes their laws;" and I say, "Let me make the elec
tors in a popular Government and I am its master, whoever
else may claim to be such." Not only the laws and policy
of the Government, but also its very Constitution are in the
hands of the voters; a body of men responsible to no one,
and sovereign over the persons and property of the whole
people. If the exercise of any desired power is forbidden
by the fundamental law, they have but to alter the Constitu
tion and clothe the Government with it. Who shall estimate
the magnitude of the right of suffiage? Who shall preserve
any cherished institution if the electors are the vassals of a
power beyond the State? What is the value of a sovereignty
which begs permission of a superior to rule ? And what is
that liberty worth which is stripped of the right of self-de
fense, and left naked to its enemies?
When the Constitution was formed, control of suffiage

160 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
was in the several States, and the qualifications of electors
were almost as diverse as the number of the States. In some
States a property qualification was required ; in some a relig
ious test; and in some the test of race; some allowed an
elector to vote in all the counties wherein he owned lands;
and some limited the right to the town of his domicile. In
some the qualification differed in respect to the officer to be
chosen. Negroes were allowed to vote in some, and were
excluded in others. Female suffiage, that ne plus ultra of
"woman's rights," was aflowed at one time in New Jersey.
The Federal Constitution left all this as it found it. Nay, it
went further, and not only recognized the principle, but made
it one of the bases of the Federal Constitution. It is a
striking and instructive fact that the great controlling officers
of the Federal Government are all chosen by officers of the
State governments. The Federal Constitution provides for a
President and a Congress, and these officers, directly or indi
rectly, choose all others. Indeed, they make all laws and
treaties, and by themselves or their appointees, are the Gov
ernment itself Now, how is it provided that the President
and the Congress shall be chosen? The President shafl be
chosen by " electors," who are themselves appointed by each
State in such manner as the Legislature thereof shall direct.
Does the Constitution impose any limit on the method of
appointment, except the will of the State Legislature ? May
not the Legislature direct any manner it may choose consist
ent with the Constitution and laws of the State? It might
direct that the Governor, the Supreme Court, or the Legisla
ture itself should appoint, or the State by its Constitution
may require the Legislature to cafl a convention of the peo^
pie in their original sovereign capacity every four years, to
choose these electors. Or, as the Legislature has generally
done, it may require their selection by another class of offi
cers—the primary electors — the voters of the State. But has
the Federal Government any right to complain whatever the

AGAINST THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT. 161
method may be? Certainly not, sir. It is the letter and
spirit of the bond, and "you can not argue the seal off the
bond, nor the words out of the instrument."
We come next to the Senate — that is chosen directly by
State officers — the Legislature. This much needs no illus
tration ; it is as plain as a church steeple. The other branch,
the House of Representatives, is the only branch of thfe
Federal Government constitutionally required to be elected
by the people. It is the popular branch of the National
Legislature, and the Constitution makes the electors who are
to choose this body, the "electors of the most numerous
branch of the State Legislature;" again, turning over the
cnoice of this most potential arm of the Federal Government
to the primary officers of the State Government. Thus it
will be seen that all the original officers of the Federal Gov
ernment are chosen by officers of the State Government.
Does this manifest independence of States or jealousy of
them in the Constitution of the. United States? On the con
trary, the closest connection, the most absolute dependence,
and the most affectionate regard. It speaks the language of
friendship and love, of respect and confidence. Let the
same holy spirit of mutual regard and reciprocal dependence
ever mark the relations and the institutions of each gov
ernment. My fellow-citizens, it is the proposition of the Fifteenth
Amendment to change all this. That amendment provides
that the States, in fixing the qualifications of that most im
portant officer, the elector — the voter of the State, shall
make no exclusion on account of race or color. In a word,
it makes negro suffiage a part of "the supreme law of the
land." I am not now discussing negro suffiage; that wifl be
reached presently. I am discussing the still more important
question of the principle involved in this amendment. That
principle assumes the right of three-fourths of the States to
take from the States respectively, the control of suffrage

162 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
within the limits of each, and transfer it to the Federal Gov
ernment. The amendment, in its terms, does not assume to
do all this, but the principle it inaugurates does assume that
it may be rightfully done ; for if an amendment may impose
conditions as to race and color, it may as well impose them
as to any other qualifications, whether of age, sex, birth or
condition. The same principle which claims to forbid by a
constitutional amendment a State from excluding from suf
frage on account of race or color, may also, by a like amend
ment, forbid the exclusion of women, foreign-born inhab
itants, or minors; or may enjoin any qualification whatever.
In short, may assume absolute and entire control of the
whole subject, so that the principle sought to be establishSd
by this amendment, may take from a State, without its con
sent, entire control of the subject of suffiage. And that,
too, let it be observed, not merely as to the electors of Fed
eral officers, but equally as to the electors of its own officers.
It could not elect a Governor, or a Judge, or a legislator, or
even a justice of the peace, a constable, a road supervisor,
or a school director, without leaving it to the General Gov
ernment to decide who should vote at the election . The one
can as much be fixed by the Constitution of the United
States as the other, and each is alike subversive in principle
of the whole State government.
Fellow-citizens of Ohio, I boldly assert that the States of
this Union have always had, both before and since the adop
tion of the Constitution of the United States, entire sover
eignty over the whole subject of suffiage in afl its relations
and bearings. Ohio has that sovereignty now, and it cannot
be taken from her without her consent, even by all the other
States combined, except by revolutionary usurpation! I
affirm that the right to regulate suffiage is an attribute of
sovereignty belonging to each State separately, which has
never been delegated or transferred in any way to any other
power or sovereignty whatever; that it inheres to each State,

AGAINST THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT. 163
and is not transferable in any way to any other power, except
by the social compact of the sovereign people thereof. The
right to regulate suffiage as to the organization of its own
government, and the election of officers under it, is an inal
ienable attribute of sovereignty which the State could not
surrender without surrendering its sovereign existence as a
State. It may well be conceded that the social compact
which brought into existence the federative community already
described, might have clothed that community with the right
to regulate suffiage as to the choice of the officers of its own
government; but the compact did not. Much less did it
clothe such federative community with any such attribute
of sovereignty over the States. I will concede, too, that,
with the unanimous consent of all the States, the choice of
the Federal officers now devolved on the diff'erent organs
of the State government might be transferred to such elective
agents as might be provided for in the Federal Constitution.
But this would require the consent of all the States, be
cause not being one of the sovereign powers delegated to the
Federal Constitution by the federate social compact, an
amendment can not confer a new power, but only perfect or
modify an old. To take from Ohio the power of determin
ing who shall exercise the right of suffiage in her own gov
ernment, is not an amendment of the Constitution; but a
revolutionary usurpation by the other States, in no wise con
stitutionally binding upon her sovereignty as a State.
Thus far, gentlemen, as to the principle of this pretended
amendment. That principle, as we have seen, leaves the
States at the mercy of the General Government; and, in the
end, consolidates afl our governments into a central Imperial
ism. But the policy is not less obnoxious than the principle.
It must lead practically to the overthrow of civil as well as
political liberty. There was a time when there was no need
to discuss this. In the pure, simple-minded days of the Re
public, the right of local self-government was dear to the

164. SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
hearts of the people. They regarded it as the only shield,
as indeed it is, for the protection of their personal rights and
their individual property. These are the rights, too, worth
more to the great working, honest masses, than all the most
dazzling privileges beside! Protection to the person, free
dom of thought and action, a right to the fruits of honest
labor, security to their homes, are the greatest blessings any
government can vouchsafe its people! And it was once
thought there was no security for these but in the responsi
bility of political agents near to and chosen by the people in
their local communities. They fought for this in the old rev
olution. They organized their governments on this idea,
when their independence was achieved. But in these evil
days, when most of the great tribunes of the people have
been driven from the places of power, and when narrow-
minded partisan policy and sinster selfishness rule the hour,
the people have become so accustomed to corruption and
usurpation, that they are less keenly alive to the insidious ad
vances of despotism. For tyranny, like vice, when
" Seen too oft, familiar with her face.
We first endure, then pity, then embrace."
The Fourteenth Amendment was the entering wedge for
the overthrow of Federal institutions, and the establishment
of Imperialism. Revolutionary and unconstitutional as it
was, it was acquiesced in by the non-ratifying States, because
obedience to it was required at the point of the bayonet, and
resistance would have been war. By it the civil rights of the
inhabitants of the States were taken from their protection,
and placed under the guardianship of the Federal Govern
ment. Courts and schools for the colored race were estab
lished, and negroes fed, clothed and educated at the National
expense; and that, too, in the midst of States which had
never seceded. Passive obedience being yielded to this usur
pation, these minions of Imperialism have taken one step for
ward, and propose now, by gaining control of suffiage, to

AGAINST THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT. 165
undermine the very foundations of the States. They know
that the States are the great bulwarks of popular rights, and
that, unless their walls are dismantled and demolished, the
people will ultimately take refuge behind them, and defy the
advance of the Imperial revoliition. What means the un
blushing violation, not only of the Constitution, but of every
civil right, the immemorial heritage of the American people,
which has for years trampled liberty under foot in the South?
What means the apathy with which an Imperial journal is
now received, which, but a few years ago, would have been
greeted with indignant hissings of scorn and contempt? I
warn you, my fellow-citizens, if you ever surrender these con
stitutional ramparts, the State governments, your personal
and political liberties are gone! Repair every breach, man
every gun, strengthen every outpost, drive back every corps
of sappers and miners; be deluded by no siren song of
national grandeur; be lulled to sleep by no soft voice whis
pering there is no danger; be vigilant, be active, be sleepless.
But, my fellow-citizens, we must not overlook the immedi
ate practical purpose of the amendment. It nationalizes
negro suffiage. This question of negro suffiage has been so
often and fully discussed before you, that a repetition of it
in detail would be a work of supererogation. Two years
ago it was the direct issue before the people of Ohio, and
was voted down by a majority of fifty thousand. On this
issue you elected a Legislature, and last winter that Legisla
ture rejected the Fifteenth Amendment. But now the Rad
icals make it the issue again in a still more objectionable
shape. As an amendment to the State Constitution, it is
competent for Ohio, if she choose, to legalize negro suffiage ;
but as an attempted amendment to the Federal Constitution
it is usurpation unless adopted by every State in the Union.
If you, my feflow-citizens, rejected it by so overwhelming a
majority as a part of the Constitution, when you could have
undone the work if you became dissatisfied with it, why
14

166 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
should you now aid to make it a part of the Federal Consti
tution when your act alone can never revoke it, and when
one-tenth of the whole American people can prevent its ever
being revoked ? Why should you aid in forcing it on Ken
tucky and other Southern States? As to you, the evil would
be comparatively small, for it would enfranchise few in Ohio
of that class of population who are not already voters under
the decisions of our courts. But in the lately slave-holding
States, you, everywhere, give to the late slaves the political
balance of power. Is this right on the principles of comity
and good neighborhood which ought to animate the sister
States? But, if my Radical friends will not acknowledge any
aflegiance to the spirit of brotherly amity toward the South,
will they not be moved by their own interests? Do they be-'
lieve that the negro of the South can be long controlled to
vote the Radical ticket? It is too clear for argument that
this whole scheme of negro suffiage is intended to place the
control of the Southern States in the hands of Northern ad
venturers, who are to manipulate the negro vote, and make
the South an appendage to Northern Radical power. But
let Radical ambition take heed ! The scheme will fail. In a
very few years the native Southerners will control the negro
vote; for it is preposterous to suppose they will be, during
this generation, at least, anything more than pawns on the
chess-board of politics — puppets in the hands of political
wire-workers. They wfll be used in the South to elect Dem
ocrats before the ink is dry that writes the ratifying proclama
tion. I do not oppose the amendment, therefore, because
its adoption will operate against my party, nor ask you to do
so; but because it is wrong in principle and policy. These
rude children of nature are unfit for suffiage. They know
nothing of our institutions. Thousands of them to-day be
lieve in the Voodoo worship of heathen Africa, and could be
taught its rites sooner than made to understand the duties of
a voter. Though far more intelligent in the Northern States,

AGAINST THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT. 167
who does not know that the great body of them have no en.
lightened sense of the great and responsible duties of citizen
ship? The voter is a law-maker, a ruler, a political sovereign.
It is from no ill-will towards the colored race ; from no dispo
sition to oppress them, or to rob them of the civil rights of
men that we withhold from them the privilege of suffiage.
No more than these reasons prompt us to oppose conferring
suffiage on women or children. I will not detain you now
to discuss the true basis on which the right of suffrage rests.
I have in past years done it at length, and must not repeat
myself Time has but strengthened my former convictions,
and events intensified my forrher opposition.
Fellow-citizens, let me remind you that I have, ever since
the war closed, charged upon the Republican party the de
sign to retain power by enfranchising the negroes. In 1866,
when canvassing for Congress against General Schenck, I
everywhere charged it home upon him, and everywhere his
friends denied it. He evaded the issue. I insisted that the
Radicals would ultimately force it on Ohio and the Nation.
Any such purpose was, in the West, indignantly denied in
Radical speeches to the people. But having succeeded in ob
taining another lease of power in most of the States, the
party proposed negro suffrage wherever they thought it would
succeed. But the people voted it down wherever proposed
— in Connecticut, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota and Kansas.
But so eager were these leaders to get possession of this
coveted engine of power, which they supposed would make
them omnipotent, and their rule perpetual, that they, in the
face of these defeats, proposed the Fifteenth Amendment,
hoping to have it adopted while their creatures held power in
the Southern States. You wifl observe, gentlemen, they did
not dare to submit this amendment to the people. They
submitted it to the Legislatures of the States — and so they
have all their amendments. Congress was not at all elected
on such an issue, and most of the State Legislatures were

168 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
not. It was competent, and would, under the circumstances,
have been highly proper to submit all these Radical amend
ments to the people, for they all directly affected them.
Why did they shrink from the test of popular approval?
Why did they submit to Legislatures elected on other issues
so important an amendment which less than half the people
might ratify, and less than a tenth might prevent being re
pealed? Sir, it was because the real soul and ultimate pur
pose of the whole scheme is to overthrow the States, defraud
¦ the people out of their political rights, and finally establish
an Imperial Government. And step by step they are edu
cating the people up to that point. The party leaders denied
in the outset intending universal negro suffrage, but they
brought their party up to it. They would now equally deny
that they intend the overthrow of the States and the estab
lishment of Imperialism; but that, too, will come in due
time, if the centralizing revolution is not checked. It is the
natural outgrowth of the present Radical policy. Let the
negroes of the South be enfranchised and voted against them.
Let millions of Chinese be imported with their cheap labor,
and enfranchised, to be the tools of political parties; let
three thousand mfllions of national debt make the public
creditors and bondholders the balance-wheel of a moneyed
aristocracy, fearing repudiation by the votes of the tax-ridden
masses, and how long wifl free suffrage last? How soon wfll
the friends of a strong government persuade the rich and the
well-born that universal suffrage is as great a heresy as State
Rights, and fit only for a rude state of society? It wfll soon
be said that accumulated wealth can not allow itself to be
taxed by the votes of the laboring miflions, who, as they
already claim, pay only nominal taxes. Beware, gentlemen,
of the danger which threatens you. Allow the States by
this amendment to be shorn of their electoral sovereignty,
and you have admitted the fabled Grecian horse into the
citadel of popular liberty.

AGAINST THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT. 169
In conclusion, allow me to appeal to you, my fellow-
Democrats, the "old guard" of the Constitution. Be up
and doing "while it is day: the night cometh when no man
can work." The destinies of the future are in your hands.
The great, perhaps the final struggle, is upon us. One
man — a single vote by the humblest citizen — may save the
country. ' Let then each patriot grapple with the enemy as
if it were he, "On whose sole arm hangs victory."
And you, my Radical friends, in the name of all that is
sacred in the past ; in the name of all the hopes of the future,
pause in your mad career of usurpation ! We are all em
barked as fellow-partners in the same enterprise. If we go
down in the wild storm of revolution that now rages around
us, you must go down with us. The helmsmen whom you
have entrusted, have thrown overboard the Constitution, and
with no chart or compass but selfish ambition, are madly
driving with full head of steam and all sails set, into the
rushing current and upon the destroying rocks of that cata
ract, whose sur-ging, plunging waters may, as they fall, be
buried in a boundless dead sea, unfathomable as the bottom
less pit, and black as eternal night! Arouse! Shake off
your slumbrous apathy ! There is yet time to avert the im
pending ruin and bring the struggling vessel safe into port.
You may close your ears to my appeal ! My voice may not
be heard, or may pass unheeded amid the din and strife.
Our constitutional liberties may be engulfed, and the frag
ments of the wreck float about on that dark sea over whose
turbid waters the brooding night of despotism shall hang
Hke a pall! But I have spoken with the fearless utterance
of a free citizen, who once bared his bosom to the storms of
war for his country, and who is ready to die, if events de
mand the sacrifice, for that constitutional liberty now sought
to be overthrown. And if some curious inquirer, groping in
the wreck of the half-remembered past, with the lamp of ex-

170 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
perience for his guide, shall find these warning words cling
ing to the humblest shred of my country's departed glory,
he will know that at least one man had the courage to
denounce this usurping amendment as treason to the liberties
of the American people.

SHERMAN'S MARCH TO THE SEA."
[A response to that toast at the Banquet of the Society of the Army of the
Cumberland, at their Reunion at Indianapolis, December 16th, 1869.]
Comrades :
The real progress of nations is often greatest when peace
is most profound. Yet the events of peace and prosperity
fill small space on the page of history. Such scenes are too
tame to excite the passions or the imagination, however they
maj' gratify the moral sense. Their narrative is therefore
glanced over by the unmoved reader with drowsy indifference
or quiet satisfaction. It is only when events are dramatic
and grand, when alternate hope or fear dominates the souls
of the actors, that the record of the past is spirit stirring,
and arouses like the voice of a trumpet. We hang with
feverish anxiety or fiery ardor upon that glowing page which
depicts the death grapple of heroes, or portrays struggles
where the fate of millions hangs trembling in the balance.
On such a page is written the story of that great drama in
which each of us acted, however humbly, his allotted part.
With eager eye every future period will read of the Secession
War, and ponder its fearful lesson. The seething conflict of
ideas, the combatants' rage of commingled love and hate,
the steady assault and soldiery defense, the patriotic devo
tion on the one side, and the chivalric adherence to a falling
cause on the other — all will forever clothe the epoch with
the most fascinating interest.
But as a great picture has both its fore-ground and its
back-ground, so this mighty conflict has its key points of con
ception and achievement, which stand out in bold relief
from the historic canvas. The hoarse voice of the rushing
thousands who, on the first call, demanded to fight under

172 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
yonder flag ; the Emancipation Proclamation, and the anguish
of the people when the Martyr President sealed his devotion
with his blood, must ever thrill us with emotion. But with
even a keener intensity will the military prowess of the great
Captains excite the wonder of coming times. And among
their exploits the grandest in conception and the most bril
liant in achievement was " Sherman's March to the Sea." It
is marked by every element of genius; its fame will be not
merely historical, but will live in tradition robed in all the
splendors of imagination.
To the mere student of military science the fertility of re
source displayed by McClellan, the hero of the dreadful
"seven days" around Richmond affords a lesson which will
be the more admired the longer it is studied, and will not fail
to invite the inquiry what such genius might have accom
plished under happier auspices. But it lacked the military
sanction of success. The masterly strategy of Rosecrans,
always successful where success was not impossible; the
steady, unfaltering career of that "noblest Roman of them
all," Thomas, who never niade a mistake; the dashing ardor
and reckless eagerness to fight which bore the gallant Sheri
dan into the flying hosts at " Winchestertown " and redeemed
the day; the indomitable perseverence of Grant, which, in
"fighting it out on that line," could snatch victory from the
jaws of defeat, will each fill its appropriate niche in the tem
ple of fame. Martial science, and history, and song will tell
of these great captains. But the " March to the Sea " links
Sherman's name with the legendary tales of the nursery and
the hearthstone, in all countries and languages. Of Alexan
der, of Hannibal, of Caesar or Ndpoleon, how little is known
by the uncounted miflions except their names. So will fade
from popular remembrance most of the events with whose
noise the world has been so recently full. Stifl the "March
to the Sea," like the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, the cross
ing of the Rubicon or the Battle of Waterloo will grow con-

Sherman's march to the sea. 173
stantly more vivid with the lapse of ages. When we stand
near some lofty mountain whose shaggy sides bristle with
rocks, and whose crest is obscured in clouds, we are apt to
underestimate its magnitude. The babbling brooks and pic
turesque waterfalls, the fruitful fields and flowery gardens,
the nestling vfllages and busy hum of industry at its base,
beguile us froih the observation of its majestic proportions.
As we recede from it, these humbler attractions fade from the
view. Streamlet, and garden, and village are lost to the eye,
and the mountain alone, in its solitary grandeur, with its foot
on the earth and its head in the heavens, mellowed
and hazy in the dim distance, fills the admiring gaze. So, as
from the great rebellion, century after century files off in the
march of time, the throng of surrounding events which now
provoke comparison or inspire admiration one by one sink
out of sight, while the cloud-capped mountain top, "Sher
man's March to the Sea," still towers above the horizon.

MEMORIAL DAY ORATION.
[An address delivered at Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati, Ohio, May
SOth, 1870, at the decking, with flowers, of soldiers' graves.]
Five years have borne us forward from the scenes of
fratricidal strife and the anguish of bereavement, to the repose
of peace and the cherished memories of a chastened grief;
and to-day we stand here amid the hallowed ashes of the
dead to keep green the memory of their unselfish devotion,
and " to feel anew on the altars of our hearts the holy fires
of an exalted patriotism." Filled with devotion to our coun
try, and solemnized by the mementoes that surround us, we
shall be in some degree prepared to appreciate the services
and the virtues of the Union Soldier. It is perhaps too soon
to pass in full review the magnitude of those services. We
are yet too near the opinions and events out of which the late
war grew to be unanimous as to the value of its results. When
the passions of the hour shall have passed away and their
faint shadows only are found on the dusty pages of history,
then will all acknowledge the true residuum, of the conflict.
Let us not, on this sacred day, be controversial; but who
shall doubt that in the great future, the country will gain by
the destruction of the dogma of secession and the overthrow
of slavery in the South? Whatever else may be said, it can
not but be admitted that the slave institution was founded in
the habits and ideas of the olden time, and was not suited to
the commercial and progressive tendencies of this age. It
was at war, too, with the prevailing moral and religious spirit
in all civilized countries. The hand on the dial plate of pro
gress could not go backward. But aside from these consider
ations, the fall of slavery ended a sectional strife which must
have been coeval with its existence. While it continued

MEMORIAL DAY ORATION. 175
there never could have been forbearance enough on either
side to prevent it being a source, of "irrepressible conflict."
Still more are we indebted to the war for the overthrow of
secession. While that dogma controlled the thought of one
section, the Union was but a rope of sand. The war has
made its practical realization an impossible dream. The acute
dialectician may puzzle the political thinker as to the technical
nature and obligation of the Constitution, but the practical
statesman, and still more the honest masses of the people,
will forever hereafter regard it as the sacred covenant of a
perpetual union, a union born amidst the throes of the
American Revolution, cradled in the lap of three generations
of prosperous growth, and baptized into eternal life in the
sacrificial blood of the great Rebellion. My feflow-citizens,
the war rendered a service still greater than this. The Con
stitution and the Union are the guardians of our liberties, but
the people and their rights are above all constitutions — higher
than any human organization. The people alone are sov
ereign. Whatever organizes and defines their consciousness
of National life and of individual' rights, whatever intensifies
their patriotic spirit, and inspires confidence in their future
progress as a people, is worth more than all paper institu
tions. While the old Roman believed that Terminus, his
god of boundaries, marched ever outward, the Republic was
invincible. The Russian peasant has implicit faith in the con
quering power of the Czar,- and disgrace never comes to the
banner of the double-headed eagle. The haughty Britain
makes his " morning drum beat, following the sun and keep
ing company with the hours, circle the earth," because he
never doubts the omnipotence of British power. Our late
success has confirmed the Amerian citizen in the same un
faltering faith in his country's future. The fear of dissolu
tion, the dread of anarchy, is ended. The Great Republic
has, passed the dangerous pitfalls and quicksands of a pas
sionate and stormy youth, and has by the re-establishment

176 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
of the Union, assumed the toga virilis of a full and vigorous
manhood among the nations of the earth. Whatever may
befall the institutional organism of the government, the
National life of the American Republic is henceforth in no
danger of sudden destruction from within or without. Be
fore the war we were not ourselves sure that the Federal
Union would prove strong enough to withstand the assaults
of internal foes or survive the fires of sectional strife. And
abroad it was almost universally beHeved that the Union was
a feeble confederacy of naturally discordant States, which
would be sundered at the first blow of sectional rebellion into
befligerant nations never again to be reunited. From all
these hopes of rival nations abroad, and from all these fore
boding fears of friends at home, the successful issue of the
late war has cleared the horizon of the future. If there be
clouds in the American horoscope they are but the fleecy
vapors that follow spring showers, not the black thunder
clouds which omen the coming storm. Our feats in the fu
ture lie not in the weakness, but in the perhaps too rapidly
growing strength of the nation. Suddenly accumulated and
superabundant wealth begets luxury and corruption, enemies
more dangerous to liberty than the armed foe. Now that
National stability and greatness are secure, the patriot's task
will be to defend the freedom and individuality of the citizens
from the aggressions of power, and the contaminations of cor
ruption. The history of afl communities, as wefl as the
slightest knowledge of human nature, must admonish us that
he will have need of the whole armor of liberty, and will
find little time for slumber at his post. Voices from these
graves invoke us to be true to the cause of popular freedom
in the present and future, as these illustrious dead were true
to the Union in the pa.st.
But if the services of the soldier command our respect,
his virtues and sacrifices inspire our love. When the late
war broke out we ha'd been so long at peace that no full test

MEMORIAL DAY ORATION. 177
had for nearly two generations been made of popular patri
otism. The second war with England had been over for
forty-six years. We had occasional troubles with the In
dians, but they hardly created a ripple in the public tran
quility. We had had a war with Mexico, but it was rather
a gala march into a land of romance than a serious appeal to
the National strength, or a perceptible tax upon the National
resources. The Nation bounded forward when it was over,
even quickened by the temporary burden as the athletic
leaper, to quicken his elastic spring, dashes behind him his
encumbering weights.
Though sectional passions were maddening the popular
heart, the physical progress of the country — in territory, in
wealth, in pride and ambition — was unprecedented. Here
and there a thoughtful statesman looked to the future with
foreboding, but the great body of the people were tearing
down their barns and building greater; were marrying and
giving in marriage, even as in the ancient time, entirely uncon
scious of the coming flood. Suddenly, unexpectedly, like a
fire befl at night, came to the toiflng millions the assault upon
Fort Sumter. The Republic for a moment held its breath in
horror and rage, and then rushed to arms. One wild blaze of
patriotic excitement, the like of which the world had never
seen before, enveloped the whole broad land in the flames of
war. Two striking features in the condition of the people of
the North seemed illy to prepare them for the coming struggle.
The one was their utter ignorance of war, and the other was
the presence in their midst of so vast a multitude of foreigners.
How could the raw citizen become suddenly a soldier, and
how could we hope for devoted patriotism from a crowd of
strangers? The fearful-hearted might well pause and doubt
the future. But soon were these doubts solved. The foreign
born citizen served his adopted as though it had been his
native land, and gaflantly fought and nobly died, shoulder to
shoulder, with the native American. Still more striking was

178 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
the rapidity with which all classes adapted themselves to the
arts and hardships of war. The horny-handed son of toil,
and the velvet-palmed student boy, each wielded with ready
dexterity the rough implements of battle, and submitted with
cheerful obedience to the rigorous discipline of the camp.
My feflow-citizens, it would be hard for you to extol too
highly the merits of your citizen soldiers. How strongly
does it illustrate the hardy virtues of the American character
to see the high spirited young man trudge on foot under
knapsack and musket, with enthusiastic cheerfulness, while
his fellow, nowise his superior, but in the accident of rank,
is mounted on a stately charger and wields a sword, the im
memorial badge of aristocratic distinction. Perchance they
are brothers. One Hes under shelter after the fatiguing march
is done; the other, beneath the pelting storm and in the face
of a wily foe, stands guard through the dreary hours of night
over the slumbering camp. The officer commands, the sol
dier obeys. The officer is complimented in general orders,
and heralded by the public press; the common soldier toils
and fights, dies, and is buried at last in the common trench,
"and not one stone tells where he lies." Yet he is constant
in labor, devoted in patriotism, ardent in action, generous in
victory, and unfaltering in death. If fortune smiles, and he
passes unscathed from the lightning blasts of battle, behold
him as an angel of mercy, carrying his wounded comrade to
the hospital, burying his dead mess-mate and marking his
humble grave, or dividing his last crust with his captive enemy.
My fair friends, it was because he was a citizen as well as
a soldier that these virtues marked his character. ' He merely
camped in the field as a patriotic duty. His heart was at
home. Every mail brought him letters from wife or mother,
sister or sweetheart. He knew the affectionate interest
with which he was regarded, and burned to fulfifl the hopes
of his home and his friends. And when the war was ended
he eagerly joined the family circle and became an enterprising

MEMORIAL DAY ORATION. 179
and useful member of society. Ah, no! not all. Many a
brave veteran came home crippled and blighted for life — a
pensioner on the bounty of a grateful people. Many a gal
lant spirit paid the debt of nature on the stricken field, in the
hospital, or in the loathsome prison pen. In every scene of
this fearful drama the kindly influence of woman was felt, as
suaging the sorrows of the wretched, warming to ardor the
irresolute, and nerving to action the feeble. In correspond
ence and converse, in sanitary fairs and commissions, in hos
pital and prison, her gentle hand and her inspiring love did
their full share in the great work. Nay, to woman's influ
ence, more than to all other causes, is due the ready return of
the soldier to the peaceful enjoyment of social and domestic
life, and to the quiet habits of industrial pursuit. Her con
stant devotion to the soldier kept alive his remembrance of
home and his longing for its halcyon scenes. And may we not
fancy that the gentle touch of woman's hand, and the sooth
ing presence of woman's love, are spiritually felt by the
heroic dead as she strews flowers upon his cold ashes?
"It is a beautiful belief that
Ever 'round our head
Are hovering on noiseless wings
The spirits of the dead."
We come not here, comrades and fellow-citizens, to exult
over t*he miseries of a fallen foe, or to fight again the battles
of the past by reviving the criminations and recriminations
of a controversy now ended, and we would fain hope soon to
be buried out of sight forever. We are here in the spirit of
peace and brotherly love, to testify our affection and respect
for those generous hearted men whose bones repose around
us, whose bared bosoms stood as a wall of fire between our
homes and the invading foe, and whose stalwart arms struck
the blows that saved from destruction our beloved Union.
Animated by the spirit of a Christian charity, we are ready
on this consecrated ground to pray for those misguided

180 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
enemies of our country, who cost us so much blood and
anguish. " Father, forgive them; they knew not what they
did." We will even invite them to forget by forgetting our
selves the passions and the wrongs of a deadly struggle which,
whatever may have been its proximate cause, had its roots
deep in the antecedent history of each section, and was ren
dered inevitable by the weakness and passions of human
nature. But however forgiving and generous the spirit of relig
ion or the magnanimity of heroism may prompt the citizen or
the soldier to be toward a conquered foeman, neither requires
him to be so transcendently unselfish as to forget the gener
ous daring and the mighty deeds of the slumbering patriots
around us. The tear will fall more tenderly upon the bier
of the patriot than over the .grave of the unpatriot foe. Let
us, then, "with malice toward none, and charity for all,"
but with grateful hearts and patriotic zeal, strew flowers,
wafted to us by the sweet breath of spring, upon that sacred
mother earth in whose bosom our brethren lie folded in
sleep. Go, my countrymen, from these holy graves, from
the ashes of Lytle and McCook, Jones and Patrick, and the
nameless but not less loved thousands of untitled soldiers,
with hearts fufl of forgiveness for wrongs that are past,
thankful for the rich blessings we enjoy, hopeful of a glorious
future, and determined to hasten the day when perfect amity
shall blend into one harmonious brotherhood every section
of the country and every element of the American people.
" No more shall the war cry sever.
Or the winding rivers be red;
They banished our anger forever
When they laureled the graves of our dead.
Under the sod and the dew.
Waiting the Judgment Day;
Under the roses the blue.
Under the lilies the gray."

THE PERFECTION OF MANHOOD.
[A Masonic Oration, delivered on St. John's Day, (June 24th,) 1870, at
Batavia, Ohio.]
To assert that man is a social creature is to announce a
stale truism, a truism applicable to all races and to all ages
and countries. Recluses and hermits are the exceptions,
social aggregation the rule. To go a step farther back into
the arcana of human nature, is to reach the ultimate ele
ments of his social being in all its phases — the family. A
great writer has said that the family is the foundation of all
human progress — the original germ of civilization. From
this focal point the ripest student of human life and the most
philosophic enquirer into human nature alike start to travel
outward through all the ramifications of man's development,
or inward to the mysterious workings of that moral alembic,
the human soul. The family is the ultimate unit of human
ity. Man and woman has each but half a being till joined
to the other. And marriage, therefore, whether it be the
sacrament of nature, or the ordinance of a religious or civil
polity, is not only the most ancient, but the truest and
holiest as well as the most universal and beneficent institu
tion in the world. Coeval with the human race, universal as
humanity, it must endure through all coming time. Critic
ally examined there are few truths in the science of human
relations which are settled beyond cavil or dispute. But the
necessity of the marriage relation is one of these truths.
Perhaps there is one other which can with equal confidence be
affirmed, and that is the necessity of some form of political
government. This last sprang from the family. These,
then, are the primal institutions, the original and perennial
15

182 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
oganizations indispensable to social progress. But while
these necessary institutions are conceded, the forms they
shall assume, the sanctions that shall attend them, and the
myriad resulting questions which spring out of their exist
ence are as open to debate as any other subjects in the whole
range of thought. Polygamy in Asia, monogamy in Christ
endom, monarchy in Europe and republicanism in America
admonish us that these primal institutions have assumed im
mensely diverse forms in their development. And perhaps
uniformity is neither desirable nor possible, although mar
riage and government will exist forever among men.
In addition to these great organizing forces of society, the
family and its offspring, government, there is ever at work
elements of individual movement and social progress, not
finding development in either. Society has its movement,
and the individual members theirs, which, while they do not
overturn either marriage or government as an institution,
modify the forms and action of both, as conservators of
social power.
This spirit of society, while it does not assume any organic
form is a most potential agent in all the movements of the
race and materially modifies all the characteristics of civiliza
tion. Indeed, it may be said to be the essence of civilization
itself. As oxygen pervades and animates all physical nature,
so the social element is the very breath of life, without which
not even the existence of the human race could be pro
longed. This great spirit of society is born of the conscious
individuality and acknowledged brotherhood of all men, sen
timents ever acting and reacting upon each other, and whose
full development will give harmonious growth to all and indi
vidual completeness to each. Men may speculate upon the
unity or the diversity of origin of our race, they may dream
with Darwin, or theorize with Agazzis, but in the great
essentials of animal and moral life, there can be no dispute
that all men are brethren. Races differ, circumstances

THE PERFECTION OF MANHOOD. 183
diversify races, and climates recreate, so to speak, the very
species itself. Still
"There must be somewhere such a rank as man."
If any are to perish like the beasts of the field, so are all;
if one has an immortal soul to live on through the countless
ages of God, so has every other. They afl differ in degree, but
each glows with emotion at the grandeur of nature, fires with
anger under a sense of wrong or melts to tears in the anguish
of grief.
It is to this brotherhood of mankind that the influence of
religion, art, science, literature, and all that ennobles man, is
due. It matters not where or by what race a great truth is
brought to light, it is not the less a truth nor the less valued
because of its paternity. The Arab invents arithmetic figures
and algebra; the conquering Northmen drive him out of
Europe, but they appropriate his mathematics. Europeans
smile or scoff at the social hahits of the Chinaman, but they
borrow his mariner's compass. The ideas and the inventions
of every age and country are the common property of the
whole world. Knowledge is cosmopolitan and the heritage
of all men.
And yet notwithstanding these great elemental principles,
so trite as hardly to need a passing allusion to gain for them
constant recognition, the practice of men is rarely conformed
to their full acknowledgment. Bigotry, prejudice, avarice,
selfishness cloud the vision and pervert the judgment of men
till they forget, or for the time wish to set aside the great law
of universal brotherhood. Nay, through defect of education
or narrowness of inteflect they are not always able to perceive
the true method of its application. The "Perfection of
Manhood " consists in a full knowledge of the law and a cor
dial disposition to fulfifl its requisitions. " Thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself" is not less the Divine injunction of
our Saviour than the peremptory mandate of enlightened
reasons. And yet it is difficult in the whole range of human

184 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
organizations to find one institution whose action is pervaded
by this holy spirit. If we take the very religion claimed to
be founded on the precepts of the. Divine Master, alas ! how
much of the bitterness of hate or the zeal of persecution is
found under the pious forms of dealing with the errors of
heresy or the missionary work of converting the world.
Thousands of victims have been tortured at the stake, and
rivers of blood poured out on the field in the cause of ortho
doxy. And even now, when the church has less power over
the physical forces of society, we find hundreds of sects pitted
against each other and constantly stirring up intellectual and
moral strifes. Or, if we give the most favorable view of all
theological differences who shall say that the church, like the
world, is not found to fall very far short of the meek and
lowly spirit of Jesus of Nazareth.
If, from the pale of the church, we go abroad into the sec
ular affairs of men, where, shall we find even a professed ap
proach to the standard of the " Golden Rule? " Governments
are organized for war, actual or prospective. They treat, in the
main, all foreign nations as enemies, to be preyed upon by
force or trade regulations; and their own subjects as vassals,
to be filched of their liberties or fleeced of their earnings to
aggrandize the favored or the ennobled few ! In all the indus
trial and business walks of life the same spirit of selfishness is
found. Capital oppresses labor, and labor organizes "strikes"
to extort undue wages from capital. In social, and even do
mestic life, we find petty animosities, heart-burnings, wrongs
and jealousies quite irreconcilable with the precepts of
brotherly love.
Still, while we may justly complain that the practice of the
world does not yet fully conform to the high principles of
right, it would be unjust to the sages and martyrs of the past
not to admit that great improvement has been made since the
dawn of civilization, not only in the ethical standards of men,
but in the conduct of their lives. There has been, however

THE PERFECTION OF MANHOOD. 185
much we may admire the ancients, an evident advance upon
the faith and practice of past times, a progress toward a more
perfect manhood. And while we, my brethren of the mystic
tie, may not claim that in our institution, more than elswehere,
there is perfection, we can proudly say that among the social
organizations of mankind, the Masonic Brotherhood has done
its full share in elevating, refining and purifying the moral
sentiments and guiding aright the conduct of society. Through
much of oppression and contumely, and still more of miscon
ception and ignorance, our institution has gone on for ages,
ever constant through evil and through good report, and is
to-day stronger than ever before. And on this day, sacred in
the annals of ancient Masonry, we may well, without depre
ciating the value of other moral or religious institutions, turn
lovingly to the Mystic Order as the foster mother of every
manly virtue. In kindness and in charity to every church
and every moral agency under heaven, we may, with confi
dence, affirm that our institution is second to no social organ
ization in its tendency to the perfection of manhood. It is
not universally true that the antiquity of anything proves its
value. Errors, as well as truths, may become hoary-headed;
but no falsehood, entirely such, ever lived long.. Errors may
be kept alive, even for ages, by the few grains of truth with
which they are leavened, for truth is so powerful an essence
that, like the odor of the musk, the smallest atom hangs
round any object it touches almost immemorially. But the
antiquity, and at the same time the evergreen youth of
Masonry, prove it to be founded upon principles which,
though old, never grow older. Old as the elements of human
life. Masonic truths are ever fresh as the renewing verdure of
nature. The order can no more grow old, in the sense of
decay or decrepitude, than the verdant spring can grow old in
the cycle of the years. The great truths of the order are co
eval with the origin of society, and its systematic organization
is lost in the remotest antiquity. Authentic tradition, indeed,

186 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
can carry it back no further than the building of Solomon's
Temple, and at this sacred shrine we are willing to bow in
mystic adoration, as at the holy cradle of Masonry. For now
three thousand years, through every clime and in every
tongue, where civilization has had a being, brethren have
been bound to each other by the mystic tie and have greeted
one another with
" CHARITY WHICH IS THE BOND OF PERFECTNESS. "
Whether it was seen in Zerubbabel rebuilding the ruined
Temple in. Jerusalem, in Pythagoras training his disciples in
Greece, in the Christian Knight struggling to redeem the
holy sepulchre from the foot of the infidel, in Sir Christopher
Wren rearing London from the ashes of the great fire, or in
Washington round the camp fires of the Revolution, Masonry
was and is ever the same high spirit of true manhood,
bearing its votaries on toward completeness and perfection.
Nor let it be objected that the sacred tie which binds the
brethren is hidden from the world and shrouded in mystery.
Be it so. All that is most sacred in life and nature is a mys
tery. The spear of grass tells not of the occult spirit of its
growth. The tiny flower reveals not the mystic secret of its
bloom. The pearly dewdrop is distilled in silence under the
vefl of night. The throbbing earthquake and the boundless
harmony of the celestial spheres are enveloped in eternal
mystery. And yet the blessings of nature and the science
of her external laws are open to all. Fruit and flower bless
the humblest, and the devout inquirer into the "open
secret" of the universe is richly rewarded by the study.
Nature says to her worshipers, in her own dialect, as the
Great Teacher in the language of sacred writ:
"Pray to thy father which is in secret and thy father which
seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."
But though, like all things great. Masonry has a mystic
science known only to the initiated, the ordinary principles

THE PERFECTION OF MANHOOD. 187
of its life and the nature of its operations are neither mys
terious nor sought to be concealed. They may be seen and
read of all men. Though they are not ostentatiously
blazoned on the escutcheon of a holiday banner to minister
to an idle vanity, they adorn the daily walk and conversation
of the worthy brother so long as he stands upright in the
fullness of his vow.
As there are those who, through prejudice or ignorance,
misconceive the true nature of Masonry, shall we do amiss to
touch some of its elemental characteristics as a school for the
"Perfection of Manhood?"
Masonry has never assumed to be a Church, in the sense
in which that word is ordinarily used. It neither deals in a
speculative theology nor teaches a catechism of religious
faith or duty. Its religion is simply trust in God, love of
mankind, and hope of immortality. Religion, as commonly
understood and taught in modern times, enjoining two classes
of obHgations — duty to God and duty to man. Masonry,
not claiming to have a divine origin, does well to leave the
first class of duties to the especial care of those who claim a
divine mission and are the ministers of a special religious
faith. The Order founding itself on a simple belief in God,
embraces in its ample fold every form of religious faith and
tolerates every difference in religious dogma. It leaves the
road from earth to heaven open to all alike and trusts each
soul to such guidance as it may seek, from within or without,
in its pilgrimage here below. It leaves each soul alone with
its God.
But while the Order leaves all speculative and theologic re
ligion to the Church and the consciousness of the brethren,
no institution takes readier cognizance of the great moral
duties springing out of the relation of men to each other.
In its code of moral duty to man is duty to the Almighty
Father of man. Though its sphere of action is limited to
this world, that is found quite broad enough for the most ex-

188 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
pansive benevolence, and gives ample scope for the loftiest
conceptions of rectitude. While it deals with problems less
gigantic and mysterious, they are at the same time more
comprehensible and practical. It descends from the clouds
of spiritual conjecture to the soHd footing of man's brother
hood in the joys and sorrows of earth.
Man, as one of a brotherhood ; man, as a creature of flesh
and blood, of passions and impulses, of selfishness to be
curbed, and social affections to be cultivated ; man, as a crea
ture looking to heaven, but pinioned to earth — to many, in
these relations, the mystic order comes as a gentle school
master, without rod or ferule, to teach its disciples by moral
suasion how lovely a thing it is for brethren to dwell together
in peace.
Beginning at the very corner-stone of all human achieve
ment. Masonry requires of its votaries a recognition of physical
perfection in manhood. As the old Hebrew sacrifices required
the firstlings of the flock without spot or blemish, as the only
acceptable offering to the Most High, so on the Altar of
Mason/y a perfect physical man can alone fill the high stand
ard of the Mystic Rites. The appropriate "earthly house"
of a sound mind is a sound body. Perfect in every part, truly
balanced in every passion, temperate in every appetite, mas
ter of every physical organism, the body can then offer itself
as the instrument of the soul — the symbol of a spiritual man
hood. And our venerable order, in all its typical mysteries,
bears ever in mind that man, both in his bodily existence and
in his spiritual faculties, is but an atom in the universe of
mind and matter. It teaches the neophite that the gorgeous
world of matter around him but symbolizes the still grander
world of spiritual mysteries within him, and that the humblest
clod of the earth has within it the microcosm of boundless
nature. These symbolisms of the material completeness
necessary to a perfect manhood grew up in the olden time, and
derived their place in our order from the Operative Masonry,

THE PERFECTION OF MANHOOD. 189
in which our craft were then engaged. Anciently our Master
Masons were practical architects, and coming constantly in
practical contact with all the elements of physical nature.
The Operative Mason had to be an able bodied man, and he
had to deal with the great material forces and laws of nature.
How could he build without stalwart strength, and how could
his structure stand unless obedience to the great laws of mat
ter pervaded every part, shaped every column and poised
every spire? It was in the days of operative Masonry that
the principles of speculative Masonry grew up, and were
fashioned into that magnificent symbolic edifice, in whose
myriad-domed chapels so many thousand Masters and Grand
Masters now minister to ' ' pay the craft their wages, and see
that none go away dissatisfied." And every speculative Mason
may well be proud of the achievements of his ancient
brethren. To say nothing of the Temple at Jerusalem, of whose mag
nificence no schoolboy is ignorant, the more modern works
of the craft can not but swell every Masonic bosom with just
pride. All over Europe most of the grandest structures are
the work of our brethren. The Cathedral of Strasburg, the
most perfect specimen of Gothic architecture in the world,
whose faultless spire rises 466 feet above the pavement,
higher than St. Peter's or any other artificial structure on
earth, except the Pyramids of Egypt, was the work of a
Mason. There stands that noble spire, a model of airy light
ness and beauty, after the lapse of thirteen hundred and sixty
years, still looking heavenward, with scarce a wrinkle upon
its fair face. The Cathedral of St. Stephen at Vienna, now
more than five hundred years old, is another noble specimen of
Masonic art. If we turn to England, our own mother country,
what shall vie in grandeur and beauty with the mighty works
of our ancient brethren? Go to the venerable Westminster
Abbey, the last resting place of so many of. England's
noblest dead ! Go to St. Paul's, that Christian fane, second

190 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
only in grandeur to the work of Michael Angelo in the
Eternal City ! The strong and plastic hand that reared these
majestic piles was the hand of a Mason, who had answered to
the Master's gavel with the humblest. But, my brethren,
proud as we may be of these works of our ancient operative
brethren, we, if true to the vows of our order, are engaged
in still nobler work to-day. As spirit is higher than matter,
as the moral nature of man is above the physical, so is the
spiritual architecture of the modern Mason nobler than the
material structures, grand as they are, of the ancient crafts
man. The material phases of our work are now found chiefly
in symbols, and a true Masonry has now principally to deal
with the works of a moral and spiritual rectitude of life and
conduct. Worthy of attention as the bodily perfection and
welfare of man is, how much higher is that intellectual and
moral perfectness which makes man the "lord of creation"
indeed. Here does the modern Mason find full scope for the
exercise of all his faculties. As the body works imperfectly
if any organ is destroyed, undeveloped or diseased, so the
mind fails in its work if its faculties are dwarfed by ignorance,
warped by prejudice, clouded by passion, or poisoned by
superstition. The athlete must be perfect in body; the
votary of truth should be perfect in mind. The mental, still
more than the physical faculties, require strength, activity
and perfect equilibrium of development These produce
that rounded fullness of mental character which — and they
only — can fit the soul for the perfect exercise of its many-
sided nature.
Every man has within himself the elements both of good
and of evil. Culture of the evil and suppression of the good
would make him a fiend ; complete conquest of evil and en
thronement of the good might make man an angel. But
neither the one nor the other can take place. A tendency to
evil can never be eflminated from human nature, nor can all
sense of obligation to the right. Both good and evil must

THE PERFECTION OF MANHOOD. 191
continue to co-exist. If we would, then, best defend the
soul from that evil ever pitted in combat with the good,
there should be an alliance offensive and defensive among all
the elements of virtue. If every virtuous impulse acts in
harmonious conjunction with every other, though evil may
not be expelled from the out-posts of the soul, it can never
get permanent lodgment in the citadel. The reason of the
feebleness of the dominion of virtue over vice is the inharmo
nious action of its allies. The virtues, so to speak, are jeal
ous of each other. One gains power at the expense of the
other. One man cultivates religious emotion until he forgets
the existence of all else but God and his own soul. Another
studies justice so intensely as to exclude all memory of mercy.
One is such a devotee of pity that his eyes are ever red with
the tears of compassion. Another has so holy a horror of
the vices which lead to misery that he thinks it encourage
ment to sin to relieve the wants of the distressed. One has
such pride in his own sanctimonious purity that he fears con
tamination from even the knowledge that corruption exists,
and with demure composure shuts out all inquiry as to the
doings of others. Another, conscious of his own rectitude,
and full of zeal for the right, goes forth with fire and sword,
to purge the guilty land. And worst of all, many a one
wrapped in the mantle of self-righteousness, unconscious of
the ravening beasts of evil with which the wilderness of his
own soul is filled, sneaks about, a saintly hypocrite, with the
accents of virtue upon his siren tongue and poison unto death
in his polluting touch.
It is then only in the union of all the virtues, in the harmo
nious action of all the faculties, bodily and mental, that such
proximate perfection, as is possible to man, may be attained.
In that beautiful moral edifice, reared by cementing every
virtue in adequate and just proportion to each other, is found
the noblest work of man. It is the "royal arch " of human
virtues whose "cope-stone" is charity!

192 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
"Now abideth faith, hope and charity, these three; but
the greatest of these is charity."
As charity is the highest of all virtues, so its attainment is
the greatest of all achievements. It is the sublimated essen
tial principle of afl the virtues. As the attraction of gravita
tion holds all nature in miraculous beauty and order, the
spirit of charity is the etherial principle making perfect har
mony in all the complex organs of the soul. It can hardly
be said to be a distinct virtue since it holds, as it were, in
chemical solution the essence of every virtue. And this
renders its attainment all the more difficult. The habitual
cultivation of one virtue is comparatively easy, but the com
bined culture of all taxes human capacity to the utmost. To
move about with an ever present consciousness of obligation
to the Great Architect of Nature, and of duty to the con
stantly-shifting world around us, requires sleepless vigilance.
To love mercy without lowering our standard of the claims
of justice; to relieve misery without abating our abhorrence
of the vices which produce it; to look upon error without
losing our sense of its deformity; to submit to wrong with
out an eagerness to retaliate ; to " pray for those who de-
spitefully use us," is no easy task. But how much harder to
cherish all these virtues at onCe ! It is not difficult for the
pure to hate corruption, but how hard to avoid pollution
while healing its leprous rottenness? It is not difficult for
one guilty of peccadillos to wink at the short-comings of
others, but who shall be sinless and forgive the sinner?
Woman herself, clad in all the panoply of tenderness, is in
exorable to the weaknesses of her own sex,
"And every woe a tear can claim
Except an erring sister's shame."
We use not the word Charity in any narrow sense. Masons
use it in the broad catholic sense employed by the Great
Apostle. With us it is the divine spirit of brotherly love.
Mere compassion is but the out-gush of common humanity

THE PERFECTION OF MANHOOD. 193
at the sight of woe. That is universal enough even where
real charity is totally absent. Nor is it mere liberality towards
error of opinion or immorality of conduct. These are the
offspring of loose moral convictions or low moral tone. But
Charity teaches us to love our neighbor without loving his
errors; to relieve the wretched without sympathizing with
vice. But the hardest task imposed upon Charity is its exer
cise towards the uncharitable. When we behold the phari-
see, with hollow cant prating about the sins of others, and
puffed up with self-conceit, where shall we find grace to
extend to him the mantle of charity he refuses to others?
With brazen face he claims to need none. ~ How strong the
temptation to take him at his word and leave him to merited
scorn in his unconscious but transparent nakedness! But
even to such the sacred tenets of our order enjoin a charity
which we know will be neither requited nor understood. A
charity taught us, as well as the rest of the world, by that
Divine Master, " who spoke as never man spoke."
In conclusion my brethren let us not rebuke others for lack
of charity and be wanting in that virtue ourselves. Let us
look out upon human life with all its weaknesses and foibles,
remembering that we are all brethren, with like passions for
good and evil and born to a common destiny. Let our sym
pathies be broad as human nature and our charity universal
as human frailty. With forgiveness for the erring let us lift
up the falling; and at the same time with glad hearts recafl
the many virtues that adorn the great mass of our fellow
men. And turning inward our scrutinizing gaze let us each
search as with a lighted candle, every recess of his own
heart and expel any lurking selfishness that may darken its
chambers.

THE NEW DEPARTURE.
[An extract from a speech delivered at Hamilton, Ohio, September 10, 1870,
and circulated by the Democratic State Central Committee of Ohio as a
campaign document.]
My Fellow— Citizens :
The questions which so long agitated the public mind have
at length passed from the arena of popular discussion. Hence--
forward they belong to the domain of history and political
philosophy. The Government of our fathers, both in theory
and practice, have passed away. The Constitution of 1789
was founded on the idea of the perpetual obligations of the
federal compact on the one hand, and the recognized auton
omy of the States and the residuary sovereignty of their peo
ple on the other. The angry conflicts of opinion of the last
generation, and the revolutionary usurpation of power of the
last few years, have eliminated these ideas from the political
system of America. The government of the country is no
longer derived from the Constitution, nor held amenable to
its limitations; nor have States or their people any rights,
except at the sufferance of their lord and master, the Imperial
Government. The entire principle of the Constitution, and
the whole theory of National administration, are changed.
The last three amendments to the Constitution, conceived in
the hot-bed of revolution and brought forth by force of arms,
if their principle be carried out, have transferred from the
State to the Central — no longer Federal — Government, power
over all the social, civil and political rights of the people of
those districts of country — now no longer States — which were
once the proud homes of freemen. In the heat of partizan
strife the people have suffered the right of local self govern
ment to |be wrested from them ; and sovereignty, heretofore
residing in themselves, to be transferred by revolutionary

THE NEW DEPARTURE. 195
force and violence, to a power at once absolute and armed
with the means of perpetuating its despotic dominion. My
countrymen, I can proudly say that, to all the measures lead
ing to this overthrow of the Constitutional equilibrium of the
Republic, and this robbery of the popular right of self-gov
ernment, I have been steadily opposed. To opening up the
discussion of the old slave question, by the repeal of the
Missouri compromise, to the border troubles in Kansas, the
John Brown raid, the disruption of the Democratic party in
1860, the election of Lincoln, the stormy debate between the
sections, and all the other causes which precipitated the late
war, I expressed my determined opposition. My voice was
always heard calming the angry passions of the disputants
and urging the paramount importance of sectional peace.
When the war came, however, as it threatened to overthrow
the Union, I was among the first to rally to the National
standard, and only laid down my arms when armed rebellion
had ceased to exist. But during this dark and bloody struggle
I keenly watched, and steadily opposed, the revolutionary
tendencies of the Federal administration. Every violation of
the Constitution, every inroad upon popular liberty, every
outrage, upon the unarmed citizens of the South, met my un
disguised condemnation. And when secession had grounded
its arms, I actively and persistently favored the immediate
and unconditional restoration of the Union under the old
Constitution. Slavery, the disputes concerning which had
caused the war, had practically perished in its devouring
flames, and this revolutionary overthrow should have been
cheerfully acquiesced in and guaranteed by State action. This
the States concerned promptly did, and nothing prevented
the instant restoration of the Union but the fixed purpose of
the Radical leaders to overthrow the old Federal system and
institute on its ruins a consolidated imperialism. All the
tyrannical and unconstitutional measures, known as the recon
struction policy, tended to that same end.

196 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
To afl these things, as you well know, I was unalterably
opposed. To the last moment, yea, on the very day of its
final adoption by this State, I raised my voice in indignant
opposition to that final blow to State rights, the Fifteenth
Amendment. But notwithstanding the open and active re
sistance of the whole Democratic party, and the lukewarm
ness of many Republicans, these Radical changes were
clothed with the forms of law and declared to be part of the
Constitution. For one, I have no doubt that, legally speak
ing, they are all revolutionary and void, and if it was in my
power I would revoke them and return to the Constitution
of the fathers. But sad as the admission may be, this is, in
my judgment, plainly impossible. The peaceful revocation
of these amendments would require the ratification of three-
fourths of the States, and this no one can reasonably hope to
obtain. Reluctant, then, as we may be to admit it, the rev
olution is an accomplished fact. Though it should lead to
National ruin, still it is an accomplished fact. Nothing but
a rebeflion could revoke its work, and that would not, for the
great body of the people do not feel with sufficient force the
magnitude of the change. All parties seek repose after a
generation of strife. And though it be the repose of politi
cal slavery, that is accepted rather than a resort to war for
the revival of an institution. Control over suffrage is the
corner-stone of the State government, and its removal leaves
that government itself to rest only on the temporary prop of
Federal consent, and to fall into ruin at the will of Federal
power. But even to preserve their States from overthrow,
the people have not stricken and will not strike one blow.
The Constitutional guarantee by the imperial government of
civfl and political rights to the negro is as strong and wifl be
as durable as any part of the Federal Constitution. There
are many things which, though it were better they had never
been done, when once accomplished can never be undone.
And to this class belongs the late revolution. As well might

THE NEW DEPARTURE. 197
Germany seek to undo the Reformation, England to recall
the Great Rebellion, or Europe reverse Waterloo. Who
would claim that the Stuarts could be re-seated on the throne
of England? That the Arabs could regain power in Spain?
or the feudal system be revised by a statute? Though this
revolution is but a thing of yesterday, its results upon our
political system are as irrevocable as if it had been over for
a thousand years. It is not true that revolutions go back
wards, but it is true that events never do. The enfranchise
ment of the negro is an event which, however brought
about, can never be undone ; and whether for better or for
worse must be treated as accomplished. We may check the
full fruition of the revolution, which seeks to absorb all State
powers, and, for a time, preserve many of the benefits of
States. But the negro is henceforth a political element in
our system. He may have, and for a long time certainly
will have, very little independence of action, but his vote
will be counted, and he who ignores the fact counts without
his host. In my own political action hereafter I shall recog
nize as a fact the new order of things and conform to it.
What brought about this radical change in our institutions,
how these changes might have been modified, and what is to
be their ultimate result, are quesfions no longer profitable
for discussion. They belong to the closet of the student
rather than to the debates of the hustings. In my speeches
to the people now and hereafter I shall no more discuss these
old issues of the stormy past. Under whatever system of
government we live, the present time will always be pregnant
with questions deeply interesting to the people and eagerly
pressing for practical solution.
But though no longer wifling to discuss these "dead issues,"
let no one suppose that I can forget the mighty wrongs that
these leaders have inflicted upon the country, or ever cease to
struggle for their expulsion from the high places of power.
All their ideas of government are at war with mine, and I can

16

198 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
never either approve what they have done or intrust them
with the ordinary interests of the present time.
But, my countrymen, we need concern ourselves but little
about these old Radical leaders. From the very nature of
things, the days of their poHtical life are numbered. Parties
cannot long survive the issues on which they are formed. The
RepubHcan party is in the last stages of dissolution. It was
born amid agitation, and will die with repose. It drew its
Hfe from the slavery question, and they must be buried in a
common grave. The old issues being dead, the party has to
face new ones, and it is too old and effete to grapple with
them. There is even now no harmony in its ranks, and its
dissensions are daily growing greater. Nor ought the fall of
the party to be regretted by the rank and file of its own
members. Its mission is finished, and it must go with its
work to the dread ordeal of history. The leaders may be
reluctant to relinquish power, but why should the people wish
to retain them unless they can be trusted on the great issues
that are now arising? The Republican voters employed them
to do a particular work, and that being ended they will not
retain them unless they are fitted for the work now to be done.
The Democratic party, on the contrary, is in no danger of
dissolution, because it is founded on issues that must ever be
recurring so long as even the memory of liberty and indi
vidual equality remain, and the elements of human nature
continue. The Democracy is the party of the common people.
The party of personal rights as superior to property ; of labor
as against capital. True, the party seeks harmony in all these
interests, but when conflict arises they naturally adhere to
personal rights — to the interests of labor — to the equality of
the masses.

UNIVERSAL AMNESTY.
[A speech delivered in the Senate of Ohio, March 29th, 1871, on Hunt's
Resolution.]
The resolutions of Senator Hunt,^ of Hamilton county,
favoring general amnesty, being under consideration. General
Durbin Ward, of Warren county, said:
Mr. President:
As one of the minority on this floor, I wish to say a few
words before the vote is taken on these resolutions. When
they were first introduced, sir, 1 had hoped they would
pass. I had hoped that the party now holding the political
power in this country and on this floor would have magna
nimity enough to forget the animosities of the past civil war;
to expel from their bosoms its rankling passions, and throw
the broad mantle of patriotic and Christian charity over the
misfortunes, the errors, and even the wrongs of the belliger
ent parties. It seemed to me that the success, beyond ex
ample, of the party measures and personal schemes of the
ruling party would beget a feeHng, if not of moderation, yet
of such self gratulation at their almost boundless success, as
would make them take pride, if they were incapable of any
more generous emotion, in extending forgiveness and amnesty
to a foe so completely crushed as the Southern rebels. But,
sir, I have no such hope now. It is with no expectation that
these resolutions will pass, or that my words will influence
the vote of any senator, that I now address the Senate.
While these resolutions have been pending, sir, I have been
taught that the country has no right to expect the cheering
words of amnesty from the majority of this body. These
^See Appendix.

200 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
resolutions will fail. The senator from Hamilton (Mr. Hunt)
has misjudged the temper of the dominant majority.
But, sir, conscious though I am that it must be unavailing
to speak, a high sense of duty to the country and to myself
forbids me to sit silent when my voice may be heard in vin
dication of the right Though my words may fall by the
wayside here, some few, as they float out on the wings of the
press, will find congenial soil elsewhere, not choked by the
thorns of party zeal, nor impervious to the dews of Christian
mercy, where they may lodge and germinate.
Mr. President, I expect from the great popular heart of
the masses of all parties, that spirit of moderation and of
catholic brotherhood which is sought for in vain among Rad
ical leaders. Perhaps it is unphilosophical to expect lenity
from them ; for how could those craftsmen, who live by the
temple, be expected to do less than shout " Great is Diana of
the Ephesians ! " It is only a few days, sir, since the allegiance
of her votaries to the idol of party has been tested. I asked
the adoption, by the Senate, of a series of resolutions,' most
of which contained doctrines assented to in the past by all
the great thinkers of the country, and only ignored now when
they stand in the way of party dominance. If there were
anything in the resolutions which I offered to which senators
did not assent, though the rest were acceptable, the rules of
order allowed a division of the question, arid a vote on each
resolution might have been taken separately. But instead of
that they were voted down en masse. How can I expect
amnesty for a secession rebel from a majority who denies not
only the right of a State to secede, but the right of a State to
exist? How can I expect otherwise than fire and faggot for
a Southern Secessionist, when even a Northern Unionist, who
shed his blood for the cause, is charged with offering an ex
cuse for secession by simply asserting that the States have
some rights which the General Government is bound by the
'See Appendix.

UNIVERSAL AMNESTY. 201
Constitution to respect? The majority here have denied all
the fundamentals of the federal system, and by a consequent
implication affirmed that the Republic is in law as in fact a
consolidated empire, of which the former States are but
provinces. There stands the record, to be seen and read of all men!
Although every department of the Government had, on
every occasion up to the late war, affirmed the independent
autonomy of the States, and although all the leading states
men, as well as the courts, had given the doctrine universal
assent, yet, sir, now, when the interference of the General
Government in the elections of the States becomes a party
necessity, all these time-honored ideas are ignored, and he is
a secessionist, giving aid and comfort to the enemy, who
refuses to bend the neck to the yoke of our imperial lord and
master. After all this, I dare not hope, sir, that the pending
proposition will meet favor on this floor, except from that
great party who, whatever sins it may have to answer for, is
guiltless of fanning the flames of sectional strife.
But, Mr. President, this consciousness that I plead in vain
here for general amnesty, does not render me hopeless of suc
cess elsewhere ; nor does it justify silence, when every senti
ment of patriotism and Christian charity enjoins emphatic
utterance. I ask, then, the indulgence of the Senate, whfle
I, feebly though it may be, implore for the country that
peace, that sectional repose, that future prosperity which can
only spring from a universal forgiveness of the past — a gen
eral amnesty to all offenders.
Mr. President, in judging this great question, he is neither
a philosophic thinker nor a wise statesman, who does not
know, and constantly remember, that the late rebellion grew
out of a conflict of ideas — a war of interests. It is vain to
attempt such a perversion of history as would make the whole
North an army of saints, and the whole South a legion of
devils. Sir, there were virtues of character and errors of

202 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
opinion on both sides ; and so there were hair-brained zealots
and unreasoning herds of followers, both North and South.
Nay, there were time-serving and self-seeking leaders — ambi
tious and unscrupulous, on both sides of Mason and Dixon's
Hne, who saw no road to power but in the unquestioned
dominion of their own section ; and both alike looked to the
dissolution of the Union as preferable to the success of the
rival faction. How could a Northern abolitionist hope to be
President in a Union, as he styled it, "divided against itself"
— half slave and half free? And how could a "fire-eater" of
the South hope for power in a Union where his ideas were
voted down two to one?
But, besides these passionate and noisy disturbers of the
National peace, there was a deep-seated and wide-spread dif
ference of opinion among the honest inquirers after truth, as
well as among the less thinking masses of the two sections.
On the subject of slavery, and concerning the nature of the
Constitutional compact, there was a wide and honest differ
ence of opinion among all classes in the respective sections.
In the South it was said, and justly said, that the North was
as responsible for the existence of slavery as the South ; that
Northern merchants, while they could make profit by it, had
imported African slaves to the Southern States, and when that
was prohibited had abandoned the slave-ship for the power-
loom, and grown rich off the labor of the very slaves their
fathers had kidnapped from Africa and sold to their neighbors
of the South. Again, on the side of the North it was said,
and justly said, too, that slavery was a wicked and wasteful
institution, at war with the fundamental ideas of American
Government, repugnant to the enlightened spirit of the age,
and subversive of the laws of industrial economy; that the
institution was not only condemned by the high standard of
Christian philosophy, but contradicted our own professions as
to the rights of man, and at the same time dwarfed and im
poverished the very States where it was cherished.

UNIVERSAL AMNESTY. 203
The masses on both sides were equally honest, and the
leaders on neither side less conscientious or less ambitious
and time-serving than on the other. Reason, passion, inter
est, were alike commingled in the jargon of discussion
everywhere excited. And everywhere. North and South,
passion and prejudice soon came to rule the hour. Nor
were the actual movements which presaged the civil war the
work of one side. If Calhoun sought to annex Texas to
strengthen the slave interest, it was not till, for a dozen
years, the institution had been assailed by the pulpit and
press of the North, and the tables of Congress made to groan
under the weight of abolition petitions. And so on the
other hand, if a "John Brown raid" was made into Virginia,
it was not until the armed execution of an unpopular fugitive
slave law had exasperated the masses of the North. This
conflict of opinion, becoming intenser every year by dis
cussion, at last became a conflict of material interests.
Now, sir, neither side is more to blame than the other for
this discussion. The South had its chartered right to hold
slaves, but the North, the whole country, had its chartered
right to free discussion.
If both could not co exist, one or the other must give way.
It could not long be doubtful which would be victorious.
The weight of numbers, of wealth, of intelligence, and still
more, of the spirit of the age, was with the North. The
march of Empire in the West soon brought these conflicting
ideas into material contact in the Territories, and it was
apparent that opinions were now translated into actions, and
slavery must stand or fall by the arbitrament of the sword.
And, Mr. President, who was to blame for all this?
Would the loudest mouthed Abolitionist of New England
have surrendered the power and wealth of the slave institu
tion, had they been in his hands, at the dictation of his rival?
When did the Puritan stock ever surrender an interest or re
linquish an opinion to save the effusion of blood? And how

204 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
could he expect that the impetuous Southron would be less
ready to try conclusions on the field ? In considering then,
sir, what is due to ourselves and our conquered brethren of
the South, we must in justice remember that the war sprang,
not from the unprovoked rebellion of a section against a gov
ernment to which they had assented, but from the revolution
ary innovation of a class of ideas whose full development
could only be found in the overthrow of the whole industrial
and social frame-work of the Southern States. It became a
question whether the Union or slavery should survive. The
North chose the Union and the South adhered to slavery.
The wager of battle decided for the Union, and slavery is no
more. And now. Senators, why should you, the victors in
the fight, sully the grandeur of our victory in refusing to
make it still more illustrious by granting a generous forgive
ness to the vanquished?
Mr. President, there is one other view of the late war that
must not be overlooked. While the discussion of slavery
was its most potential cause, let it not be forgotten that the
doctrine of secession was not without weight. True, sir,
the States did not act in strict accordance with what they
claimed that right to be. On the contrary, they resorted,
before any ordinances of secession were passed, to acts of
revolutionary violence, seizing property which was confessedly
not their own, but belonged to the General Government.
Nevertheless, the general belief by large masses, if not a
majority of the people, in the right of secession, colored afl
their political ideas and influenced all their public conduct.
In the minds of their leading citizens, allegiance to the
State was above allegiance to the Union. This idea had
been the growth of generations, and was not a mere figment
of the brain invented to excuse rebellion. It had been born
in the old revolutionary times, and had for its parentage in
the popular mind, the venerated patriots, Jefferson and Mad
ison. It would not, therefore, sir, be just to judge these

UNIVERSAL AMNESTY. 205
people by the standard of opinion prevalent at the North.
We regarded the Union as the creature of a perpetual cove
nant; they, as a political treaty among sovereign States.
What to us was treason, was to them the exercise of a
political right. If, then, we seek to punish the motive that
influenced the rebel, we must in justice to him, and much
more to ourselves, view the motive in the light he viewed it.
And to do less than give him the same credit for integrity in
his opinion which we claim for ourselves, would be unworthy
of our judgment as citizens, and alike unworthy our prowess
as victors ; for the brave are always generous. We must re
member, sir, that the public opinion of the South was as
much the parent of secession and war, as the public opinion
of the North was the parent of that glorious uprising by
which the Union was sustained.
Nor is it a truth that the whole South were alike responsible
for the war. Nearly one-half of the people were opposed to
it, and were dragged into it by the impetuosity of their lead
ers and the necessities of their position, quite as much as by
any voluntary action on their part. They were borne onward
by the irresistible current of events, and to hold them to
the utmost responsibility would be an act of gross injustice.
Already have they suffered such desolation as ought to
appease the most sanguinary. Almost every household has
been draped in mourning, and the pride of the loftiest has
been humbled in the dust. Sir, the demolished villages, the
desolated fields, the ruined mansions of the wealthy, and the
squalid wretchedness of the poor, when the war for the
Union closed, ought to satisfy, if any wifl acknowledge so
unthristian a motive, the eagerest thirst for vengeance. All
these considerations, Mr. President, if there were no other,
ought to constrain, it seems to me, every patriot, not only to
support now, but to regret not having granted long ago to
the vanquished in the South — brethren still, whatever their
errors or crimes in the past — that universal amnesty which is

206 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
equally the dictate of enlightened patriotism and sound
policy. Mr. President, it has been claimed, and may be again, that
these liberal principles ought not to apply to the people of
the South because their conduct since the war has been such
as to deserve no lenity. Nay, the advocates of the recon
struction policy insist that they have been treated with the
utmost lenity already, and have ill-requited the liberality
shown them. Sir, I am surprised that such a claim should
be set up, and equally surprised at the cool audacity with
which it is asserted. But I do not propose to discuss this
subject at length now. I consider it among the "dead issues"
which ought, as soon as may be, to be buried out of sight.
Yet one word or two must not be omitted, though it may
arraign the policy of the Radical party.
What has the South done, Mr. President, since the war,
which ought to exclude her people from amnesty? Not an
armed hand has been raised against legitimate Federal au
thority since the surrender of the Confederate armies. True,
those people have objected to being treated as colonial
vassals or political slaves. But had they not a right to ex
pect other treatment? It had been declared at the beginning
of the war that it was not a war against the States, or the
institutions or people of the States, but was to be waged
simply against the Southern Confederacy as a political organ
ization. It had been distinctly announced that it was fought
to preserve the Union, "with all the dignity, equality and
rights of the several States unimpaired, and that as soon as
these objects were accomplished the war ought to cease." The
people of the South had a right to rely upon this open dec
laration of the objects of the war. Sir, they did so rely, and
as soon as the rebel arms were laid down, the great body of
the people, with singular unanimity, sought to resume their
broken relations with the old Union. Although slavery had
been abolished, contrary to the spirit of the above resolutions,

UNIVERSAL AMNESTY. 207
and in fact by a mere revolutionary usurpation of power, they
at once, for the sake of peace and in obedience to the avowed
wishes of the General Government, recognized the abolition
as valid, and conformed their State Constitutions to it. They
elected Representatives and Senators and knocked at the door
of the Federal Congress. Was there ever in the history of
the world so prompt and universal a submission by rebels to
the old government? Sir, if we had had the magnanimity
to receive them then with open arms, the joyous shouts of a
whole people would have resounded in one grand chorus of
peace, and, been re-echoed by the busy hum of reviving in
dustry all over this broad land. Why was this not done?
Was not the Secession Confederacy destroyed and the revered
and glorious old Union restored? Was not slavery, the bone
of contention, abolished? Were not civil rights everywhere
extended to the late slaves as fast as State Governments
could conform to the new order of things? Did not even
rebels weep for joy at sight of the dear old flag waving over
them as the emblem of peace and union? Why, then, when
this peace-offering of submission to the old Government was
so readily laid on the altar of the Union, was it not mag
nanimously accepted?
Mr. President, impartial history can give no answer except
that the Revolutionary party then and still holding the Gov
ernment, wanted to wage war upon and humble the authority
of the States themselves. They knew that their party were
and had always been a minority of the American people;
and they knew if the lately seceded States were allowed to
take their places in the Union, the Radical party would be
driven from power, and the old Constitution of the United
States re-established on the basis of States as a co-ordinate
branch of the Federal system. To hold power it was neces
sary to dismantle the States and reduce them from inde
pendent organisms to provincial dependencies. The old war
for the Union was ended, and a new war upon the States and

208 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
the rights of the people to make and control their own local
governments was commenced ; and now, after six years, it is
still being waged. In carrying on this last war the whole ad
der's nest of reconstruction reptfles has been let loose upon
the South. Act after act, each only more oppressive than
its predecessor, has been fastened upon the vitals of those
crushed and helpless communities. Hungry vultures that
fatten upon the misfortune of their fellow-men, have gorged
on a devoted people who so trustingly returned to the fold
of the Union. Is it to be wondered at, sir, that a people so
oppressed should feel galled by their chains?
Must no amnesty be granted because they have not yet be
come callous? If there be less a loyalty at the South than
could be wished, who can wonder?
Sir, there can be no truer loyalty, in my opinion, at the
South or elsewhere, than opposition to and resistance of that
denial of the rights of the States which is the soul of Radical
policy. That party has now no mission but the overthrow
of the States, and the States have no security but in the
downfall of that party. Secession never more persistently
nought the overthrow of the Union than Radicalism now
seeks the overthrow of the States ; and the duty of the
patriot Unionist was never greater to oppose and subvert the
doctrine of secession than it is now to drive the minions of
consoHdation from the Federal capital. The Radicals must
be expelled from power.
"Carthago delenda est."
Senators, are you not constrained to adopt this measure by
an enlightened public justice and a wise political policy? Can
you ever restore social peace and popular patriotism in the
South by onerous exactions and disabilities? The productive
industry of that section is repressed and its people discour
aged by your policy. You are teaching them distrust and
hatred, not confidence and affection. Remember Ireland, re
member Hungary! History is but philosophy teaching by

UNIVERSAL AMNESTY. 209
examples. Tear down the barriers of "reconstruction" if
you would have the two sections commingle in harmony, in
one proud nationality ! Nor is it less the interest than the
duty of the conquering North to adopt general amnesty.
Your proscriptive policy has impoverished your own section.
Your commerce is driven from every sea. Every industry
languishes ; every interest is cumbered by public burdens to
the very verge of bankruptcy. Your governments, State
and National, are loaded down with debt. Your people are
chafing under the galling chains of a ruinous protective sys
tem. The tax-ridden masses are goaded almost to revolt.
Extravagance, corruption, public plunder, nepotism, and all
the apples of Sodom, the poisonous fruits of ill-gotten gains,
await but the pen of some future Tacitus to pillory the era
forever on the darkest page in the annals of America.
Mr. President, let no one say that these views are at all
colored by any want of zeal for the cause of the Union here
tofore or now. The Union — the Federal Union — of these
States has been from my very boyhood the shrine of my po
litical devotion ! I have laid upon its altar the best years of
my life. In the period of angry discussion before the war,
in the long and dreary years of toil and danger during its
existence, and not less since it closed, I made the perpetuity
of that sacred bond of national brotherhood the object of
an almost idolatrous veneration. To me, sir, all the stormy
sectional debates were as the idle wind, which shook not for
an instant my steadfast faith in the Constitution of the fathers
and the Union under it. The wrongs of one side or the
other were but as dust in the balance which weighed the
value of the Union. Others might fight for or against
slavery; others might chop logic about the right of seces
sion ; others might desolate a section to gratify a fanatic zeal
or pamper a lust for power ; but for me the contest was solely
for the Union and nothing but the Union — a Union of equal
States — of constitutional law! From the hour, therefore,

210 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
when the flag of rebellion was first unfurled until it was
trailed in the dust, with musket and sword, with voice and
pen, I battled for restoration.
Not with passion, not with the spirit of revenge, not to
humfliate the vanquished, not to subjugate a kindred people
and waste their fair land with remorseless plunder or the con
suming faggot; but actuated by a principle, enthused with
an idea. A soldier of the Union, I went forth with the faith
of a crusader to redeem from the profaning foot of rebellion
the holy ashes of the revolutionary dead. So animated by
the memories of the past, and so filled with devotion to the
Union, I sought to make my course passionless and cool, but
resolute and inflexible. No compromise was even to be
thought of; no idea but unconditional victory even tolerated.
But, sir, when that came, when secession laid down its arms,
the war was over; the Union was restored, and every State
entitled to its old place. The victors might punish con
quered rebels as traitors if they chose, but they were to be
tried by the Constitution and laws of the country ; not subju
gated and dragged like Roman captives behirid the triumphal
car of the conqueror. I was, therefore, from the first in
favor of general amnesty. To appease popular passion, I
might have made an example of a few leaders ; but universal
amnesty should have invited all others back to the fold from
which, like lost sheep, they had strayed. Pardon should
have been the rule; the exception, punishment. We should
measure our victory, not by the miseries it inflicts, but by
the blessings it shall confer.
Mr. President, the people of all sections were actors in that
stern conflict in which the storm-clouds of civil strife were
charged with the thunders of battle, and where they saw
many a friend and foe stricken by their lightning blasts.
Amid this wild hurricane of passion, over the patriot hosts
ever waved the glorious banner under whose protection we
deliberate to-day. Then it rode the storm as the harbinger

UNIVERSAL AMNESTY. 211
of death to the foes of the Union and the herald of hope to
its friends. Sometimes it seemed half concealed by the
smoke, or rent by the gale ; sometimes strong arms faltered,
eager eyes grew dim, and hoping hearts waxed faint. But
who shall speak a nation's unutterable joy when upon that
standard victory perched at last? Though soiled with gore
and blackened with sulphurous smoke, it was a nation's ban
ner still! — the flag alike of victor and vanquished! Let
patriot hands, bathing those stains of fraticidal war in Lethean
waters, wash them from its stars and stripes and once more
rear it aloft, bright and unsullied, on the topmost pinnacle in
the temple of a restored Union of equaL States and equal
rights, and there let its folds peacefully float on the breeze
forever.

212 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.

APPENDIX.

Joint Resolution, by Senator Hunt, respecting the removal of political
disabilities imposed for participation in rebellion against the Government
of the United States:
Whereas, The late civil war resulted in the supremacy of the General
Government, and the restoration of its authority over all the States, and the
people of the South have accepted of the issue in good faith; and.
Whereas, The Federal Constitution guarantees to the citizens of each
State all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and.
Whereas, A proper regard for the fundamental principles of our repub
lican form of government, as well as every consideration of interest and
sound statesmanship, demands the removal of all unjust and unnecessary
restrictions and disqualifications; therefore.
Be it Resolved by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, That our Senators
in Congress be instructed, and our representatives be requested, to favor
such legislation as will operate in the unconditional removal of all political
disabilities whatsoever, imposed for participation in the war of the late
rebellion, and will restore equal rights and privileges to the people of all
the States.
Resolved, That the Governor be requested to forward copies of the above
preamble and resolution to the Senators and Representatives in Congress
from the State of Ohio.
Joint Resolutions, by Senator Ward, concerning the relations between the
General Government and the States, and interference by the President of
the United States in State elections.
Whereas, The President of the United States, at the last general election
in the State of New York and other States, attempted to take charge of and
supervise the same by military force under pretense of enforcing the Consti
tution and laws of the United States; therefore,
Be it Resolved by the General Assembly of ihe State of Ohio, That the Ameri
can Union is a duplex system, of which the Federal Government and the
several States are co-ordinate branches, and in which each co ordinate
branch is alike supreme in its own sphere of authority, and alike powerless
beyond that sphere.
Resolved, That while the Constitution of the United States guarantees to
each State a republican form of government, and to all races of men equal
right of suffrage therein, it confers no authority on the Federal Government
to create, model or control the political organization or the municipal laws
of such State.
Resolved, That the authority to determine the qualifications of suffrage,

UNIVERSAL AMNESTY. , 213
and to control its exercise by the constitutional electors thereof, is an in
tegral, indispensable element in the organic life of a State whose govern
ment is republican in the sense of the Federal Constitution, without which
neither the local sovereigiity nor the existence of such State, has any validity
in law or security in fact.
Resolved, That the 'States under the Federal compact, have as much right
to existence as the United States; and the interference by the General Gov
ernment with the election of State officers, under whatever pretext it may
come, is a practical overthrow of the State itself, which each State is in duty
and honor bound to resist by all lawful means in its power.
Resolved, That the late interference by President Grant, in the elections in
New York and other States, is a high-handed act of usurpation, unconstitu
tional and tyrannical, and deserving the sternest reprobation of all patriotic
citizens. Resolved, That we tender to the State of New York our sincere congratula
tions, that her high-spirited and patriotic Governor had courage and man
hood enough to stand .firmly by the rights of his State, and save her from the
humiliation of having her elections conducted under the shadow of Federal
bayonets. Resolved, That the Governor be respectfully requested to transmit a copy
of these resolutions to the Governor of New York, with a request to transmit
them to the Legislature of that State, and also that he be respectfully re
quested to transmit another copy thereof to the Speaker of the House of
Representatives of the United States.

17

THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF PRINCIPLE.
[Substance of a speech delivered at Elyria, September 9, 1871, and published
in the Cincinnati Enquirer September 11, 1871. Details omitted.]
My Fellow-Citizens :
On the 10th of September, last year, in my speech at Ham
ilton, I defined my position on what is now called the "New
Departure." That speech was printed by the Democratic
State Central Committee, and circulated as a campaign docu
ment. Speaking of the late amendments to the Constitution,
I said that these " Radical changes had been clothed with the
forms of law, and declared to be part of the Constitution."
I also said : ' ' For one, I have no doubt that, legally speak
ing, they are all revolutionary and void, and if it was in my
power I would revoke them, and return to the Constitution
of the fathers. But sad as the admission may be, this, in
my judgment, is plainly impossible. The peaceful revocation
of these amendments would require the ratification of three-
fourths of the States, and this no one can reasonably hope to
obtain. Reluctant, then, as we may be to admit it, the revo
lution is an accomplished fact. " * * * The enfranchise
ment of the negro is an event which, however brought about,
can never be undone ; and whether for better T)r worse, must
be treated as accomplished. "In my own political action
hereafter, I shall recognize as a part the new order of things
and conform to it." "In my speeches to the people, now,
and hereafter, I shall no more discuss these old issues of the
stormy past."
Such are a few citations from that speech. They are, so
far as I know, the earliest utterance of any public man in the
Democratic party announcing the doctrine of acquiescence.

THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF PRINCIPLE. 215
complete and final, in the new order of things, since chris
tened the "New Departure." I considered well before I
took that ground, and did so because I felt sure that to it the
party and the country must ultimately come. One year's
additional observation and reflection have but proved the cor
rectness of last year's pioneer opinion. Where I stood then
on this question I now stand. On this subject, therefore,
my fellow-citizens, I have nothing further to say to you. But
because we acquiesce in the revolution, and treat as parts of
the Constitution clauses which we maintain were never legally
adopted, this does not bind us to abandon our old theory
of the Constitution itself, or our old doctrine of a strict con
struction of its provisions. We insist that these amendments
shall not be construed to change the nature and character
of the Federal Government, or to annul the federative spirit
of the Constitution. The General Government is stfll limited
by the Constitution, and the States are still co-ordinate
branches of the Federal system. The powers of the Federal
Government will be enlarged, but the States still have sov
ereign, reserved rights, which the General Government can
neither exercise, nor invade, notwithstanding the late amend
ments. The States have constitutionally the same right to
exist and exercise their legitimate powers as the General
Government. We denounce, therefore, the Ku-Klux Bill,
and the Bayonet Bifl, and other acts of Republican legisla
tion, as unwarranted by the Constitution, even with its late
amendments, as subversive of the rights of the States, and
destructive of the great principles of civil liberty. But it is
not my purpose to discuss these measures to-day. Nor do I
propose to examine in detail the general financial policy of
the party in power. By a paper money system, inaugurated
early in the war for the benefit of bankers and speculators,
an inflation of the currency took place, doubling and tripling
all prices, driving gold entirely out of circulation, and ulti
mately compefling the Government to sell its bonds at thirty-

216 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
five cents on the doflar. By this ruinous system the National
debt was at least doubled. The premium on gold rose
steadily with the inflation of the currency, until the country,
intoxicated by this blind system of folly, reveled in a satur
nalia of extravagance and corruption, scarcely paralleled in
history. Nor will I stop to depict the wretched system of
bonded indebtedness and National banking, by which not less
than forty millions annually are wasted in the purchase
of bonds, at a premium, by law redeemable at par, and in
paying a bonus to bankers for what the Government could
better do without. Afl these questions are being daily dis
cussed by others more ably than I could hope to do, and
have on previous occasions been discussed by myself To
day I shall confine myself entirely to
THE TARIFF.
My fellow-citizens, this is a question which has been, until
very lately, scarcely debated on the hustings in America, for a
quarter of a century. After 1844, it was rarely alluded to in
the popular speeches of either party. The all-absorbing
questions of slavery, sectional discontents and aggressions,
war and constitutional changes were the exciting topics which
drove mere matters of money, taxes and finance out of the
popular mind. Amid the storms of popular passion, who
could listen to the prudential voice of political economy?
And even now when the billows of sectional strife, it is to be
hoped, will soon sink into the placid ocean of national peace,
how dare I hope for a patient hearing on so dry a subject as
the tariff system ? You have so long been accustomed to the
burning eloquence of passion, you wifl be apt to find the cold
discussion of economic poHcies tame and uninteresting. Be
sides, the subject itself is better suited to the essay or the
pamphlet than to the less studied completeness of oral speech.
I feel embarrassed, too, in approaching the subject, from the
consideration that at last I can offer nothing new. Though, as

THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF PRINCIPLE. 217
a subject of debate, the question may be new, the arguments
are all old. To the well-informed they ought even to be
hackneyed, though usually learned from books, not from
speeches. All I can do, then, gentlemen, is to seek to throw
into popular form some considerations touching the subject,
and to beg your patient attention.
Though spurious arguments were once used to prove the
contrary, it is now, I believe, generally conceded that the
tariff impost is, in the main, paid by the consumers of the
article on which it is imposed. A tariff duty is a tax, and
the consumer pays the tax. Setting out from this then, as an
economic postulate, the first question to be decided is whether
it is wisdom to impose the tax at all. Ought we to have any
tariff? But this is a question which we may at the present
pass by. We must have revenue from some source, and we
have, as yet, so imperfectly learned how to lay internal rev
enue taxes with wisdom, that we can not now dispense with
Custom Houses, whatever we may do in the future. Since,
then, we must look to the imposition of a tariff tax, for the
present, the great question to be considered is, how shall the
tariff system be organized? And in discussing this question,
the cardinal point is, shall we have a revenue tariff or a pro
tective tariff? It is sometimes said by the uninformed that
the distinction is unmeaning; that a protective tariff produces
revenue, and a revenue tariff protects. But this is only a
specious way of concealing a pernicious fallacy. A protective
tariff may produce revenue in spite of its protective features,
but not because of them. In proportion as it protects it fails
to raise revenue, and in so far as it raises revenue it fails to
protect. Its object is protection ; its incident is revenue. On
the other hand, a revenue tariff necessarily operates to pro
tect, but its object is reveniJe. In so far as it protects it fails
to raise revenue, and in proportion as it fails to raise revenue
it protects, and protects by failing to raise revenue. It is im
possible, therefore, to organize a tariff so as to embrace both

218 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
principles. A revenue and a protection tariff are of necessity
antipodes to each other. They are opposite poles of the
economic magnet. "Ye can not serve God and Mammon."
Our tariff must therefore be either for revenue or protection,
in the principle on which it is organized. I admit that it may
be for revenue as to some article.s, and for protection as to
others, but not for both on the same commodities. When a
tariff is, therefore, to be levied on any specified article, the
question at once arises, shall it be for revenue, or for protec
tion? Its object can not be both.
WHAT IS A REVENUE TARIFF
Can be readily answered. As the object is to collect revenue,
it is clear that is the best revenue tariff which raises most
revenue, if we regard only its revenue features. But taxes,
to be just, ought to be as low as may be consistent with the
necessities of the Government, and ought, as nearly as pos
sible, to fall equally upon all classes of persons and of inter
est. In a just revenue tariff, then, we are not only to look
to the amount of revenue raised, but to the equality of dis
tribution in its burdens. With these two objects in view, the
statesman need not fatally err in imposing revenue. As cus
toms can only be raised on actual imports, a revenue tariff
must not be so high as to check importation, for this not only
cuts off revenue, but disturbs the natural course of business.
If the article is taxed so high that the consumer can not afford
to use it, the Government not only loses the revenue, and
taxes must be laid on something else to supply the defect,
but the people are constrained to govern their consumption
of an article, not by their own wishes, but by the wants or
caprice of the Government. In short, the tariff ceases to
raise revenue, and becomes eithef prohibitive, or what is mis
called "protective." But as taxation ought to fafl equally
on the people, it ought to be so organized as to all articles
as not only not to interfere with the natural law of trade and

THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF PRINCIPLE. 219
consumption, but it ought to be on such articles as will dis
tribute its burdens most equally upon all. If, for instance, a
certain article is of universal consumption, it would seem to
be a fair subject for taxation, as it would throw the payment
of the tax upon all. But to throw an equal amount of tax
in dollars and cents on each may not be an equal tax, as each
may not be equally able to pay. To correct this inequality
as nearly as possible, the impost ought to fall equally as may
be on all articles of common consumption, because the aver
age of such consumption is in general proportioned to the
abiHty to pay. Besides this, the community constitutes a
commonwealth. It is the interest of each, and the right of
each, not only that wealth or property should be taxed
equally, but that its aggregate production should be stimu
lated, not repressed, because the more property there is to
tax, the less will be the pro rata tax required to raise a
given amount. Mere luxuries have no reproductive power.
Labor has, and is indeed the source of all wealth. The
necessaries of life are the life's-blood of labor. They are
the elemental forces which are aggregated into the concrete
force -^ labor — which produces all wealth.
To secure equality of taxation, therefore, in its large
sense, as heavy burdens should be thrown on luxuries as
they will bear without influencing their consumption, because
you thereby lighten the burdens on necessaries, the sinews
of labor, and stimulate the reproductive agencies in the crea
tion of wealth. This is done, not on the principle of sump
tuary laws, nor on that of controlling or regulating industrial
pursuits, but on the principle of giving the largest freedom
in the accumulation of wealth, because such accumulation
lightens the burdens of taxation. Nor is it to be forgotten
that the consumption of luxuries is generafly proportioned
to the wealth of the consumers, while the consumption of
necessaries is not. The consumption of necessaries by the
owners of labor is proportionately largely greater per capita

220 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
than by the owners of capital, while the reverse is true as to
luxuries. The thriftless and idle, it is true, sometimes con
sume luxuries in disproportion to their property; but this is
voluntary and exceptional, and it could not be justly asked
that industry should be taxed to cheapen indulgence to the
idle. But it must be conceded that an exact equalization of
the burdens of taxation is a desideratum not yet attained,
and when attained is more Hkely to be found in a system of
direct than of indirect taxes. We can only approximate.
The great prevailing principles of our tariff system should
be that it is only intended to raise revenue, and that it should
fall as equally as possible on those ablest to pay the duties.
Thus organized, it would be simply a system of taxation.
Whatever it took out of the pockets of the people, after pay
ing the expenses of collection, would go to the support of
Government. It is in its essential nature " free trade," inas
much as it can only be successful when it leaves trade and
commerce, production and consumption, free and uncon
trolled, each to be regulated by the wants of the people, and
not by the policy of the Government. It is essentially the
Commercial Code of a free people. An indispensable want
of a free people is freedom of industry — freedom of produc
tion and consumption — freedom of trade and commerce.
THE PROTECTIVE SYSTEM.
My fellow-citizens, it is a necessary predicate of the pro
tective system that Government can better regulate the in
dustrial system of the people than the people themselves.
It is linked in principle to the monarchical and aristocratic
idea in government, and antagonizes the idea of Democratic
freedom. It predicates that, even in domestic matters, the
few who govern from a distance are wiser than the many who
study their wants at their own firesides. It is founded on the
idea that the people can not wisely determine for themselves
whether it is best to produce an article or purchase it from

THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF PRINCIPLE. 221
abroad, or in what branch of industry it is their interest to
engage. It denies to the people capacity to judge what is
best to produce or consume, and in what market it is best to
buy or sell. It treats them as imbecile dependents, whose
guardian is the Government. If the people can not be left
free in their industries, what is there that shall not be regu
lated by law? Much as the ideas of the people have been
corrupted of late years in this country, as to the true func
tions of Government, I think it may safely be assumed, with
out argument, even yet, that freedom is the rule, and restraint
the exception. A man's freedom of action is a natural right,
and not a conventional grant of Government. If, then, trade
is an exception to this rule, it devolves on the advocates of
"protection" to show it. If the natural condition of trade
is servitude to govermental restraint, not freedom, then the
"protectionist " is bound to show why it is so. But I appre
hend this absurdity will not be claimed. One natural law
of trade is freedom, and it clearly devolves on those who
seek to regulate and restrain it to show for what reason it is
done. The onus probandi is therefore thrown on the pro
tectionist. He must show why he sets aside the natural law
of freedom in trade. He must show why it is not best to
sell where you can sell dearest, and buy where you can buy
cheapest. This is the natural law of trade, for trade seeks
profit by exchange, and this rule yields the largest profits.
It is the golden rule of commerce.
My fellow-citizens, I will deal fairly with the advocates of
protection, some of whom have been among the ablest and
most patriotic statesmen of the country. They have admit
ted that they must show the good policy of the protective
system, and have undertaken the task. But who shall wade
through the dreary volumes of crude arguments and deceptive
faflacies, by which its advocates bewildered themselves and
the people? Clay, the master spirit of the school^ never
claimed to make the system permanent, but only sought to

222 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
protect our infant manufactories. The pervading idea of his
policy was independence of foreign nations, and even antag
onism to England. Nurtured amid the passions of the old
Revolution, he seemed never to feel sure that we would not
again become Colonies of the mother country. With him,
therefore, to foster American manufactures was to secure the
continued independence of his country, and the ardor of his
patriotism covered with a halo of glory the fallacies of his
system. Let it be remembered, too, that our earlier states
men had ample precedents in the history of other countries.
It is only in the present generation that the most enlightened
countries of the Old World, England, France and Germany,
have emerged out of the befogging fallacies of protection into
the clear sunlight of free trade. The policy of Thiers in
France is but the accident of an hour.
PRETEXTS FOR PROTECTION.
But we must briefly consider the pretexts by which pro
tection is now sought to be justified. These are principally
threefold : First, that American labor needs protection from
the pauper labor of Europe. Second, that even if the price
of the manufactured article is enhanced to the consumer, he
is more than reimbursed by the increased demand for, and
the enhanced price of his products. Third, that the diversi
fication of pursuit quickens industry and enlarges production.
All these pretexts sound very plausible, but become thin,
indeed, on examination. Whatever of truth they may con
tain gives no support to the dogma of protection. First, is
the protection policy advantageous to the operative? Does
the manufacturer divide with the laborer the increased price
of his protected commodity? If so, protection gives no re
lief The manufacturer only asks protection, because he says
that without it the importer will undersefl him. On his own
theory, therefore, the enhanced price of the protected article
must go to him, not to the operative. He complains that he

THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF PRINCIPLE. 223
can not compete with the European producer, because
European labor is so much lower than American ; to raise
the price of American labor would, therefore, not benefit, but
injure him. So it is American capital, not American labor,
which is protected. The operative, on the contrary, work
ing at his old price for the capitalist, is a consumer of manu
factured products, and pays on every protected article he and
his family use the enhanced prices, which go to enrich the
protected capitalist. Second, nor is it true in the second
place that the enhanced price of the manufactured article, to
the consumer, is made up to him by the increased demand
for his own products. Take woolens, for example. It re
quires as many hands to produce them in Europe as America,
and those hands have as many mouths to feed and backs to
clothe. How can it matter, then, to the producer of the raw
material whether the manufacturer, who subsists on it, or
works it up, lives in Old or New England? It can only mat
ter to him, if at all, so far as the question is affected by the
cost of transportation. The price of a product, at a given
point, must be the same for all producers who seek the mar
ket, however different the cost of transportation may be to
each from the place of production to the market. This looks
at first as though the producer of raw material ought to have
the manufacturer and his market at his (the producer's) own
door, and so it would be better, if in the nature of things it
were possible. But it clearly is impossible, and here is one
of the fallacies of the pretext. Production of the raw material
is as diverse as the climates, soils, habits and wants of the
whole world. Consumption, therefore, can not take place
at the point of production merely or mostly, but must extend
to the point of demand.
A day's labor devoted to the raising of wheat in Ohio will
buy more oranges imported from Cuba than thirty days' labor
devoted to raising them in hot houses in Ohio. It is wisdom,
then, for the consumer here to import and not grow his

224 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
oranges; and, though not in the same degree, this is true as
to everything. That employment is best which enables a
man to supply the most wants with a day's labor. But an
other consideration is still more conclusive. Supply and
demand regulate prices. The price of an article will rise and
fall in proportion as there is a demand for its consumption.
This applies to labor as well as to everything else. If native
raw materials will not bear transportation to a foreign country,
and still sell at a profit, they can not be exported ; and if they
are necessary to the manufacturer abroad, either to be manu
factured by him, or to subsist his operatives, he must stop
his manufacturing or remove his factory to the base of sup
plies. ' ' If the mountain will not come to Mahomet, Ma
homet must go to the mountain." For the foreigner can not
sell to the American, if the American has nothing to buy
with. And if he will feed his operatives on foreign supplies,
he must find his market there, too; and if not able to do so
for all he has to sell, he must manufacture less and lose profits,
or transfer his business to America and subsist on our sup
plies. This cuts off the market for foreign produce, and the
foreign farmer must go to some other employment. On the
other hand, if the foreign manufacturer can find abroad a
market for all he can make, he would keep his factory there
and not come here. But, as the American agriculturist needs
and must have the manufactured products, he begins to man
ufacture for himself Farmers enough quit their farms and
build factories to supply the home demand. This lessens
the supply of agricultural products and gives the farmer a
market. Thus it will be seen that the great law of supply
and demand will regulate production and consumption, prices
and markets, and the whole industrial system wfll soon, if
let alone, find its equilibrium, as water finds its level.
Let it be illustrated on a large scale. Suppose every
fabric of manufacture, every product of mechanical skfll,
now used in this country, were at once withdrawn, and

THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF PRINCIPLE. 225
could only be had in Europe. Arid say that the pro
duction of these articles required all the labor in Europe.
Then, of course, some one would have to feed Europe, and
supply the raw material of manufacture. The foreign manu
facturer would at once see the folly of remaining abroad and
importing his raw material and supplies, for the cost of trans
portation both ways would cripple him and his customer.
Every steamship arriving in America would be covered with
manufacturing immigrants and machinery, till as now the great
body of the fabrics of manufacture and products of mechan
ical skill consumed here would be produced here. What
would then occur on a large scale is now occuring constantly
on a smaller one, so far as it is not checked and hindered by
the "protective" policy. Third — The third pretext is that
protection diversifies pursuit and quickens industry. This
may not be on the principle that obstacles make a man labor
to remove them, and the more obstacles the more industry;
or on the principle, that when you tax a man, his wits are
sharpened to evade fhe tax ! But how preposterous it is, in
this country, to talk of " protection " being needed to diver
sify industrial pursuits. Permeated everywhere, as the broad
land is with lakes, rivers and canals, and checkered by rail
roads and telegraphs, extending, as our territory does, from
the pole to the tropic, producing almost every raw material,
and filled with* factories, supplying almost every fabric and
industrial implement; abounding in cities, inferior to none in
the world in commercial enterprise, mechanical ingenuity,
and business diversification ; with town and country, the nat
ural complement of each other ; every producer a consumer
of handicraft manufactures, and every manufacturer and me
chanic a consumer of agricultural products, and the miner's
raw material, how can there be any lack of diversification in
industrial pursuits? In truth, foreign commerce and the con
sumption of foreign manufactures are a mere bagatelle com
pared with internal commerce and the consumption of manu-

226 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
facturing and mechanical commodities produced at home.
Home production is already the perennial well-spring of
supply, and foreign importation but the safety-valve which
regulates the force of the current and tempers it to the
national wants.
We need not pause to discuss the pretext sometimes urged
that protection, by building up manufactories in this country,
will create competition in our markets between the importer
and home manufacturer, and thus cheapen the article; for if
it did, the domestic manufacturer would ask to raise the price
by additional protection on the same ground he asked the
first protection, to-wit: that the foreigner was driving him
from the market by undersefling him. In short, protection
must raise the price, or he don't want it. Nor can we stop
to consider the pretext that because other nations protect we
must. This is akin to the argument that a horse will run
faster with a weight on his back than without it. It steadies
him. So, if two horses came to the track, and the owner of
one insists on carrying a weight on his horse to increase his
speed, the owner of the other must be fool enough to follow
his example; and logically (if there be any logic in it), the
heavier the weight, the more the nag's pace is quickened.
Such, my friends, are its chief pretexts. But let us con
sider a little what protection really means.
WHAT PROTECTION MEANS.
The essential principle of protection is that it raises the
price to the consumer, for otherwise it could be of no benefit
to the producer. If after the imposition of the tariff tax,
the producer would have to sell his product to the consumer
as cheap as before, it is certain that he would not ask the
protective tariff tax, for he would have practically to pay it
himself, and to that extent lessen his profits. It is clear,
therefore,, that in order to make the tariff tax a protection at
all to the producer, it must be paid by the consumer in the

THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF PRINCIPLE. 227
shape of an enhanced price of the product. If it does not
raise the price, the producer can reaflze on the sale of his
commodity; it confers on him no benefit, and is no protec
tion. It is sometimes claimed by protectionists that the con
sumer does not pay the duty. If not, who does? There
are only two classes, producers ahd consumers, and if the
consumer does not pay the tax, then the producer must, or
they must divide it between them. But if the producer pays
it, or any part of it, why does he ask its imposition ? Wfll
a sane man petition for the luxury of paying a tax?
As to this subject, commodities may be thrown into two
classes: First, those that are imported, but not at all pro
duced in the country. • On this class, whatever is paid and
whoever pays it, goes direct to the Treasury, and all that
the consumer pays on account of the tax goes into the
Treasury. Take tea, coffee and spices as examples. If a
single importer, or a few who could combine as one, owned
all the coffee imported, or that could be imported, he could
dictate prices to the consumer and make him pay the tariff
tax. And so, if there be a hundred importers of coffee,
they will undersell each other till the article is offered as low
as the cost of production and expense of importation will
allow. Now, if a tariff be levied upon it, the consumer
must pay it or not take the article, for the importer will stop
importation rather than trade at a loss. He must stop, for
he cannot conduct a business in which he is constantly losing.
So that in either event, the consumer must pay the duty or
go without the article. But in this case all the tax goes into
the Treasury, This is a revenue tariff. Second, the next
class of commodities is that a part of which is imported and
a part produced in this country. For example, cottons,
woolens, silks, iron, steel, coal, salt, etc. Now, if such arti
cles can be produced here at the same price at which they can
be imported from abroad, then the importer and the native pro
ducer stand on an equality, and to ask to enhance the price

228 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
to the consumer would be conceded by all to be sheer rob
bery. If, in such a case, a duty were levied, it would drive
the foreigner out of the market, if the home producer could
supply the whole market; for as the foreigner would have to
pay the duty before he was allowed to sefl, the home producer
could underbid him and take the market entirely to himself
The result would then be, that unless competition at home
kept down prices, they would rise to the consumer to the
highest point, which was yet below the price at which the
importer could sell after paying the duty. In short, then,
under such a tariff all that would keep prices down would be
the competition among home producers. Of course this
would be less active than before tha exclusion of the im
porter, and so prices would rise. The duty operating as a
prohibition, while it raised no revenue, would enhance prices
to the consumers by lessening competition among the sellers.
Even protectionists do not contend for a prohibitive duty;
and all concede that such a tariff would enhance prices for
the benefit of the producer and at the expense of the con
sumer. And surely no one would claim that where the home
producer can offer his commodity in the market as cheaply
as the importer can offer his, such producer is entitled to
any governmental protection to enhance the price of his
commodity to the consumer. But, as is generally the case in
this country, the tariff is not made strictly prohibitive, and
both the importer and home producer appear side by side in
the market. Now whoever can sell cheapest, if he can sup
ply the market, will rule it and fix prices. If the foreign
importer can undersell the home producer, he drives him
from the market, and might raise prices on the consumer if
one importer had a monopoly and could supply the market.
But the foreign importer is no more a unit than the native
producer. Each is myriad. Competition, therefore, takes
place among the importers, though there should be no native
producers, and between importers and producers, too, where

THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF PRINCIPLE. 229
both appear in the same market. Competition has brought
the importers they say to sell an article at one dollar, and
they can sell it no lower, and has brought the native pro
ducers to sell the same article at two dollars, and they can
sell it no lower. Now it is clear that the native producer can
find no market if the foreigner has enough at his low price
to supply the demand. If aside from all tariffs, an article
can be imported and sold cheaper than it can be produced,
every one would rather buy the foreign article, because he
saves by it. And what is true of one man is true of a whole
people. But the protectionist here comes to the relief of
"home industry," and demands a duty of one dollar on the
foreign article, so that the importer, before selling it, must
pay the duty and add it to the price at which alone the con
sumer can get it; so that in the market each article, native
and foreign, shall be the same price, and the native producer
be able to compete with the importer. Now mark, if the
consumer did not pay this extra dollar, its imposition would
not help the producer, for it does not help to produce the
article cheaper, but only enables him to sell it at his old
price, and prevents the importer from underselling him.
Clearly, then, whether the foreign product is driven out of
the market or maintains its place, protection does not help
the producer, unless the consumer pays the duty.
Such, my fellow-citizens, is, in a word, the false principle
underlying the whole theory of protection. It is an effort
to support a business by law which is not profitable enough
to support itself It taxes men engaged in one industrial
employment to enable others to follow another avocation
which will not* pay without Government aid. This must be
bad economy, and whatever may have been the necessities
of the past for such a system, it is now bad statesmanship.
In this age of machinery, steam locomotion and electric in
tefligence, "freedom of trade is freedom of industry," and
industry, labor, free labor, is the corner-stone of all wealth.
18

230 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
Freedom of trade means to buy where you can buy cheapest,
and sell where you can sell the best. This is the true Ameri
can system.
But, my fellow-citizens, I am detaining you too long, and
must hasten to the practical workings of this system. We
see that its principle is false. We can not, without injury to
the masses, legislate for special interests. We must adopt
laws to the general good of the common wealth. The interests
of the producer and the consumer are antagonistic, and yet
each producer is a consumer, and vice versa. As a producer,
each desires high prices for his products, and low prices for
what he consumes. Products are high when they are scarce,
and low when plenty. The producer, therefore, wants
scarcity in others, and the consumer wants plenty. Who,
then, ought to be favored by the law? Him whose interest
is scarcity, or him whose interest is plenty? Surely not him
whose interest is not found in plenty. "Protection" is
sought by the producer, and "free trade" by the consumer.
The one is the gaunt specter of want and the other the stal
wart herald of plenty!
PRACTICAL WORKINGS OF PROTECTION.
My countrymen, by a discussion of the practical workings
of the "protective system" we are brought directly to its
connection with politics and political parties. The Repub
lican party is essentially the party of protection, and the
Democracy is the party of free trade. Their platforms and
public utterances generally leave no doubt on this subject.
Individual members of either party may differ from -their
compeers, but a "free trader" in the Republican ranks or a
"protectionist" under the Democratic banner is as much out
of place as a wolf in a sheep-fold. He is there only for mis
chief, and will devour, if not throttled or expelled. Parties
have always been divided more or less on this subject. The
first American tariff claimed to be for protection, though the

THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF PRINCIPLE. ' 231
aggregate of duties was only 8J per cent, on the aggregate
imports. Practically the first protective tariff was passed in
1816, and the system continued, constantly increasing in its
burdens, until the "compromise" tariff of 1833. This last
could hardly be said to be characterized by any principle.
It continued till repealed by the Whig protective tariff of
1842. And this again was repealed by the Democratic rev
enue tariff of 1846, which, as amended in 1857, remained in
force till 1861, when the Republican "protective system"
was enacted. This has been since modified sixteen times by-
act or resolution, and the duties every time but once increased,
and is now pressing with its enormous burdens upon the peo
ple. It will be seen, then, that in the last thirty years there
have been three systems of tariffs ; the Whig protective tariff,
the Democratic revenue tariff, and the Republican litter of
protective tariffs. The Whig and Republican parties, father
and son, controlled the tariff for fifteen years, and the
Democracy for fifteen years. The one is protection, the
other free trade. What, then, has been the practical result
of each policy? Let us not go back of the deluge which
buried the old Whig party under the turbid waters of Aboli
tion. Let us examine only the Democratic and the Repub
lican tariffs. The average duties on all imports under the
Democratic tariff was, in 1860, only 14 7-10 per cent. ; a like
average under the Republican tariff in 1870 was 41 4-10 —
nearly three times as much as in 1860. As soon as the
Democrats relinquished power to the Republicans, the pro
tectionists surrounded the Government, and the statute book
was made to groan under their exactions. Now let us inquire
what was the practical effect of each system on the people.
Have they gained or lost by the change from the "revenue"
to the "protective" system?
It is clear, without further argument, that the new tariff
has thrown an additional tax on the people — the consuming
masses; for let it still be remembered that the consumer

232 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
pays the duty. The receipts from customs in 1860 were
;^53,187,000, and in 1870 ;^191, 513,000. If the Democratic
tariff had remained, and imports been the same in 1870 as
they actually were, the duties would only have been ^67,969,-
000. So the Radical tariff cost the people in customs ^123,-
814,000 more than the Democratic tariff would have done if
not repealed. But this is not afl; nay, not half The ex
penses of Government must be borne, and the public debt
and interest paid, and if these customs were afl that the peo
ple paid they might be borne with some patience, as an un
avoidable evil. But the object and effect, as we have seen,
of a protective tariff like the one now existing, is quite other
than merely supporting the Government or paying the pubHc
debt. It is to raise the price to the consumer of manufac
tured products, so as thereby to "protect" — enrich — the
manufacturer. That is practically done in the following way:
The tariff duty is not only added to the price of the imported
article, and paid by the consumer, but the home producer
also adds it to his article, and the consumer of that likewise
pays it, not to the Government, but to the producer.
Will the laboring classes submit forever in patience to the
system of wrong and oppression that is now being fastened
upon them?
Now, that the old sectional issues are dead, and the very
nation is entering upon a new life, how important, citizens of
Ohio, it is that you, without regard to past party lines, should
ponder this great financial question and wisely settle the
future policy of the country! Our State is part of that great
central region which ought finally to give law to the Repub
lic, and see to it, my countrymen, that you do not suffer
your chfldren to be made "born thralls" to the tariff lords
of the East.

STATE RIGHTS -A REPLY TO GOV. MORTON-.
[A speeeh delivered at Greenwood Hall, in Cincinnati, Ohio, October 5,
1871, and published.]
My Fellow- Citizens :
There is nothing in my relation to public affairs to entitle
me to especial consideration. It is only as a private citizen,
with no claim to a hearing above the humblest of my fellows
that I can ask you to heed my words. But in a free country
that claim ought to be sufficient. Any citizen is entitled to
freely express his views on any question of public moment,
and the weight of his expression is to be judged by those who
hear. Where a public functionary from a neighboring State
so talented and distinguished as Senator Morton, has deliv
ered his opinion, his position is likely to give to them a force
out of proportion to their real value. And still more where
he is the accredited mouthpiece and acknowledged leader of
a great and victorious party, the falsity of his propositions
or the feebleness of his reasoning is too apt to pass unchal
lenged. I feel, therefore, that though in the forum of popu
lar debate we are equal before the law, he has in fact great
advantage over me in the general estimation of the public,
and in the especial circumstance of his moving with the pop
ular current. These things would, under ordinary circum
stances, restrain me from so unequal a contest.
But there are times when no disparity of force, no pre
ponderance of numbers, can justify the disciple of truth in
shrinking from a conflict with error. Such an occasion I
deem the present; and I am nerved to the combat by the re
flection that error, however intrenched, is never sure of vic
tory against truth, however feeble the arm that wields her
weapons.

234 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
I am here, then, in the simple panoply of truth to answer
what I conceive to be the constitutional heresies so persist
ently proclaimed by Senator Morton in his late speeches at
Cincinnati and elsewhere. In doing so I shall take no notice
of his comments on those distinguished citizens of Ohio —
Pendleton, Groesbeck and Ewing. They have not consti
tuted me their champion, and are quite able to take care of
themselves, whoever may be the assailants and whatever the
warfare, offensive or defensive.
I shall confine myself principally to the Senator's doc
trine of "NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY."
He has stated the doctrine in several forms of words in his
different speeches, but the same idea, the same principle,
runs through them all.
In his Cincinnati speech, (for I need refer to no other), in
one place he says: "If the Government (meaning, of
course, the Government of the United States), has no power
to protect the people of the United States, when the States
fail to do it, the Government is a failure, and ought to be re
modeled." In another place he says that if murder and other crimes
be comitted, and the States fail to punish them, "then the
Government of the United States must step in and become
the home government and the government of the fireside."
These sentences affirm the doctrine that the States are but
creatures and agencies of the Federal Government. The
same doctrine runs throughout all these speeches.
Another sentence will state more in detail his position :
"That is the great Republican doctrine — the great central
idea of the Republicafi party to-day — that the sovereignty
does not reside in a State, but resides in this whole nation;
that we are not thirty-seven sovereignties ; that there are not
thirty-seven independent States, but that we are one people.

STATE RIGHTS  A REPLY TO GOV. MORTON. 235
We are one great nation, and the States are but integral and
subordinate parts of this great nation."
Erroneous as I deem these views concerning the relations
between the General Government and the States to be, and
untenable as this doctrine of aggregate national sovereignty
is, I should not think it worth while to combat it if it was
held by Senator Morton alone. Great as his distinction is,
his errors would be harmless if they met with no sympathiz
ing response.
But he speaks not merely for himself; he is the recognized
leader of a great party. His idea is their idea. He affirms
this doctrine to be the "great central idea of the Republican
party to-day," and the assertion is met with applause. The
speech is spread broadcast by the press, and his affirmation
is not only not denied, but is everywhere met with Republi
can reproval. For years I have constantly asserted that the
ultimate aim of the Republican policy is the overthrow of the
States, and now the master mind of the organization affirms
without reserve such to be the "central idea" of the party.
In opposing the position of Senator Morton, therefore, we
are but combating the system of the whole party. Before
proceeding to the discussion of this doctrine it is necessary
to define a few terms.
Disputes have often been endless, or led to no results, be
cause the disputants have used terms in a sense not understood
alike by each other. In the discussion of Constitutional ques
tions in America we need not bewilder ourselves in the mazes
of abstract political philosophy. It is enough to deal with
Constitutional problems in the light of our own history, and
to attach the meaning to words and phrases which has been
their popularly accepted signification. Our Declaration of
Independence makes the "consent of the governed" the
corner-stone of government. Let that be accepted, and then
each Government, State and Federal owes its sanction to
consent.

236 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
Whatever power either has is derived from the people. All
original and ultimate sovereignty is inherent in the people,
and all government leaves in them that inherent residuum of
sovereignty, the right of revolution. We mean by "govern
ment " simply the machinery through which the organized
State acts, and by "State" the original body politic, created
by that social compact, express or tacit, by which a people
consent to become a community or Commonwealth. The
Government, then, though it, too, rests on social compact, is
separable from the State, and merely a creature of it. Gov
ernment is sometimes, indeed, called sovereign, because the
people have delegated to it all the powers of sovereignty not
retained by them in the right of revolution, but strictly only
the people are sovereign. Now, as to all these common-places
in American political ideas, I apprehend that neither Senator
Morton, nor any wefl informed RepubHcan, wifl seriously differ
from us. They will not claim, like Calhoun, that the Federal
Union is only a league resting on political compact. It will be
conceded by the Senator that the Union is the offspring of the
people, or, in the sense in which I use it, is founded in social
compact — popular consent. Since, then, the Union sprang
from the people, the only real point of dispute between the
Senator and myself is what is meant by the people.
Senator Morton and the Republican party claim that the
people of the United States have been aggregated by the
social compact, in the sense in which I have used the term
(for his argument involves its use in that sense and no other),
into a single State or nation in which inheres all sovereignty,
and that no sovereignty resides elsewhere. Now, I concede,
without going further, that if the people of the United States
are thus aggregated into a single people, the reservoir, when
so aggregated, of all sovereignty, then all that the Senator
claims as corollaries must logically follow. The issue, there
fore, is joined, and we have brought the dispute to a single
point.

STATE RIGHTS  A REPLY TO GOV. MORTON. 237
Senator Morton insists that the people thereof have con
ferred on the several States of this Union no elements of sov
ereignty, but that, on the contrary, all the elements of sov
ereignty which they have delegated away from themselves,
have been delegated to that State or nation known as the
United States. On the other hand, I insist that the integral
molecular units of which the Federal Union is composed are
States, not the people en masse ; and that the integral molec
ular units of which the States of the Union are made up are
the individuals of whom the people of that State are com
posed. He affirms that the whole people of the Union, as one mass,
is a sovereign, whose integers of sovereignty are the individ
uals of the mass. I affirm that the people of each State of
the Union is a sovereign integer in the composition of the
Federal Union. Which is right? There could not be a
more important question submitted to popular arbitrament,
for on its solution hang the very existence of citizenship and
all its rights and obligations. In no other country in the
world, perhaps, could such a discussion be understood by the
people. The question must be submitted to the verdict of
our past history — to the judgment of constitutional law.
HISTORY OF THE CONSTITUTION.
The early history of no country has ever been so well au
thenticated as our own. Its outlines are all of record and
indisputable. The settlement of our ancestors was under
thirteen separate grants or charters by the mother country to
thirteen separate colonies. Each colony was separate from
every other. Each, it is true, owed allegiance to the British
Crown, but each had its separate local government, and
neither had the right to interfere with the local government
of the other. Each of these colonies grew to be a State of
the Federal Union by three stages of political progression ;
the Declaration of Independence; the articles of confedera-

238 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
tion ; the present Constitution. Now, it is conceded that in
each one of these steps of progress, the colonies, the States,
acted jointly ; but it is equafly true that they never acted as
an aggregate mass of people, ignoring State lines.
Each colony sent its delegates to the Congress that pro
claimed independence, and the Declaration itself speaks in
the name of the people of the colonies — in the plural — and
proclaims them to be independent States — still in the plural
— not an independent State in the singular. The paper itself
was adopted by the votes of 2 majority of States, not a ma
jority of the members of Congress. And so every vote was
taken on every measure in the Congress antecedent to the
present Constitution. The articles of confederation are ex
pressly declared to be a "perpetual union" between the
States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, &c., naming
all the States; and yet, the legal style of the confederacy
was the same as now: "The United States of America."
This confederacy was a mere political compact, formed by
the State organizations, and acting on the people through
them only. They reserved, in express terms, sovereignty to
each State.
" Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independ
ence," is the strong language. This league lasted during the
revolutionary period, and extorted peace from England. The
treaty, recognizing our place among nations, is declared to be
made with New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and so on, naming
all the States. And so all our treaties then recited. All this,
and much more, is so well known as to need no rehearsal.
Thus it appears that the autonomy of each State was not only
distinctly recognized, but no other sovereignty was even hinted
at in any public act of the Confederacy, of any State or of any
foreign nation anterior to the convention which formed the
present Constitution. Neither Senator Morton nor any, even
the best read historian of his party, can point to a single act
or declaration of the Congress, or of any State even intimat-

STATE RIGHTS  A REPLY TO GOV. MORTON. 239

ing in the remotest degree that the States were other than
"sovereign" and "independent." During the revolution
most of the States had annulled their charter governments,
and by direct action of the people of each different State in
stituted new governments, resting on the social compact,
which governments or their successors are in existence to-day.
This brief review of facts in American history, too well settled
to be controverted, brings us to the Convention of 1787. Up
to that time there can be no room for a doubt that the Amer
ican people had not been aggregated by any consent of theirs,
any compact, political or social, into any such mass of people
as abolished the States, or eliminated their sovereignty. Each
State was as separate from every other in its legal and polit
ical autonomy as it had been under the British Crown.
The most that could, by any possibility, be claimed would
be, that as independence had been achieved jointly, it legally
existed only jointly, and so no State had the legal right to
withdraw. But this would only affect the right of secession,
which we are not now debating, and not the question of the
consolidation of the people of the several States into an
aggregate mass. That this has not then been done is too
clear for argument.
In this celebrated convention the American Federal System
attained its full growth and assumed its present magnificent
proportions, so far as the late revolution has not marred its
beauty. FEDERAL CONVENTION.
That convention was a body of delegates from ''sovereign
States." Always before so claimed by themselves, always
admitted by others. The States were already in league, and
the delegates were sent to revise the "Articles of Confedera
tion." Each State had equal voice, sent as many delegates
as it pleased, and recalled them when it pleased. Each
claimed and was acknowledged by every other to be as sov-

240 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
ereign as England or France negotiating a commercial treaty.
Now, what did these diplomats of the high contracting parties
do? They went beyond the powers which had been confided
to them, and, instead of amending the old, proposed a new
system of Federative Union. They did not claim to enact it
— they only proposed it; they did not even claim that the
Governments of the respective States could ratify it. They
acknowledged that to make it valid it must receive the assent
of the only sovereigns in the last resort, the people of each
State — not the people of all the States en masse, but the
people of each State separately; not the mere political or
ganization, the Government, for that would have made it a
mere political compact, revocable, like any other league or
treaty, at will. But it was submitted for ratification to the
people in their original sovereignty, that it might receive
their consent by the social compact, and be irrevocable ex
cept by revolution. It was not submitted to the people of
all the States en masse, for there was no such political sover
eignty recognized or by any one even claimed to exist. And
so it could not receive the sanction of consent from the whole
people as an aggregate sovereignty, for it was never so submit
ted to them, and to claim that it did spring from this aggre
gate mass is to claim that it is not founded on consent, the
acknowledged basis of all rightful government.
In accordance with the recommendation of the Convention,
the several States, each for itself, did ratify the Federal Con
stitution. Each of these States ratified it for itself, and most
of them actually appended conditions to their acts of ratifi
cation. This resume shows that there was nothing in the substance
or the manner of the formation, or ratification of the Consti
tution which took from the States their sovereignty, or by
any action of the people, aggregated their several State sov
ereignties into one aggregated National Sovereignty. The
States acted as distinctly in the formation of the Federal

STATE RIGHTS  A REPLY. TO GOV. MORTON. 241
Constitution as they had ever done before. Each acceded to
it for itself and separately, and no State was or could have
been bound till it did accede.
Not only so, but an amendment adopted simultaneously
with the organization of the Federal Government declares
that that Government has no powers except those expressly
delegated, and that all powers not delegated are reserved to
the States or the people respectively. So that not only were
the States not bound until they had ratified, but after ratifi
cation had only relinquished such powers as were expressly
delegated to the Federal Union. Some of the States did
actually stand out for years, and no one ever claimed they
were bound till they ratified. But how could this be so if
the States were not integral, sovereign units of the federative
community, but on the contrary their boundary lines only
subordinate provincial divisions, and their people only frac
tional parts of a single aggregate community?
THE CONSTITUTION.
But the Constitution itself is the most conclusive witness.
In every part of it the States and their people are recognized
as the integers of sovereignty. Every element of sovereign
life which the federative community has is breathed into it
from the lungs of the States. Not only the sovereignty
which makes the Union a nation among the nations of the
earth, but the Government derived from the Constitution has
no Hfe except through the integral elements of its existence,
the States. The Constitution was formed by their delegates,
ratified by their several consent, and can only be modified by
their separate action. And the amending power conclusively
shows that the aggregate mass of the people has no constitu
tional sovereignty. Three-fourths of the smallest States,
with one-third of the population of the whole, may amend
the Constitution against the consent of the other two- thirds;
and one-fourth of the smallest States, with one-tenth of the

242 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
whole population, may reject an amendment proposed by the
other three-fourths. One-third of the people may make the
organic law for the whole and one-tenth may veto the amend
ing power of the other nine-tenths. Who can deny that the
sovereignty is in the States and not in the aggregate mass of
the people?
Nor is the administration less dependent on States. The
aggregate people nowhere appear in the Federal Govern
ment. They choose no officer, they perform no function.
The law making power is chosen by States, and in the Senate
as wefl as in the Congressional election of President, the
States are equal. The electors of President, perhaps the
most important officers in the Government, are chosen by
each State exactly as each State pleases.
Afl other officers are chosen by the President and the
Congress. So every officer, every law, every act of adminis
tration comes into life by the action of the States and noth
ing through the action of that imaginary sovereignty, the ag
gregate people. What an illustrious majesty is that no trace
of whose existence can be found anywhere! But the consoli-
dationists, when driven from the other clauses of the-Consti-
tution, take refuge in the preamble. And this is the least
tenable fortress of all, for the last ditch is always only a place
to die in. It was first drawn. "The people of New Hamp
shire," etc., naming all the States, and was only changed
because any nine States might ratify and put the Constitution
in force, and no one knew which nine would ratify, and so
the States could not be named in the preamble. Thus it ap
pears both from the history of the Constitution and from the
Constitution itself, that the American system is duplex in its
origin and nature.
The Union and the States are co-ordinate branches of the
same system, and each is the complement of the other.
Whatever powers of sovereignty the people have conferred
upon one, they have withheld from the other, and it requires

STATE RIGHTS  A REPLY TO GOV. MORTON. 243
the functions of both to make a complete State or nation .
Each is a "perpetual covenant," and neither, without revo
lution, can invade the rights of the other, or even continue
its existence unaided by the other. Under our Constitution
the States, as such, have no relations with foreign countries.
Among the nations, the Union only is a nation, and thfe
States have no place. But, while as to foreign countries the
State has to supplement its powers by the Union, so as to
merely domestic affairs the Union has to supplement its
powers by the States. In the face of all these incontrovert
ible facts and inevitable deductions from them. Senator Mor
ton declares that it is competent for the Government of the
United States to become "the home government, and the
government of the fireside," that it may come into the State
against its consent and take charge of the local administra
tion by the exercise of every power of sovereignty. Mark
you, he claims'that the Government, as now organized, may
do afl this, not merely that the people of the United States
en masse may change their government and clothe it with
this power.
On what authority does the distinguished Senator claim
that the Federal Government can make or unmake, execute
or set aside the laws of a State? Was not such authority
denied to the Federal Government by the convention which
framed the Constitution? Had not every department of the
Government, legislative, executive and judicial, denied it up
to the beginning of the late civil war? All Government, by
our theory, is derived from consent, and when did Ohio con
sent to surrender her right of local self-government, expressly
guaranteed to her in the Federal Constitution? When did
she consent that if the President himself should violate her
laws, he should be punished by another sovereignty? Did
her people ever assent that murder, arson, bribery, or any
other offense against the rights she guarantees her people,
should be defined or punished by any authority but her own ?

244 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
Is there a clause in the Constitution, anywhere, from which
the Senator can derive such a power? 'Let him point it out
or admit that he is a revolutionist, inciting the people to
overthrow their Government. Each Government, Federal
and State, was ordained by the social compact of the people.
If Jeff Davis be a traitor for seeking to overthrow the Fed
eral Government in the South, and if the States and the
Federal Union have equal sanction, equal right to exist,
what shafl wfe say of Senator Morton for seeking the over
throw of the States, North and South? True, he professes
to maintain them, but it is only as subordinate agencies of
the Federal Union. They act under his system by power of
attorney from their principal, the General Government, and
are mere tenants at will, occupying during good behavior.
But Senator Morton is not alone. Radical policy sends this
centralizing system everywhere. In the South the Briarian
hands of its robbery are in every coffer. The argus eyes of
its police haunt every hearthstone. The harpies of its greedy
power snatch from the people every banquet of plenty.
In the North the unscrupulous lust of gain fastens upon
industry the festering links of "protective" slavery and bur
dens the laboring masses by exorbitant taxes lifted from cap
ital and thrown upon them, And everywhere in the delusive
name of loyalty it fleeces the people of the fruits of honest
toil and undermines the time-honored institutions of their
fathers. Does any one insist that Congress is not omnipotent? He
is branded as disloyal. Does any one still contend that the
States are not the mere agents and creatures of the Federal
Government, to be controlled, abolished or remodeled at its
will? He is scoffed at as a Bourbon. Does any one venture
to hint that the reconstruction policy in the South has been
harsh, and its agencies tyrannical and corrupt? He is an
athematized as a sympathizer with treason. Does any one
dare to suggest that the personal liberty of the citizen is not

STATE RIGHTS  A REPLY TO GOV. MORTON. 245
safe in time of peace, if the habeas corpus may be suspended
at the pleasure of the President? He is a Ku-Klux in dis
guise, though he shall have bled for the cause of the Union.
Arrogant and domineering, the Radical leaders treat the Gov
ernment as their personal property, and their political oppo
nents as an inferior order in the State. They affect to believe
that the prestige of their past success will secure them per
petual power. There is, it must be admitted, a dash of Caesar
in their daring faith in their own success and the brazen au
dacity of their usurpations. Their promises are but catch
words of party, and are broken without explanation or
apology. Declaring at the beginning of the war, .in the Crit
tenden resolution, that they would restore the Union with all
the rights of the States unimpaired, they have robbed every
State, North and South, of whatever right stood in the way
of their policy. Promising half a million soldiers when they
enlisted that they should be paid in gold, they afterwards
paid them in irredeemable paper, worth half its face. Assur
ing the rebel soldiers, when they laid down their arms, that
they should not, be further molested, they have heaped
upon them every exaction remorseless power could devise.
Approving in all their State conventions Johnson's restoration
scheme, three months afterward they rejected every State
asking admission under it. Proclaiming in their National
convention that each State should be left to decide suffrage
for itself, in less than six months they enacted the Fifteenth
Amendment. Avowing in this same convention that the five-
twenty bonds were to be paid in greenbacks, at the very first
opportunity they declared them, by law, payable in gold coin.
Step by step the party leaders jnove toward a central imperial
republic, with no limitations upon its power but the will of
Congress or an imperial President. Such is not, as we all
know, the purposes of the masses of the party, but such is
the effect of the policy which they are brought to support,
and such is the design which Senator Morton distinctly

19

246 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
avows. He declares that if the Federal Government has not
now the right to control the States, to subordinate their local
laws, their police, their modes of defining and punishing
crimes, their internal administration in all its branches, that
Government must be remodeled till it has. And if his orig
inal postulate is right, then he is right in his deduction. If
the American people are consolidated into one aggregate
mass, then they have, in the aggregate, sovereign control of
every constitution and government. State and Federal, in the
whole land. States may be aboflshed; their governments
altered or abrogated; they may be divided or consolidated
with others, at the sovereign pleasure of this aggregate mass ;
the people of the United States in like manner, as counties,
townships, or city charters, may now be abolished, enlarged,
or remodeled by the State Government.
My fellow-citizens of the Republican party — I know that
you do not beHeve, in your secret hearts, in this system of
Imperial Centralization.
You know from the history of other countries that such a
system is not only destructive of the personal rights and lib
erty of the citizen, but corrupting and ruinous in its general
effects. But you go onward with your leaders to new meas
ures, each strengthening the Government and lessening the
rights of the citizen, in fear of a reaction against the late
amendments, if the government should pass into other hands.
My Democratic friends, it is our duty to relieve the country
from this apprehension. Let us unreservedly announce every
where our purpose to stand by the amendments, for the sake
of peace, though we opposed their adoption. The unconsti
tutional laws which have been passed we will repeal, but we
will abide by the late consitutional amendments. They were
the work of violence and revolution, but they are now prac
tically irrevocable, and to save what is left of the Constitution
we must no longer oppose them.
My countrymen of afl parties, let us strive in the interests

STATE RIGHTS — A REPLY TO GOV. MORTON. 247
of peace, good order, and constitutional liberty, to forget
the animosities and heart-burnings of the last ten years. Let
us grant amnesty to our erring brethren of the South, and
invite them back not only to the fold of the Union, but to
the fellowship of the people of the North. Inscribe on our
banner universal amnesty, the repeal of the Ku Klux and
the Bayonet Bills, the honest protection of all races before
the law. Let us drive from the high places of power the ad
vocates of all centraHzing and imperialistic schemes, and
return to the good old constitutional ideas of the State rights
and strict construction. Swear anew your fealty to the Fed
eral Republic, the State Governments, equality of taxation,
the constitutional currency of gold and silver, amnesty for
past political offenses, freedom of trade, of opinion, of con
science, and then the new era will indeed be an era of uni
versal peace and national grandeur.

GRANT AND GREELEY.
[A speech delivered at Lebanon, Ohio, August 29th, 1872, and circulated
as a campaign document.]
My Fellow- Citizens :
For more than a generation two questions — Secession and
Slavery — in every conceivable shape in which either reason
or passion could present them, engrossed the popular thought.
These questions, though separate in principle, in practical
effect became one, and the bitter waters of strife which flowed
from that fountain head, deluged the Republic. We are just
emerging from this terrible storm, amid whose bowlings the
"still smafl voice" of reason was too often unheard, and
whose surging floods have in their fury carried off some of
the very piflars of the Constitution. The muttering thunder
and receding waters are still heard in the distance, and our
cheeks are still smitten by the hot blasts of the dying storm.
Now tkat the hurricane is over we cast about us and take
reckoning of what is left. Here and there a battlement of
State Rights has been swept away ; here and there a founda
tion stone of the Constitution has been uprooted, but the
Union, the States, continue. The Republic survives the
wreck of past sectional strifes, and may yet secure us a
glorious future. But revolutions give birth to the new as
well as destroy the old. Secession and slavery are dead.
The one has given place to the equality of all races before
the law, and the ghost of the other threatens the elimination
from our system of the doctrine of State Rights. These two
results, each in its way, are the seeds of convulsion in the far
future. The great social and political problems which the
presence of diverse races on the same soil must ultimately

GRANT AND GREELEY. 249
present for solution may be evaded for centuries, or may
peacefully settle themselves, though they never have done so
in any other country. We ought to be quite willing to post
pone their consideration, and teach and practice forbearance
and harmony toward all. And so as to the late amendments.
Though their adoption is the recognition of a principle which,
- carried to its ultimatum, denies the very existence of States
as other than Federal dependencies, and allo\«s the Nation
to absorb them at pleasure, yet this ultimatum may not be
reached for ages, or possibly may never come. The love of
liberty and of local self government is strong in the Ameri
can heart, and may preserve the States as a matter of policy,
though they should be no longer adhered to as a matter of
right. Let us indulge, then, no gloomy forebodings. All
Nations have had their civil wars, and many have survived
them. The National spirit is strong, buoyant and hopeful,
and we need but domestic peace, sectional reconciliation, to
wipe from our escutcheon the stains of fratricidal war.
My fellow-citizens, I have for several years, early in each
political canvass, stated definitely what I conceived to be its
controlling issues. Allow me to do the same thing to-day
as to the pending Presidential contest. Before advancing to
the discussion of those issues, it will be profitable to con
sider for a moment the
PRESENT CONDITION OF PARTIES.
For the first time in its long career the Democratic party
appears not as the maker of political issues, but as the in
dorser of issues made by others. We are not principals, Aye
are sureties. We are not leaders, but allies. Why is all
this? Why has that proud old party lowered its flag' and sub
ordinated the issues for whicl^it has made, on old fields, such
heroic battle? My gray-haired Democratic friend, it has
come as has come the silver streaks in your once raven locks.
Time writes wrinkles on the smoothest brow, and shades the

250 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
hue of the sunniest cheek. Age enfeebles the strongest arm,
and makes faltering the firmest step. Evolution and dissolu
tion, growth and decay, birth and burial, belong alike to all
life — to party life no less than any other. Change is the law
of all things. Political parties can no more escape the law
than other forms of organization. In proportion to the truth
of its principles, and the perfection of its organism, a party
will be long lived. But absolute perfection is nowhere found,
and no party can be so true to all the needs of humanity,
and so perfect in its organism of political life as to move on
forever without modification or change. True it is that prin
ciples are eternal though men die. And though a party or
ganization, like all other forms of organic life, should pass
away, or assume some' new shape, it does not follow that
those principles which were its real life must die too. The
seeds of dissolution ever accompany the germs of life, and
the death which they bring about is nothing but the rearranging
of old forms to suit the new conditions of existence under
which they are placed. The principles which have ever con
stituted the life of the Democratic party are the essential ele
ments of republican liberty, and with their death, if die they
ever should, the RepubHc itself must sink to its grave. The
principles of the Democratic party were first organized into
party life in the days of Jefferson, under the name of the Re
publican party, and when that organization decayed, in obe
dience to the law of all life, those principles reappeared in
the Democratic organization under the lead of Jackson. An
other generation has passed, and it is not impossible that the
Democratic party, like its ' ancestor, the Republican party
of Jefferson, may assume a new form and a new name, but
stfll being animated with the great spirit of Democracy,
which is the life of all political freedom and progress. But
be assured, the great ideas of the party are not dead, and
will not die. The Union has an "everlasting covenant;"
the perpetual autonomy of the States as integral elements of

GRANT AND GREELEY. ' 251
that Union; the right of local self-government by the States;
reverence for the Constitution and laws; the administration
of all Governments for the equal benefit of all classes of men
and all branches of industry ; no proscriptions and no monop
olies; freedom of trade, of action and of thought; equality
of all burdens, and the least government consistent with or
der, are the great essential tenets of the Democratic creed,
and that Democrat is recreant to his trust as a freeman who
surrenders one jot or tittle of this noble faith. Whether we
preserve these principles through one organization or another,
esto perpetua is graven on the heart of every true Democrat.
WHY THE DEMOCRACY FOLLOW INSTEAD OF LEAD.
A glance at the past will show why in this canva.'ss the
Democracy follow instead of lead. Its adherence to Consti
tutional limitations and the rights of the States placed many
of its leaders, through a mistaken application of its principles,
as I always claimed, in antagonism to the prosecution of the
late war. The whole party, in the North, at least, had
opposed the measures which precipitated the strife, but many
of them when the war actually came gave it no support, and
popular passion attributed this to a lack of patriotism. I
conjured my party friends then to sustain the war and control
its course. I besought them to make it a war for the Union,
and not a revolution for the reconstruction of the Government
itself But this the great body of leaders declined to do, and
all that has since happened to the party grew out of what I
then believed, and now believe to have been a mistaken
policy. What might have been a war for the preservation of
the Union, became a revolution against the rights of States.
No good, however, can result from a revival of those old
disputes. The Democracy fell under the popular displeasure,
and most of its great leaders have since been excluded from
the public councils. At last it became apparent to all that if
it would be useful, if it would really advance its own prin-

252 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.

ciples, it must cut loose from the profitless discussions of by
gone times. The revolution had spent itself in the adoption
of the three Constitutional amendments, and in the nature of
things the work could not be undone. It was felt that the
party must submit to the inevitable, and though part of the
Constitution had been swept away by the revolution, it was
the duty of patriots to preserve the rest.
I spoke out in my printed speech at Hamilton, September
10, 1870, in favor of accepting the amendments as parts of
the Constitution. General Ewing and others did the same
that year, and next year Vallandingham popularized the idea
under the name of the "New Departure," and procured its
adoption by the State Convention. The Democratic Con
ventions of all the States ratified the action of Ohio. That
was the funeral bell of the Revolution ! The Radicals heard
and trembled ! They had retained power for years by fight
ing over again the battles of the war. The Democrats had
been rebels, not against the Union or the country, but
against the revolutionary changes which were undermining
the Constitution. And when the Democracy laid down the
arms of their opposition to these constitutional changes and
acknowledged aflegiance to the Constitution as amended, the
Radical placemen knew that their hour had come. Their
vocation was gone. Divisions began to crop out in the Re
publican party. Many saw this and sought to widen the
breach. The institutions of the country might yet be saved,
peace restored and national prosperity secured if we could
form a union between the Democracy and the dissatisfied
Republicans. For one, I felt that patriotism required
this course, as I had felt that it required us to accept
the amendments. I therefore again spoke out for the
new movement. Through the columns of the Cincinnati
Commercial, over an assumed signature, I urged, in Novem
ber of last year, the calling of a National Convention at Cin
cinnati, of all opposed to Grant's administration, and the

GRANT AND GREELEY. 263
formation of a "Liberal" party to accomplish that end. This
was the earliest suggestion of the Cincinnati Convention, ex
cept one made in the New Orleans Bee. Clubs were formed
in different parts of the country looking to the formation of a
party composed of all elements of opposition to Radical
misrule. This movement I have no doubt would have cul
minated in a grand popular upheaval which would have
swept the country, but for the Missouri movement, as it is
popularly called. This was confined to the Republican
party, and made no invitation to Democrats to co-operate.
Let us not pause to discuss the reasons for this exclusion.
That there was much of selfishness in it who can doubt?
And that a people's convention, embracing all parties, would
have been far more grandly popular I feel assured. That
was what I favored. But one man is only as a grain of sand
on the seashore.
The Democrats were excluded from the Cincinnati conven
tion, and contrary to our expectation in the West, Horace
Greeley was nominated. The popular mind had been drifting
for months toward the union of all the elements of opposition
to Grant, and it now remained for the Democracy to settle
whether that popular wish should be gratified, or a third can
didate placed in the field. My fellow-citizens, I will make a
clean breast of it. I was not originally in favor of the nom
ination of Horace Greeley, neither at Cincinnati nor at Balti
more. My preference was for our own distinguished citizen
— Groesbeck. I believed him abler as a statesman ; stronger
before the people. But I will admit that when I saw the pop
ular tide running for Greeley, I did not desire to distract the
party, and recommended the nomination at Baltimore of the
Cincinnati nominee. You all know how unanimously and
enthusiastically that was done. And was there ever a grander
scene in the history of any party? That the leaders of a great
party, whose history was for thirty years the history of the
country, should nominate with unanimity and enthusiasm its

254 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
ablest, its life-long opponent, was a sublime sight under the
sun. It showed that this great party, who had so long wielded
the destinies of the country, and who had so persistently bat
tled for its ideas through obloquy and defeat, could rise to the
majesty of the great occasion, and, for the country and its
cause, forget the narrow boundaries of party. It was the
mountain going over to Mahomet. It was millions offering
themselves upon the altar of patriotism, to appease the preju
dices of their old enemies. These are the events, my Demo
cratic friends, and these the reasons that led us to fall into the
lead of another party, and ask you to show your magna
nimity by supporting those who never supported you. Outdo
them in generosity as you surpass them in numbers, and if
the present coalition should harden up into the great party of
the future — the Liberal party — be assured that our ideas will
no more die or be eliminated from the creed of the new party
than they were lost in passing by honest descent from the Re
publicanism of Jefferson down to the Democracy of Jackson.
THE LIBERALS COME TO THE DEMOCRACY, TOO.
But, my Democratic friends, there is another consideration
which does much to reconcfle my mind, as I think it ought to
do to reconcile yours, to this coalition movement. You will
remember that ever since the war was over we have been
constantly calling attention to the misrule of the Radical
party ; not the Republican party as such — that was essentially
anti-slavery and nothing more — but to the misconduct of
those extremists who have held the Government for the past
seven years, and have been cafled, sometimes in commenda
tion and sometimes by way of taunt, the Radicals. The war
was over and the North ready to receive the South with open
arms, and the South was eager for the embrace. But it was
determined by the leaders of the Radical party that no simple
restoration should take place. It was decreed that the South
should be reconstructed from turret to foundation stone —

GRANT AND GREELEY. 255
reconstructed politically and socially, and should have no
voice in the Federal councils and no control over her own
affairs till that was done. She was refused, therefore, her
place in Congress, although her representatives knocked at
the door, and although she had always before been invited to
return to the Union and take her place in its councfls. Might
makes right in Radical morals, and the work of proscription
and "reconstruction" went on till the three amendments
were forced upon the reluctant South and the scarce less
reluctant North. As might have been naturally expected,
the South resisted this "reconstruction," not by arms, but
by opposition to the party in power, and this was accounted
unto them for unrighteousness — disloyalty. All these tyran
nical measures the Democracy opposed, and, instead asked
restoration, pure and simple amnesty, reconciliatian — peace.
But our voice was unheard. Though one should have risen
from the dead, they would not have heard him. At last the
work was done. The Union was "reconstructed" andthe
"reconstructed " South took her place in it Every arm of
power had been used, every device of tyranny had been re
sorted to and the people had submitted, if not tamely, with
out serious bloodshed. I will do the Radical chiefs the
justice to admit that all this had been done in the name of
an idea, to establish a principle. That principle was that all
men should be equal before the law, if they would vote the
Radical ticket. But when this was done these leaders felt that
their work was done, and, except as restrained by mere force
of habit, they were willing to release their grip upon the
Southern throat. They counted, however, without their
host. They had used Grant as an instrumentality, and he
never could understand how anything was ever created ex
cept for his own use.
And now the tables are turned. Grant wishes to use for his
re-election the same strategy, the same coercive persuasion
the Radical leaders had used to force on the recusant South

256 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
the amendments, and then follows an open revolt. Every
where able Senators, eloquent orators and pungent writers,
denounce Grant for using on his own behalf the very means
they had taught the political neophite to use in enforcing
their own " reconstruction " policy. The very arguments
against this tyranny, which I and others have been using for
six years. Liberal Republicans are now using, and charging
all these wrongs to Grant's account. The very pictures of
Radical misrule in the South, which we have been painting so
long, and for which the " truly loyal" denounced us without
stint, are now set in Liberal frames and paraded over the
whole country as the blood-thirsty work of Grant.
With what pride I witness the vindication of my own course
and the wisdom of my party! It has come sooner than I ex
pected, though I knew it would come some time as sure as
" Truth crushed to earth will rise again."
My countrymen, I recall these things, not to arouse old
antagonisms, but in a spirit of sincere thankfulness that we
can now stand side by side with those who denounced us as
sympathizers with treason years ago, because we boldly
uttered truths now affirmed by the ablest Liberal leaders,
and adopted as sound doctrine by two National conventions.
Let us quote from their indictment:
"The administration now in power has rendered itself guilty of a wanton
disregard of the laws of the land in the exercise of powers not granted by
the Constitution. It has acted as if the laws had only binding force for
those who are governed, and not for those who govern. It has struck a blow
at the fundamental principles of constitutional government and the liberties
of the citizens.
" The President of the United States has openly used the powers and
opportunities of his high office for the promotion of personal ends. He has
kept notoriously corrupt and unworthy men in places of power and responsi
bility to the detriment of the public interest. He has used the public service
of the Government as a machine of partisan and personal influence, and
interfered with tyrannical arrogance in the political affairs of States and
municipalities." How like one of my old speeches all this sounds! And

GRANT AND GREELEY. 257
with what cordial greeting can we all welcome to our old
platform these new converts! They could ignore constitu
tions to establish a principle, but they cannot abandon the
people to enthrone one man.
The least observant will notice that a great change has
come over the public mind. The bitterness of the last few
years has subsided. THE ISSUES ARE LESS SHARPLY DEFINED.
Those who so long acted apart are now acting together.
Democrats are no longer shunned by Republicans as traitors
and "Copperheads," and Republicans are no longer de
nounced by Democrats as tyrants and bigots. Reason is
quietly regaining the throne so long usurped by passion.
True, there are those who still cling to the bloody past, who
can see nothing but the battling hosts and the tented fields,
and can hear nothing but the shouts of the victor, and enjoy
nothing but the screams of women and children fleeing from
their burning houses. To them the war is still going on.
But the numbers of such are few, and even they are getting
weak in the knees and dim of sight. They can follow the
war path but little further. Peace has come, though their
frenzied eyes are too glazed to see the benignant goddess.
Old parties are passing away, too, whether to return again
remains to be seen. We are all Republicans ; we are all Dem
ocrats. The old lines are for the present, at least, blotted
out. The only live parties for this campaign are the Liberals
and the Radicals, and each of the two is made up from both
the old parties. The bulk of the Democrats are with the
Liberals, and the bulk of the Republicans are with the Rad
icals, but in neither are the old party lines drawn, nor the
old party issues made up. There is a new deal of the polit
ical cards. It is a relief to us all that the old tension is re
laxed and partisan passion allowed a little repose. Or if the
Radical candidate has not patented afl jockey phrases, we

258 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
feel easier in our new party harness, as it does not chafe the
limbs in the old places. But to be grave. This relaxation
of party discipline, re-arranging of party lines, is a healthful
indication of the spirit of conciliation — so much needed on
both sides. Hail it as the herald of peace !
In considering, my fellow-citizens, the issues of the canvass,
we may glance at the party platforms, though, in truth, all
platforms are of little value. They are special pleadings,
pregnant with double or doubtful meaning. They are Delphic
utterances, whose truth can never be denied, because their
meaning can never be discovered. Still, there is often an oc
cult meaning — a spirit underlying the form — which by the
wise is construed to mean that what is said is not to be done,
and by which they learn what is to be done by what is not
said. These platforms are to be interpreted in the Hght
of the actual policy on which a party is known to act. With
this light we may judge the two platforms. And in judging
them in this way, the contrast they present is not one of
principle at all, it is only a difference of policy. Upon the
great questions of Constitutional power, the parties do not
take issue, nor do they on the most important questions of
financial policy. And yet there is a difference between the
two parties as to these questions. The Liberals recommend
local self-government, and the preservation of the rights of
the States as a matter of policy, but do not claim that the
States have any rights as a matter of principle. The Radicals
do not even admit that there ought to be any local self gov
ernment at all ; and their whole policy has been to ignore and
cripple the exercise of any such right.
Neither party claims any rights for States, but the Liberals
concede them rights as a matter of policy. In that much and
no farther is the Liberal creed the best. In that much and
no farther does it commend itself on this point to Democrats.
It does not assert the Democratic doctrine that the States
have as much right to exist as the Union ; and therefore falls

GRANT AND GREELEY. 259
very far short of the principles of the true Constitutional
creed. Greeley's letter of acceptance, though still short of
the great doctrine, is a decided improvement on the platform.
As to financial questions the platform of the liberals is
sound and wise so far as it speaks at all. The tariff is left
to the people's representatives in Congress, and at present
the public mind is educated to nothing higher. This is infi
nitely preferable to the inane nonsense of the Radical plat
form on the same subject. We need not look further at the
details of the two platforms. They differ in nothing essen
tial except the spirit that pervades them. The one breathes
arrogance and war, the other reconciliation and peace. The
one means "to the victors belong the spoils" — the Govern
ment as their party estate ; and the other means ' ' civil service
reform." These are the real issues they present to the peo
ple. Grant is for proscription and spofls ; Greely for recon
ciliation and reform. RECONCILIATION.
You have heard, gentlemen, repeated in a thousand forms
the arguments in favor of full and complete reconciliation
between the lately belligerent sections. The theme
has become threadbare. The Radicals have at every step
resisted peace, and struggled as the strangling swimmer
struggles for breath, to keep alive the animosities of the late
war. Many motives conjoined to foster this policy; some
honorable to human nature and some otherwise. The masses
of the Republicans who fought from patriotic motives, and
were moved by the passions common to men, could not at
once forget the wrongs they had suffered, and extend a
friendly hand to those so lately in arms against their country.
Anger, revenge — natural enough under the circumstances —
prompted them to demand punishment. Beside these, many
honest men determined that no reconcfliation should be had
or could be lasting which did not enfranchise the colored

260 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
race. To them the war had not been to restore the Union,
but to aboHsh slavery, and they regarded no enfranchisement
as effectual which did not give the negro his vote. These
motives are entitled to respect, and ought to extenuate, to
say the least, the wrong-headed poHcy of "reconstruction,"
though they do not justify the outrages inflicted upon the
prostrate South. But the motive which blackened Radical
misrule into crime was that fiendish lust of power and plun
der which has blotted from memory the extortions of Verres,
and made respectable the greed of Warren Hastings. Re
morseless harpies, carpet-bag in hand, have devoured the
substance of the South, whfle haughty tyrants have spurned
the prayers of Christian charity for mercy to a fallen foe.
Avaricious peculators have loaded her States with irredeem
able debt and wasted in riotous Hving the proceeds of their
fraud. All these outrages have been done in the name of
loyalty, and under the hypocritical pretense of suppressing
resistence to Federal authority. Now even these excuses
are wearing out. It can no longer be denied that the South,
in the cant phrase of the day, "accepts the situation." Op
position to tyrants is still alive, thank God, in the Southern
heart, and knowledge that they are entitled to rights has still
a place in the Southern brain, but reverence for the Consti
tution, allegiance to the Federal flag everywhere abound and
can no longer be denied. All that the country now needs as
the cement of a lasting peace is universal amnesty and a re
turn by all governments. State and Federal, to the landmarks
of constitutional law. How slowly and grudgingly have our
Radical rulers taken any step in this direction. No general
amnesty can be brought to meet their approval. They dole
out forgiveness as a matter of special grace, or the reward of
party adhesion. Radical salvation rests on election and rep
robation — he is of the elect who votes the Radical ticket, and
he is a reprobate who claims to have a soul of his own.
Public opinion has been growing stronger and stronger for

GRANT AND GREELEY. 261
amnesty, and the Government has been compefled to yield by
degrees to its demands.
But Radicalism has fought every inch of ground. It has
treated proscription as the supreme good, and fought every
step of retreat toward amnesty as if every foot lost (as, in
deed it did), cut short the lease of its power and narrowed
the field of its plunder. The Radical leaders were the
"upper ten thousand" of the party, and the famous "retreat
of the ten thousand" of old was not more masterly or obsti
nate than the retreat of this modern host from war in the
direction of peace, from the barren mountains of proscription
to the fertile fields of amnesty. Resistance, however, has
only checked, it could not stop, the tide of opinion. Every
session of Congress the Radical party has been getting
weaker, and the people have every year been able to wrest
more and more of liberty and peace from its iron clutches.
While the spirit is strong the flesh is weak. With impotent
rage the leaders see the scepter of their tyranny passing from
their palsied grasp. Even in the last Congress, in its very
last days, they struggled to retain their power over the
habeas corpus, and strengthen their, hold on the ballot-box.
With pitiful whinings, they retained a few hundred unamnes-
tied heads, on which, as an amusement, to pour the vials of
their wrath. Whatever is got from them will have to come
through the coercive force of public opinion, as the old con
cessions to popular rights came from the old aristocracies, or
American independence from George the Third. Nothing
ever has been, nothing ever will be conceded with hearty
and statesmanHke generosity.
POLICY OF RECONCILIATION.
The lofty motives springing from justice, magnanimity and
Christian forbearance ought to be enough, and, I hope, will
be enough in the minds of the people to dictate universal
amnesty and cordial reconcfliation. But if they were needed,

20

262 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
motives springing from mere political poHcy are not wanting.
Peace encourages industry and her helpmate frugality, and
they are the parents of prosperity. With a prosperous South
comes a still more prosperous North. New channels of trade
and commerce are opened; new productions find readier
market, and wealth flows into the pockets of the people, and
competence gladdens thousands of hearthstones from which
the cheerful cricket is now banished. The South aids the
North to replenish the coffers of the Government; taxes are
lightened, protective duties thrown off, commodities cheap
ened, labor better rewarded, the people's children better
educated, and the glad sight of forty millions of brethren
dwelling together in peace rises upon the vision. It needs
no high appeal or labored argument to make us feel the
reality of this picture. It is painted by the soberest pencil
of common sense. We know that we have no interest in
estrangement between the sections, and that every sentiment
of religion, patriotism and policy alike dictates the heartiest
reconciliation. When this is accomplished we shall have full
leisure to reform the administration of the Government and
make it the guardian of the people's liberties, not the city of
refuge for corruption and nepotism.
But, my countrymen, this return of the Government to the
paths of peace and the orbit of the Constitution will bring
with it an achievement higher even than these things, impor
tant as they are. It will light up anew the fires of National
patriotism now buried under the embers of sectional strife.
It will revive reverence for the Constitution and the laws. It
will make a nation of regions which were formerly sections.
These grand achievements out.weigh all present results, be
cause they secure future prosperity and grandeur. For ages
to come, at least, no new sectional antagonism can arise of
magnitude enough to involve war. And long before that
time the idea that the whole country is one Nation — a Nation
of people and a Nation of States — will not only become the

GRANT AND GREELEY. 263
recognized written law of the Constitution, but the proscrip
tive common law of the popular heart. When the present
clouds of Radicalism no longer obscure opinion, the doctrine
of the fathers will shine forth anew. It is written in no plat
forms of the hour, but the indestructible autonomy of the
States will be again reorganized as twin brother to the per
petual obligation of the Federal Union, and both ideas will
be deified as the double-headed sovereignty of the American
system. THE CANDIDATES.
It is rare, indeed, that the personal characteristics of
the candidates are so important as in this canvass. For a
long time it has made little difference in the result who the
candidates for President were. The men were lost in the
issues of the contest. Now the candidates have more sig
nificance, as we are in that transition state of parties in which
the lines are more loosely drawn. The election of Grant or
Greeley indicates a policy largely dependent on , the man
himself, and what a wonderful contrast these men present !
GRANT.
Grant, though born poor, was the favorite of fortune.
Educated at the public expense, he had an immediate field
for distinction opened to him by the hand of the Govern
ment. That he served his country well in the Mexican war
we willingly and gratefully admit. That he was an apt
scholar in the art of destruction but places him in the vulgar
herd who have drenched the world in blood
"From Macedonia's madman to the Swede."
Let the West Point boy have the credit-marks of his
school, for we shall find demerit marks enough in his after
life. He quits the service because, if public rumor be
trusted, his personal habits unfitted him for his duties. He
then wanders about like the prodigal son, feeding on the
husks of life because too improvident to gather its grain.

264 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
Thriftless, penniless, objectless, from city to city and from
town to country he roams, taking no part in the thrifling ex
citements of the time, and having no voice in the great
moral and intellectual movements with which his country
and the world were fufl. He was the advocate of no systems
for the good of his fellows, his soul was full of no sympathies
for the struggling millions he now essays to govern. Neither
the grandeur of nature nor the ever rushing tide of humanity
generated in his brain the ideas that shape the destinies of
States or fashion the social life of the people. Not a thread
in the great web of human movement was spun by his hand.
Let us draw a veil over this whole blank period of his life
between the wars and look only on its dark features when
we must.
From the nothingness of his civil life he emerged when
violence again broke out in the land. As the owl gropes
about in the sunlight during the whole day, and finds the
night only suited to its nature, so Grant groped about bewil
dered by the sunshine of peace, and only took wing when the
darkness of war covered his country. I leave to his eulogists
and the irnpartial pages of history (if he and his tools leave
ungarbled records enough to write it from), the delineation of
his second military career. It was successful, and that is quite
enough to make it the shrine of popular worship. The grand
est thing in it was his magnanimity at Appomattox. A grate
ful Nation has rewarded, richly rewarded, this great service,
and as an humble soldier in his ranks, I would neither criticise
his achievements nor snatch one laurel from his brow. But
the majestic grandeur of mflitary genius is not his. He may
rank with Eugene, or Conde, or Marlborough; but he is not
Alexander, or Caesar, or Bonaparte. The military genius
which consecrates a name, must be linked to other faculties
than the brute power to destroy. If Alexander overran Asia
he released the Thracian robber, and arts and letters enlarged
their sway from his conquests. If Caesar overturned the Re-

GRANT AND GREELEY. 265
public, he was a most generous friend and patron of learning,
an eloquent orator, a graphic historian — the noblest Roman
of them all. If Bonaparte trampled on the necks of Kings,
he uplifted the people and reformed the Government — was
the tribune of Democracy. The mere power to wield the
battle-ax is the commonest and the lowest of human capaci
ties. Grant has that power. " He makes a solitude and calls
it peace." And does his career exhibit aught more? He is
father to no great thought, projector of no great reform. No
anecdotes even of generosity to his foe, or love for his soldiers,
embalm his memory in the army. No pet phrases were used
toward him by the rank and file as'the bubbles on the tide of
their love. Sherman was, in the soldiers' affections, "Old
Cump." " Little Mack, " " Old Pap, " and " Rosy, " were the
familiar sobriquets for McClellan, Thomas and Rosecrans,
and shouts greeted them wherever they went. The camps
were rife with anecdotes of them ; but who ever heard a ' ' pet
name" for Grant, or an anecdote illustrating the affection of
his soldiers?
But whatever may be his merit as a soldier, it is no proof
of his capacity as a statesman ; and it is with that the country
has now to deal. We are not choosing the commander of an
army; we are electing the President of a Nation. It cannot be
justly said that Grant as a President has been a success. The
country has been tolerably prosperous, it is true, but this it
owes to the industry of the people and the smiles of provi
dence, not the administration of a President. Grant has
done nothing notable but divide his party into factions and
enrich himself and his kinfolks. Everything he has proposed
has failed, except his proposition to get all the money he
could and keep it. What act or word of his during his whole
Administration has redounded to the public good? And out
of what act or word has he failed to make money for him
self or his friends? If a Cabinet was to be formed, those
were worthiest who had made him presents. If a custom-

266 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF- DURBIN WARD.
house officer was to be appointed, he was fittest who would
divide the largest spoils. If Executive favors were to be be
stowed, those were most successful who would pay the highest
price. He has had no idea that the appointing power was
given to him except to charge a per cent, for its exercise;
and his idea of the Government is that the President is a
commission broker of its places. Houses, cottages, grocery
supplies, libraries, stocks, bonds, cash, carriages, horses and
other quadrupeds — all are fish that come to his net. Aside
from receiving presents and appointing all his own and his
wife's able-bodied male relations to fat places, what has he
done? Has he industriously staid at the White House and
worked? No, he has gone loitering by the sea- side with a
cavalcade of horses, mules, dog-carts and -other trumpery.
Has he ever treated the great office you gave him as a public
trust? No, he has treated it and its functions as private per
quisites and the Government itself as his personal property.
His own friends say that he would not agree to surrender the
life salary of General unless he could have the Presidential
salary for a second term. Out of office he never made a dol
lar, in office he has grown rich. So busy has he been with
his own accumulations and his own pleasures that he has
found little time for the public concerns. In short, though
he may have been a successful General, he has not been a
successful President. He has made money, but he has not
made fame. Let him retire on his mflitary laurels and Presi
dential booty. HORACE GREELEY.
Horace Greeley is one of the people and the architect of
his own fortune. In all his life not one-tenth of one per cent.
of his receipts came from the public coffers. Born on the
rugged rocks of New Hampshire, to no estate but honest
ancestry and penury, his own toil not only supplied his own
frugal wants, but aided to drive poverty from the door of his
famfly. The common school was his only academy, and the

GRANT AND GREELEY. 267
printing office his only college. Penniless and friendless he en
tered the great metropolis, and by industry and thrift amassed
a fortune. His hand was ever ready to help the struggling
around him, and his heart ever open to the cry of the dis
tressed. Honest, industrious and temperate himself, he ever
pitied and sought to reform those who were not. Like most
Americans, he had a strong passion for politics, and early in
life the integrity of his character, the breadth of his knowl
edge, and the enthusiasm of his nature made him a power in
the land. His political ideas were adverse to mine, but I, nor
any one, ever doubted his intellectual power and his moral
uprightness. Horace Greeley has for thirty years had a National reputa
tion. He has borne active part in the great struggles of his
age. He is eminently a man of ideas, a thinker, a leader of
the people. There is no subject of public interest on which
he has not spoken with frankness and vigor. He has been
the peculiar disciple of nobody. Bold and original, he leads,
and asks others to follow, but never falters whether they fol
low or not. Such a man being a public journalist, speaking
every day, and discussing every passing event, must necessarily
say in a generation much that is ill considered and crude.
However sagacious and clear-sighted he may be he must
often magnify out of their real proportions fdeas or policies
which seem for the moment to promise controlling influence
over the future, and the only wonder is how in a long life of
journalism a mind so active and enthusiastic should have
blundered so rarely. He has, in the main, kept up, too,
with the spirit of the age. No antiquated dogma except
protection has found favor in his eyes, and out of that has
sprung most of the errors, as I regard them, of his political
policy. But in this he does not stand alone. It is an idea which,
in its various ramifications, has filled the minds of many
thinkers and statesmen. Many who have thrown it off as to

268 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
tariffs retain it as to other concerns, and seem unwilling to
admit that the people can manage their simplest concerns
without the aid of Government. It must be admitted that
Greeley belongs to this school of thinkers. Enthusiastically
devoted to popular rights, he treats the people as under the
perpetual guardianship of the Government. He subordinates
the creator to the creature. His policy sends the supervising
hand of Government into all the concerns, and seeks to shape
by political action even the habits and ideas of the people.
This whole theory of the functions of government is anti-
Democratic, and contradicts our theory that "that govern
ment is best which governs least." But all these abstract
notions are outside of the issues of the day. They are spec
ulative rather than practical. Greeley remits to Congress
the tariff question, and that is the only branch of the protec
tive idea that can have any political force in the Federal Gov
ernment, when the sections are reconciled and local govern
ment remitted to the States. So his ideas on the subject of
slavery matter nothing now that slavery is dead. His
theories of the rights and powers of the Federal Government
are, it must be confessed, latitudinarian, and if he made law
instead of administered it, would be highly obnoxious. As
to all this, however, he has but little power, and his specula
tive opinion can do but little harm. Besides, his past career
shows that his theories have never been aflowed to cripple his
practical action. In all his past life he has tried hard to pop
ularize his ideas, and make them the creed of parties, but he
never lay dreaming over their perfection, or failed to take
active, practical part in the movements of public affairs be
cause his theories were not adopted. Still, he has not been
vacillating, but, on the contrary, steady in his adherence to
principles. Through opposition and obloquy he adhered to
the cause of abolition till slavery was no more. He has
never faltered in his advocacy of protection, though the think
ing world has been in arms against him. Time has not

GRANT AND GREELEY. 269

shaken his devotion to temperance, his faith in religious tol
eration, or his confidence in human progress. He is ever
the same steadfast friend of the people, advocating their
interests, and pointing them to the paths of industry, tem
perance, economy, rectitude and virtue. Every new inven
tion, every labor-saving machine, every aid to the elevation
of the working masses finds in him an early and constant
advocate. Peace and the triumphs of peace, freedom to all
of every race, color or persuasion, happy firesides to the
humblest sons of toil and love to the whole human family,
are the watchwords of his policy. He shrinks from war and
violence and oppression with the sickening horror of an
anchorite, and yet would brave prisons, or stripes, or death
itself in defense of the right.
Whatever else may be said, Horace Greeley is no common
place man. His career has not been that of a mere place-
hunter. He scorns the highest offices if they cost the sur
render of his convictions, and defies even his friends when
his consciousness of duty requires him to oppose them. His
is the strength and docility of greatness, the elevation and
firmness of conscious rectitude. No country ever more
needed these great qualities than they are now needed
in the Presidental chair. He is cheerfufly supported by all
old parties, for his known integrity and purity fit him to sit as
umpire between contending factions. Abolitionists and pro-
slavery men. Unionists and secessionists. Democrats and Re
publicans, all find they can trust the old philosopher, and feel
that his administration will harmonize their dying strifes into
a public policy which shall subserve the public good. Who
else could so thoroughly bring reconciliation? Although
before and during the war the boldest and bitterest opponent
of those ideas and interests most cherished by the secessionists
of the South, he has, since it closed, been the most generous
friend of the fallen. From the moment the rebeflion col
lapsed he has urged peace, reconciliation, universal amnesty.

270 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
While his party friends hungered and thirsted for blood, he
sought to slake their vengeance by commending to their
parched lips cooling draughts from the chalice of mercy.
When the olive branch is held out by such a man — a man
from the ranks of their old enemies — it comes with more
significance and touching grace than if presented by the hand
of an old friend. The magnanimity of an enemy softens us
when the kind ofifices of a friend would not touch the hidden
springs of emotion. The now ruling President humbled their
pride in the very dust during the war, and his minions have
eaten up their substance and scoffed at their weakness ever
since. Greeley raised up the vanquished, anointed his wounds
with oil and shielded him from the fiery vengeance of the
victor. Make him President and the Executive chair wifl be
no longer the throne of Vengeance, but the mercy seat of
forgiveness — the altar of love.

SECTIONAL RECONCILIATION.
[A speech delivered at Shelbyville, Ind., September 21st, 1^2.]
My Fellow- Citizens :
We are here to confer about the fall elections and to con
sider what we ought to do. One party insists that we are to
fight over again the old battles of the war and of reconstruc
tion, and the other that those old issues are all settled, and
that we have only to consider the wrongs of the present and
the policy of the future. Which is right? Are the Radicals
right in carrying you back to the strifes of the war, or the
Liberals and Democrats right in asking you to bury all these
differences and act on the condition of things at present? I
maintain that the questions of war and reconstruction and
constitutional change are all ended. The whole country.
Democrats and Republicans alike in the North, fought the
war to a successful conclusion. Admit that some Democrats
did oppose the war, the body of the party, the masses of the
people, stood together and fought together, or the Union
cause would have failed. But whoever is entitled to the
glory of restoring the Union, the war is past and the Federal
flag is the flag of the whole country, and nobody, North or
South, denies it. The Republicans "reconstructed" the
rebel States, and nobody seeks to overturn the reconstructed
State Governments of the South. If the Republicans want
the glory of it, let history judge ; it is no question for this
canvass. And so of the amendments. If the Republicans
claim credit with this age or posterity for their adoption, so
be it. It was their work, and let the future judge of its wis
dom. Nobody seeks to undo the work of these amendments,
and all parties agree that they shall stand as parts of the Con-

272 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
stitution. The war, the reconstruction policy, the amend
ments — what have they to do with this campaign ? We have
gone through a great revolution, involving war and constitu
tional change, and the revolution has been completely suc
cessful.. I will not discuss whether it was right or wrong,
wise or foolish, but the revolutionists have been successful.
Secession has been crushed, the Constitution amended, the
Southern States remodeled, and five millions of slaves made
citizens. All races are constitutionally equal in civfl and
political rights, and all these changes are as permanent as any
part of the Federal system. They are no more entitled to
be issues than the Missouri Compromise or the Mexican war.
You might as well attempt to roll back this serene autumn
loaded with its products into the stormy lap of March. The
tide of time flows forward, not backward.
Let my Radical brethren consider a few traits of American
character and even they can not deny that the old issues must,
in the nature of things, be settled. Our people are eminently
practical and law-abiding, and without question admit that
the people must govern. All agree that when the people
settle a question it must stand. All must submit to the will
of the majority as constitutionally expressed. This is the
political religion, if I may so speak, of every American.
Never was the force of an idea more conspicuously illustrated
than this point has been in the last few years. When Lee
and Johnson surrendered the war was over. The whole
South laid down their arms — they were whipped and they sub
mitted. In nine months every State but one had sent up to
Washington Senators and Congressmen, and acknowledging
the Northern victory, was for going right on as though noth
ing had happened. They were sent out and told to recon
struct their governments before they came back into the
Union, and they did it; and still the Radicals would not ad
mit them, but required them to accept amendments to the
Federal Constitution, and they did even that. True, all

SECTIONAL RECONCILIATION. 273
these things, as they claimed, were forced on them by the
soldier and the carpet-bagger — force and fraud — but knowing
it to be a revolution backed by th» popular will of the con
queror, and being eager for practical Union and peace, they
submitted to these oppressions without serious outbreak
rather than prolong the social and industrial ruin that sur
rounded them. If they submitted then, when their passions
were heated in the fiery furnace of civil war, will they revolt
now, when the work is all done and the fires of strife have
cooled down? It would contradict all experience. They
will not do it. And the same practical course has char
acterized THE DEMOCRACY OF THE NORTH.
That party as a body opposed with afl theirtalent and influ
ence the reconstruction policy and the Amendments. They
appealed to the people at every election, by every sentiment
of love for the old Constitution, and of justice and mercy to
the erring South, but they were beaten year after year at the
polls, and despite their opposition the whole Radical scheme
was carried through. The Amendments were proclaimed
adopted, and all the States took their places in the ' ' recon
structed " Union. This ended the revolution, and the Demo
cratic party accepted the result as final. They did not admit
that these things had all been rightfully or fairly done, but
they conceded that they were done, and that was all that any
one could expect of them. A party may patriotically oppose
the enactment of a law or the adoption of a constitution, but
when the popular will has once settled the question, nothing
is left but obedience or revolution. The Democracy has within
the last two years, with wonderful unanimity all over the
whole Union, deliberately accepted the three late Amend
ments to the Constitution as practically valid parts of the in
strument, and pledged themselves to obey them as such.
This recognition began in Ohio, and the Democratic State
convention of June, 1871, pledged the party to the amend-

274 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
ments. The States, one after another, followed the lead of
Ohio, and the "New Departure," as it was not inaptly called,
was finally confirmed by'the Baltimore convention, and be
came the accepted creed of the party. Even on the floor of
Congress, on the motion of James Brooks, of New York,
made February 5, 1872, the Democratic party, by an over
whelming majority, voted that the amendments were valid.
The leaders of the party almost to a man, through the press
and on the hustings, have in the most emphatic manner de
clared the same thing. And, that no doubt might be left in
the mind of any one, the party with enthusiastic unanimity,
nominated Horace Greeley, a life-long opponent. They for
got all his hard words and took him as their standard-bearer,
though he had constantly favored the amendments. Was
there ever a nobler assurance of good faith given by any
party? The Democratic party were determined to close the
mouths of their opponents forever, and offer the country the
olive branch by the hand that had never been raised but to
smite them. The whole party, then, in every form, are irre
vocably committed to this doctrine. When all parties agree
on the same subject, surely a question is settled. Is it in the
nature of things that, after being so constantly beaten for so
many years, that the issue will be again revived by the de
feated party? How could it be done? Afl departments of
the Government have proclaimed these amendments valid,
and from their decision there can be no appeal but arms. Is
any Radical mad enough to believe that would be resorted
to? No, men of Indiana, you afl know that these amend
ments, and the whole subject of reconstruction, is settled.
Any attempt to make you think otherwise is an attempt to
delude you. It is an attempt to draw you away from fhe
present to the dry bones of past issues. But it is insulting
your common sense to press it further, for your intelligence
teaches you that slavery and all its attendants are dead, and
dead forever. If this be so, is it not irrational to make it, or

SECTIONAL RECONCILIATION. 275
any thing concerning it, the basis of party divisions? Nay, it
is impossible. The dead carcass can not be galvanized into
life. It must be buried, or the public nostrils will revolt at
the stench. REAL ISSUES.
Feeling assured, then, as I do, that the people are too
practical to continue disputing with each other on matters
already settled, we are brought to inquire what are the real
issues that now divide parties. We have found that we do
not practically differ as to the amendments, nor as to the
State governments of the South. What, then, do we differ
about? As to the questions touching or growing out of the
late war nothing is left but amnesty, reconciliation. On this
parties differ, and have differed ever since the war closed.
And on this I am proud to say that the Democratic party
has always occupied the advance ground. The Radicals have
called us Bourbons, and charged that we never learn any
thing and never forget anything; that we are always in
the rear of every movement. And now when they can no
longer deny that some advance has been made, they say we
only follow and camp this year on the ground they left last
year. It seems hard to satisfy them. But even they
cannot deny that there is one line of march on which we
have always been in the advance. From the moment the
war closed we have favored universal amnesty and sectional
peace. Here we have been in the advance ground and they
have lagged behind, and have not even caught up with us
yet. Now, if as I have been arguing, the old issues of re
construction are all decided, ought we not to seek reconcilia
tion and peace? Even if proscription and disfranchisement
and exclusion from office were essential to the reconstruction
of the seceded States, as the Radicals claim, why are they
to be kept up now that the South is reconstructed? What
do you want with the scaffolding after the house is already
built? Is there ever to come a time when you are to with-

276 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
draw from the South your army of occupation? Can the
people of the South ever be trusted to govern themselves?
The war has been over seven years, and in that time, as
physiologists tell us, nature herself reconstructs every human
being. Not a particle of the matter which composes your
body now was any part of it seven years ago. The food you
have taken has been so appropriated as to replace every bone
in your body. Is not seven years long enough apprentice
ship for the South to serve before coming to freedom in the
new order of things? When old Laban made Jacob serve
seven years and then gave him the wrong daughter, and
made him work seven other years for his beloved Rachel,
was not the old man afterward sorely punished for his fraud?
Did not Jacob practice on Laban the deception his father-in-
law had taught him? Will the Radicals be Bourbons and
learn nothing?
Even on your own premises, my Radical friends, you can
not justify your oppression of the South. Your severe
measures were adopted, you said, to compel submission to
the Union and secure protection to the colored race. No
opposition to this policy is anywhere found now, and on your
own showing your severity is no longer needed. The Union
is restored, the Constitution is amended, the negro is a voter,
the South wants peace. Did you ever ask more than these ?
The mass of the people of all parties never did, and do not
now. But the Radical leaders, who shape poHtical move
ments, do. They insist that the proscriptive policy shafl be
continued. At the last session of Congress they sought per
sistently to secure greater control of the ballot box by placing
elections under Government surveillance, and over the lives
and liberties of the people by extending the President's
power to suspend the habeas corpus. True, these measures
were defeated by the activity and vigilance of the Democrats
and Liberals, but they show the animus of the Radical
leaders. Afl the influence of the President was used in vain;

SECTIONAL RECONCILIATION. 277
the people's representatives refused to longer clothe him with
the power of a dictator. Men of Indiana, have you reflected
what this GREAT WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS
Is, and how its suspension operates? Do you remember that
without it your personal libe;fties are not worth a rush?
Without it you have no security for life or liberty. However
unjustly seized and however illegally imprisoned, you have
no relief without this writ. It is the citizen's great "writ of
right," wrested by our fathers of old from the kingly tyrants
of England and hedged about by statutory guarantees — it
was one of the immemorial privileges they brought with them
to this country. When our Constitutions, State and Federal,
were being formed, this writ was sacredly guaranteed to the
citizens. It is written' in our fundamental law that "the
privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended
unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety
may require it." And yet seven years after the war was
over, and not an armed rebel or an invading foe could be
found in the whole land, the President clamors for the right
to suspend the great writ at his sovereign pleasure.
In England the Parliament alone assumes to suspend the
writ, but in Republican America Congress authorized the
President to suspend it at his own pleasure and in whatever
part of the country he chooses. And at the outset of a Presi
dential election he actually has the audacity to demand that
this power shall be conferred upon him till it is over, and the
demand would have been yielded to, and the lives and liber
ties of the voters placed in his irresponsible hands, but for
the opposition of the men now supporting Horace Greeley.
The Radicals demanded that their candidate in a time of
peace should be clothed with this despotic power, and were
only defeated by the Democrats and Liberals on the floor
of Congress. The Radical leaders still cling fondly to their
proscriptive policy. General amnesty is voted down by the

21

278 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN ,WARD.
Radicals as often as proposed, and even when they can no
longer resist the popular demand for more lenity to the South
they grudgingly dole out forgiveness as if it went against the
grain. Now, my fellow-citizens, you wish to do right — the
masses of all parties wish to do right — and you will hurl your
leaders from power whenever .you become satisfied they are
needlessly or for selfish purposes oppressing the South. If
you are satisfied of the real condition of the South you will
no longer uphold her oppressors. No one of you will know
ingly and willingly support tyranny. It is not only against
your consciences as Christians and patriots, but against your
interests as men. Let us dispassionately, if we can in the
presence of such gigantic wrongs, look a little to the evils of
Radical misrule in the South. I shall not discuss now any
controverted point of reconstruction. Let us look only to
the practical workings of the system of "carpet-bag" gov
ernment in the South on the minds of the people, and on
their social and industrial condition. All must admit that
their prosperity is essential to ours. We are one people in
all the great elements of industry and of social life, as well
as by the bond of Federal Union. Each has its local inter
ests and habits, and each its local governments. But all
sections must be prosperous if any would truly prosper. A
glance at the real condition of the carpet-bag governed States
discloses their appalling ruin.
The census tables and the report of the Ku-Klux Com
mittee are all the documents any one need examine to be
convinced that the worst evils ever depicted by Democratic
orators fall short of the truth. "Carpet-bag" government
began, properly speaking, in 1868. At that time all the Con
federate State Governments, and all their debts and statutes,
were wiped out, and a new era began. Before that time these
unfortunate States had been governed as military districts,
and, bad as that rule was, it was mercy compared with the
misgovernment that followed. When the war closed. Grant

SECTIONAL RECONCILIATION. 279
himself reported that the Southern people were well disposed
and desired peace, and the truth of that report is proved by
the fact that they promptly complied with the demands of the
Federal Government. That ill-feeling has been engendered
since by the tyranny and arrogance of Northern adventurers is
conceded by the Ku-Klux Committee, and can be denied by
no intelligent person. The Ku Klux themselves, though
they afterward committed many unjustifiable outrages, and
deserve the sternest punishment, were organized originally in
self-defense. But whatever blame may be attached to each
contending faction, and however it may be distributed, the
result every one admits to have been wide-spread demoraliza
tion and corruption. When he who sowed knew not whether
he should reap ; when the arm of Government was not used
to defend, but to oppress ; when office was the reward of ex
tortion, and laws the fruit of bribery, what better could be
hoped for? If rankling hate, murder, robbery, fraud and
vice did not pervade the community, the people of the South
would have been more or less than human. The majority of
the Ku-Klux Committee seem to screen in every way they
can the Radical misrule of their party, but the testimony was
so overwhelming as to extort confession of its iniquity even
from them. On page .85 they say:
" Unfortunatelv there are too many causes for complaint in the subse
quent conduct of the State Governments. If good government had resulted,
the opposition, founded on their former political creed, and upon what they
characterized as the bad faith, usurpations and tyranny of Congress would
ere this have lost much of its power, even in their own communities."
And again, on page 87, they say :
"Taking South Carolina as one illustration, and it is certainly as bad in
these respects as any of the States, and there can be no doubt that venality
and corruption in the Legislature prevailed largely. They are spoken of as
existing by men of all parties, and seem to be conceded; certainly their
existence is almost universally believed by the people of the State. With
such material in the Legislature, and such views of virtue outside as are
shown to have prevailed, corruption was inevitable."
Afl the best and ablest men being excluded from ofifice,

280 SPEECHES ANb ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
and all power vested in ignorant negroes, poor white trash
and greedy carpet-baggers, corruption became popular and
extortion a perquisite of power. Even the committee packed
to whitewash can not but close their report (page 100) by a
recommendation that all political disabilities be removed
" with proper conditions and exceptions;" for when could a
Radical leader banish all hate from his heart? He could
never be happy if there was no rebel head on which to pour
the vials of "loyal" wrath! But the committee reluctant as
they are, admit enough, and the evidence overwhelms with
crushing force the flimsy pretexts for Southern outrage and
robbery. This shows, as was well said by the minority of
the committee, that the Ku-Klux did not exist, even in
the States where they existed at all, in more than one-
tenth of the counties, and had no affliliated organization at
all. And it shows besides, beyond all manner of doubt,
that the better classes had no share in these outrages, and
the outrages themselves were oftener than otherwise provoked
by the tyranny and maladministration of the carpet-bag Gov
ernments, winked at by the Radical party at Washington,
and upheld by Federal bayonets in the South. Nay, more ;
the worst that was ever done was the outbreak in South Car
olina in 1870, and this report establishes beyond cavil that
this was brought about by the arming of the negroes to carry
an election by intimidation and force. Gould it be wondered
at that these sons of the old Palmetto State should remember
that they were the descendants of Revolutionary sires, and
had learned from mothers' lips that "resistance to tyranny is
obedience to God?" Would you, men of Indiana, submit to
be robbed, oppressed, mocked and vilified without resistance?
No people worthy of freedom would while they could forge
a sword or manufacture saltpeter! It is time now to consider
the effect of this carpet-bag system on
DEBT AND TAXATION.
Of the eleven seceded States this system was only practi-

SECTIONAL RECONCILIATION. 281
cally operative in nine. Tennessee came back into the
Union, as the phrase is, at the close of the war. Virginia
also — gallant old Virginia, with a serener judgment than the
other States — was "reconstructed" so early and so peace
fully that even a carpet-bagger could not fatten on her mis
fortunes. In the other nine rebel States Radical thievery had
fufl sway, and "ye shall know the tree by its fruit."
And first as to the debts of these States. Peculation has
been so enormous, and the accounts so fraudulently kept,
that it is almost impossible to arrive at the truth. The state
ments found are everywhere confused and contradictory, as is
always the case where fraud has been practised. Collecting
all sources of information attainable, I give you the result.
The increase of debt, according to the Ku-Klux Report, is
only one hundred and thirty-two millions in the three years
since reconstruction in the whole eleven States. But the
minority state it at one hundred and ninety-seven and a half
milHoTis. These discrepancies arise from including or exclud
ing fraudulent railroad and other borids which may or may
not be repudiated. Even the Radical majority admit one
hundred and thirty-two millions, and how enormous is this
amount of stealing, for the States have nothing to show for
it? One hundred and thirty-two miflions stolen in three
years, as admitted by themselves ! But in truth the amount
exceeds two hundred millions! Where is Tammany now?
Mark you, my feflow-citizens, this is no electioneering state
ment. It is the most favorable report their own friends could
make, and the enormous frauds are undeniable truths, though
the exact amount can not be ferreted out. Suppose it is
only ,^132,000,000? Is not that enough? The whole debt
of the remaining twenty-six States, with six times the re
sources, is only ^182,000,000, and that not accumulated in
three years, but iri the whole existence of the States. The
carpet-bag Governments have stole more in ten States of the
South in three years than would pay the whole debt of the

282 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
remaining States of the Union. In Virginia, freed as she
has been from their rule, the State debt has actually dimin
ished, while in poor Florida, the paradise of negro govern
ment and carpet-bag thieves, the debt has increased under
reconstruction rule more than ^15,000,000. The whole
eleven seceded States owe ;^327,000,000, and their twenty-
six more fortunate sisters only ;^182,000,000. The eleven
have on their tax duplicates ^2,026,000, while the other
twenty -six have ^11,997,000. Their population is about
9,500,000, and ours 28,500,000. Their debt is about ;^37
per head for every man, woman and child, black and white;
ours in the North is, on an average, less than $1 ; yours in
Indiana ^$2.40 per capita. Will you rule yourselves, or pre
fer to be ruled by carpet-baggers?
But this blighting curse. Radical misrule, is most odious in
the ruinous taxes it imposes. The assessed valuation for
taxation, inclusive of slaves, was in the eleven seceded States,
R333, 000,000 in 1860, and only ^2,026,000,000 in 1870—
and yet the State and county tax rose in these ten years from
^11,280,000 to ;^27,111,000, being about six rimes as much
on every dollar of taxable property. With less than half the
taxable property their taxes are greatly more than double;
and not only so, but instead of being spent in valuable im
provements and in extending protection to the people and
their property, the money extorted by the iron grip of des
potism has been wasted in corruption and riotous living while
the people are oppressed and insulted by the hungry hordes
who have fattened on their substance.
We have seen that the tax duplicate of the fated eleven
States actually declined more than two thousand millions in
ten years. Much of this decline was the dropping of mil
lions of slaves from the Hst of chattel property, but still an
actual decline in other property took place. Many millions
of personal property were destroyed, and hundreds of mil
lions more in improvements on real estate. All this must be

SECTIONAL RECONCILIATION. 283
admitted, and yet it does not account for the decline in
wealth of the Southern people. Carpet-baggers stole hun
dreds of millions more, but most of this is left to these States
as a legacy of debt, and fails to explain their present impov
erishment. Nothing is more remarkable than the rapidity with which
countries devastated by war recuperate on the return of peace.
And this is because the annual production in any one year
of an industrious community bears a large proportion to all
its previously acquired wealth. In 1869 Commissioner Wells
estimated the annual productive industry of this country at
about seven thousand millions, which is about one-fourth of
all the accumulated wealth of the nation. This is doubtless
too low. I think the annual production of our people in
peace and prosperity, including the increased value given to
lands by improvement, would reach fully one-third the value
of afl past accumulations. How much of this is saved and
how much consumed? How much stands on the ledger of
wealth to the credit of permanent capital, and how much
never gets beyond, the blotter of daily consumption? Politi
cal economists differ in their estimates, and communities
differ so much in their habits that no certainty can be arrived
at. But we know that a very small per cent, can anywhere
be laid up out of the annual earnings of industry. So when
a country is desolated by war it soon, if blessed with peace
and prosperity, will replace the evanescent articles which con
stitute the bulk of its wealth, and wear out in a few years.
Out of what it would otherwise consume in its annual living
it refits its houses and furniture, its farms and factories, and
in a short time no trace of the war is found on the face of its
industry. Economy has replaced the havoc of war with
what would otherwise have been spent in luxurious in
dulgence. But how is it in the South? Has her industry revived?
Have the furrows of war disappeared from her beautiful face?

284 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
Ah, no ! Truth compels the admission that that fair country
still hangs like a mill-stone around the neck of the Republic.
Her people are discontented and distrustful of the future,
brambles and briers are springing up in her neglected fields,
and the great staples of her industry are no longer crowding
the markets of the world. The ill-fated eleven States have
fewer acres of cultivated land than they had ten years ago.
They have less wealth, less industry. In these States there
were in 1860 more than 38,000,000 acres of improved lands,
and in 1870 less than 32,000,000— a loss of 6,500,000 of
acres. What would be a third of the area of Indiana, then
teeming with wealth, is now a wilderness of thorns or a
desert of broom sedge ! Why has all this happened ? Is it
due to the devastating foot of the patriot soldier? The rav
ages of war fell heaviest upon the border States — Virginia,
Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri — and yet they have re
covered their wonted prosperity. They have declined neither
in wealth, industry nor cultivated lands. The reason is that
the one class were cursed by carpet-bag governments, and
the other was not. It is not the work of the soldier. Not
the eagles of the battle field, but the vuhures of administra
tive oppression and wrong, have devoured the prosperity of
this lovely land.
Another test of prosperity is the increase of population.
Let us try the carpet-bag policy by this test. In 1860 the
eleven seceded States had about 8,600,000 people, and in
1870 about 9,500,000, an increase of about 10 per cent;
whereas, in the preceding decade, the increase had been about
1,948,000, or more than 27 per cent In the other twenty-
six States, during the same period, from 1860 to 1870, the
increase was from about 22,500,000 to about 28,508,000, a
gain of about 35 per cent. Our actual losses of life in the
war were no doubt as great as theirs, and the disturbance of
business would no doubt check our increase as well as theirs.
And, indeed, our per cent of increase did fafl off from the pre-

SECTIONAL RECONCILIATION. 285
vious decade, in which it had been 41 per cent. But all these
things do not at all explain why increase of population should
almost have stopped in the carpet-bag States. Why, if you
exclude Texas, a very new State, where the people live so
far apart that carpet-baggers could not catch them, and Ten-
.nessee, which mainly escaped their clutches after 1868, there
was scarcely any increase at all. Not more in the whole re
maining nine States than in Indiana. And again, we see that
it was not the war which so checked population, for the
States most desolated — except old, worn-out Virginia — did
increase quite rapidly; Kentucky and Tennessee as rapidly,
and Missouri far more rapidly than during the preceding de
cade. How can you doubt, then, that it was the oppression
of the carpet-baggers that checked population as surely as
their extortions checked production and wealth? And what
remedy is there but the remedy that restored good govern
ment in Virginia, Tennesse and Missouri — reconciliation and
amnesty? The cure for tyranny is self-government by this
people unawed by soldiers, and uncorrupted by heartless ad
venturers. And is it not time, my countrymen, that this
maladministration should cease? It is ruining these States.
THEY PAY BUT LITTLE TAXES TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
While you are loaded down with a burden of debt almost
too grievous to be borne, they have been for seven
years' only a bill of expense to you. You would not
have time to listen to the details, but since the war closed
they have not paid taxes enough to the Federal Govern
ment to pay what it has cost you to oppress them. In
the last fiscal year reported, ending July, 1871, the nine
carpet-bag States paid only ,^6,129,000 Internal Revenue,
while even Virginia and Tennessee, worse desolated by
the war, paid a greater sum. War-blasted Missouri paid
seven miflions, and Kentucky six and a half Of the whole
amount of Internal Revenue coflected, these nine carpet-

286 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
bag ridden States only paid a fraction over six millions,
while the rest of the Union paid over one hundred and
thirty-six millions. My own city of Cincinnati paid more
than the whole nine. It is conceded that this payment is not
the test of the consumption of the articles taxed, but it is a
test of their production. It is a thermometer of industry.
But not only is the gross amount of this tax small, but how
monstrous is the expense of its collection? Turn to the
Finance Report of the Secretary of the Treasury for 1871,
page 204, and learn all these facts. In Arkansas the assess
ment and collection cost 47 per cent, of the amount collected.
In Alabama, 33 per cent. ; Florida, 32J; Mississippi, 44, and
Texas, 36 J. But why continue the sickening detail? These
States average about 38 per cent. Poor as the people are
down there, it is hard for them, and harder still for us, that
out of every dollar they pay to support the F"ederal Govern
ment a carpet-bagger gobbles up thirty-eight cents of it.
Thus we are taxed to support Southern oppression. They
are too poor to consume foreign articles, and so the enor
mous tariff, too, fafls on us. The North bears almost the
entire expense of the Government, while Radical misgovern
ment so cripples the industries of the South that they can
neither pay taxes nor afford our people an outlet — a market
for their productions. Restore peace and industry in that
country, by amnesty, brotherly love, good government, and
their industries will at once revive, their fertile fields pour
again their cotton crops, as of old, into the lap of commerce,
our products will find a market, and the burdens of taxation
we now bear be distributed over the whole country. Defeat
Grant, and his minions will fly from the South as rats fly from
a sinking ship, or as Governor Bullock fled from Georgia.
Men of Indiana, I might go on, but it would weary you.
Other topics are fraught with interest, but I forbear. The
onerous tariff, enormous debt, depreciated currency, prostrate
commerce, fraudulent treasury accounts, startling defalcations,

SECTIONAL RECONCILIATION. 287
bribery, nepotism, corruption and personal government every
where mark the evils of Radical rule in the North. Reform
in all these matters will follow as the day the night upon the
reconciliation of the sections. This, then, is at last the con
trolling issue. Greeley represents reconciliation between the
sections and reform everywhere, and Grant is the champion
of sectional antagonism and carpet-bag tyranny in the South,
as well as of monopoly and spoliation everywhere. Which
will you support? Citizens, men of all parties, are not your
real interests the same? On the issue now involved nothing
but prejudice divides you. It is the interest of none but
office-holders to keep the sections asunder. It is the inter
est of all the people alike to make this an era of reconcilia
tion and reform. THE TWO CANDIDATES
Are Republicans, and if party prejudice governs, it would be
harder for Democrats than Radicals to support Greeley. But
you Democrats, with a magnanimity worthy of your grand
old history, have sunk the partisan in the patriot. The old
Philosopher of Chappaqua is right now, and you care not how
much you have differed from him heretofore. Go, Republi
can, and be equally true to the interests of the hour. In the
nature of things, your party must die. It has accomplished
all for which it was born. The riddles it proposed have been
solved. On no question but slavery was there ever any
unanimity among you, and that being ended you can agree
together on nothing else. The Grant leaders are striving to
hold you together now on no great principle, for you have
accomplished your mission but solely to keep themselves
in office. And they themselves are only held together "by
the cohesive power of public plunder." They have enriched
themselves in public office as no party ever did before.
' ' Put money in thy purse, ' ' is their motto, and every monopoly
looks to them as its special guardians. All this many of you
admit, but stifl you say, "We distrust the South; we fear the

288 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
Democracy." The South, you say, are stfll restless, and you
must still hold them down. Would you make them slaves?
Under robbery and oppression they have sometimes winced,
it is true, ,< poy tjjg flggjj .^iii quiver
When the pincers tear." '
But Still you say Grant was the glorious hero of the war;
the second savior of his country. We can not go back on
him. Savior of the country! It was the myriad arms of
your sturdy soldiers and the patriotism of the people that
saved the country. Do you owe everything to him and noth
ing to them? Whatever Grant's military services are they
have been richly rewarded, and give him no claim to a re
election. Indeed, no President ought to be re-elected. It
may have -been well enough in the simple times of the early
Republic, when the Federal Government had little patronage,
and was scarcely more in popular estimation than the subor
dinate of the States; but such a policy is dangerous now,
when the tendency to centralization is almost irresistible, and
the President backed by a hundred thousand office-holders
and armed with a hundred millions of patronage. In the old
Roman republic the Consul could not take an office till he
had laid down all powers and sworn that while in office he
had not violated the laws. Even the mightiest conqueror
was required to camp his army outside the walls, lay off afl
military arms and trappings, and unarmed, naked and un
covered, as it were, come into the august presence of his
masters, the people, clad in a spotless white toga — the origin
of our word candidate — and there, helpless in their hands,
abide their decision. He stood at the corners of the streets
robed in the emblems of his innocence to solicit the suffrages
of the people, and bare his unmailed bosom to the stroke of
the humblest citizen he had injured. But now. Grant armed
with a power of patronage mightier than any monarch on
earth, arrogantly demands a second term, because he could
not afford to be President for the petty salary of the first, and

SECTIONAL RECONCILIATION. 289
not for the public good, but as a personal compliment for his
past services. You should make every President, like the
Consul of old, lay down power and become a private citizen
before he asks you to clothe him with more than kingly
power a second time. Let Grant lay down his power, and
then come, if he can find a robe unspotted by corrupting
gi^ts and nepotism, and throw himself upon the mercy of his
countrymen. I will not ask you to deny or undervalue the military ser
vices of General Grant. Let them be graven upon the page
of history; let them live in the grateful memory of his coun
trymen, and let them be impartially weighed when the pas
sions of the present give place to the critical judgment of the
future. But are they assurances of statesmanship? Have
not mere military men generally been failures as civil rulers?
All history teaches that they have. Nor is the experience
of this country an exception. Never before, but once, in
the case of Taylor, did we have a military President, and he
died too soon to be an example. True, we have had Presi
dents who had seen military service, but they were distin
guished civilians as well. Washington, Monroe, Jackson,
Harrison and Pierce had all been gallant and efficient soldiers,
but almost their whole lives before they became President
had been spent in the civil service. No, my countrymen,
a military life is not the fit school for statesmen. And
though there have been, and may be again, exceptions to the
rule. Grant has not proven himself one of them. Grant's
administration illustrates the truth. As a soldier he was
successful, as a statesman he is a failure. Do with his history,
then, as the rough soldier told the traitor Benedict Arnold —
and I make no comparison between the men themselves, for
Arnold was a traitor, and Grant, with all his faults, is true to
his flag — the Americans would do with him if they caught
him after his treason: "They would," said the old soldier,
"cut off your game leg, wounded in the honorable service

290 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
of your country, and bury it with all the honors of war,
while they hung iip the rest of your traitor carcass on a
gibbet" So deal with the history of Grant. Spread out on the
page of history, clothed in all the hues of glory, his military
career, that it may be seen and read of by all men — not gib
beted, but blazoned — and let the rest of his history be buried
out of sight — not with the honors of war, but in silence and
grief — that it may no longer cloud the halo of glory which
would without it hang round his head.
We are to decide between the man of the sword and the
man of the pen. On the one side is the genius of war, on
the other is the genius of peace. If Horace Greely is elected
President, the country will be no longer a military camp.
North or South. It will be the beginning of a new era of
good feeling, freed from the sectional strife and partisan ani
mosities of the past. His will not be an administration
strictly in the interest of any party, for he is supported by
Democrats and Republicans, Northern and Southern men.
Unionists and. Secessionists, black and white, native and for
eign, all who desire amnesty and reform. The sections will
war with each other no more forever, and all races learn that
the mysterious dispensations of Providence which have
brought them face to face from the antipodes of the earth
enjoin on them to dwell together in peace. And as the
grandest and noblest result, the Government itself will be
brought back to the orbit of the Constitution, and local gov
ernment remitted to the control of the States. This is above
all other reforms, because it secures the personal rights of
the citizen and leaves him the greatest individual liberty con
sistent with public order. These things are the true purpose
of all good government.

ARMY RE-UNION ORATION.
[An address delivered at Pittsburg, Penn., September 17th, 1873, before the
Society of the Army of the Cumberland.]
Comrades :
We meet to-day near -a spot hallowed by the youthful
valor of Washington. We meet in a year signalized in the
national calendar as the huridredth since the first war scene
in the drama of the Revolution was enacted by the hostile
boarding of the tea ships in Boston Harbor. And we meet
on that day distinguished in the files of September, by the
signing of the Federal Constitution. The memory of these
historic events may well inspire patriotic emotion.
But while we are thus reminded of the daring and wisdom
of the early time, the more recent events whose glory this
meeting is called to commemorate, awaken for us still deeper
emotion. We feel, and ought to feel, for the achievements
of the founders of our country, the reverent love of children
for their ancestors. We should cherish the memory of their
virtues and their sacrifices in the inner chamber of our hearts,
only less close to the very core than religious devotion to the
Father of the Universe. Still every age has its calls to duty,
and the obligations of to-day and to-morrow are as sacred as
the memories of any yesterday. The work the present gen
eration has had to do will endear it to future times" with a
regard little less earnest than the popular veneration for the
Revolutionary Fathers. And we may, therefore, without
vanity, acknowledge how deeply we feel the difficulty and
importance of the task the necessities of this age imposed
upon us, and how fondly we cling to the friendships formed
during the dark period of danger and privation in which our
lot was cast.

292 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
Auspicious as the dawn of the Republic was, one cloud
appeared above the horizon. It was at first not bigger than
a man's hand, but to the thoughtful it even then forboded
storm. Year after year it grew bigger and blacker, tifl at
length it overcast the whole national sky. In the Missouri
Question, the Abolition Movement, the Compromise Meas
ures, and the Nebraska bill, the first gusts of the fearful com
motion were felt. But, as of old, the people went on unheed-
ful of the danger, buying and selling, and getting gain, marry
ing and giving in marriage, until at the election of Lincoln the
floods of sectional strife came down, and the whole country
was deluged in civil war. Though the muttering thunders had
for a generation admonished us, still we were wholly unpre
pared, except in the robust manhood and lofty patriotism of
the people. Almost without arms or military organization,
with few who had ever served in the field, and the whole peo
ple engrossed with their industrial pursuits, while one-third of
the States were in open revolt, how feeble to all but the patriot
seemed the Union cause ! The very government trembled and
hesitated whether it would not let the erring sisters go in
peace. But the masses were stronger than the government,
and when the rebel leaders, to fire the Southern heart,
"sprinkled blood in the faces of their people," the Northern
hosts, like mountain lions roused from their lairs, sprang as
one man to the cause of the Union. The plowshare was left
standing in its furrow, the plane lay sleeping on its bench, the
shuttle of the weaver forgot its cunning, and the forge shaped
only the implements of war. The broad land became a
military camp. Millions flew to arms, and the hoarse voice
of war alone filled the ear of every village and hamlet, and
the spirit of patriotism throbbed strong in every heart and
home. Each section was alike in zeal, alike in ancestral
pride, alike in prowess. Each believed itself right and the
other wrong.
The contending armies, on either side, rush to the field

ARMY RE-UNION ORATION. 293
impelled by conflicting passions, as thunder clouds fraught
with electric fires. The ponderous columns meet in the
shock of battle ! Ah, the gallant charge, the death grapple,
the shouts of triumph, the anguish of defeat! At last vic
tory perches on the standard of the Union, and ' ' Peace has
come, and come to stay! "
When the rriariner, long tossed by the surging waves, at
last anchors safely in port and sets his foot upon the shore,
the earth reels and staggers beneath his unsteady step, as if
he were still upon the deck of his tempest-rolling ship. So
we, after emerging from the stormy sea of rebellion on which
we were so long driven, and placing our feet upon the solid
rock, found our heads not quite steady, and could hardly
persuade ourselves that the firm footing beneath us was not
the turbulent billows of the past. But now, when time has
borne us away from the ocean of secession strife, we may look
calmly back from the highlands of peace and equal rights we
have gained, as the mariner might gaze from a neighboring
mount upon the half-slumbering sea whose breakers had so
lately driven him into port. Stifl the distant roar fitfully falls
on the ear; now and then the dying blasts harmlessly smite
the cheek, and old memories make us almost imagine our
footing is heaving under us. But we take confiding hold
upon the right hand and upon the left of the pillars of con
stitutional liberty and Federal union, founded on the ever
lasting granite of equality before the law of all races and
creeds, and feel and know that we do not bleed in vain, but
that we shall hand down to our children's chfldren the rich
legacy of freedom^ our fathers bequeathed to us, not only un
impaired and unstained, but purified in the refining furnace
of revolution, and baptized anew in the blood of patriots.
We are still, however, too near these great events to im
partially weigh the events themselves or properly judge the
actors in them. No man can be a true historian of his own
time. He may create or preserve the material for the future

22

294 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
historian. He may make history, but he can not write it. A
full and thoughtful delineation of the causes and results, of
the movements and counter-movements of the "irrepressible
conflict," together with a searching scrutiny into the charac
ters and motives of the actors, must be left to the pen of some
future Gibbon or Grote. We have had our humble share in
the struggle, and we may add something to the recorded facts
hereafter to pass through the crucible of criticism, and be
moulded by some dispassionate mind and plastic hand into a
history of the secession war. It is too soon to pass final
judgment, and doubtless the youngest of us will not live to
be cool-headed enough to pass it at all. But this affords no
reason why we should not follow the lights we have, and base
our present and future action on our own views of the results
achieved, and our own estimate of the actors involved. In
deed, our conduct in the present must be always so based.
We can only judge anything from the knowledge we have,
and that knowledge must always be colored by the medium
¦through which it is received. Even if we could foresee all
the results of present actions or past events, we should not be
better quaHfied for the stirring duties of the current hour.
The future will sift the chaff from the wheat, but the present
time is nurturing the growing grain, which the mifls of the
gods shall grind — though they do grind exceeding slow — into
the bread of life for the coming time. But though unfitted
now to fully appreciate the ultimate significance of events so
recent, we can nevertheless take some note of the changed
condition of things, and cast some horoscope of the future.
Two great ideas have found fuller development in the late
revolution. They are a more perfect legal equality, irrespec
tive of race, among all the people of the RepubHc, and a
more perfect union among afl its States. Slavery and seces
sion are dead.
This is not the occasion critically to examine these organic
changes, neither as to their popular effects nor their final out-

ARMY RE-UNION ORATION. 295
come. The first belongs to the domain of the social philaso-
pher, and the second in its last analysis to the profoundest
thought of the statesman. From the discussion of these
great themes we may well shrink back stunned by their mag
nitude. But no man can wisely deal with the questions of
to-day who does not recognize these changes as accomplished
facts, and conform his public action to them. Whatever may
come from them in the distant ages, their just influence on
the policy of our own time must be fully acknowledged and
thoughtfully considered by all parties and sections. Equality
of all men before the law, Constitutional Liberty and Federal
Union are the political factors through which are to be worked
out the mighty problem of our National destiny. And we
shall be recreant to our country and unmindful of the logic
of events, as well as unworthy of our own history, if we fail
to unfalteringly stand by and cordially maintain that Con
stitutional Liberty and Union, in whose defense we once
"bared our red right arms."
There is, however, little need — nay, no need — for the
defense of the new order of things brought about by these
changes. Whatever other revolutions may do, the late one
can never go backward. The sanctity of the Federal Union,
and the equal rights of all its people, are ideas as fixed and
durable in the American mind as anything of human ordina
tion can be made. Disputes may arise as to political and
economic policies, clashing interests may beget internal con
vulsion, or unequal distribution of wealth or intelligence may
sap the foundations of liberty and equality, but the Republic
will continue to be one Nation, all the races of whose people
the law will equally protect and defend. The war sprang
from Institutional causes, and these are the resultant Institu
tional changes worked out in the laboratory of revolution, as
permanently as elemental changes are wrought in the labor
atory of the chemist, or the still subtler evolutions of nature.
Assured as we are of the stabiHty of our Constitutional

296 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
U^ion, and relying as we do upon the patriotism of the peo
ple to preserve our institutions in their integrity, we forbear
to consider now the disputed issues of the past or to speculate
upon the social and political problems of the future. It better
suits this festive reunion to recall the sacred memories which
link us together, and contemplate with glowing hearts the
grandeur of our National history.
National glory is one of the chief elements of National
strength. It is to a people what noble ancestry is to a family;
The nobility of the family in our country is the record of its
noble deeds, not the blazonry of its coat of arms nor the
length of its rent-roll. So, in our country. National glory is
the record of the prowess, virtues, and achievements of the
people, not the heraldic deeds of kings and nobles. American
history does not chronicle the eclat of the aristocratic few; it
hands down to posterity the exploits of the ruling masses.
Its pages are the family record of the Nation's life. Hence it
is that our patriotism is so all-pervading, so omnipotent.
Each man feels himself a part of the Government, and a
wrong or an insult to that Government is resented as an as
sault upon his own honor. When rebel hands tore down the
flag from Sumter, it seemed to each true man as if it were
snatched defiantly from the roof-tree of his own house and
trailed in the dust under the very eyes of his wife and chil
dren. What wonder, then, that his pulse beat quick and
strong, and that the partner of his life sent him forth from
her embrace with her blessing on his head, to do battle for
the old ensign of his country? Under it his ancestors had
achieved independence and founded Republican Liberty. He
had followed it before in the field, or seen it wave in peace as
the emblem of his country's glory and freedom. Round the
hearthstone of his home had been recounted the heroic deeds
of his countrymen, and infant tongues had been taught to
speak the names of American patriots. When his flag, then
— his and his fathers' — was wrenched down by disloyal hands

ARMY RE UNION ORATION. 297
from the turrets of the sacred fort, where it had waved so
proudly, he vowed in his righteous wrath to wipe out the
insult in blood, and that though it should cost uncounted
treasure and hecatombs of lives, there should be no peace till
that same weather-beaten banner was replaced in triumph on
its old staff, there to salute every eye as the sentinel on the
watch-tower of " Liberty and Union."
And four years afterward, to a day, it was replaced, amid
the shouting of a victorious nation, and now glitters in the
sunlight and floats on the breeze, all the more revered for
the ancient wounds left on its face and adored as the politi
cal shekinah of the American Union. Long had the fratri
cidal strife gone on ; victory and defeat had evoke'd alternate
hope and fear; the hardy arm of the soldier in the field had
sometimes half faltered in its stroke ; the heart of the patriot
statesman had sometimes sunk within him almost in de
spair, and even the fervent voice of Woman's prayer had
seemed doubtfully answered. At home apprehension filled
the stoutest hearts, and abroad detraction from our successes
and exultation at our failures had taught us that the thrones
and dynasties of Europe looked upon the Union as already
fafleii, and were glad at its fall. But the prayers of our lov
ing mothers were heard, and the God of battles unsheathed
the sword of His power! Where is the tongue eloquent
enough to utter the joy of the people when, as the signal of
our assured triumph, the flag of Sumter was once more un
furled from its redeemed battlements? All over the country
the meridian hour of high twelve was watched with throb
bing heart and melting eye, while grateful, miflions hailed
with choral voice the grand event.
But the laurel wreath was twined with the cypress. The
shouts of joy were mingled with the wailings of grief In
the hour of triumph the nation was turned into the house of
mourning. Assassination for the first time stained the an
nals of our country. The Martyr President was no more 1

298 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
With the accents of mercy on his lips, he had gone to ap
pear before the tlirone of Eternal Mercy on High. A be
reaved people could only bow their heads and weep !
When in some distant age and country millions, yet un
born, shall read the story of the secession war, the glory and
shame, the joy and grief of that day, will be marked as the
most dramatic event of the thrilling era, and the page which
recites it will more resemble a tale of romance than the sober
narration of history.
And while a few folds of faded bunting can so arouse the
national spirit, into what still deeper ardor it glows when it
clusters around some spot enshrined in the popular affection.
Independence Hall, Mount Vernon, or Old South Church,
would inspire patriotism in even the coldest, and will ever
rouse to enthusiasm the impulsive. This sentiment was
strikingly exemplified in the late conflict by the gigantic con
test for possession of the National Capital. In the eye of
mere military strategy it was no fitter a place for the head of
the government than many another, and the rebels could no
more fear the science of War when directed from Washington
than elsewhere. Yet all felt the moral effect of capturing
that city. It was not only the center of Federal power; it
was the Mecca of the American heart. The site had been
chosen by the Father of his Country ; the city was laid out
on his plan, and called after his name. A blush had been
brought to the cheek for two generations, because, in the
British war, the invading enemy had demolished its Capitol.
And now, when rebellion menaced the pride and power of
the Great Republic, what shame would cover the faces of the
people if rebel feet should tread upon the ashes of its mag
nificent dome. Every patriot citizen cried aloud to spare us
that humiliation. "The force withheld from the front to
protect the capital may weaken us elsewhere, may even pro
long the war, but the honor and glory of our country is at
stake. Let not rebels at home, nor their sympathizers abroad,

ARMY RE-UNION ORATION. 299
exult over the expulsion of the government from its ancient
seat, nor the gallant soldier be humbled in the dust at the
flight of Federal rulers from the throne of their power. En
circle the sacred city with walls of bristling steel, hurl defi
ance at the insulting foe ; stand by the archives of our fathers'
glorious deeds, and we will stand by you with the last dollar
and to the last man." And when the national hopes were
realized, and the war-worn veterans of a hundred fields at the
return of peace passed in grand review through the spacious
avenues of the Federal City, and gazed, many of them for the
first time, upon the lofty dome of the Capitol, how proudly
the emotion swelled each bosom, already too full for utter
ance. " No rebel banner ever waved from the pinnacle."
The same soul-stirring spirit of national glory moved us all
when we remembered that to give up the revolted States
was to surrender many a battle-field of the Revolution, many
a grave-yard of our noblest dead. Could we allow a foreign
flag to wave over Cowpens, King's Mountain or Yorktown?
Could we suffer Washington or Greene to sleep in a foreign
land? Could we let the bones of half the Presidents of the
Republic they had governed so wisely sanctify a soil rent from
us by treason and ruled by an alien power? No, no! The
South was our partner in the grand deeds of the past, and she
must go with us to share the dawning glories of the future.
But, my countrymen, ennobling as these recollections of
national glory are, there is yet a higher impulse pervading
and animating the popular heart. As spirit is above matter,
as thought elevates sense, so the institutions of Our country
are dearer and more sacred than the holiest material shrine
of our patriotism. It is not because our starry flag assures
us continental dominion, not because the fields of our re
nown or the graves of our mighty dead tell of courage and
genius, that they are so revered. It is that they speak
"trumpet tongued" of the security of freedom, of the jus
tice and equality of our laws, of the majesty of our institu-

300 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
tions! Even Old Faneuil would be but vulgar masonry
if every brick and crevice did not speak with the voice of lib
erty. The Capital dome itself would be but a masterpiece
of architecture if it did not surmount the deliberations of
freemen. American glory rests not on the low objects
of sense, but plumes its wing for a loftier height, and like its
own eagle, soars to the upper sky.
Brethren! Full well- do you all remember how our hearts
were fired by the tocsin-sound of war for the Union. We
had hoped for peace, but war was thrust upon us. The glove
was thrown down in defiance; with firm resolve and sinewy
arm we took it up. And now, after many a peril, our ranks
thinned by the sword and disease, a remnant is left to meet
in soldierly love and exult with our fellow-citizens over the
complete success of the good cause.
You need not be detained at this late day by a rehearsal
of the exploits of the Army of the Cumberland. They have
been recounted on many another occasion, and are known
and read of all men. They are already graven on the tablets
of history, and their memory will be perpetuated by sculp
ture and song to the remotest ages. It is fame enough that
you were the center of the Grand Armies of the Republic in
the hour when her need was the sorest. When that resolute
multitude formed line of battle against treason, the Army of
the Tennessee, the right wing, rested on the Mississippi in
the West, the Army of the Potomac, the left wing, was
based on the seaboard in the East, while our army confronted
the very heart of the Rebellion in the South. These were
the three grand lines of movement. Each had work enough
for the sturdiest, and each won laurels enough to content the
bravest. We are not here to boast of our own achievements,
nor to detract from those of others. On the contrary, to
our brethren of all the armies we bid hearty welcome, and
for their deeds of valor shall our applause be heard
" As when storms the welkin rend."

ARMY RE-UNION ORATION. 301
But gladly as we award their just meed of praise to others,
our minds proudly revert to the dangers and achievements
of our own beloved Army of the Cumberland. Some of us
were with it in its very infancy, when not even a full brigade
had gathered to its standard. Others joined us, and went
with it in dreary marches, and stood with it on stricken fields
during its long campaigns of struggle and glory. Like the
acorn, the appropriate emblem of its youth, it grew circle by
circle from regiment to brigade, from brigade to division,
from division to corps, and from corps to army, as steadily
and surely as its prototype grows, each year with its girdling
ring, one after another, from the tiny plant into the century-
living oak.
Nor was its tide of victory less constantly swefling, battle
by battle, than the stately proportions of its growth. From
its first check of Zollicoffer at Wildcat Hills, through all its
unswerving career, it never knew defeat. Even on the
bloody banks of the Chickamauga, "The River of Death,"
while the right and left of our beleaguered host were swept
from the field by the exultant foe, the indomitable center —
Thomas' old corps— rraflied by that lion-hearted leader, stood
breasting the fiery waves of rebel assault, as a rock defies the
ocean storm.
And as the Army of the Cumberland was the center of
the armies of the Union, the Fourteenth Corps, and even
Thomas' first division, was the center of that army, and who
does not know that the heart and soul of that division was
Thomas himself His atlas shoulders were the central pivot
of all the armies of the Republic. His genius was as
rounded and full as his position was central. How fitting
that a character all of whose elements were in such perfect
equipoise, should be the central figure in our grand line of
battle, and how inevitable that such a man should become
the central object on whom was fixed the converging eyes
of his grateful countrymen.

302 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OE DURBIN WARD.
When we greet each other to-day, and recall, as we so
naturally do, the joys and sorrows, the privations and vic
tories of other years, and when we are surrounded by the
battle-stained banners that circle us now, how vividly comes
back the past. Again the anxious hour, the irreparable
losses, the enduring friendships fill our souls. While our
fallen comrades look down upon us from the penciled canvas,
their spirits hover over us in heroic sympathy. The voice
of our departed leader still rings in our ears, as the clarion
of victory, and the stalwart form we loved so well still sits,
godHke, in our old President's chair.
But the spirits of the illustrious dead around us bid us
withdraw our lingering gaze from the rear and advance with
steady step and eyes to the front, in the forward march of
our country's glory. How grandly looms the Republic upon
the vision! Let the insidious dangers of national wealth,
and "eternal vigilance — the price of liberty" — be the themes
of some other day. Now we revel in the peaceful joys of a
restored Union, and trust those who shall come after us to
deserve and perpetuate its blessings. Proud as we are of
our martial achievements, we count them as but trifles com
pared with the great spirit of Fraternity and Union which
we hope they have made immortal. Other wars may have
rivaled ours in bare strategy or courage; but when did the
effusion of blood so guaranty the existence of a nation, so
canonize the institutions of Liberty?
And now, comrades, citizens of the redeemed Republic,
is it not time to sanctify and secure our victory by universal
amnesty? Shall we keep alive the animosities of the old
quarrel? Shall we not rather propose to our former enemies
of the South — citizens still, though they were enemies once
— that we drink together the waters of Lethe, and remember
no more the sectional hate that embroiled us? We are off
spring of the same gallant ancestors, and nurtured in the
same institutions, language and religion. The North and the

ARMY RE-UNION ORATION. 303
South are twin brethren, joint heirs of the glory of the old
Republic; and now that the Red Sea of our deliverance from
sectional bondage has been crossed, and our wanderings in
the wilderness of civil war ended, why shall we not enter
hand in hand into the promised land of perpetual peace?
Gallantly the defeated Southron struggled in his "Lost
Cause." Our victory was over no mean foe and for no sinis
ter purpose. It has given us — given the whole people of the
Union — the mightiest material empire, the freest people, the
grandest future that Heaven has ever vouchsafed to any
nation. Nor has cruelty sullied the triumph of the victor.
No rebel blood has stained the executioner's block. In their
civil wars, Americans may fall on the field, but they never
die on the scaffold. To pass the vanquished under the yoke
was the remorseless usage of heathen antiquity; but how
much nobler in the heroes of Christian conquest to extend
the olive branch.
The Centennial Birthday of Independence will soon dawn
upon us. On that natal morn, let the South and the North
sit down together on the old benches in Independence Hall,
and take the sacrament of reconciliation. Let us of the
Union armies invite our Secession foes to meet us at that
ancient fane of Freedom, and there, in the holy ground con
secrated to brotherly love, bury our dead strifes eternafly out
of sight. Let him of the North bring with him the mem
ories of Bunker Hfll, Saratoga, Brandywine, and all the ven
erable traditions of the olden time; let him of the South
come with the proud historic contributions of his sunny land
to the volume of his nation's glory; and there let us both,
with clasped hands, lay down together our offerings on the
altar of our common country, and in the presence of God
and myriads of assembled 'freemen, by the memory of our
fathers and the hopes of our children to the latest generation,
swear to preserve forever Liberty, Fraternity, and Union.

MEMORIAL DECORATION.
[A speech delivered at the Soldiers' Home at Dayton, O., May SOth, 1874.]
On this, De'coration Day, we stand upon a spot dedicated
by the people's gratitude to the disabled veterans of the Re
public. It is a place and time consecrated to the achieve
ments and sacrifices of the past. This is a soldiers' ceme
tery. The hearts that lie mouldering here once burned with
heroic fire. The arms that now lie nerveless once struck
with soldierly blow. Revere the memory of these slumber
ing veterans; their deeds are blazoned on their country's
escutcheon ! Tread lightly on this ground ; it urns the ashes
of the patriot dead ! Strew flowers upon these graves ; they
are fit emblems of the living — the perishing offerings of per
ishing mortals. So, my comrades, shall we, too, pass away,
and some kindly hand, let us hope, so honor the sward that
shall cover our dust.
At such a time and place no room is left for any sentiment
but patriotism, or any emotion but tearful gratitude. The
flag of the Republic, not one star blotted out or dimmed in
lustre, victoriously floats over us, and those who once aided
in the stern hour of battle to uphold its tottering staff and
unfurl to the breeze its trembling folds, are sleeping in peace
under the green turf beneath us. Who could ask more to
fill his bosom with patriot ardor or touch his heart with gen
erous emotion? If more could be needed the sight of these
infant hands, fatherless and motherless, that to day decorate
with fresh flowers the graves of their fathers' comrades, would
kindle the very coldest.
In this solemn presence, then, my countrymen, with smil-

MEMORIAL DECORATION. 305
ing nature around us, let our hearts glow with the spirit of
the occasion, and warm towards the yet living veterans
around us.
Nor let us, my war-worn comrades, mourn as those with
out hope over the resting place of our departed brethren. It
is appointed unto all men once to die, and these have only
gone to their long rest a little before us. Well and bravely
they acted their part in life, and now they sleep soundly
under the benedictions of their grateful countrymen. What
more could the noblest ask? While they suffered and bled,
their souls were fired with a patriotism so thrilling as to make
them almost forget pain and wounds, and now, when dead,
their ashes repose in the midst of their old fellow soldiers,
and they are canonized by their country.
It was a custom among the ancient Greeks to pronounce an
nually a eulogy upon the departed heroes of the Republic.
Their virtues were cherished by the people, and their exploits
were themes of praise from every tongue. But not the elo
quence of Pericles himself, animated by the loftiest feats of
Grecian valor, if he stood here now and breathed the inspira-
¦ tion of the present scene to still heighten the soarings of his
genius, could portray, in colors glowing enough, the prowess
of the American common soldier. His unswerving devotion,
his patient endurance, his daring courage, no language can
ever fitly commemorate. The officer is always in the public
eye, and knows that should he fall the trump of fame will
herald his deeds to his eagerly watching countrymen. His
courage and endurance are nerved up by the consciousness
that he can not fall unobserved.
But he of the rank and file, one of millions, knows that
precious as his life is to him and his, he is but a grain of sand
on the seashore of public history, and his loss wifl be con
sciously felt only by the few loved ones at home, who ever
hope for his success and safety, and who ever long for his
speedy return. When he, therefore, takes his Hfe in his

306 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
hand and carries his flag to the cannon's mouth, how over
mastering is that patriotism, how unselfish that devotion,
which lays the common soldier's life upon his country's altar.
Nor let it be said that the laurels won by the soldier in the
late war shall be any the less green or enduring because won
in a civil war, instead of in a conflict between his country and
a foreign foe. Let it be conceded, as it must be, that it is no
part of wisdom to keep alive the animosities of civil strife, or
perpetuate its' partisan triumphs. But the late secession con
flict was more than a mere civil war. It was an outburst of
devotion to popular Hberty, a grand struggle to enthrone and
perpetuate Constitutional Government.
The liberty of the people, the institutions of the fathers,
the future unity of Nation, and the sanctity of its rights, were
the inspiring sentiments alike of the highest officer and the
humblest soldier. Civil wars in other countries have been too
often the struggle of other factions only. Which branch of
a royal house should reign, which form of a common religion
should be established by law, or which chieftain should dictate
the policy of a State, have sometimes drenched whole Nations
in blood. We cannot, indeed, claim for our people entire
freedom from the low motives of party faction, in the late
conflict, for they are no more than human ; but to the masses
in and out of the army, no war was ever waged more in
obedience to an idea, or guided more by the promptings of a
sentiment. Liberty and Union were the watchwords that
fifled the Federal armies, and love of country the motive
power that propelled their serried columns.
It would be fulsome and tiresome flattery to rehearse the
exploits of our Union armies. An admiring people have
already made them the nursery stories of the household.
Henceforth it should rather be the holy office of such oc
casions as this to teach the living in the solemn presence of
the dead, that victory is the minister of peace — the angel of
forgiveness. Not yet may we hope to beat our swords into

MEMORIAL DECORATION. 307
plowshares, nor our spears into pruning hooks. But we
may hope that the people of the North and the South are to
be friends forever hereafter, and we may confidingly trust
that should war ever come with a foreign power, the Federal
and the Confederate wfll stand shoulder to shoulder and be
united heart to heart in vindication of the national cause.
Revive not, therefore, while performing the pious rites of
this ceremony, the bitterness of old quarrels. Bring not to
these patriot sepulchres the hates, the heart burnings of sec
tional strife, or even the vulgar spirit of personal triumph.
Come fifled with the glorious memories of the national re
demption purchased by the blood of the living and the dead,
but chastened by forgiveness for the conquered. Commune
with the spirits of these sleeping heroes. Then shall our
oblations be worthy of their altars, and our words of brother
hood and peace go forth as glad evangels to every race and
section.

HARD MONEY AND BANK CURRENCY.
[A speech delivered at Lebanon, O., August 21st, 1875.]
No party is responsible for my words to-day. They are
entirely my own. When we differ from those we respect it
is an unwelcome task to speak, though silence may be for
bidden by a sense of duty. But he is no wise counselor who
consults his love of popularity or allows any dread of popu
lar disfavor to give tone to his words. No man can have any
true strength or permanent weight in affairs who is not guided
by his own convictions of right, and who hesitates on a
proper occasion to announce them. I feel, therefore, con
strained, after much reflection, to give my views on the cur
rency question, though these views do not accord with the
platform of my party in Ohio. Reluctant as I am to differ
from them on this question, and resolved as I am, notwith
standing that difference (which, I hope, is but accidental and
temporary), to adhere to the fortunes of the party, I should
certainly have been silent could I have been so without being
subjected to misconception. To speak in favor of the cur
rency platform of the late convention would be dissimulation,
and to be silent would be tacit acquiescence. Nor could I in
fairness to my political associates simply announce my dissent
without giving the reasons on which that dissent is based.
Twenty years ago I joined the Democratic [iarty, and have
steadily adhered to it since on the very ground that long
study of the constitutional and financial questions which
divided parties had convinced me beyond any reasonable
chance of change that Democratic ideas on these subjects
were founded in truth. A strict adherence to the Constitu
tion and to the rights of each co-ordinate branch of the Gov-

HARD MONEY AND BANK CURRENCY. 309
ernment. Federal and State, was not then and has not since
been a more marked feature of the party policy than its
adherence to a sound currency. He must have studied the
Democratic party to little purpose who does not know that
its advocacy of an irredeemable currency is entirely modern.
Nor can it be said that such a policy has ever received the
sanction of the party in National Convention. On the con
trary, there scarcely exists a doubt that the great body of the
party has always favored and now favors, and will in National
Conventions steadily sustain in future the metallic basis as
the ground-work of the circulating medium, and firmly oppose
an incontrovertible paper credit currency. While the voice
of a great State like Ohio is entitled to much respect, it must
npt be forgotten that its expression in this instance antago
nizes the most time-honored antecedents of the party, and is
not acquiesced in by a large part, at least, of the ablest
Democratic thinkers of the State. And when a member of
a party, however humble, sees it departing, in his judgment,
from the landmarks of correct principle, he ought surely,
within the lines of the party, to invoke his fellows to return
to the faith they are disposed to abandon, and especially
where that departure leads, as he thinks, to dangerous results
to the country as well as of ultimate defeat to his party. All
these considerations will surely constrain my Democratic
friends to something of tolerance toward my recusancy to
this new article of faith, and entitle my reasons for dissent to
a candid hearing. DIFFICULTIES OF THE SITUATION.
Before considering the currency question, it is due to
those from whom I differ to remark that the subject is sur
rounded by difficulties not of their creation, but well calcu
lated to embarrass their action as well as that of the country.
When the war began in 1861, coin and bank paper were
practically at par, and so continued untfl January, 1862. Up

23

310 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
to that time the Government, after the war began, had sold
,$189,000,000 of its bonds at par in gold. This date was the
point of departure. At the demand of the banking and
moneyed interests, the Government, then and ever since
ruled by the RepubHcan party, introduced inconvertible paper
into circulation, and, with the usual folly attending such
schemes, declared it a legal tender, in the hope of making
it equal to gold, or with the still worse motive of deluding
the people into the belief that it was so.
The circulating medium was flooded with credit money till
gold disappeared, and a wild saturnalia of inflation and spec
ulation ensued not often equaled in history. As the currency
rested simply on the credit of the Government, and had un
der it no solid basis, its value fluctuated with the fate of bat
tles, decreasing, however, in value as it increased in bulk, till
finally it sunk in 1864 to less than thirty-six cents on the dol
lar. Whoever examines the official tables will find that the
price of gold rose with every issuance of paper money, and
that notwithstanding the opposition of the Dernocratic party
to its issuance the money kings fastened the policy on the
Nation. While the muscle and bone of the country were
being drafted into the military service, the Government
bribed the capital of the country into its service by fostering
delusive schemes of money speculation at the expense of the
toiling masses and patriotic soldiers. But even this was not
all: this policy doubled the National debt. The Government
sold its bonds for greenbacks at par. The official tables
show, that averaging the prices for which they sold, and
turning them into gold, not over fifty cents on the dollar of
their face value was realized; and counting interest on the
face, the Government pays in interest and discount almost
fifteen per cent, per annum on its debt.
The paper money policy cost the Government and mort
gaged the resources of the country to pay that cost, fully two
thousand millions during the war, one thousand millions of

HARD MONEY AND BANK CURRENCY. 311
which at least yet remains unpaid and is part of the present
National debt. And this is saying nothing of its effect upon
the industrial and commercial interests of the people. To
all these it was even more disastrous than to the Government.
The war being over, the fearful condition of things produced
by this credit money system began to be felt by all industries,
and its true cause was recognized by the thoughtful. But the
difficulties of the situation were found to be great — for the
moment insurmountable. Instant return to specie payment
was impossible. The heat of inflation required some time to
cool. That bonds sold at fifty cents on the dollar through
the selfish schemes of those who were thereby enriching
themselves should be paid at par by the sweat and toil of
honest labor — for all wealth is but the product of labor — was
so monstrous an act of injustice as to shock the public con
science. On the other hand, it was undeniable that, though
the bonds might, in strict law, be payable in "greenbacks,"
the Government had pledged its faith to issue only a limited
amount, and had not kept that faith. This breach of public
faith had rendered these treasury notes greatly less valuable,
and tended to shake the faith of the world in the financial
integrity of our Government. What was to b'e done? The
Secretary of the Treasury, that clear-headed financier, Mc-
Culloch, endeavored slowly and cautiously to lessen the
volume of inconvertible paper, and as soon as he could, with
safety to the business of the country, to bring greenbacks to
par. Much progress was made, 'but whether too rapidly, or
whether by wise means, let us not now pause to discuss.
When Grant's administration came into power, its first act was
to declare, what had been in doubt before, that the bonds
were all to be paid in coin. This law has stood six years. To
it the whole financial world has conformed itself Perhaps
one-half our outstanding bonds are held abroad, on its faith;
and on the same faith nearly afl the bonds at home have
changed hands. Whatever may have been the original obli-

312 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
gation of the Government, the act of 1869 is now in law and
in morals a part of the contract, and repudiation alone can
"argue the seal off the bond." Repudiation would bring
war with the strongest nations of Europe, to say nothing
of convulsions at home. Even worse than all, it would
tarnish the National escutcheon with Punic faith.
Demagogues may whisper in the ear of ill remunerated
labor that repudiation of the public debt is a remedy to be
considered, but repudiation is impossible. The Nation in
trusted its government to unsafe hands, and the trust was
abused and the country's future incumbered by a debt of
enormous magnitude, but it must be paid.
LEGACY OF EVILS.
Such is the legacy of evils Republican misrule will be
queath to the country. We have an onerous debt, a vitiated
currency and an oppressive tariff. All these are the fruits of
a financial and monetary system for which the Democracy
are not responsible, and which has prostrated all industries,
and loaded down the people with taxes and debts. The in
flation of the currency begot a spirit of speculation, extrava
gance and luxury, whose effects are still visibly felt, and led
to the contracting of debts, many of which remain unpaid.
That the contraction of the currency, whenever it occurs,
will fall heavily upon all industrial classes, and especially on
the debtor class, can not be denied. It must be admitted,
therefore, that whatever is done should be done with caution
and after full consideration. To deal wisely with these prob
lems requires strong and sagacious statesmanship. Mere par
tisan prejudice or even obedience to temporary clamor wifl
not suffice. In so grave a matter party success or defeat is
but a bagatelle. The public good rises supreme over party
lines. But difficult as these problems are; they must be met
and solved sooner or later. Is it proposed that the public
debt shall never be paid at all? The National pride and the

HARD MONEY AND BANK CURRENCY. 313
popular instinct alike demand its payment so soon as the
people can spare, without crippling their industries, the
means to the Government. Are we ever to return to specie
payments? Or are we to remain where we are? Or shall we
still further increase the present inconvertible credit-money
currency? This currency question can not be postponed.
Bidden or unbidden, it is ever like the sphinx of old, pro
pounding riddles to the bewildered rulers of public affairs.
How shall it be settled .-" 1 can well conceive that my party
friends may be embarrassed, but the past errors of others
should not shake our adherence to principles, or our faith in
their omnipotence. I stand on the National platform of 1872:
' ' A speedy return to specie payments is demanded alike by the
highest considerations of commercial morality and honest gov
ernment." Not that we should return at once, but that our eyes should
be at once turned in that direction, and our policy, present
and future, shaped to that end. Especially no further de
parture from the specie standard should be made. Much
that I shall say is so elementary that it would be out of place
if its truth did not seem to be forgotten or denied by the
framers and defenders of the platform. A recurrence to first
principles is sometimes useful.
NATURE OF MONEY.
The essential principle of all commerce is barter, the ex
change of one thing of value for another. Commodities, or
things of common use, are the instruments of barter, and in
the rudest ages the only instrumentalities of commerce. But
the inconveniences of mere barter are too great for that to
remain long the only means of exchanging values. Some
commodity, which all alike desire to have, will soon, without
any action of political government, become the common
medium of exchange in a tribe or community. This com
mon medium of exchange is money. Commerce makes

314 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
money. Government can not make money, really such. In
essential principle money is a commodity, and the essential
principle of its exchange for any other commodity is bargain
and sale — barter — exchange of values. All value is the result
of labor, and money quite as much as any other value. There
can be no real money without value. But in the earliest
stages of commerce a thing could not well be used long as a
medium of exchange without also being, to some extent at
least, a measure of value. Until some usage or law had
made a thing that was in itself without value the representa
tive of something that was of value, the medium of exchange
must itself be a thing of value and a measure of value.
Whatever was made money, therefore, must even in the
earliest times have been both a measure of value and a
medium of exchange, for if it did not combine these qual
ities it would soon be found ifl-adapted to the purposes
for which money was needed. Rude civilizations at first used
many different substances as money ; but when any consider
able advance was made anywhere, experience evolved the
truth that the precious metals are the best standards of value.
Sparta may have sought to repress commerce and luxury
among her soldier-citizens by ordaining iron money, and
India may have used shells, and the early settlers in America
bullets or tobacco, but contrivances so. rude and defective
never received general acceptance or had long endurance.
Their use no more proved their superior fitness for money
than a hole in the house-top or greased paper in the window
proves these rude substitutes superior to brick chimneys or
window glass. GOLD AND SILVER THE WORLD's MONEY.
Gold and silver very early became by common consent the
general medium of exchange and the acknowledged standard
of value, and from the days of Abraham have been the
world's money. These propositions are commonplace tru-

HARD MONEY AND BANK CURRENCY. 315
isms, conceded by all real thinkers who have investigated the
subject, and who are not misled by some personal interest or
aim, whether we begin with Adam Smith or end with Amasa
Walker. Nor are they any the less the dictates of common
sense. Whoever knew the humblest hod-carrier that, if he
wished to keep it, did not prefer a gold coin to a bank bifl?
He knows the one has intrinsic value and the other has not.
The one derives its value from labor and the other does not.
The one lasts forever, the other perishes in a few years. Nor
is it difficult to conceive the reasons for this preference of the
precious metals if we consider the essential nature and the
practical uses of money. It is a thing to lay by for future
use as well as to expend for current wants. Its two greatest
practical uses, however, are: First — To furnish
A STANDARD OF VALUE.
And second, to act as a medium of exchange. The first is
of much the greater importance, though to the unthinking
the second is the higher function. Many other things may
furnish a reasonably reliable medium of exchange, but the
precious metals alone can serve as a trustworthy standard of
value in the myriad complications and mutations of com
merce. What then are the reasons why gold and silver are
the truest standards of value? Here again the deepest sci
entific research and the commonest judgment of the masses
coincide. First of all they are the product of labor, and
labor is the foundation of all value. All political economists,
whether calling themselves such or not, agree substantially
on the reasons why the precious metals are the best standards
of value. Adam Smith, the father of Political Economy as.
a science, in the birth year of our Republic, gathering and
formulating the experience of ages into maxims, pronounces
these metals more than anything else "fit to be instruments
of commerce in circulation."
But of all the writers on the philosophy of currency, our

316 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
own Amasa Walker is, if not the ablest, the best in
formed, having spent most of his life as a banker. His
reasons are elaborate and conclusive. He says in sub
stance: 1. They possess value, that is, have power in
exchange. They cost labor and are objects of desire. 2.
They are stable in value. 3. They are conveniently port
able. 4. They are malleable and can be wrought into any
shape, and receive and retain any impression, may be divided
into the minutest quantities and reunited without the slight
est possible loss. 6. They are of uniform value. Gold and
silver are always and everywhere the same. 6. They may
be readily alloyed or refined. 7. Indestructible by accident.
8. They are universally appreciated. 9. Generally diffused.
10. Sufficiently plentiful. 11. They are nearly indestructible
by use. COINING MONEY.
Commerce having fixed the precious metals as its ."Standards
of value and its medium of exchange, the Government as
sumed, properly enough, the right in the interest of society
to weigh and stamp these metals — to coin money. But let
it not be thought that this coinage gave its value to the gold.
It was the gold which gave value to the coin, not the image
and superscription, which are but the official record of its
value. As it saved the trouble of assaying and weighing
the metal at every exchange, it gave coin a slight premium
over bullion, but not otherwise did it add to its commercial
value, unless in the practically insignificant addition of its
being made a legal tender. It still measured values according
to its weight and fineness, and not according to any arbitrary
standard fixed by the Government. And notwithstanding
that now everywhere paper money of one kind or another
abounds, gold and silver are still, as they have been since
civilized commerce began, the world's recognized standard
of value. At different times and in different countries,
ignorant or lawless princes or arbitrary governments have

HARD MONEY AND BANK CURRENCY. 317
sought by their fiat to change the value of coins. The
Roman Republic, in the time of the Punic wars, changed the
as, the standard coin of the Republic, to one-sixth of its for
mer weight, a robbery worthy of Rome's founders and their
traditional wet nurse. So in the middle ages, in England,
France and other countries, despotic princes liquidated the
debts of their extravagance by an adulteration of the coin,
with the senseless idea that the sovereign will could make
one ounce of coin which was half brass buy as much wheat
as if it were all silver. They could rob their creditors by
making them take it at par, but in commerce it was worth
only the precious metal it contained. So far was this fraud
pushed in France, from reign to reign, that the livre of the
Revolution weighed only one seventy-eighth part of what it
contained when first coined under Charlemagne. And even
in England, where less change was made than in any other
country, it required three shillings in the reign of Elizabeth,
who wisely put an end to all coin adulteration, to weigh as
much as one did at the Conquest.
It is, of course, not claimed that gold or anything else does
or can constitute a perfectly immutable standard of value, or
be the basis of a strictly unvarying medium of exchange.
All things are, scientifically speaking, in perpetual motion.
But it is claimed that nothing else at all suitable for money
is so little affected by time, place and circumstance. And
the changes in the purchasing value of the precious metals is
so slight and gradual that industries accommodate themselves
to the change without disturbing either the every-day busi
ness of the humblest, or the widest-reaching transactions of
commerce. Lands on perpetual lease with fixed annual rent,
or hundred year bonds, would sensibly feel the change, but
these interests are small compared to general values. The
discovery of America doubled the volume of precious metals
in Europe, and the opening of the mines in California and
Australia, during the last thirty years, has still more rapidly

318 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
inflated gold. But, after all, these were inflations that did
not and can not collapse. While they have somewhat al
tered the values of certain fixed properties, they have not in
juriously disturbed general commerce. They are accretions
to the world's wealth, and have added to the great permanent
reservoir of coin from which each country, according to its
need, draws its supply. The United States Mint has esti
mated that the wear by use of silver coin is but 1 in 2,400,
and of gold coin but 1 in 3,500 annually. This estimate of
annual waste may be too small, but even were it five times
greater, what earthly thing could be more eternal and un
changeable? Almost all the gold, therefore, mined for the
last four hundred years is still in existence, and the volume
is increasing a hundred millions a year. There is no lack of
coin wherever it is in demand. There is at least ten thousand
millions in the world. And, like every other commodity, it
obeys the law that supply follows demand.
THE MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE.
The second great function of money is to afford a medium
of exchange. While the current of commerce, as in the
earlier ages, ran slowly, and exchanges were neither numer
ous nor rapid, the precious metals served every purpose of
such a medium. When, as in modern times, commerce
became widespread, complicated, and vast in volume, gold
and silver were found to be too bulky and heavy for the rapid
circulation and the enormous amounts required in the daily
exchanges of trading centers. A mechanic or day labourer
might carry on his person the meagre amounts of his sales or
his earnings in metallic currency, but in larger transactions it
was more difficult. A thousand dollars, even in gold, would
weigh down the pocket cumbrously; but a hundred thousand
would have to be carted or shipped. This defect gave rise to
those creatures of commerce, checks, drafts and bills of ex
change. They are convenient and safe — almost as safe, and.

HARD MONEY AND BANK' CURRENCY. 319
in some respects, safer than gold. Easily handled and con
cealed, and cheaply transported, they afford an almost indis
pensable commercial circulation. They are temporary cur
rency — mercantile money. Though not values in themselves,
they are representatives of value. They grow out of and are
founded upon values, and are to large and distant payments
what cash is to small ones made on the spot. In every
country, and among all classes, they command the same
confidence as gold in all current and temporary transactions.
These are the two circulating mediums invented by com
merce, and constitute the working arms of its manifold ex
changes. With the attending deposit and discourit banks
and clearing houses, which are the machinery of the system,
they constitute all required by the legitimate "wants of
trade." PATERNAL THEORY OF GOVERNMENT.
Government has, however, in every age assumed a paternal
care over its people. In the ignorant and slavish ages, when
the prowess of war, not the light of reason, ruled the nations,
the divine right of kings was the faith of the people. The
love of power is so natural to the human heart that rulers
usurped to themselves control of every interest of their sub
jects, and even claimed to determine their diet, fashion their
dress, and mould their opinions. Of course, so potent an
agency as commerce would be seized by the king. What
should be exported or imported would be fixed by his decree.
Even the prices of commodities were sometimes regulated
by law. Money, of course, could not escape. Out of the
political superstitions of these times have arisen many of the
fallacies now current. Sumptuary laws, usury laws, protec
tive duties, are but the debris of the old paternal theory, still
kept afloat by the traditions inherited from the past, as
ghosts and witchcraft ate still not quite extinct. That it is
the duty of the Government to make money plenty is one of
those superstitions which it seems is not yet quite consigned

320 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
to the grave where it belongs. That it should be the business
of the Government to fix the amount of money which the
people need, or to furnish it, any more than to fix or furnish
the amount of wheat or iron they need, is an absurdity akin
to the statutes fixing the price of coin in the dark ages, or
that regulating the sales of gold in our rebellion. The Gov
ernment may, indeed, and ought to coin into money any gold
or silver the people willingly present for coinage, and leave
them to melt it up again into bullion or turn it into plate or
export it, as they please. Everything about it, except the
process of coinage, is controlled by the owner. The Govern
ment neither determines how much shall be coined nor
whether it shall stay coined or stay in the country at all,
And yet this Government control is exactly the fallacy con
tained in the Ohio platform. It assumes that the currency is
now insufficient, and demands of the Government that its
volume "shall be made and kept equal to the wants of
trade." The effect of this demand is, if it has any meaning,
that the Government shafl determine the amount of currency
the people need, and shall keep it — up or down — to that
standard. In short, it demands in principle, and to make
that demand practical in fact, must insist in practice that Con
gress shall for the first time in the country's history, take en
tire control of the subject of currency. It is to be author
ized and required, or else the platform is a dead letter, at its
pleasure to prohibit the mining, importation or coining of any
more gold ; or if that is preferred, to prohibit the exportation
of gold, and to require jewelry and all gold plate to be sur
rendered for coinage; yea, if need be, to seize the mines and
employ miners to dig out, at the public expense, gold for
coinage. Or, if Congres prefers paper money, for the plat
form nowhere proclaims a specie basis, it is required to banish
gold from circulation, and fix the volume of paper money at
five hundred or five thousand millions, as its ignorance or its
caprice may dictate. Government is to be the sole judge of

HARD MONEY AND BANK CURRENCY. 321
the currency "wants of trade." Who that learned his
Democracy a dozen years ago would not be amazed at this
doctrine? The party had always been the advocates of the
rights of the people; had always said "That government is
best which governs least."
Only last year the State Convention declared as to the
currency: "That its volume should be regulated by the necessities of
business, and that all laws that interfere with such regulation
are vicious in principle and detrimental in their effects."
And even in this platform there is, as to everything but
the currency, the most admirable breadth and liberality. If
the people are competent to determine other things, if the
natural law of trade can regulate the other branches of the
" wants of trade," why will they not also wisely regulate the
volurqe of the currency? Is it possible this can be better
done in the caucus of a Congressional majority? Has Con
gress more monetary knowledge, more business wisdom than
the business world?
GOVERNMENT MEDIUMS OF EXCHANGE.
We have seen that commerce devised two mediums of ex
change, both consisting of or founded upon value. When
Government attempted to devise mediums, it also gave birth
to two systems: The banking system, resting partially on
value and partially on credit, and the Government paper
money system, founded solely on credit and not at all, directly,
on value. Has Government improved upon the mercantile
system? A dispassionate examination shows it has not.
But that, on the contrary, just in so far as those systems
differ from and go beyond the mercantile system, they have
proved disastrous. And in political science, no less than in
natural science, experiment is the ultimate test of truth.
In ancient times there were neither banks nor bank paper
in the modern sense of these words. Experience, therefore,

322 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
carries us no farther back than modern times. Banks origi
nated in Italy, and spread over the other countries of
Europe. It is not appropriate to go into the details of their
history. It is enough that few banks ever existed which did
not at some time in their existence bring evil upon the peo
ple, and they have always done so when they abandoned the
value standard and sought to coin mere credit into money.
And in no country has the system of credit banking been
fraught with such immense evils as in America. Ours has
been on the average, including the present National bank
system and its credit money, the worst organized system in
the world. Bank paper has seldom had in fact, whatever
the law may have required, a specie basis exceeding ten per
cent, of the circulation, and nearly all such banks have ulti
mately failed. And in Europe experience teaches the same
lesson. Even the Bank of Amsterdam, after one hundred
and eighty years of apparent success, was found to be
wretchedly insolvent, and grossly defrauded its depositors.
The boasted Bank of England, though still in existence, has
repeatedly suspended specie payments at immense loss to the
people, while the Banks of Genoa and Hamburg, which were
nearly if not completely value currency banks, never sunk a
dollar for anybody. And after five hundred years the Bank
of Genoa ceased only by the robbery of the French. The
Bank of Hamburg, nearly three hundred years old, still lives
and flourishes.
If banks subject to Government control can ever be made
useful at all, it must be by keeping their bills always at par,
and instantly convertible into specie. If that can be done,
then and not till then can they by any possibiHty be made
safe and useful agencies in commerce and trade. Whenever
they bank on mere credit, and just to the extent they do so
bank, they are unsafe and dangerous, if not disastrous to
business. But even when their notes are convertible at the
pleasure of the holder, they tend to inflate credit, and do not

HARD MONEY AND BANK CURRENCY. 323
really promote production. They are, therefore, as hereto
fore organized, always evils. The loss by the fluctuations of
their mixed currency has always overbalanced the small gain
they have been to business.
EVILS OF GOVERNMENT PAPER MONEY.
But if a difference of opinion may be expected as to banks
of issue and circulation, when we reach the other device of
Government, its own paper money, all experience forbids
any division of opinion. All economists equally agree that
it is an unmixed evil. The reason of this is that these issues
are not based on value. Whatever is of value can only be
procured by giving for it something else of value. But this
kind of money needs only a statute, a skillful designer, a
press, paper and paint. If money can be thus made, where
will the limit be? McCulloch, the old English economist,
not the late American Secretary, says: "The demand for
money is not like the demand for other things. A man may
have enough of beef, of beer, of cloth, and of a great many
articles, but of money he can never have what he would con
sider enough. There is no check over the issuance of incon
vertible paper. * * * "Phg fact is that the power to
issue inconvertible paper has never been conceded to any
man or set of men without being abused — that is, without its
being issued in excess." And Stuart Mill says: "Such a
power, in whomsoever vested, is an intolerable evil."
The first postulate of a circulating medium is that it never
can exceed in value the values it is needed to exchange. If
the specie money in circulation exceeds the demands for its
use in making exchanges, it is hoarded, melted into plate or
jewelry, or exported. It can not circulate as money, for no
body has a value he wishes to exchange for it. This has been
a canon of political economy ever since it was announced by
Adam Smith, and is as true to-day as it was a hundred years
¦ago. And this is proved by our own experience, for at afl

324 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
times when our gold has been driven from circulation by a
redundant paper currency it has been shipped abroad. In the
language of Say: "No Government has the power of in
creasing the total National money otherwise than nominally.
The increased quantity of the whole reduces the value of
every part." The truth of which is proved by the fact,
patent to all, that in our country greenbacks decrease in pur
chasing power as their volume increases.
It results that inconvertible money can never be a produc
ing agent; it leads to speculation, but not to wealth. It stim
ulates prices, but does not aid production. As Mill says:
"The means of production can not be increased by it, but
only transferred." In the language of Walker: "Such a
currency may transfer debts, but it never pays them."
CREDIT- MONEY A DELUSION.
The point is now reached where we may inquire what
is the effect on principle and in actual practice of the intro
duction of credit-money. The basis of inconvertible money
is credit, and that can never be, like value, any stable or trust
worthy standard. On principle there can be no stability in
credit; and, therefore, no stability in credit money. Credit
is not based on present facts, on existing things, on ready
money, for it is not needed except in their absence. A
credit, which has a fixed lien on a thing of value, to that
extent becomes itself a thing of value. A credit, prop
erly such, like credit-money, rests on future contingencies,
on hopes, on possibflities. The element of doubt must of
necessity always enter into it. And that element of doubt
always discounts the currency based on it. When the
currency is thus discounted it must, of course, be exchanged
for less of any commodity than it would be without that dis
count. And so, by an inevitable law, prices must rise by an
inflation of the currency. Price is not value. Price is the
amount of current money for which a commodity exchanges.
Prices foflow the rise or fafl of the circulating medium. If

HARD MONEY AND BANK CURRENCY. 325
the circulating medium is not a value medium, but a credit-
money, then prices are not on principle, and never are in
practice, any measure of the value of the commodity. A
value is measured by its power to purchase another value, but
prices are not so governed. Price being the power to purchase
currency, rises as the currency is cheap, falls as it becomes
dear. McCulloch says: "That an increase of the quantity of
money raises prices and a diminution lowers them is the most
elementary proposition in the theory of currency, and without
it we should have no key to any of the others." That cur
rency is always inflated which is at a discount, taking value
currency as the standard. Our currency is discounted about
fifteen per cent, and inflated to that extent. As a man will
not exchange without receiving an equivalent value, com
merce, in defiance of the edicts of Government, still values
its merchandise in gold, though it exchanges it for paper
money. These principles are not barely the speculations
of the closet, but the practical guides of business life. Let
us apply them to the monetary affairs of our country, and
follow where they lead.
CAN CONGRESS FIX WISELY THE VALUE OF CURRENCY.
First of all, since this credit-money is to be the pet of the
Government, and created simply out of paper and ink, is it
safe to the business interests or to the laboring masses? We
know how Congresses and Cabinets, and even Presidents are
made. Is the laborer willing that what he shall receive at
night for his day's labor shall depend on the fiat of a Con
gress to not one of whom, perhaps, he ever spoke, instead
of upon a contract with his employer, to whom he can appeal
face to face? Is the trader willing that the price he pays for
his stock in trade shall be lessened or increased at the pleasure
of a set of politicians who may have personal ends to sub
serve in tampering with the currency? Is any thoughtful
man wflling, when the question is plainly put, that the price

24

326 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
of every article shafl be subject to the control, not of the laws
of trade, but of the cupidity or the crude political theories
of men not specially interested to be right and subject to
strong temptation to be wrong? Our past experience of
legislative bodies fails to assure us that they are either
omniscient or incorruptible. But even should they do the
very best and wisest that it is possible for men so situated to
do, is it at all possible for Congress to know with the remotest
approach to safety, how much currency ' ' the wants of trade "
require? It certainly is not. That can only be determined
by that practical test of business experience which leads each
man, without reasoning out why, to conform in practice to
the needs of commerce and the necessities of consumption,
and which teaches the farmer how much wheat to sow and
the merchant how much cloth to import. The one can be
no more safely fixed by statute than the other. If it be left
to Congress to fix the volume of currency, it will be iri per
petual fluctuation.
No trader can safely buy, for he will not know in what
volume of currency he will have to sell. No labourer will
ever know whether he will be able to lay up in advance his
winter supplies, for he can never know whether his scanty
wages, in the fluctuation of daily prices, will meet his daily
wants. On the toiling poor it will fall hardest of all, for they
can spare the least time and have the least opportunity to
watch the ever varying barometer of credit-money. To the
Wall street gamblers in securities, it will be a jugglers' fair,
for he who baits his hook for a dollar he did not earn, always
delights to fish in muddy water.
The actual results of the inflation policy, wherever it has
been tried, at home or abroad, confirm these views. The
wild schemes of foreign speculators would detain us too long.
Bankruptcy always followed them as the night the day. Our
own country affords examples enough without looking to

HARD MONEY AND BANK CURRENCY. 327
Europe. The history of our paper currencies, colonial, rev
olutionary or modern, clearly shows the evils of the credit-
money system ; for our whole banking system, both before
the war and since, has been based mairily on credit. And
the present National banking system entirely so ; and, there
fore, the worst of all. The fluctuations in the volume were
always large; the contractions and expansions great and
spasmodic, and the utter prostration of business repeated
and appafling. To say nothing of the repudiation of the
colonial and Continental money — children of public faith — '
remember 1837, '47, '57, '73. Even in our best banking
systems, the credit basis has been rarely less than ninety
cents to ten cents in the dollar of actual specie ' ' that
chinks." The volume of currency has, however, until now
been largely composed of the precious metals which had
some Httle check, at least, upon the speculative tendencies
of the banks of issue and circulation. Even that is now re
moved, and our currency is simply wave after wave of credit-
money driven about by the winds of speculation as the waves
of the sea are tossed by the storm.
The whole currency of the country, specie, paper circula
tion and deposit inclusive, was one hundred and seventy
millions in 1834, and fluctuated for twenty-six years between
that figure and four hundred and fifty-two millions in 1860.
From 1834 to 1837 the expansion was some fifty per cent.,
and from 1849 to 1857 about seventy per cent From 1837
to 1838 there was a contraction of from two hundred and
seventy-six down to two hundred millions, nearly twenty-
seven per cent. But the most gigantic fluctuation of that
period was at the crisis of 1857. The currency return, in
cluding deposits for January, 1857, was four hundred and
forty-five millions; in 1858 it was three hundred and forty-
one miflions, and had risen again in January, 1859, to four
hundred and fifty-two millions.

328 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
PRICES FOLLOW CURRENCY.
And the fluctuation in prices followed that of the currency.
As the currency expanded prices advanced in a correspond
ing ratio, and as currency contracted prices declined in a like
degree. This is shown by the statistical reports of the Gov
ernment. It appears from the finance report of 1863 that if
we take the leading articles, their prices correspond with
striking closeness to the fluctuations of the currency. Take,
say ten leading articles as little influenced by the tariff and
inequalities of production as any that could be taken, to-wit:
coffee, sugar, molasses, mess pork, cheese, rice, salt, wool,
leather and tobacco; and, as is most convincingly shown by
the diagram of Walker, figuring to the eye the correspond
ence, prices followed the volume of currency compared to
population as the needle follows the pole. We may notice
here and there an aberration, from accidental causes, as in
the vibrations of the needle, but the equilibrium is soon re
stored; and taking the average twenty-six years from 1834
to 1859 inclusive, expansion and advance, contraction and
decline, like two coursers, run neck and neck together. This
could not have been accidental. We see it corresponds to a
principle, and is proved by experience, and we might as well
deny that it is the law of gravitation which causes a stone to
fall. Prices do conform to the volume of the circulating
medium. But prices are no measure of value. The period
since the war began equally proves these things. We have
all observed' it. It is matter of universal cognizance, that
general prices were higher when gold was 200 than now when
it is 115. And every one knows we then had a circulating
medium larger by hundreds of millions than we have now.
It is thus proved that credit-money inflates prices without
increasing values; leads to speculation, disorders business,
oppresses the poor, promotes gambling in securities, and
loads down the industry of the masses to enrich currency

HARD MONEY AND BANK CURRENCY. 329
dealers and stock jobbers. It ought to be abandoned. How
shall it be abandoned, and what shall take its place? The
watchwords of business men, of laborers for their bread,
should be: "Resumption of specie payments and a stable
currency." The minor steps toward specie payment and a
sound currency may be taken more at leisure, but the pur
pose to effect these objects should be instant and persistent.
Flee from this dicer's currency as from the wrath to come.
Cremation is the cure for inflation, and value money is the
cure for credit currency. PRETEXTS FOR INFLATION.
That gold is the best standard of value is conceded by
most men. That gold and a paper currency immediately
convertible into it, and at par with it, are the best mediums
of exchange must also be conceded. And these propositions
would seem to settle the principles of the currency question.
But the inflationists answer: There is not gold enough in the
world to effect its exchanges; we must have credit currency.
There is not currency enough in this country to do its busi
ness; we must have more money. Though intrinsically
scarcely worth the trouble, let us examine these pretexts,
since they have so confident and numerous a following.
Money is only needed for circulation. Its proper amount is
measured by the business transactions — the amount of com
modities bought and sold. The needed amount also depends
on two other very important facts: whether the trade ex
tends over a wide district or a narrow one, and whether pay
ments are made in cash, counted and delivered, or by the
machinery of checks, drafts, bills of exchange, banks and
clearing-houses. America is a wide region of trade, and
checks and clearing-house payments are in many places not
used. These considerations are entitled to their weight,
though it is far less than is often claimed. Railroads and
telegraphs do much to shorten distance, and banks and clear-

330 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
ing-house payments in all business centers are so great as to
make counted cash payments in large amounts very rare.
They are the exception, not the rule. While it is conceded,
then, that this country requires a somewhat larger currency
per capita in proportion to the amount of business to be done
than England, France or Germany, the difference is, in fact,
but small. And considering the greater average exchanges
per capita in those countries, the volume of currency need
not be much, if at all, greater here than there.
The exchanges of a country are governed in the main by
the gross annual production. It is the exchange of these
annual productions throughout the world which constitutes
almost the whole of trade and commerce. Buying and selHng
land, and the few other uses for money, but little influence
the demand. All currencies, which constitute a part of the
world's money, are a great reservoir from which supplies are
drawn wherever it is needed in any part of the world by "the
wants of trade." The value of all the money in the world,
as money, simply equals the demand for its use in exchanges,
and so five thousand millions can just as well do the business
as ten thousand miflions. The greater or less quantity sim
ply raises or lowers prices. In the true sense, therefore, one
amount of gold or silver will do the business as well as an
other, so the quantity is stable, and not so small as to make
the pieces easily lost in handling, or so large as to make them
too bulky. Between these extremes, whatever the volume
is, it equally wefl serves the purposes of a medium of ex
change. And the same rules apply to the- needs of this
country. But when the currency is not a value currency,
and hence unstable, and is consequently a measure of prices,
not a standard of value, then its volume is extremely im
portant, and its effect on the purchase and sale of the annual
productions, the exchanges incident to business, often be
comes disastrous to the producer. And the extent of this
loss is measured by the amount of the annual productions,

HARD MONEY AND BANK CURRENCY. 331
since they fix the amount of the exchanges. Of course a
man only buys when he has something to sell, and can only
sell when some one else is able to buy what he has to sell.
Therefore the approximate amount of currency required is
ascertained by the probable amount of our annual produc
tions and exchanges, and the extent of the theater of trade.
ANNUAL PRODUCTIONS AND EXCHANGES.
In 1869, Commissioner Wells, who had as good means of
knowledge as any man in the country could have at that
time, estimated from all the data he could get, our annual
productions at ;$6, 825, 000, 000. Walker's abstract of the
census, compiled by public authority from the census tables
of 1870, places the annual productions, including the values
added by commerce, at about ^8,000,000,000. Add ^500,-
000,000, a fair estimate for increased annual productions on
the last five years, and we have for this year an annual pro
duction of ;$8, 500, 000, 000, which somewhere approximates
correctness. Three-fourths of this at least changes hands
every year — not being consumed by the producer, but ex
changed for something else which he does consume. Though
a small part may pass directly from the producer of the crude
article to a consumer in its crude form, most of it passes
through the hands of several middlemen, as manufacturers,
traders or transporters, before it enters into consumption so
as to disappear. The exchanges are perhaps ^100,000,000 a
day. How much currency this requires depends on how
many daily exchanges a dollar may effect, and how large the
transactions are. Those living in the country, far apart, less
frequently use checks, and know nothing of clearing-houses.
They pay mostly in cash. But in towns checks largely take
the place of cash payments, and in cities checks and clearing
houses do most of their heavy business. The census tables
show that the town and city population of the United States
is about 12,000,000, leaving 27,000,000 for the country.

332 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
The twenty-five largest cities have 5,000,000. It thus
appears that though the rural and agricultural interests largely
predominate, still other interests have congregated into nearly
15,000 cities, villages and hamlets almost one-third of our
population. Ijideed, there are seven states in which the
country population is less than one-half the whole. And
these are the very regions of country in which trade and
commerce are the most active. It may be safely assumed
that the city and town population make ten times (in amount)
the exchanges per capita that are made in the country. And
this where the population, for transactions of any magnitude,
almost exclusively use checks ; and for larger amounts, settle
ment is made through clearing-houses, without handling
money at all. The Bankers' Magazine states that in London
alone, for the year ending Aprfl 30, 1875, the amount settled
through clearing-houses was ^30,000,000,000, more than
thirty times greater than all the circulating medium of Great
Britain. Now, in the large cities of this country, clearing
houses still more completely absorb settlements than they
do abroad. Though our exchanges are not so great in the
aggregate, the clearing-house system settled more transactions
last year; and New York alone settled ^24,000,000,000.
These commercial contrivances lessen the need for a cir
culating medium in the popular sense. Widely scattered as
our people are, could not their exchanges be .affected by
;$600, 000, 000 ? Even in the country can not a doflar pay
twenty debts a year? And are not three-fourths of all ex
changes made in cities and towns whose commercial systems
make a dollar do its work a dozen times a day without being
lifted from the bank vault? But if this amount of currency is
not enough, more will be supplied, according to our needs,
so soon as metallic communication is restored between home
and foreign countries. Our condition is not materially unlike
that of Europe as to trade and business, and we need not
materially differ as to amount of currency.

HARD MONEY AND BANK CURRENCY, 333
The annual productions of Great Britain greatly exceed
ours in value, and yet her currency is less than ours by some
fifty millions. Palgrave's Notes on Banking places her specie
circulation, including bank reserves, at ^509,000,000 and her
paper money at ^208,000,000. But it is value money, not
credit currency, and is worth more than all our circulation.
It does not inflate prices, for everything conforms to the
specie standard.
But of all the examples, ancient or modern, of financial
wisdom, the most striking is that of France. When the
German war began, in 1870, the Bank, of France, which had
control of the whole circulation, had outstanding ^297,000,-
000 of notes, and a gold reserve of ^241,000,000. The sud
den convulsion of the war startled the Nation. An incon
vertible currency was issued, as in our war, but, fortunately
for France, constantly looking to a gold basis. The amount
was increased from time to time till this compulsory issue, as
their recognition of political economy wisely called it, on the
13th of November, 1873, reached its maximum of about
,^600,000,000 of our money, as appears from the June num
ber of the Bankers' Magazine. In eight months it was con
tracted one hundred millions, and now (June, .1875,) the
paper currency of France, again a little expanded, is about
;$528,000,000, with a gold reserve of ^306,000,000. During
the whole war, and now, paper and gold have been prac
tically at par. Specie payment, it is true, is suspended ; but
the bank has voluntarily withdrawn the small bills, and there
are to-day in France as many five-franc silver pieces as there
were in 1869. And they are also withdrawing the twenty-
franc bills and issuing gold in their place. And even during
the whole war, though France paid the war fine of ;$1,100,-
000,000 to Germany, gold was being imported, and there is
now more gold in France than there was in 1869. The pro
ductive industry of France, and its exports and imports, are
greater than those of the United States, and its productive

334 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
population equal, and yet its paper currency is ^230,000,000
less than ours, and still prosperity and increased production
are everywhere found.
But stfll it is said that all this is but speculative, at best,
reasoning from analogy; and the stubborn fact is, we have
not currency enough to do the business. It is a sufficient
answer that everybody knows currency on good security is
abundant and cheap ; it is even conceded by the inflationist
himself But he says this is because business is so crippled
that there is little call for money. And in the next breath
he tells us that business is crippled for lack of money.
Money lies idle, and is plenty at low interest, because busi
ness is dull; and business is dull because money is scarce!
Have we not ;$750,000,000 of paper currency? Verily, and
what is it worth ? Discounted at fifteen per cent, it is cur
rent at ;$655,000,000 in gold. This is more per capita than
the country ever had in value currency. But suppose the
credit money was doubled and made ,^1, 500, 000, 000, would
it be worth more? Would it buy more wheat, or iron, or
cloth, or even gold? Not a penny's worth. It would double
prices but not increase values. No more business, that is, no
more producing business, could be done than now. Men
could speculate more freely, because ' fools would imagine
themselves richer, and the unscrupulous and quick-witted
could prey upon the weak and credulous. But it is said that
inflation would enable debtors to pay their debts more easily.
To say nothing of the dishonesty of this pretext to pay a dol
lar's debt with half a dollar, it is a fallacy and a snare. The
debtor is almost always a creditor, too. He pays what
he owes by coflecting what others owe him. In most in
stances the accounts nearly balance. It is the speculator, the
gambler in credit who owes, and has nothing owing to him ;
for he has squandered his substance in riotous Hving. There
are instances, of course, where the industrial classes owe
more than is due them, and a few instances of hardship may

HARD MONEY AND BANK CURRENCY. 335
occur by resumption, but their losses will be more than made
up by the element of certainty it will infuse into all honest
trade. The day laborer, who suffers most by currency fluc
tuations, is scarcely ever in debt. He has not credit enough
to owe much, and would gain by resumption.
But if the greenbacks are increased, how are they to be
got into the hands of the poor debtor or laborer, for whose
benefit it is pretended they are to be issued? The Govern
ment does not give men money. If you lessen taxes one
hundred millions a year, and use greenbacks to pay Govern
ment expenses, you must soon stop, or greenbacks will be
worth no more than Confederate notes ; and you can no other
wise introduce them in circulation, unless you repudiate the
faith of the Government and pay the five-twenty bonds with
them. The whole scheme is therefore impracticable, short
of repudiation. Besides, how many more greenbacks do
"the wants of trade" require? Will some apostle of in
flation tell us? No amount has been named by any Solomon
of the school, and the whole plan never touches the earth
any more than a castle in Spain. The dream of making
money by printing paper has in it the charm of romance to
the unthinking, but either vanishes into "thin air" or settles
into pestilential miasma whenever attempted to be realized in
practice. FOREIGN TRADE.
But some inflationists may say, why not keep our money
at home? Gold is forever being drained from us to pay in
terest on the public and corporate debt, and while we are in
debt, how can we resume specie payments? Perhaps this is
the weakest point in the whole inflation scheme. If we pay
gold interest abroad, does the "coupon cutter" eat the gold
as he would an orange? He has it for sale, as every other
man has. If it is worth more in America than in Europe it
will come here ; if not it will go like any other thing of value
where it commands the highest price. If we want it, let us

336 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
sell our wheat, cotton or whatever else for it, instead of ex
changing them for silks, wines or foreign gewgaws which
perish with the using, and impoverish instead of enriching us.
If we prefer to have a Chinese policy to discourage com
merce with foreign countries, by having a currency they can
not use, we must pay the penalty. But if we want gold
there is no country in the world where it can be had more
readily. And it is in this very item of foreign trade where
our depreciated currency hurts us most. All that we have to
sell abroad is measured by the world's standard, not ours.
The foreign market, therefore, fixes prices in this country for
all our exports. Wheat, provisions, cotton, tobacco, wool, all
species of manufactures, and indeed all articles the surplus
of which are exported, are ruled in the prices they bear
at home by the prices they command abroad. We only ex
port the surplus, but the price of the whole product is fixed
abroad, and fixed in the gold standard. The farmer, planter
and manufacturer must, therefore, sell not only what he ex
ports, but what he sells at home, at the gold standard in
effect, while the cost of production is at the standard of the
inflated medium of his own country. All his raw material,
expenses and taxes are on the credit-money standard, and he
is, therefore, driven by the folly of his Government to com
pete with the foreigner, weighted down by the discount of
the home currency. Of course capital is always able to
throw most of the burthen put upon it from its own shoul
ders upon the shoulders of labor. Upon the laborer, there
fore, falls a great part at least of this credit currency tax.
Capital can wait a time, anyhow, without profit, but labor
must constantly receive wages or starve, and is therefore
always more or less at the mercy of capital.
But even the capitalist feels sensibly this tax on his pro
ductions. He trades at a disadvantage, and every industry
in the whole country feels directly or indirectly this currency
burthen. The pretext on which the system was adopted

HARD MONEY AND BANK CURRENCY. 337
fourteen years ago was the necessities of war. And now, in a
time of peace, it is not only proposed to continue it, but to
increase this currency and make it the permanent monetary
system of the country. No statesman worthy of the name,
in any age or country, till now, ever thought of adopting in
peace an expedient never attempted to be justified except to
meet the pressure of war; and even under that pressure
it was denounced as unconstitutional by the whole Demo
cratic party. The Supreme Court at first decided these
"greenbacks" unconstitutional, and that decision was only
reversed by creating new Judges, appointed to make the re
versal, and even then by a majority of but one. The
decision, as it now stands, was made solely on the ground of
the necessities of war. A new issue in peace would be
declared unconstitutional by the present Court on the very
reasoning on which they sus'tained the old one. Nor could a
new issue be used even, if constitutional, in payment of the
5-20's, for if they were technically payable in greenbacks at
all, it could only have been in the old issue limited to $400,-
000,000 by law. Certainly no one could rationally claim
that the bondholder would in law and good conscience be re
quired to take a new unlimited issue, when the contract was
that he should be paid in the old limited one. There never
was a law issuing more than ,^400, 000, 000, and now, ten
years after the bonds were purchased, could the Government
legally or morally issue $1,000,000,000 more, or compel the
bondholders to take them in payment?
HARD TIMES.
When driven from every other fallacy the soldier of the
inflation cross takes refuge in the castle of "hard times."
He shouts from behind the battlements with stentorian lungs:
"Are not the times hard? Behold business! Are not the
looms and anvils idle? Does not the farmer languish at the
plow and the mechanic grow lean in the shop? Is not the

338 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
labourer compelled to ' tramp ' for want of employment, and is
not every industry crippled and verging upon ruin? And
how could these things be if we had money enough?"
Alas, it is but too true that our industries are not all pros
perous, and that want haunts the door of many of our people.
But does it follow that it is for lack of money? The cur
rency has been constantly expanded for seven years, and is
greater now than it ever was before since the war debt was
funded. It was greater in the panic of 1873 than for six
years before. By law there is now no limit to the issuance
of National bank bills except that they can not exceed the
whole amount of the Government bonds. They are at par
with greenbacks. If the one need of the country is more
inconvertible money, why are idle the paper mflls and the
bank-note presses? There can be but one answer. The
bankers see no "millions in it." Unless, indeed, business is
so partisan as to pine on a scanty diet of greenbacks rather
than regale itself to satiety on a feast of bank notes of equal
purchasing power. Or unless the only need of " more green
backs " is that debtors may defraud their creditors by pay
ment in currency worth half its face.
The real cause of our trouble is not the lack of money, and
no mystery at all envelopes the real cause. We have only
to open our eyes, freed from the spectacles of passion and
prejudice, and the whole difficulty stares us in the face. We
have lived too fast! The war, including all, cost'us at least
eight thousand millions, perhaps much more. From one to
two miflions of able-bodied labourers on both sides of the
line lost from productive industry nearly five years. They
trampled half the United States under the iron heel of war.
Everywhere production was lessened, and in wide regions
disappeared. Commerce in our own vessels was driven from
the seas. Our flag became a stranger on foreign waters, and
our commerce a vassal to foreign trade. And when the war
of steel was over, the still more fatal war of reconstruction

HARD MONEY AND BANK CURRENCY. 339
began, and is not even yet ended. Radical politicians, play
ing the high game of Southern robbery, before which the
extortions of Verres dwindle into petty peculations, with the
selfish greed of winning fortunes and Senatorships and Presi
dencies, bound States in the festering chains of their policy,
and dragged them at the tail of their triumphal march of
power. An empire in extent was squandered upon a set of
profligate "railroad kings," and the plunder parceled out
among "incorruptible" Congressmen. A credit-money sys
tem as bottomless as government faith, for no nation ever
failed, when pressed by its wants, to defraud its creditors,
was framed to enrich those who were behind the curtains of
the Treasury Department. A tariff, the vampire of every
industry, even those it was designed to protect, sucked the
life-blood out of the producing emploj^ments of the country,
and, like the locusts of Egypt, devoured what the other
plagues had left. While the sales of bonds to carry on the
war had yielded but fifty cents on the dollar, even this pit
tance was the prey of Government contractors and corrupt
officials. The war cost three times what a value currency and
honest administration would have made it. And even yet
the movements toward retrenchment are feeble and spas
modic. Every expense of the Government is largely in
creased. The army, navy, Indian Department, Postoffice,
public buildings, consume miflion after million, as though the
Government owed not a dollar, and the people staggered
under no load of debt. Not only so; the example of the
Government has set the fashion for the people. Improvi
dent expenditure, luxurious living, reckless speculation, has
marked for years the social and business career. Is it any
wonder, then, that times are hard? And are not these the
real reasons why they are hard ? Is it not with a nation as
with an individual? Do not idleness arid profligacy bring
poverty? A nation is but an aggregation of men, and what

340 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
is true of one is true of the other. If a man has embarrassed
himself by extravagance he must redeem his fortunes by in
dustry, frugality and economy; and so must a nation. We
must return to frugality and specie money. Let greenbacks
enough be funded to raise them to par. It will not take
many. Then let them float till we are able to pay them,
which will soon be, when specie payment has settled business
on a stable basis. Abandon all banks of issue, State and
National. Provide by law for the deposit of gold in the
Treasury by any citizen, and the issuance to him of coin cer
tificates — "goldbacks" — redeemable on presentation and re
ceivable for all public dues. Every paper dollar will then
have the ring of the genuine metal, and be "as good as
gold." Fluctuations will cease, and a dollar will then mean
in fact as it does now in law, the statute weight of silver or
gold it contains standard fineness. Give the people control
of their own industries and currencies, without dictation
from rulers. Give the country constitutional freedom, equal
rights to all, untrammeled labor, security to property, ' 'home
rule, free trade and hard money," and Government can
do no more.

CENTENNIAL ORATION.
[An address delivered at Exposition Hall, Cincinnati, Ohio, July 4th, 1876.]
American Independence is one hundred years old. Since
the morning stars sang together, a century so grand, so
crowded with events, so full of progress, has not closed its
record. As heirs to the glory of our ancestors, we proudly
recall their deeds. From youth to age we have looked for
ward to the consummation of this grand event, and our eyes
now behold the utmost fruition -of our longing. Inspired
with the memories of the noble past of our history we look
forward with assured faith to the sublime future of our coun
try. Struggling with the emotions of this hour, words are
shadows of thought, and can but faintly express the burning
conceptions of the soul. The face, the eye, the whole in
spired mien, instinct with eloquent silence must supplement
the faltering lispings of the tongue. But looking upward, in
humble faith to the Great Father, speech and silence are
alike worthy of this solemn occasion. So far as words can
illustrate this epoch, what can they do more appropriate than
recall some of the great movements of the past, and contem
plate, as though it were already here, the grandeur yet in
store for America.
In reviewing the past century, an American can not fail to
remember that even the existence of this continent was made
known to the old world by a discovery so sublime in heroic
adventure as to make America from the first an object of pro
found and all-pervading interest. The high motives and dar
ing courage which settled our shores also inspired respect and
wonder, and the hardy purity of the colonists in their new
homes was everywhere the theme of praise. But, even after

25

342 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
all this, Europe was taken by surprise when the Colonies de
clared their independence. That the government to which
the mother country had subjected them was not a galling
tyranny, though in many respects oppressive, was well known.
It was not the cankering chain of political servitude against
which they rebelled. They made a broader assertion of the
sacred rights of freedom, and staked their lives and fortunes
on the wager of battle. An effort to throw off the oppressive
rule of Great Britain would have won them sympathy; but
the grand canons of principle they formulated and announced
fired with enthusiasm the dawning spirit of liberty. The
declaration was the voice of one crying in the wilderness —
the forerunner of a new political era. And though we have
heard the story a thousand times, it still enthuses the patriot,
and may the day never come when it does not ! Cold reason
may be enough to guide the head of the scientific thinker,
but the burning flame of a holy passion ought to fifl and
rouse the hearts of the people! The rising generation must
glow with the same patriotic ardor that nerved their fore
fathers. Behold, in the feeble little city of Philadelphia, having a
population of a few thousand merchants and artisans, but the
metropolis, small as it was, of two miflions poor, straggling
agriculturists, scattered in the wilderness! Behold the im
mortal fifty-six, in the broad sunlight, uncovered before their
only earthly toasters, the people, with the voice of their au
thority "proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the
inhabitants thereof!" The stern countenance of resolve, and
the earnest, thundering shouts of approval speak a Nation
into Hfe by the word of their power. There stand the great
apostles of the people and their cause, the venerable Franklin,
who had snatched the lightning from heaven ; the youthful
Jefferson, whose electric pen was ablaze with the lightning of
genius; and there, too, are the courtly Hancock, the chival
rous but trembling form of Carrofl, and there stands the

CENTENNIAL ORATION. 343
boldest spirit of them all, the impetuous and eloquent Adams,
with Sherman, and Lee, and Morris, and Livingston, and
Wythe, and the whole immortal group around him, ready to
do or die at their country's bidding. It is a scene worthy of
the greatest pencil, and presents even to the imagination a
picture no other event in history can surpass.
Then followed the long and dreary struggle, the hopes and
fears, the victories and defeats, the patriotism and treason at
home, the slow recognition and the generous aid from abroad,
the unfaltering patient, enduring Washington, with his Fabian
warfare, his country's confidence, and the cabals against him
— Green, Gates, Sumter, Marion, Putnam, Paul Jones, our
heroes at home ; and, from abroad, Lafayette, Rochambeau,
Kosciusko, Steuben and De Kalb, rise upon the eye till the
whole vision is filled with the gorgeous panorama of the Rev
olution. The homely wisdom of Congress, and the devotion
of the people, amid all their privations and sufferings, form a
noble background, and have justly gained for them the love
and admiration of posterity.
When independence was achieved, the victory was only
half won. We were free from the yoke of England, but we
had no constitution of government. The articles of confed
eration were only a rope of sand, and it was at once apparent
that the States would soon be ' ' dissevered, discordant, bel
ligerent, " unless some better organized and permanent system
of confederation could be devised. Union must be made
the palladium of liberty. Patriotism, fortitude and courage
had conquered for us liberty at the point of the sword; it
remained for concfliation and wisdom to secure it by con
stitutional guarantees. True, the elemental ideas of personal
freedom were as old as the common law or the English
language. We had borrowed much, too, from the recent
legislation of the mother country. We had the State organ
izations which had kept alive the right of self-government
and afforded a type for the general government of the Union.

344 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
But after all the United States, as a RepubHc, had no funda
mental law. The traditions of government had given the
mother country an unwritten constitution, but our nation was
without traditions of government. Our fathers felt, therefore,
that they must establish a written constitution, and no less
than the serenest wisdom was competent to the task. Some
of our most thoughtful men were Ministers of the Confed
eration at foreign courts, and their services lost in the Federal
Convention. Franklin, Adams, Jefferson and Jay were
abroad, though Franklin and Jay returned in time to give
efficient aid, the one in the Convention, and the other with
his potent pen. The remaining great leaders, with Washing
ton at their head, convened and framed our present admirable
Federal Constitution. It was ratified by the conventions of
the people in the several States, each for itself No one can
read the debates of the several conventions, or the states
manlike articles of the Federalist, without feeling pride in
the learning and sagacity of the men who laid the foundations
of our government. Faults the Constitution may have —
and what human production has not; but an instrument so
wisely balanced as to preserve liberty and secure national
greatness at the same time over so vast a territory, must be
the work of no mean hands. And who can doubt that it
will secure popular rights and national integrity for many
ages yet to come.
It would not be fitting to pass from the Revolutionary
period to review the whole political history of our country.
But we may pause to express our gratitude that when the
country needed the services of men able to rule her desti
nies they have not been wanting. Washington, who led
the armies and presided in the Federal Convention, lived to
inaugurate the new Government and leave to future times the
noblest example of heroic virtue and statesmanship, united
with social and domestic purity, which hi.story affords for the
instruction of mankind. It was fortunate, too, that the prin-

CENTENNIAL ORATION. 345
cipal actors, if we except Franklin, lived to aid, by precept
and act, in organizing wisely the Government in all its
branches under the Constitution they had framed. Its friends
administered the new Government. The ideas of Madison,
Hamilton, Jefferson, Marshall and the other great spirits
found their way into laws and financial systems, and judicial
decisions, until the constitutional foundations of the Govern
ment were laid deep and strong in the popular affections.
And ever since, through Webster and Jackson and Lincoln,
to say nothing of others scarcely less great, when a master
hand v/as needed to seize the helm in the storm, it came at
the call of the people.
When the Revolution began, the population of the country
was something less than three millions, and was thinly dis
tributed over thirteen Colonies, between the Atlantic and the
Alleghenies. This population was made up mainly of British
and German emigrants and their descendants, and of African
slaves. But almost all the nations of Europe were, to some
extent, represented among the settlers in the Colonies. The
establishment of the new Government gave the country great
reputation abroad and prompted active emigration to our
shores. This emigration would have been immensely greater
had not the wars of the French Revolution engrossed Europe
and offered employment to its people at home, while its in
dustries were stunted and crippled by the desolating tread of
its battling hosts. Finally America was involved, too, and
such was the waste of population and resources during these
long and terrible struggles that it was felt on both sides of
the Atlantic. Population had, however, even during these
wars, flowed over the Alleghenies and reached the Lakes,
the Gulf, and the Mississippi. State after State had been
added to the Union, and the United States had already come
to be recognized among the Powers of the earth as the Great
Republic. But peace and industry being once more restored
in Europe, emigrants rushed to our shore by millions, until

346 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
the surging tide of population poured over hill and valley,
sweeping the wflderness from its path, and dotting river and
lake shore, savanna and prairie, with cities, villages, mills
and factories, and covering the broad land with farms and
workshops till the little sea-girt colonial dependencies have
swelled into a mighty nation, whose longitude is from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, and whose bosom beats in pride at
the gate of the tropics and on the arctic circle. If the Old
World had been astonished at the success of our war of in
dependence, how much more was it astonished at the success
of our Republic? Even the most hopeful friends of liberty
looked with doubt and misgiving to the future. But not the
wildest dreamer ever fancied that in one hundred years the
three millions of poor, scattered colonists would be a power
ful nation of forty-three millions of freemen, whose com
mercial metropolis should rival the proudest cities of the Old
World, and whose resources and prosperity should be abso
lutely unrivaled in the world's history.
To say that all this great social and industrial progress is
the result of our political institutions would be to praise
them overmuch. Proud as we justly are of our form of gov
ernment, and as much as it has done to perfect the rights of
the citizen and clothe him with the free dignity of manhood,
our immense success is largely due to other causes. A re
dundant population in Europe, belonging to the noblest race
of the human family, sought new fields of enterprise, and
found them in the new world. North America, naturally
rich in every element of material greatness, needed but the
Briarean hands of European industry to burst into all the
teeming grandeur of Christian civilization. The liberality of
our Government and the boundless natural resources of our
country invited alike to our shores the liberal man of letters
and the hardy son of toil, and under the protecting aegis of
liberty of thought and freedom of labor our political and
material greatness has been achieved.

CENTENNIAL ORATION. 347
It could hardly have been expected that any people should
pass at one bound from all the political ideas of an old system
into all the conceptions of a new one. Nor could it be ex
pected that so many nationalities, and two widely diverse
races, when planted together in a country new to them all,
would quietly and harmoniously coalesce into one people.
The vestige of monarchic opinions lingered under republican
institutions, and the old antagonisms of nations and races
could not but smoulder in the bosom of society. Indeed, it
is a marvel that the conscious supremacy of law could so
well hold in check so many elements of discord. It could
not be done at all, except for the elemental exceflence of
our constitutional balance of government added to the high-
toned intelligence of our people, and, not least, to the ample
scope our wide territory gives for rival competing opinions to
come into collision without engendering revolutionary frenzy.
The strifes of contending policies, the jealousies of the for
eign and native populations, and the conflicts of constitutional
theories have all been harmonized without serious disturbance.
No internal causes of discord proved too strong for peaceful
adjustment except that broad divergence of social system as
old as the civil wars of England and deep-rooted as the dif
ference between servile and free labor. Wider and wider
grew this divergence ; sterner and more intense became this
struggle, untfl the fires of " the irrepressible conflict" could
be quenched only in blood. But when that awful day did
come, and nothing was left but the arbitrament of the
sword, the cause of liberty and progress, the cause of
the Union, found loyal hearts to love and strong arms to
defend. Again, as of old, the Republic was triumphant.
That system of labor borrowed from the same benighted
past in which was nurtured the divine right of kings, and
which was at war equally with the rights of industry
and the spirit of the age, fell to rise no more forever.
And the Union, though it had tottered to its base, as the

348 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
smoke of the battle drifted away, again arose upon the ad
miring gaze of the world, not a star in its flag erased, and its
silver bands of equaHty among all the people, and perpetual
union among all the States welded firmer and shining brighter
from the furnace through which they had passed.
But nations are not isolated aggregations of men. They
are members of the same family. Contemporaneously with
our Revolution other events of vast moment were occurring
in other countries. These events, as well as those in our
country, were not spontaneous, but the outgrowth of what
had preceded. Omitting to dwell upon the influence of
ancient ideas, or the examples of ancient nations, or the
spirit of old religious systems, several very striking occur
rences had prepared the way for new political and social
systems. Feudalism had decayed, and great kingdoms been
consolidated on its ruins in most parts of Europe. Gun
powder had modeled anew the art of war, and the growth
of commerce was fast putting modern taxation in the place
of ancient feudal exactions. Luther had crippled the power
of ecclesiastical supremacy, and the great rebellion in Eng
land had sapped the foundations of absolutism, while the
revolution of 1688 had made England's crown the gift of
England's people. In France and Germany the seeds of
future convulsion had been sown by a powerful school of phil
osophers, and although the people as yet lay groaning under
the weight of aristocratic effeminacy and corruption, the spirit
of revolution, poHtical, religious and social, was everywhere
rife. The two continents were acting on each other. The
American Revolution gave England for the first time a re
sponsible ministry. For years Lord North, at the command
of the King, defied the will of the EngHsh people, and car
ried on war against the rebeflious colonies, after afl but the
obstinate sovereign saw that their conquest was hopeless and
sighed for peace. When public clamor at last compelled the
resignation of North and the recognition of our Independ-

CENTENNIAL ORATION. 349
ence, the King's supremacy was gone, except in name, and
the premier — made and unmade by the breath of the people
— became the real sovereign of England. Ministries and
policies have since yielded to the demand of the governing
nation, and in a kingdom where once the sovereign, "ruling
by the grace of God," attainted a member of Parliament,
removed a judge, or imprisoned a jury, at his lawless
pleasure, no King has dared since our Revolution to veto
the humblest act of Parliament, or retain against the popular
will the most cherished minister.
In France the effect of our independence was electric.
Franklin was half-worshiped by the French people, and the
author of the Declaration of Independence witnessed the
storming of the Bastile. Old France was gone and New
France was born in the throes of the stormiest revolution
that ever drenched a continent in blood. That revolution
snatched thrones from their hoary base and threw them from
nation to nation as pawns in the game of conquest. It
plucked mitres from heads on which sanctity had been laid
by infallible hands, and played with the holy things of the
Church as children play with baubles. It wrested the suffer
ing people from the grip of faithless kings, blase nobles and
irreligious priests. That its violence was unreasoning and its
vengeance bloodthirsty, no fair-minded man can deny. That
the long series of wrongs, oppressions, corruptions and im
pieties which provoked it were without parallel in modern
Europe, is equally beyond denial. That it did not accom
plish all the friends of liberty and progress hoped from it,
must also be admitted. But that France and Europe were
waked by it from a nightmare of regal and ecclesiastical
tyranny, can admit of no question. As the fires of the
French Revolution consumed the painted mask of hypocrisy
and falsehood by which truth had been concealed, the people
leaped up trembling with rage and bewildered by the new
light that blazed in the face of the world. But that real pro-

350 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
gress has resulted is attested by achievements in this century,
the proudest in the history of the race. All over Europe
the two great revolutions in the New World and in the Old
opened fresh prospects for the developing masses, and en
throned new ideas of popular liberty and social culture.
Peoples began to be recognized as the sources of power, and
kings as the servants of the peoples. Constitutional govern
ment has taken the place of absolutism, and freedom of
thought the place of regal and priestly infallibility.
Important as these political changes were to the people
of Europe, to us they were significant chiefly from the social
and industrial changes for which they opened the way.
Despotic government is neither the hand-maiden of industry
nor the promoter of social progress. A sense of individual
power strengthens the humblest. While the long wars of
the French Revolution checked the growth of population,
the freer spirit everywhere arising in the laboring classes
tended to cultivate industry; and the increase of commerce
and manufactures which followed these wars vastly increased
the wealth and population in most countries of Europe, and
especially in Great Britain and Germany, whence most of
our immigrants come.
If we turn from the political field of action to that wider
and even more potential realm, wherein ideas, not armies nor
statute-books rule ; if we contemplate society instead of gov
ernment, and consider progress as the ultimate aim of human
organization, how immeasurably grand is the field opened
by a review of the last century! Into whatever region of
thought we choose to enter ; info whatever class of culture we
extend our inspection; into whatever depths of science we
seek to delve, what century can compare in achievement with
that just ended? In the field of learning much work had al
ready been done, for all true knowledge is a growth. From
the immemorial past ideas had been grafted upon perceptions
and systems upon ideas, until great advancement had been

CENTENNIAL ORATION. 351
made in religion, government, law, science, literature and
art. All along through the ages one accumulation after an
other had been made in knowledge. But the splendor of this
centennial century in Europe and America stands alone. If
time allowed we might point out the progress of natural
science, political economy, ethnology, biblical criticism,
social science, and speculative philosophy. In the very year
of our declaration the discovery of oxygen and the publica
tion of the "Wealth of Nations" did more to change the
future industries of the world than can be awarded to the
work of any preceding century. The discovery of oxygen
is the novum organum of Physics, and has supplied a solvent
that makes nature give up her inmost secrets to the uses of
man. The "Wealth of Nations" was the novum organum
of economical science, and though political economy has
been inaptly called the "dismal science," no branch of knowl
edge has done more for the every day needs of the people.
With these two great advances in knowledge added to the
proclamation in our country of the sovereignty of the
people, a new era began throughout the Christian world.
The Copernican system, and the discovery of America,
and Newton's law of gravitation, and Harvey's circulation of
the blood, and the Reformation, had each opened the way, on
a grand scale, for the new age, and with those brawniest arms
of civilization, the printing press and steam, as the servants
of the new ideas, the whole spirit of society was changed.
The age became practical. Public opinion became a ruling
power. Comforts and wealth were diffused by every-day
knowledge. The newspaper became a necessity. The ease
and rapidity of travel made the world one people, and the
constant inter-change of sentiments and ideas uprooted old
conservatisms and urged on the car of progress. The people
are better clothed and fed — better lodged and educated.
Sanitary science and medical skifl have almost banished from
the earth those fierce scourges which often decimated nations.

352 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
Labor is better paid; charities abound, and society is the
willing guardian of the feeble and helpless. So liberal ideas
have taken hold of the masses in Europe and America. Re
ligious persecution has almost disappeared. The brotherhood
of man is a popular sentiment. Freedom of opinion is almost
conceded to be a right. The relations of the sexes are soft
ened and purified. The husband no longer beats his wife as
a legal right, or keeps a mistress without a blush. Kindness
governs chfldren and servants, instead of physical chastise
ment. The rigor of legal punishments is relaxed, and the
gallows is nearly absolete. The whole face of society is
changed. But these changes have brought with them their dangers.
The altered character of war, and the perfection of its imple
ments, tend to the strengthening of powerful nations at the
expense of the weak, and worse than all enable organized
government to wield a stronger arm, and consequently help
power to become the agent of tyranny. So the almost bound
less influence, and the reckless licentiousness of the news
paper press endanger the morals of society. The tendency
of commerce, trade and manufacture to congregate the people
in huge factories, shops and cities, deteriorates their health
and moral stamina, and threatens the future manhood and
womanhood of the people, from the confinement of both
sexes in those hot-beds of excitement and disease which
large cities, more or less, always are. All this is painfully
apparent in the decrease in the birth of sturdy children. But
after making all allowances, the general result is in favor of
the present over the past. The social progress of the world
in the last century is actual, and the promise of the future
hopeful. Any review, however brief, of the last century would be
incomplete if it did not touch its philosophic, scientific and
literary aspects. Its most remarkable features in this re
spect are kindred to those of its social progress. They are

CENTENNIAL ORATION. 353
bold and vigorous. The critical investigation of past history,
sacred and profane, has been searching and profound. The
kaleidoscopic fables of the East, of Greece and Rome, have
been unsparingly held up in the sunlight of modern criticism.
Not a page of the Holy Books of the Hindu, the Persian or
the Jew but has been scanned by the philologer and the
philosopher. Not a rock temple of India, a ruin of Ethiopia
or Central America, or a pyramid of Egypt; nor yet an
archaeological remain of Europe, could escape the eager
scrutiny of the antiquary. The history and social condition
of ancient nations have been investigated with a critical zeal.
And these studies have not been so much for ornament as
for use. The indiscriminate laudation of old countries and
institutions was the fashion two hundred years ago, but now
the historian or the essayist investigates that he may portray
the past in its true colors.
Nor have the old superstitions of science fared better at
the hands of the modern scientist. Antique systems have
been demanded to show their authority, and the seals on
their commissions have often been challenged as spurious.
Nature has been questioned in a severe but loving spirit, and
her responses compared in every tongue to make sure they
were not Delphic. Patient investigation has disclosed in
nature, in matter and force, in birth and decay, in life and
progress, the unbending universality of law, changeless and
eternal. The reasoning faculty of man has grown with every
new acquisition of knovi^ledge, and in the pride of its power
questions everything human and divine. Perhaps the most
striking intellectual feature of the age is the evolution theory
of organic existence and of human life itself Bold and
daring, indeed, is the philosophy of the nineteenth century.
In its spirit it foflows the experimental methods of the
Baconian system, and the future alone can pass on its true
value. But though reason usually gains strength at the expense of

354 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
the imagination, and often to the detriment of the emotions,
yet the century has been prolific in every species — some very
poor — of literary productions. In poetry and romance, in art
and music, it compares well with any antecedent age. In full
ness and richness — perhaps not in originality — it has no peer.
That the reasoriing power has advanced at the expense of
the imagination can hardly be doubted, and yet a Goethe and
a Byron have lived in our age. The loftiest thought, the
wildest imagination, the tenderest emotion, have all found
expression in philosopher and poet and philanthropist in the
stormy nineteenth century. While liberty to all brings hope
to the lowly, in the struggling soul of humanity glows the
spark of genius, "And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray."
The intellectual and moral characteristic of the age is its skep
ticism. Not the narrow and bigoted infidelity that marked
the last century preceding; not the scoffing of the idiot unbe
liever, but that earnest, devout skepticism which acknowl
edges no criterion of truth but human judgment, and bows to
no superior but the universe. To the timid this may portend
evil; but honest skepticism is the true herald of progress.
Whatever will not stand investigation is not entitled to stand
at all. The weak in head or heart may fall by the wayside,
but the true believer — the beflever in truths — whose faith is
winnowed from the chaff of doubt, will, like the martyrs of
old, be the seed of the future Church. Want of faith in
everything estabflshed is the great danger of the future, and
yet its great hope. The skeptic of one age is the prophet
of the next. No period has ever been more transitional
than ours ; and though there may be some tares springing up
in the wheat now being sown, the future will reap a rich har
vest, temporal and spiritual, for the sustenance of the coming
generations of men.
In all this vast general movement of human Hfe, our coun-

CENTENNIAL ORATION. 355
try has borne its share, and our example has had its influence
on the world.
While in material progress our country has, in the last
century, surpassed all nations, we can also, with justice, say
our people have advanced more rapidly in general intelligence
than those of any other country. The high tone of the
masses may well be the honest boast of Americans. In gen
eral diffusion of knowledge, in moral and social rectitude, in
domestic purity and comfort, the common people of our
country stand in the foremost rank. If much of this is due
to the immigration from Europe of the better and not the
worse classes of its laboring populaiton, and to the facility
with which, in the United States, comfortable homes may be
had, much, too, is due to our admirable system of common
schools, our large circulation of newspapers and periodical
literature, and our widely diffused and liberal reflgious teach
ing. The general intelligence is likewise cultivated by our
political institutions. The public discussion on the hustings
of political issues, the broad basis of suffrage, and the distribu
tion to the very extremities of the nation of the powers of
local government; and perhaps still more than all, the edu
cating process of trial by jury, makes the Government a
popular schoolmaster. All sexes and ages, through the
workings of our system, are receiving instruction by the
administration of the laws, and this is not the least of the
merits of that administration. The citizen is not only
made to feel that the Government and the law are sacred,
because created and administered by and for the people, but
the sense of individual responsibility is cultivated, and the
range of popular thinking enlarged. So, too, the manifold
forms and instruments of our industry promote popular cul
ture. The omnipresence of the railroad, telegraph, printing
press, steam engine, agricultural and mechanical instruments,
and the myriad magic fingers of machinery, teach the people
practical knowledge and excite that wonder and curiosity

356 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
which lead to many an advance in physical science; while
fairs and expositions, social festivals and pubHc concerts and
amusements give aid to the hearthstone, the schoolroom and
the church, in that general culture which is the surest basis
of public virtue, and the indispensable bulwark of free gov
ernment. Conscious, however, as we are of the general intelligence
of our people, we have to admit that in the higher walks of
mental culture we have advanced with less rapid strides.
This is doubtless, to a great extent, at least, due to our situa
tion. We have lived in a new country in which a hand to
hand struggle with the rude forces of nature was not only a
necessity, but the highest duty. Food and shelter for the
family are the first objects to be sought in every stage of
human progress. When these have to be wrested by force,
in an inclement climate, from a virgin soil, the sturdiest in
dustry will find time for little else. And whatever leisure is
found naturally takes the direction of making improvements
in the instruments with which to extort from rugged nature
the means of subsistence. Discoveries and inventions tend
ing to physical improvement are the natural result. And in
our country we are abreast, if not superior, to afl nations in
the practical arts and inventions, the labor-saving imple
ments, which promote production. We needed them most,
and they came at the call of American genius. If we
did not invent the steam engine, we made it subserve the
humblest as well as the highest industries. It was our Fulton
who first made the steamer
" Walk the waters like a thing of life.''
And it was our pioneers who made the steam-saw to migrate
from forest to forest. If we did not discover the existence
of electricity, our FrankHn first taught the world to shield
their habitations from its lightning blasts. If we did not
teach the lightning to speak, our Morse taught it to use the
best language. If the mother country first harnessed the

CENTENNIAL ORATION. 357
iron horse, soon afer we had him champing the bit on this
side of the water, and leaping over mountain and plain and
river, through city and forest and tunnel, with flaming nostril
and neck clothed with thunder, till lately, almost keeping
pace with the sun, he bounded from ocean to ocean. And
whfle the ruder wants of our pioneer life were being supplied,
the higher mental culture derived from the study of science,
literature and art were not entirely neglected. Though too
busy in the battle of the hammers to devote much time to
the refined or ornamental, too busy with the practical to
dwell much on the abstract, we need not be ashamed of what
we have done even in the world of letters. We may regret
that we have not done more, but we can justly congratulate
ourselves that we have done so much. We can hardly claim
that in the highest realms of philosophy, science, art and lit
erature, we have kept pace with the progress of Europe dur
ing the last hundred years. In so new a country, with insti
tutions so equalizing in their tendency, we could not have
that accumulated wealth and consequent leisure so necessary
to barely abstract or ornamental studies. No name in the
highest rank of philosophy or poetry, of science or literature,
has been contributed by America to the world's intellectual
galaxy. We have no Bacon or Shakespeare, Newton or
Locke. Nor has our first century produced a Humboldt or
Davy, or Darwin or Herbert Spencer, nor a Goethe or Burns,
Byron or Wordsworth. But stfll, America has not been
dumb; and even in the world of thought, as well as in the
world of action, her voice has been heard. The fame of
many of her writers gives earnest of what may be expected
in every field of inteflectual and moral effort when the young
giant of the West has matured her dawning faculties by an
other century of culture.
As might naturally be looked for, our popular institutions
have drawn too large a proportion of the intellect and culture
of the country into the field of politics. Gradually men of

26

358 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
ability are seeking literary and other pursuits, giving leisure
for more refined culture and deeper research. In one of the
governing forces of a republic, we have, therefore, equalled,
if not'excelled, any people. Our orators everywhere abound.
We could stock the Senates of the world with fine speakers.
Patrick Henry, John Adams, Pinkney, Wirt, Randolph, Cor
win, Choate, Everett, Wendell Phillips, and a list of others,
too long to recall, without speaking of Webster, Calhoun and
Clay, justly entitle America to be called a nation of orators.
And in the literature of law and politics, too, we are entitled
to a high place, and the political writings of many an Amer
ican will be read with deep interest centuries to come. We
cannot omit to notice how rapidly the ideas of old times have
been liberalized in their practical application in this country,
not only in law, politics, government and industry, but in
domestic and social life as well as in religion, science and lit
erature. The stiff forms of the old law practice have passed
away. Neither interest, race or religious belief now disqual
ifies a witness. Imprisonment for debt, except in cases of
fraud, is abolished. Homestead and exemption laws protect
the poor. Divorces are obtainable, and married women's
property rights secured. Equal distribution of property is
secured to all heirs alike, and primogeniture and entailments
are aboflshed. Simplicity of deeds and transfers have been
introduced, security of possession enforced by liberal statutes
of limitation, and many other modifications of the old law
adopted, tending to equality among all classes and races. So
the criminal code has been toned down, and prisoners have
bail, and counsel and witnesses are allowed at the public
charge ; and prisoners may even be witnesses for themselves.
The stocks and the whipping post are no more. So every
where schools are practicafly free. Charities, asylums, invalid
homes, cover the land, so that the young and the imbecile,
the erring and the insane, are cared for by private munificence
or at the public charge. What the old kings spent on re-

CENTENNIAL ORATION. 359
tainers and. armies, the young Republic devotes to charities.
And religious intolerance in our country is quite gone. Ex
communication from the fold of the church is a dead letter.
Each can worship under his own vine and fig tree, with none
to molest or make him afraid, and God alone can call any man
to account for his religious belief. The State aids no church,
but equally protects all. The cathedral and the synagogue
peacefully confront each other, the High Church and the
Conventicle are friendly neighbors, and even the Free-
Thinkers' hall is under protection of law. And so, too, in
dustry is free. UnHke the old countries, every man here
may follow any pursuit without government license or legally
prescribed apprenticeship. No property qualification is re
quired for public place, nor even for social standing. Every
one may take his place in that rank of life for which he can
show himself fitted. Husbands, wives and children are bound
together, practically, by the law of love alone. So freedom
of opinion, of speech, of the press, is everywhere recognized,
and scarcely ever invaded, unless it be momentarily in the
excitement of political contests, or in the occasional outburst
of popular wrath at some flagrant abuse of this freedom.
But we must not pause longer to recount the past. The
star of our country's destiny is hope, not memory. It is a
morning, not an evening star. We are girding ourselves for
work, not resting from labor. When we turn about us and
behold our mighty enipire of territory and our still mightier
empire of future people, we are oppressed with a sense of
infinitude. Bounded by the Atlantic and Pacific, washed by
the ocean gulf at the south, and the ocean lakes at the north ;
divided into two breathing lobes of life by the Mississippi,
the Mediterranean of the Republic, no physical empire yet
vouchsafed to any government has had the giant proportions
of the United States. With mountains on the east, and still
loftier mountains on the west, pregnant with the richest ores
for use and ornament, and groaning for deliverance of their

360 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
treasures, they ask but enterprise and time to pour into the
lap of wealth their untold millions. Surrounded in every
region of our domain with boundless leagues of fertile sofl,
annually tickled by the yeoman's plow, and laughing back
harvests in his face, the swarming hives of our population
will find ample scope for their children's homes, for count
less, prolific generations of freemen. With a commerce
"whose sails shall yet whiten every sea," at home and
abroad, our people shall gather the products of every clime
in exchange for our own. Our teeming factories shall fill the
land with the sound of hammers and the hum of spindles tfll
the music of industry shall compose a grander symphony
than ever Mozart or Beethoven conceived. Cities whose
population shall be counted by millions, vfllages nestling in
coves of mountains or bays, or picturesque curves of rivers,
or sleeping in shady valleys; farm-houses of sturdy yeomen,
but palaces in elegance and comfort, shall yet arise to gladden
the eye. Railroads and steamers shall by every plain and
river bring each region in close and constant communion with
every other. The tropics and the frozen zone shall supply
us, as home productions, with the sunny fruits and the warm
ing furs, while the fibers, and cereals, and minerals — all the
products of our native hands — shall make us a world within
ourselves. But wealth and luxury are sources of weakness rather than
strength, if not accompanied by intellectual vigor and moral
rectitude. Our unbounded future wealth, and consequent
temptations to luxury and dissipation, can not but excite the
fears of the thoughtful. Shafl we live over again the history
of old countries? Shall the haughty mflflonaire, as in decay
ing Rome, enslave the free spirit of the people, corrupt their
morals by his licentious habits, or purchase their suffrages by
his bribes? Shall liberty become a form, and despotism a
fact? If these be the results of your wealth and grandeur,
what matters it that fountains, and rostrums, and statues

CENTENNIAL ORATION. 361
adorn your streets? What matters it that parks, and gar
dens, and palaces crown your suburbs? What matters it
that expositions of your industry build splendid structures,
or your plastic tastes construct gorgeous theatres, museums
of art, or concert halls? What matters it that saintly form-
ulists point the spires of cathedral and church to unrespon
sive Heaven?
The grand material future of America must, if we would
not soon be numbered with the nations of the past, be but
the minister to coming ages of intellectual glory. Simplicity
of life, purity of morals, and those lofty purposes which
make heroes of the humblest, must characterize our people,
or their coming power and splendor will inevitably corrupt
and ruin them. We have every incentive to prompt to in
tellectual culture and moral purity. The freedom of our
institutions, the early fame of our country, the revered name
of our ancestors, the future of our children — to what higher
motives could appeal be made? If we are true to these
traditions and hopes, "how grandly looms the Republic
upon the vision!" The second Centennial wfll find that
glorious banner now waving over us, covering and protecting
a hundred millions of high-souled, intelligent, free citizens.
Not only a broad domain, wealth and power shall make us
the republican empress of the world's destiny, but intelli
gence, virtue and courage — high manhood and womanhood
— shall fill every household and insure the perpetuity of the
American Republic. And when the next Centennial shafl
dawn we shall be not only untold millions of happy freemen,
surrounded, by palatial grandeur, internal peace and social
and domestic purity, but the Great Republic will be the in
tellectual and moral leader of the world.

EULOGY ON HON. GEORGE E. PUGH.
[Delivered at a bar meeting at Cincinnati, Ohio, on the occasion of the de
cease of Hon. George E. Pugh, July 24th, 1876.]
My Brethren of the Bar:
It is. fitting that I should say something at our farewell to
George E. Pugh. George and I were boys together. We
both closed our school days at Oxford at the same time.
We dreamed of the future and discussed the great problems
of life together, with the confidence and ardor of ambitious
youths, little understanding the stern struggles that awaited
ug both. We entered life at the same time. Although I
lived in the country and he in the city, we had the same pur
suits and studies, and mainly the same companions. We
read each other our briefs and tried over again our cases.
We laid many a plan of life, alas, how few to be reaflzed!
Even our very loves were confidentially talked over. I knew
and loved Pugh as well as I could know or love any man.
¦ Graduating in 1840, only seventeen years old, he began the
study of the law, and was admitted as soon as he was of full
age. While yet a student he wrote briefs for his brother-in-
law, Hart, which carried causes in the Supreme Court. Even
that early his knowledge of the law was wonderful. Among
a coterie of young lawyers, rarely equaled in Cincinnati or
elsewhere, he was at once recognized as a leader. Corry,
Groesbeck, Telford and Jordan Pugh were a little older, but
Pendleton, Warden, Gallagher, Mitchefl, Ned Marshall, Cal-
houri Benham, John A. Collins, Gwynn, and oh ! how many
more, began the race of life with him. The brifliant Collins
was, if I remember aright, his first partner. Coflins! How
gifted and how rare a man ! He studied law with us while I

EULOGY ON HON. GEORGE E. PUGH. 363
was Governor Corwin's partner, when but twenty years old,
and the Governor said of him he was the most matured intel
lect at that age he had ever known. He afterward be
came the partner of S. S. Prentiss in New Orleans, and
there died. Then Pugh became the partner of Pendleton.
But, brflliant as Pugh was, he was not at once popular. His
first candidacy resulted in defeat, for he sought the office of
prosecuting attorney of the county, and the nomination of
his party was refused him. Then he went to the Mexican
war as captain, and served on the staff of Old Joe Lane. On
his return his success began. He made a grand movement
on the chess-board of politics, and his reputation was fixed.
The Whigs, in 1848, to get control in the Legislature,
divided Hamilton County into two election districts, knowing
they could carry one, while the county as a whole was Demo
cratic. Such a thing was unprecedented, and the older
politicians were struck dumb by the daring movement. But
the dashing boy denounced the law as unconstitutional, and
in a series of newspaper articles roused his party to resistance.
He was chosen to the Legislature on a general ticket, and
demanded his seat. That good and great man. Judge Spen
cer, was his rival. The political storm was unparalleled.
Whichever side succeeded would hold the Legislature and
elect a Senator and other officers. The Democrats seized
the Chair at daylight. Both parties camped in the State
House for weeks, and finally the Pugh party were seated.
Chase was elected Senator; Stanley Matthews Clerk of the
House; and that good man who has so lately left us, Judge
Caldwell, was chosen to the Bench. Pugh was now a recog
nized leader. The new Constitution was adopted, and Pugh
elected Attorney-General, and then Senator. But we need
not dwell on his political career. As a politician he was but
a meteor, and his entrance upon politics at all was the greatest
mistake of his life. Especially was it the mistake for him to
go to the Senate instead of the House. Whatever practical

364 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
talents he had were fitted for the House, not the Senate.
But his genius was not for statesmanship. He was a natural
born lawyer. For a third of a century I practiced law, from
the lowest courts to the highest, and it is my deliberate judg
ment that no man of my acquaintance ever equaled Pugh in
the almost intuitive faculty of perceiving and applying the
principles of law. He was not gifted with that versatility
of illustration, that breadth of comprehension, that power of
imagination and emotion which characterizes the greatest ad
vocates. His mind was acute and analytical, but it lacked
pathos and humor. He was eloquent, but his was the elo
quence of intellect and of passionate will, not the persuasive
accents which touch the inmost springs of emotion. He
sought to heat the head, not warm the heart. His speeches
were logic, red-hot. His memory was absolutely marvelous.
No fact, however minute, escaped him, and the principles
of law were so much a part of his mind that they came when
needed in his legal conflicts as naturally as one eats or
breathes. Such a man was, of necessity, a great lawyer,
and in a case suited to his genius a masterly advocate. A
great judge he could never have been. Such a mind as his
was too impulsive to patiently weigh balancing arguments.
His true career, therefore, was the bar — the higher walks of
the legal profession.
But when there are so many who ought to be heard, I
have no right to detain you longer. I might speak of your
departed brother as a man, as a member of society. I might
dwell upon his virtues and foibles, and delineate the traits of
his personal character ; but suffice it that we all know he was
great — great in intellect, great in will and energy, great in
passion, great in afl the elements which make a strong man.
Brave and honest and honorable, his foibles will be forgotten
as the venial weaknesses of a strong and restless nature.
Green be his memory with us all ! And now,
"After life's fitful fever he sleeps well."

EULOGY ON HON. GEORGE E. PUGH. 365
He died in the bosom of that Old Church in whose wide
embracing and loving arms so many millions of the erring
sons and daughters of men have for fifty generations fallen
asleep. That great, turbulent, stormy soul, which could find
no rest on earth, we confidently hope has found rest in
heaven.

WHO FOUGHT THE WAR?
[The conclusion of ^ political speech, delivered at Loveland, Ohio, October
7th, 1876.]
The Republican orators and newspapers, finding their finan
cial policy utterly indefensible and their party shirts reeking
with filth and corruption, dare not openly and boldly defend
either. They seek instead to fight over again the battles of
the war. They are seeking everywhere to arouse sectional
animosities and tear open afresh the healing wound of internal
strife. When we spread before the country the revolting
record of their corruptions and the enormity of their ruinous
taxation and reckless expenditure, their only answer is that
we are a set of Copperheads and rebel sympathizers. Do
we point to their oppressive tariff, by which the shoes for the
poor laborer's children or the blankets for their beds are
doubled in price, they answer that the negroes were massa
cred at Hamburg. Do we call attention to their ruinous
financial legislation, by which bonds sold at fifty cents on the
dollar are to be paid at par, and tax to pay interest doubled
on the already groaning tax-payer, they remind you that
there are fifty Confederate Generals in Congress. Do we
hold up to view the enormous taxes and reckless expenditure
of their party policy, they answer, the colored voters were
intimidated in Mississippi. Do we denounce the Civfl Ser
vice extravagance which has since the war doubled the horde
of office-holders that are eating out your substance, they
mockingly proclaim that the war was brought on by the
South. And when we with sorrow and shame hold up to the
contempt and scorn of an honest people the whole rotten
carcass of the RepubHcan Administration, corrupt and cov-

WHO FOUGHT THE WAR? 367
ered with putrefying sores from the crown of the head to the
soles of the feet, until, in the language of the New York
Tribune, the country "hangs its head and holds its nose and
waits for this Administration to pass," the party leaders fold
their arms, and, striking a holier-than-thou attitude, sing out
through their noses, "Jeff Davis is a Democrat."
Not only so, feflow-citizens, but they impudently claim that
they fought the war, while the Democrats of the North sym
pathized with the rebellion. They make this appeal to the
soldier to arouse a prejudice against the Democratic party,
and in the face of the fact that as many Democrats as Repub
licans were in the field ; when every honest soldier, who will
lay his party prejudice aside, knows that the boys in the field
were of both parties in about equal numbers. The truth is,
the "boys in blue" never inquired whether the comrades
who stood by their sides belonged to one party or another.
And nothing but party malignity or malice asks the question
now. But my countrymen, since the point is made, I affirm
boldly that, in my opinion, more Democrats went to the field
than Republicans. And, in the name of my comrades in
arms, I denounce as a malicious slander the charge that now
seeks to belittle their services to the country. No census of
parties was taken, and it will never be possible to count the
rank and file. But the party ties of the officers were largely
known, and a full share of them, from the highest to the
lowest, were Democrats. It matters not whether you take
the Commander-in Chief or the lowest commissioned officer.
Take Ohio as an example, and look into "Reid's Ohio in
the War." Who but Democrats were Lytle — the Chevelier
Bayard of the war, sans peur et sans reproche — the whole regi
ment of McCooks, from gray-beard sire to beardless school
boy, and who shed more blood for the cause than any other
family in the nation ; and McGroarty, with his dozen wounds,
and Langdon, Dodds, Len Harris, Kell, Vanderveer, Camp
bell, King, Morton, Frizefl, Mott, Andrews, Mungen, Lam-

368 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
ison, Steedman, Este, Reed, Morgan, Marrow, Piatt, Kflby
Smith, Connefl, Hugh Ewing, Oscar Moore, M. F. Moore,
Vance, Cockerfll, Howard, White, Louden, Payne, Webster
— but when or where shafl I stop? Memory tires. And did
they not fall as well as fight? Where now are Lytle, and
Father McCook and the boy McCook, and Bob and Dan, as
we loved to call them ? And where are Kell and King and
McGroarty and Langdon and Webster, and how many more
who sealed their devotion with their blood? How malicious
the slander that over the ashes of our fallen heroes denies
their patriotic services? Away with such false pretenses, my
countrymen ! No party saved this Union. Its salvation was
above party. Under the blessing of God, it was by the
people. In the serried ranks stood Republican and Dem
ocrat aflke, shoulder to shoulder, in soldierly love. They fell
together, and now lie side by side in the far-off trench, while
nature has covered them in equal affection with the same
greensward. And while we at home, on Decoration Day,
spread flowers on the graves of our patriot dead with im
partial hand, without a thought of their party ties, the dewy
blossoms of nature drop a tear on the humble resting place
of those we left behind, and the song birds of spring chant a
requiem to their memory.
But, my countrymen, since the war the Democratic party
has duly honored the soldier. In 1864 our candidate for
President — Mr. McClellan — was a Union General. In 1868
our candidate for Vice President was Frank Blair, a Union
General. In 1872 both our candidates for President and
Vice President, Greeley and Brown, were staunch and active
friends of the war. And so in Ohio. In 1865 we nomi
nated for Governor, General Morgan, and in 1869 General
Rosecrans. In 1871 the names of candidates presented for
nomination for Governor were McCook, Ewing and myself —
all officers in the late war. Thus three generals have been
nominated by us since the war for Governor, and the other

WHO FOUGHT THE WAR? 369
side has nominated no more : Cox, Hays and Noyes. And
how is it in Congress? The Democrats have sent more army
officers to Congress from Ohio than the RepubHcans. Whom
have they sent but Hayes, Schenck, Garfield, Woodworth
and Van Voorhes. If others there be, they escape my
memory. We have sent Morgan, Campbefl, Mungen, Lam-
ison. Rice, Banning, Dodds, Cockerifl and Vance, and others
may escape my memory. The Fifth District has about eight
thousand Democratic majority, and yet it sent more soldiers
to the war than any district in the State, and has been repre
sented in Congress ever since the war by Democratic soldiers
alone. And all over the State the Conventions are con
stantly nominating, though not always able to elect, Demo
crats for Congress. Howard, Reed, myself — but why talk
of candidates among the soldiers? They have been legion,
and now we have Ewing in the Capital District, Vance
among the Ohio hills, and a one-legged soldier in the North
west. Morton may shake his "bloody shirt" in the faces of
the people as the Spaniards shake a red flag in the faces of
their bulls, but he can no longer madden the people by his
blood-thirsty appeals. Patriotism is not confined to party,
and the passions of war no longer rankle in people's breasts.
They want pure reconciliation and reform, and they will
have them.
Men of Ohio, do they, the Radical leaders, come to you
in the name of progress, or do they not rather preach the
"Gospel of hate?" What do they seek? If any fought to
aboHsh slavery, is it not aboflshed ? If any struggled to give
the colored men civil rights, are they not awarded? If any
sought to give him the suffrage as a protecting shield, does
he not vote everywhere under the Federal flag? What more
do you seek? All these things are recognized by all parties
and guaranteed by constitutional amendments which can
never be revoked. Peace, then, between the sections and
the parties is alike the real duty and the real wish of all

370 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
thoughtful and unprejudiced men. Who preaches the re
newal of sectional animosity? The RepubHcans, for they
alone are interested in it. And to what depths of degrada
tion have the Radical leaders sunk to fire the Northern heart
with the passions of war! They have brought from Iflinois
and sent out all over the land, as a missionary of hate, a
reckless slanderer, a brilliant idiot, who is everywhere breath
ing the quick poison of vengeance into the passions of the
ignorant. His words are too foul to harm any others. The
hariequin hyena may tickle the ears of groundlings or stir
the passions of the vicious, but his mission can have no other
end. I wfll not disgust you with more than one quotation.
The raving. Godless infidel, reeking with malice, his tongue
on fire of hell, spits out this demon prayer: "Oh that there
were words of pure hatred out of which I might construct sen
tences like snakes, that would writhe and hiss, then T could
give you my real opinion of the Democratic party of the
North." Ah, no, impotent scoffer! God made words.
They are not scorpions of malice ; they are doves of mercy.
Oh that my Hps were bedewed with honey, that my words
with healing in their wings might go forth to every section
and race and party as glad evangels of reconciliation, of peace,
full, perfect, and forever.
My Republican neighbor, have you no father, brother or
kinsman in the Domocratic party? You mingle in the same
business relations and trust each other. You meet in social
and domestic circles and your youths and maidens meet in
social intercourse at parties and concerts and picnics, and
court and marry. You sit in the same church and at the
same sacramental table and offer to the Most High the same
prayer with your Democratic neighbor, and mourn over his
bier when you lay him in his last resting-place ; and yet this
recreant partisan invokes you to curse him as a fiend ! "Oh,
judgment, thou hast fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost
their reason." My Countrymen, in this Centennial year.

WHO FOUGHT THE WAR? 371
while the glad jubilee of our country is sounding in our ears,
let us leave behind us the strifes and corruptions, the heart
burnings and sectional hates of the past, and march arm in
arm. North and South, through the opening gates of the new
century, under the flag of the fathers, and keeping step to
the music of the Union, on the road to that grand future
which awaits us. We are brethren of the same lineage,
language and religion. Love, not hate; peace, not war, is
the law of social and national progress. As we grandly
march forward, let there be ascending from the altar of the
national heart, and graven in letters of gold on the country's
escutcheon as they glitter in the sunlight of constitutional
liberty, and chaflenge the gaze of an admiring world, the
patriot's prayer — Republica id esto perpetua !

LEGAL METHOD OF THE ELECTORAL COUNT.
[A speech delivered at a citizens' meeting, at Pike's Opera House, at Cin
cinnati, Ohio, December 20th, 1876.]
Mr. President and Gentlemen :
I second the adoption of the resolutions just offered, and
desire to make some remarks before the vote is taken. And
conscious as I am how little able I shall be to meet the needs
of the occasion, I ask the indulgent attention of this dis
tinguished audience.
We are called here by a wide-spread feeling of public
alarm. A disputed Presidency impends, like a dark cloud
over the country. Each party has unofficially proclaimed
the election of its own candidate, and the absorbing question
is. How shall the official decision be made? Even in ordinary
times such a question would be fraught with danger, but as
one of the scenes of an expiring revolution, it threatens dis
sension and violence. In the stern presence of such a con
tingency no patriot can be indifferent or shrink from respon
sibility. Conceding cheerfully the rights of others, we must
unflinchingly deinand our own. Who shall be President is
of small consequence in itself, but the right of the people to
their free choice, unawed by force and uncorrupted by fraud,
can never be yielded without surrendering the public to
anarchy. A calm consideration of the questions involved in the dis
puted Presidency is demanded as well by a sense of fairness
and justice as by the gravity of the situation. This consid
eration can not be given without an honest review of the
causes and a candid admission of the dangers of the present
complications. Let it not be supposed that the lowering
events which surround us now are the mere creatures of

LEGAL METHOD OF THE ELECTORAL COUNT. 373
accident, or their solution the mere dictates of passion. We
must recognize what brought us where we stand, and be will
ing to follow the path which reason, founded on experience,
points out, or our road forward can not be a safe one.
THE WORK OF REVOLUTION.
An honest difference of sentiment, interest and opinion on
the subject of slavery and the rights of States brought the
late war, through the passion and violence that difference en
gendered. The war ended by the abolition of slavery, and
subsequent events enfranchised the negro. These changes
were as much the work of revolution, and as little the work
of constitutional law, as the beheading of Charles I. or Louis
XVI. They were accomplished by force, but were not the
less valid for that reason. " War legislates. " Our Republic
itself was the child of Revolution. During the progress of
our late secession revolution both political parties in the
North sometimes faltered, and since it has been accomplished
both have definitely acquiesced in what has been done. And
so the South, too, has in every form accepted the same, stern
arbitrament of the sword.
The only remaining question has been, and is, whether it
shall be carried further. Shall the States be shorn still more
of their rights, or the doctrine established and practiced that
the States hold their existence only at the suffrage of the
Nation? Let the revolution stop where it stands, and it is
accepted by the people North and South. Seek to push it to
the further invasion of the rights, or to the final overthrow of
the existence of the States, and the Democratic party of both
sections opposes the movements. To this standpoint of re
flection we must come, as both parties have equal constitu.
tional rights, if we would impartially consider their relations
to the present contest. RADICAL LEGISLATION.
When the war was over the Republican party, professing
27

374 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
to fear that their late masters would not recognize and protect
as citizens their late slaves, sought to invade the former con
stitutional rights of States, and to so reorganize the late
seceded States as to secure the rights of the colored popula
tion. Conscious that the educated descendants of genera
tions of freemen would be an overmatch for the ignorant de
scendants of generations of slavery, they argued that they
must enfranchise the negro for the double purpose of pro
tecting him and keeping themselves in power. From the
nature of things they knew, too, that the freedmen would
soon vote with his former master, unless that freedman's vote
could be guided and controlled by the Republican power of
the North. These considerations devolved on them as a
political policy the scheme of taking Federal charge of the
colored population of the South, controfling their votes, and
teaching them to antagonize their former masters in their
political action. They taught them they were enfranchised
on condition they voted the Republican ticket. In short,
the revolutionary zeal which made the negro a voter de-
manHed that he should be the ward of the Republican party
of the North, and the instrument of keeping it in power. In
their selfish greed for power the Republicans drew the color
' line in politics. This policy, to make it effective, required a
complete and thorough reorganization of Southern society.
The negroes must be given supreme control ; his former mas
ter must be consigned to perpetual subordination. Under
some conditions this might have been, if not a success, the
inauguration of a struggle for generations to come.
If the great West had not opened boundless fields for in
dustrial accumulation and adventure, the tide of immigration
to the South, under government patronage, might have
drawn to that region the surplus population of the North and
of Europe, and possibly the influence of the native white
population of the South might have been buried under the
tide, or if not, generations of social struggle might have re-

LEGAL METHOD OF THE ELECTORAL COUNT. 375
peated the history of the past in other countries. As it was,
however, fear of future disturbance and race prejudice against
the negro were motives enough, even without the tendency
of populations to follow the isothermal lines of their nativity,
to prevent large immigration to the South. A system of
'¦'carpet-bag" government was the result. The Northern
adventurer only camped in the South. His main object was
to use the colored voter, in whom his party claimed a fee-
simple title, as the means of fleecing the whole people, and
then returning to the North, either as a ruler at the National
Capital, or to riot in his ill-gotten plunder. In no age or
country was insidious oppression under the forms of law more
galling and ruinous. In a country so new, and which ought
to be so thriving, in ten years the population has scarcely in
creased at all, and in some regions the white population has
actually declined. Miflions of acres of land have passed out
of cultivation and grown up in briars and brambles, so that,
as appears by the census returns of 1870, more acres are
thus lost to industry than are now cultivated in Ohio and
Indiana combined. So, while the property listed for taxation
has largely declined, the taxes have increased from two to
three fold, and in many places the rental wifl not even pay
the taxes, and the property forfeited to the Government
stands unproductive and rotting to ruin.
A LIMIT TO HUMAN ENDURANCE.
A part of this prostration and decay is undoubtedly due to
the Southern men themselves. Could it have been possible
for them to yield more cheerfully to the new order of things
it would have been fortunate for both races in the South, and
for the whole country. But in the nature of things, this
could hardly be looked for. No brave, intefligent and proud
race ever submitted to the domination of their inferiors with
out some form of protest and resistance. Indeed, never
before did a conquest seek to make the conquered subor-

376 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
dinate to his former slave. But our Southern fellow-citizens
have behaved, under all the circumstances, with great cool
ness and prudence. If there had never been Northern inter
ference between the races, or even if it could now be with
drawn, they would soon adopt happier relations than ever can
be brought about by the pragmatic dictation of the general
Government. The local affairs of the South must be let
alone. It must come to that at last, or the perpetual race
jealousies, fomented by the general Government and the con
stant need of National intervention, will steadily augment the
powers and finally change the organic nature of our Govern
ment. And then will be realized the predicted epitaph of
De Tocqueville: "Here lies the remains of a once gallant
people, who lost its own freedom disputing over the freedom
of its slaves."
It must be admitted by all sides that the oppressive State
Governments of these "carpet-bag" governed States have
justly provoked opposition. There is a limit to human en
durance, and groaning under a load of debt and taxation
unprecedented before in any country having a semblance of
freedom, the whole people, without respect to race, became
restive, turbulent and eager to throw off these Governments.
The struggle to do so in communities so revolutionary some
times begot violence. The negro revolted against his Repub
lican master, and claimed the right to vote as he pleased.
That rfevolt brought the present crisis.^
THE PROBLEM OF THE HOUR.
This, my fellow-citizens, brings us to the great problem of
the hour. It is only by taking an enlarged survey, and
treating it as one of the scenes, and, let us hope, one of the
last scenes in our drama of revolutionary strife, that we can
justly deal with its solution. That solution ends or continues
the revolution. The success of one candidate puts a stop to
the need of further constitutional changes. The success of

LEGAL METHOD OF THE ELECTORAL COUNT. 377
the other is a perpetual menace that the Southern States may
yet be reduced to the territorial condition, as has already
been threatened, and their Senators and Representatives
driven from the floor of Congress.
But, my countrymen, every event has its immediate and
practical result, as well as its ultimate and philosophical re
lation; and the present hour is pregnant with present danger,
as well as these remoter constitutional consequences. With
a firm faith in the law and the Constitution, and with a rigid
purpose to do justice and right, let us follow wherever duty
leads. It has been conceded ever since the morning after the No
vember election that Tilden had received 184 Electoral votes,
being within one vote of enough to elect him, and had also
received an overwhelming majority of the popular vote. It
was found that everywhere, all over the whole nation, the
Republicans had lost ground in the last four years, and in
most instances where they had carried the States in which
their former strength lay it was only by meager majorities.
It was evident that the country was tired of their domination,
and they themselves thought they were hopelessly beaten.
In the great heart of the country, including the seven States
of Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio,
Indiana and Illinois, stretching from the sea to the Missisippi,
with nearly half the population of the Union, the people
had risen against them. The aggregate popular vote was for
Tilden, though Grant had carried these States four years ago
by more than three hundred thousand votes. In the whole
country the party had lost since the last Presidential election
from 600,000 to 800,000 votes. It was a popular Waterloo.
It extended to every State of the Union. The people had
rendered their verdict, and all that has followed since is but
the technical efforts of party tricksters to arrest judgment on
their verdict. Covered with fraud, putrid with corruption,
extending through all the ramifications of its Government

378 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
officials, the party fell, let us hope, to rise no more till purified
from its corruptions. Its Foreign Ministers, its Cabinet Min
isters, its Members of Congress, its unscrupulous President,
its White House attachees, its jobbing contractors, were a
load which not even its former popularity, nor its Federal
bayonets, nor its clutch on the Treasury, made it strong
enough to carry. And now we are concerned with its law
less endeavor to defeat the verdict of the people. Though
we know that Tilden was elected by the popular wfll, we
know, too, that unless we can get that will announced in legal
form, there is no remedy which law-abiding citizens- can con
sider. TILDEN LEGALLY ELECTED.
There are four States in which double sets of Electors are
certified up. The Oregon question I shall not discuss, ex
cept to .say that there can legally be no view, if I read the
statutes of the State right, in which Watts, the postmaster,
can be a legal Elector. He was ineligible, and no man by
law forbidden to hold an office can be elected to it. Nor
could he be appointed to fill a vacancy, for the statute of
Oregon, in defining what shall create a vacancy, does not in
clude ineligibility. Two votes are, therefore, all that Hayes
can get from Oregon, whether Tilden gets any or not. But
all these questions as to the ineligibility of Electors may be
classed together, as they must finally abide the result of the
principle found applicable to Louisiana, South Carolina and
Florida. Nor need we consider any of these States, except
Louisiana, for the settlement of that is decisive of all. The
Constitution of the United States gives to each State the
right to choose its own Electors for President in its own way,
and over that choice, if legafly made according to the Con
stitution and laws of the State and of the United States,
there is no dispute that no power but the State has any con
trol. But this choice must be made in pursuance of law, and
not as the act of violence or fraud, and unless so made these

LEGAL METHOD OF THE ELECTORAL COUNT. 379
Electors are notso "appointed" under the Federal Constitu
tion as to be a part of the Electoral College, and entitled to
vote for President. Now, I confidently insist, in the light of
these principles, that Louisiana has either not chosen any
Electors at all, or she elected, by the popular vote, those
pledged to support Tilden and Hendricks. If the State has
no law for the choice of Electors, then clearly none can be
chosen. The Louisiana statute of 1870, providing for the
election of Presidential electors, was repealed by the act of
1872, and there is now no law at all in force for the election
of Presidential Electors by the people or any one else. True,
the people supposed the act of 1872 made such provision,
but it does not; it only provides for State elections. The
omission was an oversight of the Legislature, the more re
markable because this partisan Radical legislation is generally
plain when it disfranchises Democrats or levies taxes. The
Returning Board gets its power from the act of 1872,' and,
as that act does not provide for Presidential elections, the
Returning Board has no power over them, and its late work
in returning Hayes elected is completely null and void. And
yet the Board which was denounced two years ago by
Wheeler as a " disgrace to civilization" now, like a whipped
spaniel, shows its gratitude by giving him the Electoral vote
of Louisiana. But, gentlemen, we go deeper than the tech
nical law. Even if it had jurisdiction, Wheeler was right —
its work is "a disgrace to civiHzation," and a disgrace to any
barbarism that has ever risen high enough to find a place on
the page of history. THE CORRUPT RETURNING BOARD.
The law organizing the Board required its members to be
composed of both political parties, but it persistently refused
to fill a vacancy by giving a Democrat a place in it. The law
requires all certificates of intimidation to be made within
forty-eight hours after the election, and to accompany the

380 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
returns of the Supervisors, and if this be not done, then the
Returning Board has no jurisdiction to throw out precincts
and polls. And yet, though not one such certificate was
made according to law, and few in any form, the Board
throws out scores of precincts and pofls, and more than thir
teen thousand Democratic votes, on certificates fraudulently
manufactured in New Orleans weeks after the election. They
refused to give Democrats a fair investigation before the
Board; they held secret sessions as to the most important
points involved; they proclaimed the result in a lump, neither
giving the votes of the several parishes retained, nor the rea
sons for throwing out those rejected. And yet the Delphic
responses of the Radical oracle, so lately denounced and its
work undone, is now, in Radical eyes, an infallible gospel of
truth. And these usurping rascals are loyal, while the gallant
Hampton is a rebel, though robed in the Federal flag and
proclaiming profound respect and cordial submission to the
Federal authority. While United States troops are stationed
to guard the Board in their midnight work of fraud, at high
noon the people's representatives in South Carolina march,
like prisoners, through a file of soldiers, and their certificates
of election are vised by a corporal of the guard ! The one
event more than any other, which will hand this Centennial
election down to posterity as a dark scene of force and passion
in contrast with forbearance and high manhood, is the noble
deportment of Wade Hampton. He has shown himself
worthy of the grandest days of Rome, and to be the peer of
Coriolanus or Cato, secessionist though he once was. And
there is no man's hand, though I fought on the other side, I
shall grasp more warmly should we ever meet. "If this be
treason, make the most of it."
INELIGIBLE REPUBLICAN ELECTORS.
The great and final question is who shallrcanvass and count
the Electoral votes? It is clear this must be done by some

LEGAL METHOD OF THE ELECTORAL COUNT. 381
one. • How far this canvass shall extend is another question,
but that it must be made, to some extent, and for some
purposes, is too clear for argument. In the absence of force
and fraud, which are always sufficient in all ages and coun
tries to vitiate the most solemn instruments, it may be that
the great seal of the State sufficiently authenticates wliat has
been done ; but it does not legalize what was illegally done.
It can not make an ineligible Elector or an ineligible candi
date eligible. It may be conclusive, in the absence of fraud
or force, to show who was chosen, if the power assuming to
choose had jurisdiction to choose, but it surely can go no
further. Suppose that the State had no legal existence as a
State of the Union, or suppose it had provided no law to
"appoint" Electors, the Governor's certificate could hardly
be conclusive of their power to act. There must be some
tribunal which has jurisdiction to canvass all these questions.
Suppose aliens, or women, or members of Congress were
chosen, is there no power to go behind the State seal? If
so, the people might "appoint" Victor Hugo or Anna Dick
inson as Electors; or the Electors might cast their vote for
Von Bismarck or Queen Victoria for President; or if an
enemy held possession of a State, and by his army elected
Electors, and having imprisoned the Governor, should com
pel him to certify their election, surely some tribunal should
go behind the seal.
THE CONSTITUTION IN THE CRISIS.
The Constitution provides that the Electoral certificates
shall be opened by the President of the Senate in the pres
ence of the Senate and House of Representatives, and that
the votes shall then be counted. This is the first and only
time these votes are publicly inspected, and it is apparent
that whatever count is ever to be made must be made then
and there, for then and there the result is to be announced.
It is said that the "votes" shafl be "counted." What are

382 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
" votes " and who shafl count must then be settled. Nothing
but votes can be counted, and somebody must settle what
are votes in the legal sense, if there be any power under our
Government to preserve its own existence. If any one can
canvass it must be the President of the Senate or the two
Houses of Congress, for no one else is by law required to be
present. The Constitution does not direct the President of
the Senate to count, and by no analogy can it be claimed to
be his duty. His functions of office are simply to keep
order in the Senate and give the casting vote in case of equal
division; and hence the Constitution requires him to "open"
in the presence of the two Houses, who are to act, the Elec
toral certificates, as he would, if presiding in the Senate, de-
Hver a message from the Senate or House of Representatives.
To the two Houses, then, and not to the President of the
Senate, who is but a ministerial officer, is committed by the
Constitution the high trust of canvassing and counting the
Electoral votes. Whether they should act as a convention,
consisting of the members of both Houses, or as two organic
bodies, is an important question, but seems to be settled by
precedent against the theory of their acting as a convention.
Perhaps unfortunately so, for, if they did so act, there never
could be a failure to elect, or a double election by the dis
agreement of the two Houses. The two Houses of Congress
are the final Returning Board, and from their concurrent de
cision there is no appeal known to the Constitution. Neither
House can count nor proclaim the Electoral result without
the concurrence of the other. If, then, they do not agree
concurrently on Electoral votes enough to make a majority,
neither candidate is elected by these Electoral Colleges, and
the Constitution then devolves the election upon the Lower
House. This has occurred twice before in our history. Let
us abide by the ancient ways.
A review of the history of the country fully sustains these
positions. The record of the counting of the votes at the first

LEGAL METHOD OF THE ELECTORAL COUNT. 383
election under our system is meagre and less explicit than
afterward, but even that shows that teflers were appointed,
though it does not show in what way they proceeded, nor
that they acted as the agents of a Returning Board. They
did act, however, under the concurrent order of the two
Houses. PRECEDENT AND LAW.
Time does not permit us to go into detafl; but from 1793
to this time several broad lines of procedure have been regu
lar and invariable. In all cases, without exception, the two
Houses have taken action as to the count, and as to the
method of making the count. Not an election passed from
1793 to 1865 in which a Joint Committee was not raised to
report on the question, and whose report was not followed.
The purpose for which the Committee was raised was during
all that time stated substantially alike, and was'in these words,
with scarce a variation:
"Resolved, That a Committee be appointed on the part of this House, to
join such Committee as may be appointed on the part of the Senate, to as
certain and report a mode of examining the votes for President and Vice-
President, and of notifying the persons who shall be elected of their elec
tion, and to regulate the time, place and manner of administering the oath
of office to the President." [Vol. 3, Benton's Abstract of the Debates,
page 340.]
This Committee reported, its report was accepted, and that
report in every instance required the count to be made by the
intervention of tellers, appointed severally by each House.
At first this report required the count to take place in the
Senate, and so it did take place tfll 1809, except in 1797,
when it occurred in the House. Since, and including 1809,
it has always taken place in the House. Not the least striking
feature of these Joint Committees to determine how the
count should be made, and of these tellers who should actu
ally make it, is that they always consisted of the leading
statesmen of the country. In the catalogue throughout
these two generations we find the names of Rufus King, the

384 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
ancestor of my distinguished friend whose voice you have
heard, Roger Griswold, Madison, Pinckney, Clay, Dexter,
Samuel Smith, Grundy; and, in the later days, Tazewell,
Preston, Davis of Massachusetts, Jeff Davis, Caleb Gushing,
Robert J. Walker, John P. Kennedy, Clayton, R. M. Hun
ter, Bigler, Trumbull, and other leading names in the annals
of the country. The counting was not a mere form, and the
Committees and the tellers were not mere clerks of the Presi
dent of the Senate. They, under the direction of the two
Houses, had responsible control of the count, and they always
acted under the direction of the two Houses, and under that
direction alone. When the work of the tellers was done they
reported it to the two Houses, in whose presence they then
were, through the President of the Senate, who ministerially
announced the result of their work, not his own. This is
clearly proven by the unbroken history of the country. Let
us recall some of the instances. THE RECORD.
In 1797, John Adams, that clear-headed old Puritan,
though wrong-headed he sometimes might have been, as
who is not, was Vice President, and announced his own elec
tion as President. In doing so, he said: "In obedience to the
Constitution and law of the United States, and to the command
of both Houses of Congress, expressed in their resolution passed
in the present session, I now declare," etc., going on to an
nounce the result. And so, in 1805, Aaron Burr, then Vice
President, blighted though he \yas by the fall of Hamilton,
still clear-headed, said, when handing the electoral certificates
to the tellers : ' ' You will now proceed, gentlemen, to count the
votes as the Constitution and law directs." And so in 1813
[See 4, Benton's Debates, 711 J: "The President of the
Senate, in pursuance of the joint resolution of the two
Houses, then announced the state of the vote." And, in
1829, Calhoun, after the tellers had reported to him — he

. LEGAL METHOD OF THE ELECTORAL COUNT. 385
having, as usual, delivered the certificates to them to be
counted, and they having reported — said: "I therefore
declare," etc. And Mr. Tazewell, of Virginia, the tefler
on behalf of the Senate, after they had returned to their
chamber, reported ' ' that the Joint Committee appointed for
that purpose had ascertained and reported tlie result of tlie
election for President." [See 10, Benton's Debates, 246.] In
1837, Van Buren, then Vice President, announced his own
election as President [See 13, Benton's Debates, 279], said:
' ' Tlie two Houses having convened for the purpose of counting
the electoral votes of the several States for President and Vice
President of the United States, the President of the Senate will,
in pursuance of the provisions of the Constitution, proceed to
open the votes and deliver them to the tellers, that they may be
counted." And, in 1845, Willie P. Mangum, President of the
Senate, said : ' '/ deliver to the gentlemen tellers the vote of the
electors of the State of Maine, that they may be counted," and
so on with the other States. [15, Bent., Abs. Dep., 202.]
And then, in 1849, Vice President George M. Dallas said:
"/ now open and present to the tellers chosen by the tzvo Houses
the certificates," and so forth, "that the votes therein recorded
maybe counted." [Cong. Globe, 534.] And, in 1857, Mason,
President of the Senate, said: ''In obedience to the concurrent
order of the tivo Houses" he would "open" the certificates,
etc., and, on being interrupted by Cass, said: "the duty to
count has now devolved on the tellers, under the concurrent order
of the two Houses." [Cong. Globe, Feb. 11, Pages 651-2.]
And finally, in 1861, Breckenridge declares it to be his
duty to open the certificates and then deliver them to the
tellers. Thus there is an unbroken current of precedent up to the
secession war that the two Houses have control of the count,
and the President of the Senate only announces the result
OF THEIR WORK. But the extent to which this supervision
has in principle gone is equally settled by precedent.

386 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
THE JEFFERSON-BURR CONTEST.
As early as 1801, after the famous contest between Jeffer
son and Burr, a bill was introduced to regulate the whole
subject, which was long debated and finally failed only by a
disagreement as to detafls between the two Houses. In 1809
Mr. Nefllhouse objected to a certificate that the Governor
had not properly certified it, but as it made no practical dif
ference in the result, the matter was dropped. In 1828 the
famous Richard Henry Wflde, of Georgia, introduced a reso
lution to inquire into the legality of the election of 1825,
which, though laid on the table, was not objected to as being
beyond the compelfency of Congress. In 1837 both Felix
Grundy and Henry Clay proposed to inquire whether certain
Electors were not disqualified because holding Federal ofifices,
and the Senate agreed to the proposition. The inquiry .was
made, and the question was only dropped because it ceased
to be practical. And so as to the rights of States to choose
Electors on their first admission to the Union. This point
was first raised in 1817, in the case of Indiana, and amicably
dropped, as her vote was immaterial to the result. The
same point was made with much acrimony as to Missouri in
1821, and again as to Michigan in 1837.
In both these cases, after some debate, and on a joint
resolution of the two Houses, the vote was stated, including
and excluding the disputed State, and as.it made no change
in the result, no further steps were taken. But in neither of
these cases was it questioned that Congress had power to in
quire whether the State had a right to vote. And again, in
the still more famous case of Wisconsin, in 1857, the right
of the State to its vote was still more elaborately and angrily
debated. But the great body of the two Houses never questioned
the right of Congress to look into the legality of the vote.
The point was that, owing to a snow storm in that severe
climate, the Electors did not meet and cast their votes till

LEGAL METHOD OF THE ELECTORAL COUNT. 387
the day after that fixed by law. One of the most notable
features of the discussion was the charge made against the
President of the Senate, Mason, that he had counted the
vote of Wisconsin without the consent of the two Houses.
This he persistenly denied, and disclaimed any right to do so.
He insisted that he had only stated the vote in alternative,
as had been done in the cases of Missouri and Michigan.
During the whole discussion not one member of either House
even intimated that the President of the Senate had any right
to include or exclude, in announcing the result, a State or a
vote without the direction of the two Houses.
But this review must not be extended. It is apparent that
never at any time, nor under any circumstances, did the
President of the Senate claim the right to canvass, decide
and count the votes for President. On the contrary, at all
times and in all phases of the question, the two Houses of
Congress not only claimed, but exercised the right, either
directly or through committees and tellers, to canvass, decide
and count the votes for themselves. That they have con^
stantly done so since the rebellion is too famiflarly known to
need comment. They not only threw out all the seceded
States during the rebellion, but they have thrown out one or
more of them at every election since. And even now both
Houses are making investigations concerning the late elec
tions which can only be legal on the predicate that they can
canvass and count the Electoral votes, and that they alone
can do it.
IS CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY TO BE THROTTLED?
My fellow-citizens, notwithstanding, this unbroken current
of authority, we hear it constantly threatened by the poHtical
leaders and the controfling journals of the Radical party that
the President of the Senate has fufl control of the subject ;
that he will receive just what returns he pleases, decide
which are the right ones, count them according to his own

388 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
will, without the intervention of tellers or the concurrent
action of the two Houses, and proclaim the result; and that
this is to be enforced as the Constitutional election by all the
powers, civil and military, of the Federal Government. For
one, I do not believe that so violent and reckless a defiance
of the Constitution and the usages of the Government will be
attempted; and if attempted, I am certain, unless the people
are already tired of freedom, it must fall. And, in assured
confidence that we do not appeal in vain, we throw ourselves
into the arms of the conservative masses of our Republican
friends, and ask them to protect us as well as themselves
from the meditated outrage of their Radical leaders. We
can not be robbed of our rights without you, my Republican
friends, losing yours at the same time; or, if not in this elec
tion, in some future one. And no free institutions can long
endure unless the people respect each other's rights, and love
their institutions well enough to make their rulers obey them.
But we are alarmed by the portents that surround us. Is
constitutional liberty to be throttled on the Potomac as it has
been on the Mississippi? Are bayonets to be stacked in the
rotunda of the Federal Capitol as they have been round the
statue of Washington, in the State House of South Carolina?
Why the concentration of troops at Washington, and why
the dread of investigation into the conduct of the Govern
ment? The Republicans seem to assume that they own the
Nation, and that it is treason for Democrats to seek control
of the National Administration. Even the President, in a
grave State paper, brands the Democratic party as disloyal,
though a million of us wore the Federal blue and kept step to
the music of the Union, amid the thunder of artillery and the
groans of our dying comrades. We have constantly avowed
our purpose to stand by the Constitution and the rights of all
parties and races under it, and still we are treated by Radical
leaders as political outlaws. We are patient and long-suffer
ing, but we will not surrender our constitutional rights. This

LEGAL METHOD OF THE ELECTORAL COUNT. 389
is all we now have to say : We have sworn allegiance to the
Republic on the altar of liberty, and our oath is recorded in
Heaven. From the horns of this altar we will not be wrested
by the Iron Hand. American citizens, with the Constitution
in one hand and the law in the other, our hearts fired by the
patriot ardor that nerved our fathers, and standing under the
protecting folds of the National flag, we are invincible — in
vincible at the ballot-box, invincible everywhere.

28

RIGHT OF THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS TO COUNT
THE ELECTORAL VOTE.
[A speech delivered at Columbus, Ohio, on taking the Chair of a Popular
Convention, called to consider the Electoral frauds, January Sth, 1877.]
My Countrymen:
We assemble on a grand, historic day, consecrated to the
memory of that Hon-hearted hero, whose motto was " By the
Eternal, the Upion must and shall be preserved." We must
here be inspired by the same patriotic spirit, to swear, too,
by the Eternal, ' ' That the Constitution and the laws shall be
enforced." We ask no more; we will accept no less. To fol
low the Constitution, the laws, the time-honored precedents
of the past, is to walk in the path of duty and of safety.
From that path we will never be seduced nor driven. Where-
ever it leads there we will travel, cost whatever it may, for
this is the road to peace and harmony. Constitutional Union
and national prosperity.
My fellow-citizens, the present crisis is one of grave mo
ment, and yet one which really ought to foreshadow no dan
ger, and which can never lead to violence or disorder if the
people and their representatives are true to the grand history
of the past and the grander promise of the future. Who is
President is comparatively a small matter, and our delibera
tions should rise above mere party spirit. But though the
person who may be chosen is of small moment, the principle
on which the present contest is settled is of vast importance,
and you do well, my countrymen, to meet and consult on this
question. It may involve the existence of the Republic itself.
The friends of each of two candidates claim that he is elected.
This is not a question to be decided by windy harangues, or

RIGHT OF CONGRESS TO COUNT THE ELECTORAL VOTE. 391
by force or usurpation ; by the violent dictates of party spirit,
or the resolves of a town meeting. It is a great question of
constitutional law, and can be no otherwise settled than by its
rules and the long established usages of the Government.
Let them be followed, and all danger vanishes. Let them be
departed from, and who can tell the result? The first and
greatest question is, who has jurisdiction to decide this con
test? The history of the past plainly gives the answer. At
the first election for President the Government was not yet
organized, no laws had been passed, and the Government
had to get its machinery into running order as best it could,
with simply the Constitution and the general public law as
guides. In 1793 the tribunal of decision and the rules of
procedure were first fixed by definite, well-considered
action. Ever since that time the tribunal and the rules of
procedure have been the same. Disputes have arisen as to
many different questions connected with the acts of canvass
ing and declaring who was elected President, but the two
Houses of Congress have uniformly assumed and exercised
all the jurisdiction that ever has been assumed and exercised,
in verifying and determining who the people, through the
Electoral votes, have chosen President and Vice-President.
And so they must do now. The two Houses of Congress
have this jurisdiction, and not the presiding officer of the
Senate, who is but the ministerial officer of that body. He
has not even, except by courtesy, the right to preside over
the action of the Houses. In free America no one man by
his sovereign fiat is big enough to count in a President over
the heads of the people. When the two Houses have through
their own appropriate means, examined, canvassed, and
counted the votes legally cast, then by their direction and
with their consent, the President of the Senate has the
august honor of being their mouth-piece, and proclaiming, in
the forms of law, to the people's representatives the result
of the people's choice. It has ever been so; and the two

392 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
Houses, by their Committees, are now, to all appearances,
preparing to follow the precedents of the old times. When
the work of the two houses is thus constitutionally done, the
result is final, and whoever is elected — Tilden or Hayes — the
people will see inaugurated. To this concurrent action of
the two Houses submission is due and must be given. To
the usurpation of any other tribunal submission is not due
and wifl not be given . A President with a disputed title
would not command the respect of the American people, and
our Constitution and laws are not so defective nor are our
Courts so powerless as to have in quiet possesion a President
whose tenure of office is fraud.
When the two Houses take jurisdiction of the canvass and
the count, the rules of their procedure, subject only to the
Constitution, they determine for themselves. In obedience
to those rules, or in the absence of any such rules, the two
Houses must concur in counting votes enough to make a
majority of afl the Electors appointed, or no candidate can
be proclaimed as chosen by the Electoral Coflege, and the
election of a President will then constitutionally devolve on
the House, and that of Vice President on the Senate. The
votes of the disputed States — Oregon, South Carolina,
Florida and Louisiana — wifl be canvassed — the wheat win
nowed from the chaff; the law and the voice of the people
respected; the arbitrary, iflegal and fraudulent work of the
Louisiana Returning Board wifl be undone, and thirteen
thousand citizens restored to their rights. And for one, I
have abiding faith that this constiturional course wifl be
taken ; and if it is taken, and the law elects Tilden and Hen
dricks, they will be seated and judgment entered up on the
people's verdict.
My feflow-citizens, perhaps here I ought to close, but duty
impels a word more. We hear it everywhere bruited about
that the President of the Senate, under the direction of a set
of partisan conspirators, resolved not to yield to the popular

RIGHT OF CONGRESS TO COUNT THE ELECTORAL VOTE. 393
verdict, will arrogate to himself the right to receive and de
cide which votes are to be counted; and that he will count
only such as he knows will elect Hayes, and then of his own
motion, without the concua'rent action of the two Houses,
proclaim Hayes elected, and that Grant wifl enforce his in
auguration by the military power of the Government. Bold
and usurping as this scheme is, it has been endorsed by so
grave and influential a paper as the New York Tribune, and
is constantly asserted by the eighty thousand office-holders
of the party. And, though charged on them, has not been
disavowed by the Radical leaders. It is this threat of usur
pation that gives the country alarm.
Are we to be cheated in the Capitol as we have been in
the South? Is the President of the Senate to become an
irresponsible Returning Board to throw out votes enough to
elect his candidate? And is Grant to post his army to over
awe the free action of the people's representatives in Wash
ington as he did in Columbia? No wonder that the most
confiding are filled with distrust. We know that all revolu
tions degenerate; that the boldest and most unscrupulous
finally take the lead.
The noblest element in the Republican party has long since
abandoned its fortunes, and those in the Democratic party
willing to be camp-followers have gone over to its camp.
With these allies it is but a question of the spoils of office.
They have so long held the reins of Government that they
have come to believe the Government is their property, and
that it is treason for Democrats to aspire to power. If it was
understood they were wifling to abide by any law, or conform
their conduct to any principle, the country would have little
fear. But their history proves that nothing is too incon
sistent or too unscrupulous to be attempted when it serves
their ends. During the war they claimed that it was carried
on simply to restore the Union, with the rights of all the
States unimpaired, and yet the moment the war was over they

394 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
robbed States of their rights without stint. Declaring during
the war that the States were all in the Union, and even allowing
Virginia, Tennessee and Louisiana to be represented in Con
gress, while they were also sending representatives to the
Confederate Congress at Richmond, no sooner was the rebel-
flon conquered than they drove these States from their places
on the floor of the Federal Congress, and required them to
pass under the yoke of "reconstruction." Resolving in their
Presidential Convention of 1868 that each State must regu
late suffrage for itself, in six months they adopted the
Fifteenth Amendment. Declaring in the convention that
nominated Grant that the public bonds were payable in
greenbacks, the first act of Congress signed by Grant de
clared them payable in coin. Claiming the right to determine
whether States have legally voted, they threw out as they
listed Georgia, Louisiana and Arkansas, and now the voice
of a Southern Returning Board is in their ears a divine
oracle. Enfranchising the negro in the name of freedom,
they now deny his right to vote any ticket but theirs. Claim
ing to go behind the great seal of Oregon, the great seal of
Louisiana is held to sanctify the fraud of the Returning
Board. Granting that the face of the returns is final in
South Carolina, they throw out 13,000 Democratic votes in
Louisiana. Denouncing the Returning Board of Louisiana
two years ago as infamous, they now proclaim it a paragon
of purity and uprightness. In the face of the speeches of all
their great leaders, at all times heretofore, claiming for Con
gress the supreme right to canvass the Presidential count,
they now insist that the President of the Senate has canvass
ing omnipotence.
There is not a promise they ever made that they have not
broken ; there is not a principle they ever avowed that they
have not disavowed. Such are the leaders whom the honest
masses of the Republicans allow to lead them to the very
brink of the unscrupulous usurpation now threatened. Think

RIGHT OF CONGRESS TO COUNT THE ELECTORAL VOTE. 395
not, my Republican friends, that they will pause unless your
displeasure " give them pause." They do not admit that we
have any rights. The more violent of them would inaugu
rate war rather than surrender power to us. To the con
science of the Republican masses, then, our appeal is made.
You have seen the army used without warrant of law to in
fluence elections ; you have seen the purse of the Republic
opened to defray political campaign expenses; you have
seen the Interior Department turned into an electioneering
machine, with its headquarters in New York, and its Chief
levying contributions on Federal office-holders for election
expenses; you have seen the Department of Justice itself
using the quirks of the law to secure the triumph of a party.
You have seen the Representatives of a State driven from
their own Senate House in a time of profound peace, by
Federal interference. And even now you behold the Chief
Executive quietly coiling round the National Capital the
folds of military power.
But men of all parties, the sentinels are in the watch-
tower. The people are on the alert. Usurpation will not
succeed. Public opinion will conquer, where neither a sense
of justice nor a respect for law can restrain. This contest
will be settled in the constitutional ways, and we wish suc
cess in no other method. If these ways do not bring us
success, we cheerfully submit to defeat. But if they do give
us victory, we know that there is manhood enough in the
American people to see that Tflden takes his seat. If they
would not, they have ceased to be worthy of liberty, and
deserve to be the prey of tyrants, and a hissing and a by
word among the nations of the earth.
The divine right of kings was the myth of tyrants. The
sovereignty of the people is the ever-living gospel of liberty.
Though natural freedom is the gift of God, constitutional
liberty has been wrested from the minions of power by the
strong hand of the people, and preserved and handed down

396 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
to US by the valor and wisdom of our forefathers. The
Democratic party has ever been the great apostle of the peo
ple. It battled for the guarantees of personal rights when
the Constitution was formed. It opposed the alien and
sedition laws at the beginning of the century; the dark-
lantern crusade against religious liberty in the days of the
"Know-Nothings," and the arbitrary arrests and illegal im
prisonments of the late war. It clamored for the rights of
the masses and the interests of labor against oppressive tariffs
and moneyed monopolies and Government subsidies, and it
has ever stood as a wall of fire against the invasion by par
tisans and bigots of the freedom of speech, the liberty of
the press and the rights of conscience.
Inspired by these great ideas, clinging to the constitutional
Union of our fathers, and walking in the footsteps of law
and precedent, we denounce this threatened usurpation. Let
the people rise up, without respect to party, and demand
that justice and the popular wifl shafl be respected; that
fraud and double-dealing shafl be rebuked, and the reins of
Government placed peacefully in the hands of their President
— Samuel J. Tilden — whose elecdon has been certified by the
law and authenticated by the Great Seal of the People.

HARVEST HOME.
[A speech delivered at Cheviot, Ohio, before the Harvest Home Association,
August 24th, 1877.]
Ladies and Gentlemen:
It gives me great pleasure to participate in your annual
festivities. The Green Township Harvest Home is one of
the institutions of the county, and an invitation to address
its intelligent audience is an honor highly appreciated. It is
always agreeable to turn aside from the dusty and care-beaten
path of business or public life into the green lanes and by-ways
of social intercourse and enjoyment. But how much more
attractive is this rendered when we at once commune with
nature and listen to that sweetest of music, the cordial words
of friendly greeting. On this occasion while Ceres and Flora
and Pomona make their offerings on the altar of industry the
brightening eye and the beaming face are the incense of the
oblation. Ladies and gentlemen, the promptings of the occasion are
to forget the minor differences of social, religious or political
opinion, the acrimonies of personal rivalry, the disappoint
ments of an over-ardent selfishness, and even the pressing
wants, ambitions and difificulties of the hour, and to revel in
the grandeur and beauty of nature while we are inspired with
the noble consciousness of the brotherhood of man. Mother
Nature, ever changing but ever the same, ever fresh but ever
full of fruition, has her mighty arms thrown lovingly around
us while we draw our sustenance from her nourishing bosom
or slumber confidingly in her gentle embrace. The great
soul of humanity throbs with myriad pulse, and the silken
cords of sympathy make brothers of us afl. Filled with
these grand emotions, for one day, since it can be no longer.

398 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
let US rise to the height of our origin and destiny in the con
stant worship of Nature and the perpetual fealty of each man
to universal humanity.
If we allow our minds to float back to the memories of the
past, as is natural enough on such an occasion, the retrospect
is full of interest. If the period is not so far past as to have
faded even from memory, how strange would be the contrast
between those around me and their early progenitors. Unless
all knowledge as well as tradition of early times is but fable,
time was when our remote ancestors were naked savages,
subsisting on roots and herbs, and sheltered by caves or the
canopy of heaven. Our pride or vanity may revolt or seek
to disbelieve, but every analogy only strenthens the voice of
tradition and illumines the page of history. All over the
earth the traces of human existence are found, so rude in its
every- day life, and so unorganized in its relations to the
family or the State as to be little more than animal in its
habits and knowledge. From this primeval time all along
the ages are found the footprints of progress, through the
hunting, the shepherd, the agricultural, the patriarchal forms
of industry and life, untfl authentic history gives us the clearly
defined landmarks of States and civilized society. In the
wild forests of Germany, Gaul and Britain, the bonneted
chieftain and his "bone thrafl " fought and labored for do
minion and food; without windows or chimneys to their
houses, the chiefs transferred their lands by the possession of
their feet, and their serfs by a change of their collars. They
selected their wives by the power of their muscles, and set
tled their disputes by the wager of battle. Lord and vassal,
alike licentious and savage, warred for lust and plunder, tifl
peace and progress arose from the very necessity of respect
ing enemies they were too feeble to conquer. Settled indus
try became profitable. Castles and hovels gave way to cities
and mansions, and cathedrals and schools took the place of
tournaments and bear fights as the teachers of the people.

HARVEST HOME. 399

Literature and science sprung up and made a Shakspeare and
a Goethe, a Newton and a Morse possible. Through all this
grand progress the inflexible supremacy of nature and the
imperishable brotherhood of man were the central ideas, ever
developing more and more in the consciousness of humanity.
In the fullness of time those who planted our civilization in
the New World left their homes in the Old. Wave after
wave in the tide of emigration flowed Westward, each
stronger than the other, till ninety years ago the stream of
European population reached this beautiful valley. When it
came it found "La Belle Riviere" flowing through a country
as wild, as untamed by the hand of man, as any their rudest
ancestors had ever inhabited. Its forests gorgeous in primi
tive beauty, its soil rich and filled with useful minerals, its
climate genial, and laden with elastic and health-giving vigor,
and its whole productive energy well fitting it for the home
of a high civiHzation. But these adventurers in the New
World came not naked and savage as their ancestors had once
been. They brought with them the liberty and culture, the
religion and knowledge, the moral stamina and industrial
vigor of many ages of struggle and achievement. They at
once planted civilization in savage wilds, enthroned high
manhood in the grand theater nature had already made for
its home.
When your predecessors landed in this wilderness they had
grown out of the superstitions of the woods and mountains
of olden times. They found not the Dryads of the Greek nor
the Druids of the Briton. Neither elves, fairies nor nymphs
haunted grove or fountain, and no witches or warlocks danced
in the "deep tangled wildwood" of our Cheviot hills. Nor did
"bogles catch 'em unawares," nor sheeted ghosts "troop
home to church -yards. " But in the dense brushwood the
wolf and her whelp, the bear and her cub sported in secret,
and the ' ' crouching panther lurked for blood. " Nor Orpheus
made the sylvan forests move responsive to his music, but

400 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
the groves were vocal with the wood lark by day and the
whip-poor-wifl by night. The "joiner squirrel" in the tree
tops leaped joyous from branch to branch in the leafy spring
and the forest-nuts, smitten by the ripening frosts, lazily fell
on the withered and rustling leaves in solemn autumn.
The pioneer band appeared. A village was planted oppo
site the mouth of the Licking, and after three generations we
now find it a mighty city. The wand of an enchanter was
passed over the scene, and the whole valley abounds with
wealth and intelligence. What was that enchanter? Labor,
my countrymen. Steady, untiring, persistent labor. Labor
of hand and labor of head. Your forefathers and you that
stand here witnessed and have been part of this vast change.
Pioneer cabins were erected on these rugged hills. The
tinkling bells of the roving kine were mingled with the wild
notes of the woodland songsters, and the woodman's ax
resounded on every hilltop and in every valley, as the advance
guard in the march of civilization . Soon the farm, the smithy,
the mill, the churchspire and the log school house dotted the
wilderness with the beacon lights of a new life. At first the
tenants of the fair region where we now perform these festal
rites were simply a rural people, cultivating in the rude
methods of early times the farm lands of a sparsely populated
region, and raising domestic animals for use or barter. Ill-
graded and miry roads made Cincinnati a long ways off and
intercourse with the straggling village rare and troublesome.
But you kept pace with the growth of the city ; your houses
and roads were improved; your farms divided; gardens and
vineyards largely took the place of wheat-fields and meadows,
till now you have grown into a suburb of the great city, and
are destined ere long to be folded in its arms. So that now
when I meet you at a harvest home you are found to be
suburban and not rural in most of your habits and ways.
The primitive simpHcity of the early settlements has gone to
return no more forever. New enjoyments and pursuits, and

HARVEST HOME. 401

with them new obligations and temptations come with the
change. " Life is earnest, life is real," and we must gird our
loins for the new order of things with the same stern devotion
to duty and right which nerved our fathers. They battled
with the rude privations of the wilderness and nobly con
quered. We are beset with the seductions and luxuries of
the city, and must not fail to equal them in achievement.
Ladies and gentlemen, few things can be more striking
than .this magical change to which I have alluded. In the
days of our grandmothers there was not a turnpike, steam
boat, railroad, telegraph, gas lamp, sewing machine, steam
mill, iron foundry, cooking range, or power press in the
whole wide west. Carriages and buggies, pianos and church
organs, or even silk dresses and broadcloth coats were rare.
But while they lacked these there was a sturdy simplicity, a
homely neighborhood friendliness and sympathy, and withal
a plain honesty now banished to the frontier and not cer
tain to be found there. Still we must not overrate the past
nor underrate the present even in these respects, for human
life is ever renewing itself in freshness and purity. Now, no
man is happy without his daily newspaper, and no woman
without her weekly fashion-plates. Now, cable telegrams
and police reports are daily mental food, and much of this
food has little moral nutriment. But our ancestors had their
forms of intellectual and moral dissipation, too, and we have
so many advantages which they had not, that fairly consid
ered, the balance is in our favor.
The advantages and dangers of city and suburban life are,
however, well worthy of consideration. That the means of
intellectual culture are more abundant in city than country
can hardly be denied, but it has never been proved that what
is the superficial advantage of mere culture develops the
strongest traits of character. The mightiest intellects,
the most potential workers in human evolution have not
often been bred in cities. The most sacred character in hu-

402 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
man history, Jesus of Nazareth, was not only born in a
manger, but was the offspring of rural parents. Mahomet
and Luther, Peter the Hermit and John Wesley, Copernicus
and Fulton, Cromwell and Napoleon, Franklin and Washing
ton, Jackson and Webster, were not bred in great cities.
There are exceptions to all rules, and notable examples
may be found to the contrary, but the ruHng spirits of man
kind have oftenest been reared far from the hothouse culture
of populous centers. Of all our Presidents not one was
brought up in a city. And of afl our public men, now of the
highest prominence, there is scarcely one who was not reared
in the country. The country is the producer of man, and
cities the manufacturers and consumers. When the raw
material, grown in the fresh air and looking up to the expan
sive heavens, not to a patch of sky seen through obscuring
smoke-stacks, is imported to the city, it finds a factory, not
to create, but to model. Thus the cities become, not the
creators of the greatest thoughts, but the ministers of the
most powerful execution. The country furnishes the material,
the city builds the edifice.
But, to the great masses of mankind, the grandeur of a
public career is not the goal of life. What is common to the
humblest and highest alike is all that deserves or can com
mand the controlling attendon of average society. And it
is found that the average man of business and influence in
most cities, Europe or America, was reared in the country
and trained to his highest efforts in the city. It is found,
too, that the average of intelligence, and even of comfort, is
higher in the city than the country. Thus far city life has
the preference in advantages to the average man. Still, this
is only one side of the question. The seething tide of life is
so boisterous, tossed about by the winds of passion, that the
feeble in mind or morals is apt to be buried under a tide run
ning so fast. Licentiousness, intemperance, disease, pauper
ism and crime fill the streets, asylums and jails. And though

HARVEST HOME. 403

these evils are partially corrected by the efforts of philan
thropy, so much more needed and so much better organized
in city than country, the latter has in special evils a marked
advantage over the crowded mart of men. To one, there
fore, strong enough and pure enough to withstand the ob
stacles and temptations of the rushing and eddying current
in which he is thrown, the city gives fullest strength to intel
lectual and moral muscle. Ye men and women of "Cheviot
Hills," to the opportunities and dangers of a widening city,
soon to cover you over, and even now throwing upon you its
influence for good and evil, your destiny has assigned you.
The new demands must be met or fled from. As your an
cestors stood their ground and fought and subdued the priva
tions of wilderness, stand yours, and meet and conquer in
the battles and amid the seductions of a city.
But, ladies and gentlemen, life is not all didactic. It has its
pleasurable enjoyments as well as its stern duties. Ohio's
metropofls, whose din is in your ears, is not only fufl of labor
and achievement, it is becoming the home of elegance and
refined culture. You not only hear the whistle of the rail
road and see the smoke of the factory, but the cathedral and
church, the concert room and theater, instruct, amuse and
elevate. Parks and gardens, social communion, gafleries,
libraries, fountains, and public resorts; the endearments of
family, the innocent rivalries of domestic life, and even the
harmless foflies of passing fashion, make up the gorgeous
panorama of life —
"At civic revel, pomp and game.''
You are so near all this, and your children so soon to be in
its midst, that you already feel its pressure. This scene
attests that beauty as well as utiHty is cultivated; that the
aesthetic is side by side with the practical, and that the simple
earnestness of country life is garlanded with the accomplish
ments of civic refinement. While youth and maiden "trip

404 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
the light fantastic toe" in country grove, and fruits and
flowers deck the table in rich profusion, courtly city manners,
toned by rural frankness, give grace and welcome to your
generous hospitality.

REMONETIZATION OF THE SILVER " DOLLAR OF
THE FATHERS."
[A speech delivered at Marietta, Ohio, August 29th, 1877.]
My Fellow- Citizens of Ohio :
Two years ago I delivered a speech, in which was discussed
the elemental principles of money and currency. It is now
proposed to apply the ideas then enunciated to the existing
currency problem in the United States. Neither my ideas
then, nor now, are claimed to be original. They are evolved
by the experience of the past and the common sense of man
kind. The necessity of promulgating them anew arises simply
from the abnormal condition of things now existing, and
which has produced that heat and passion so apt to make
men forgetful of the plainest truths. It is not claimed that
the present currency problem presents no difficulties; on the
contrary, the difificulties are great, and greatly enhanced by
the temporary excitement which obscures the public judg
ment. It is much to be regretted that a question so vitally
affecting the business interests of the country and the every
day wants of the laboring masses should have been dragged
into the arena of party politics, for it reafly ought to belong
to the domain of business and commerce alone. The subject
requires the gravest and most unimpassioned consideration,
and, approaching it with dififidence, I shall strive to treat it
with all the coolness and force I can command.
ESSENTIAL POINTS.
_The elemental conceptions of my former speech were:
First, that gold and silver are the materials best fitted for
money. Second, that all currencies should be based on the
precious metals, and convertible into them at the wifl of the

29

406 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
holder. Third, that the volume of currency should be de
termined by the "wants of trade," to be fixed by business
and commerce themselves, and not by the action of Congress
or any other department of the Government. In addition to
these elemental principles, it was contended that the National
Bank system and the Republican scheme of resumption were
fraught with evils, but that a final return to specie payments
was indispensable to a sound currency. And, in conclusion,
it was briefly claimed that all currencies, both metallic and
paper, should be issued by the Federal Government alone,
and should be kept at par with each other, and both alike
made legal tender for all -public dues. My closing words on
this subject were these: "We must return to frugality and
specie money. Let greenbacks enough be retired to raise them to
par. It will not take many. Then let them float until we are
able to pay them., which will soon be when specie payment has
settled business on a stable basis. Abandon all banks of issue,
State and National. Provide by law for the deposit of gold in
the Treasury by any citizen, and the issuance to him. of coin cer
tificates — 'goldbacks ' — redeemable on presentation and receiv
able for all public dues. Every dollar will then have the ring
of the genuine metal, and be as good as gold. Fluctuations
will cease, and a dollar then m,ean in fact, as it now does in law,
the statute weight of silver or gold it contains, standard fine
ness." It will be seen by this quotation that I was not then
aware of the demonetization of silver, so little had public
attention been called to it. The late convention practically
adopted the same idea in the ninth resolution, which reads:
' ' We favor the issue by the General Government alone of all
circulating medium, whether paper or metallic, to be always of
equal tender and interconvertible." The platform afifirms in
effect that inconvertible paper must sooner or later be aban
doned, and all currencies made convertible into specie on
demand. But the great feature of the platform is "inter
convertible currency" by the Federal Government alone.

REMONETIZATION OF THE SILVER DOLLAR. 407
An opposition party should always be bold and the leader in
reforms, for those in power are sure to be timid and little dis
posed to correct the abuses of their policy. It was, there
fore, with great pride that I witnessed my party proclaim so
grand a principle as that the Federal Government alone
should not only coin money, but to reserve to itself the right
to issue representative money, and make these currencies at all
times "interconvertible."
In the discussion of the present aspect of the currency
question let us be guided as near as may be by elemental
ideas. Correct theory is the only sure foundation for safe,
practice. We have a disordered currency, and it seems con
ceded that this is — to say the least — a potential cause of the
present stagnation in business. Nor can it be questioned
that the original cause of this currency disorder was the ex
istence of irredeemable paper credit-money. It follows that
this species of money must be abandoned before financial
health can be restored. But it no more foflows that this in
convertible credit-money should be abandoned at once than
it would be true that a patient sick of a wasting fever could
be cured in a day. The necessity of a return to specie pay
ment at some time being conceded, the time and the manner
became important questions for discussion and settlement.
And to wisely consider them we must take into account the
existing condition of both currency and business. Every
body knows that all business has for fifteen years been sub
jected to the disturbing influences of an inflated and fluctu
ating currency. Prices have followed, to a large extent,
these abnormal fluctuations. Immense indebtedness has been
created — National, State, corporate and individual — on the
basis of credit money; and there can be no justice in requir
ing these debts to be immediately paid in a different and
higher standard. It burdens every debtor with more than he
agreed to pay, and it gives to every creditor more than he
contracted to receive. From this it logicafly follows that in

408 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
returning to specie payments, if we recognize the obligations
of justice, as little as possible should be taken from one class
and given to another. As the credit-money is lessened in
volume the remainder outstanding rises in purchasing power,
and by making the return to specie gradual we enable the
debtor to have the advantage of the enhanced value of the
currency for which he sells his commodities in the market,
and thus to be credited to that extent on the debt due his
creditor. RESUMPTION IN 1879.
But the resumption of specie payments in 1879 requires all
the "greenbacks" to be paid and cancelled in a single day
if the holders choose to present them. Perhaps they could
not so be presented, but if still at a discount, a few months
at most would pay and cancel them all. The National Banks
would stop business at once on the arrival of this statute re
sumption day, unless before its arrival they had furled their
sails and withdrawn their bank-notes from circulation ; for no
one believes that in the next sixteen months gold enough
could be accumulated in the Treasury and in the banks to
meet this instantaneous resumption. It is hardly argued by
any one that resumption can take place in this way. Perhaps
it is contemplated that by gradually withdrawing the green
backs down to the Hmit of ^300,000,000, the remainder —
,^300,000,000 — would rise to par with gold, and that these
;^300, 000, 000 outstanding greenbacks would not come in for
redemption, but would continue to circulate as currency.
Possibly this would be the result. But it is apparent that
the retiring of the difference between the present volume of
greenbacks and the minimum limit of ;^300, 000, 000, to which
by law they may be reduced before resumption day, must be
brought about in one of two ways. First, by such public
frugaflty as shafl reduce the expenses of government ;^60,-
000,000 below its receipts in the next nineteen months, and
thus save that amount of greenbacks for retirement and can-

REMONETIZATION OF THE SILVER DOLLAR. 409
cellation ; and thereby further contract the currency to the
extent of this retirement and cancellation. But this sudden
.reduction in expenditure dare not be expected. Or secondly,
the means of resumption must be found by borrowing the
gold with which to. redeem the greenbacks, thus increasing
to that extent the interest-bearing National debt. This latter
method would not contract the currency if the gold remained
in the country, but would practicafly swell the purchasing
power of this currency to the extent of the present pre
mium on gold, which, on the outstanding ;^360, 000, 000
of greenbacks, would be about ^^18, 000, 000 and on the out
standing bank-notes about the same amount. But this
would be to transfer from the pockets of the debtor class
to the pockets of the crditor class five per cent, of the
debts paid in the meantime; and this would amount to an
enormous sum.
As the certainty of payment, however, would be con
stantly appreciating the greenback as the time of payment
approached, this sum would be lessened by the enhanced
value of the currency received by the debtor for whatever
in the meantime he sold in the market, which, it must be
fairly conceded, would constitute a considerable credit on
the enhanced value of his obligation to his creditor.
But after making all these allowances, how can it be safe,
or even possible, in the existing money markets of this and
other countries to execute the present resumption law with
out the most widespread disaster? The ruin to business by
such a convulsion in the currency atmosphere would be ap
palling. This forced resumption would produce a financial
hurricane, leveling to the ground the most solid business plans
and sweeping from existence the most promising enterprises.
The time of resumption can not therefore be fixed, arbi
trarily, by a statute, but must depend upon and be naturally
fixed by the manner in which resumption is to be brought
about.

410 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
The two most important measures preparatory to resump
tion are the full legal tender to the Government of afl out
standing greenbacks, and the unrestricted recoinage and full
legal tender for all amounts and for all debts, public and pri
vate, of the silver "dollar of the fathers." Let us consider
both these measures. GREENBACKS.
Early in the late war the Government assumed, and, in my
opinion, without the least Constitutional warrant, the right
to make bare credit paper money a legal tender in liquidation
of private debts. Accordingly, legal tender Treasury-notes
to the extent of four hundred millions were issued, and three
hundred and sixty millions of them are still outstanding.
This extraordinary power was claimed by the whole Demo
cratic party to be unconstitutional, unjust and tyrannical, and
was denounced in the severest terms in Congress and through
the press of the party. The Republican party only claimed
the right as a war power, and wisely limited the issue to four
hundred millions, and pledged the Government not to go
beyond the limit ; and, what was rare with that party, kept
their pledge. Even in their wild saturnalia of financial
blundering, extravagance and curruption, to their credit, it
must be admitted, they shrank from unlimited irredeemable
issues. Even as it was, their credit money system almost, if
not quite, doubled the National debt, and entailed on the
country that disordered currency from which we now suffer.
After the war was over the question of the legality of these
greenback issues came before the Supreme Court of the
United States, and their legality was denied by a divided
Court. Afterward the Republican President stocked the
Court with new Judges pledged to reverse the former de
cision, and it was done in obedience to his mandate. But
the issue was maintained as legal only by a divided Court,
and as an exercise of the war power. Such issue would un
doubtedly be declared unconstitutional by the same tribunal

REMONETIZATION OF THE SILVER DOLLAR. 411
when issued in time of peace, unless again reorganized to
serve party ends. Of course no one has ever denied that the
Federal Government can legally issue Treasury notes, for
they are but a form of indebtedness. But the point is that
they can not be made legal tender except to the Government
itself Indeed, I shall presently claim that the General Gov
ernment can make nothing a legal tender except in its own
transactions. This, then, is the present status of the greenback. It
stands, by the decision of the Court, as a legal tender, and it
is a Government debt some time to be paid, or forever left
outstanding. But, whatever is to be its fortune, there can be
no escaping the logic, it seems to me, that it ought to be a
legal tender to the Government. It is the overdue prom
issory note of the Government, and the Government no more
than an individual can justly refuse to receive from its debtor
its own overdue paper. And this is not only justice, it is
wise policy, and one of the safest steps toward resumption. .
There is now only five per cent, difference between gold and
greenbacks. Let greenbacks be receivable for customs and
all other Government dues, and they will very soon rise to
par with gold. At all events, the difference between them
wifl be small. The customs last year were one hundred and
forty-eight millions, and if greenbacks could have been col
lected, they could have been sold for gold, even at the pres
ent premium, at a cost of less than eight millions. But
make them full legal tender to the Government, and there
would not be one per cent, difference between them and
gold. Nay, I confidently believe they would be par in less
than six months. At all events, the discount on them would
be so small that the cost of the gold the Government would
have to buy to pay gold interest according to contract would
be a trifle. Whereas, the stability that would be given to
the currency would pay it back to the people, whose agent
the Government is, a hundred times over, in the improve-

412 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
ment of business. Make the greenback full legal tender to
the Government, and its broken faith is redeemed and specie
payments practically resumed, so far as the outstanding Gov
ernment paper is concerned. REMONETIZING SILVER.
The next step, and indeed the most important one, is the
remonetization of silver.
The double standard of gold and silver existed in the
United States up to 1873-4. Nearly all outstanding debts
were contracted before that time. After the war was over,
a dispute having arisen as to whether the public debt was
payable in coin or greenbacks, the Act of 1869 was passed
for the express purpose of settling the controversy, and that
act in distinct language recognizes that the "coin" therein
mentioned meant gold and silver. Afterward, in 1870, the
Funding Act was passed, and that, too, not only recognized,
but in express words stated that the bonds issued under it
should be payable in the coin of the United States, of the
fineness and weight then established by law. It is as explicit
as if a contract for so many "bushels" of wheat had stated
the number of pounds avoirdupois the "bushel" contracted
for was understood to contain. Now, in the face of these
enactments, it is claimed that justice and National honor de
mand, not only that all public debts shall be paid in gold
alone, but that all private debts, though payable when con
tracted in greenbacks (then at a heavy discount), shafl, by
the Resumption Act, be payable in gold alone. A proposi
tion more monstrous can hardly be stated, when the consti
tutional obligations of the Government as to money, and the
history of the silver dollar, are considered.
The Constitution of the United States provides that Con
gress shall have power "to coin money." This power is in
section 8, item 6, of Article 1, and is in these words: "To
coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coins, and

REMONETIZATION OF THE SILVER DOLLAR. 413
fix the standard of weights and measures." And it is provided
in the same article, section 10, item 1, that no State shall
"coin money," "emit bills of credit," or "make anything but
gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts." And these
are the only constitutional provisions on the subject.
We can not pause to deliver a treatise on the subject of
' ' money. " Suffice it that when the Constitution was adopted
the term "money" me&nt gold and silver. And, whether coined
or in bullion, they were equally money, and in large transac
tions passed by weight. What constituted "legal tender"
in the English or any other law we need not now discuss,
but wifl allude to presently. The States, by the Constitution,
were prohibited from making anything a "tender" except
gold and silver coin. Numerous articles had in former ages
been money, but for many generations before the adoption
of our Constitution gold and silver had been the world's
money in all civilized countries, and nothing else had been.
They were "money." When the Constitution, therefore,
authorized Congress to "coin money" it could mean nothing
else than that Congress should coin gold and silver. Of
course we speak not now of token money, which had been
often of inferior metals. Congress was not empowered to
make money. That commerce had already made. It might
"coin" it, not make it. Under our Constitution nothing
but gold and silver can be money. Nor can it declare, it
seems to me, what shall be legal tender except for Federal
debts. And except to fix the relative, value in tender of the
two coins — gold and silver — and of token money and the
value of foreign coins in tender. The clause in the Constitu
tion which authorizes Congress to fix the value of the money
it may coin, and the value of foreign coins, of course gives
it no authority to determine the purchasing power in ex
change for other articles which those coins shall have. The
claim that Congress could do such a thing is too absurd for
argument. Commerce fixes that. All Congress can do is to

414 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
fix by law the value of coins, foreign and domestic, relatively
to each other. Nothing more. The States may declare that
gold and silver coin, whether Federal coin or not, shall be
legal tender, so there be no impairment of the obligations of
contracts, but they can make nothing else a legal tender.
Aside from this, and subject to the "tender" prohibition
in the Constitution as to the States, the whole question of
legal-tenders is one for the Courts, under the general law.
It is the subject of a law-brief, not a political speech. At
the common law current gold and silver, and perhaps even
bullion at the standard price in coin, were legal tender.
Under this power to "coin money," Congress acted for
the first time in 1792, by establishing the United States mint.
From the first settlement of the country up to that time the
Spanish milled dollar had been current, and a resolve of the
Congress of the Confederation had already adopted it as the
money of account, and our foreign loans had been measured
by it. When the weight of the American dollar came to be
fixed there was some difference of opinion arose. But as the
Spanish milled doflar constituted about the whole circulation
after the Continental money went down, and as debts had been
contracted and were payable in it, Hamilton, who managed
the matter, thought it just to make the new dollar of the
same weight. To ascertain the true weight of the average
of these Spanish dollars in circulation he had a large number
assayed, and found the average weight to be about 371^
grains, pure silver, and for this reason the American silver
dollar, "the dollar of the fathers," was fixed at 371^ grains
pure silver. This dollar was declared by statute to be the
"unit of value," and the first coins had imprinted on the
rim "dollar" — "unit." The same law provided for gold
coins, too, and they were to be in denominations of these
"dollars or units." These are the very words of the statute.
The "unit" andthe "dollar" meant the same thing. The
standard weight of this dollar was 416 grains, so that it had

REMONETIZATION OF THE SILVER DOLLAR. 415
' ' one thousand four hundred and eighty-five parts fine to one
hundred and seventy-nine parts alloy."
The fractional parts of the dollar were of the same fineness
and the same relative weight. The gold coinage was fixed
so that one grain of gold, pure, should be worth fifteen grains
of silver, pure. The dollar in the gold coin weighed 24.75
grains pure, or 27 grains standard, which made it "eleven
parts fine to one part alloy." Act of April 2, 1792, Sec. 9
(1 Stat, at L., page 248). This statute remained unaltered
untfl the act of June 28, 1834 (4 Stat at L , page 699-700).
This act changed the weight and fineness of the gold coinage,
but did not affect silver coinage. The ten-dollar-piece was
made to consist of 232 grains pure, and 270 grains standard
gold. The gold in the dollar was, therefore, 23.20 grains
pure and 27 grains standard, whereas before it had been
24.75 pure and 27 grains standard. The gold coin was de
based. The next change was by the act of January 18, 1837 (5
Stat, at L., page 137, sections 8, 9 and 10). By this act the
decimal rule was adopted as to the alloy in both gold and
silver coin, and the alloy was made one-tenth of the whole
weight of the coin, and so it has stood ever since.
The pure silver in the dollar and its parts was left at the
old weight, only the alloy was changed ; and so its standard
weight became 41 2 J grains. The standard weight of the
dollar in the gold coins was 25.8 grains, and the pure gold
23.22 grains, two grains more than under the act of 1834.
It will be perceived that this act, as well as that of 1834,
changed the relative value as to each other, when coined as
money, of gold and silver. By the act of 1792 one grain of
gold was equal to fifteen grains of sflver. By the acts of
1834-37 one grain of gold is made equal to about sixteen
grains of silver, and so it remained until silver was demon
etized. Double eagles and gold doflars were authorized by
the act of 1849; only eagles, halves and quarters being coined

416 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
before. And so, in 1853, three-dollar gold pieces were au
thorized, but these changes have nothing to do with the
present question.
Thus stood the statutes as to gold and silver till 1853, after
the gold discoveries in California. See act of February 21,
1853 (10 Stat, at Large, 160, sees. 1 and 2). By this act
fractional silver, which had theretofore borne its relative
weight to the dollar, was reduced in weight, but not debased
in fineness. The half dollar was reduced to 192 grains,
standard weight, whereas it had before weighed 206j grains.
And so all the fractional coins were reduced in proportion.
This made the fractional dollar weigh only 347.6 grains pure
silver, and all the parts in proportion. The statute declared
these fractional coins to be no longer a legal tender for sums
greater than $5. It was no longer money proper; it was
only tokeii money. No further change affecting this question
took place up to the act of February 12, 1873 (17 Stat, at
Large, p 425). Two very important changes were made by
this law ; the old silver dollar was dropped from the coinage
of the mint for the future, and a trade dollar of 420 grains
troy, of standard fineness, was ordered to be minted, and all
future coinage of silver made barely token money. And
secondly the gold dollar was declared to be the ' ' unit of
value." The next change was that of the Revised Statutes
of 1874, pages 700 and 712. By this last act, not only was
the old standard silver dollar, which had been in use from the
first settlement of the country, forbidden thereafter to be
coined, but those already coined were reduced to the servi
tude of being base token money, and forbidden to be legal
tender for sums greater than five dollars. These acts made
gold for the first time the sovereign lord of the American
mint. Up to 1853 silver coinage of all denominations had
been full legal tender for all sums, and for all debts, public
and private, and from that date up to 1874 the old silver
dollar coin was likewise a full and complete legal tender.

REMONETIZATION OF THE SILVER DOLLAR. 417
And it will be observed, too, that while the weight of the
gold dollar had been twice changed — as to pure gold — the
silver dollar was never changed — as to pure silver — from
its first coinage in 1792 to its abolition in 1873-4. This
proves conclusively that silver, and not gold, was not only
the standard of value, but the silver dollar was the uniform,
unaltered, statutory "unit of value." The radical revolution
in the currency was now complete.
The Radical party seemed resolved that nothing their pred
ecessors had ever done should be allowed to stand — at least,
if it was in the way of centralization of power, or the en
thronement of capital. Silently, without discussion, without
notice to the people who were to be affected, those laws were
passed, and one-half the world's specie currency was no
longer money in the United States. The whole debt of the
country, public and private, in the aggregate amounting to
from eight to ten thousand millions, had been contracted on
the basis that the Spanish milled doflar of 371^ grains pure
silver was the "unit of value," and a legal tender jointly
with gold ; and this had been the law during the life of the
country — Colonial and National. When the country was
thus deeply in debt, why was one of the two coins, in which
payment could be made, so stealthfly reduced to a mere chat
tel? Was it easier to pay a debt with one dollar than with
two? It is hard to believe this change was barely accidental
and inadvertent. Those behind the screen must have known
what they were doing. It is fair to presume that Congress,
as a body, were deceived, but it is hard to believe the Com
mittee having charge of the subject could have been. The
people and their representatives were thrown off their guard
because the irredeemable paper money system, having ban
ished specie from circulation a dozen years before, no one
except the money-changers in the plot thought it worth
while to take notice of mere mint regulations. In every
element which marks the transaction it was a fraud. The

418 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
movement in Europe and America was simultaneous, and
was in the interest of the bondholders. Silver production
was increasing and gold production declining. An immense
public debt had been contracted, and the holders of these
securities feared the decline of silver and the payment of
their debt in that coin, and therefore adroitly managed to
demonetize silver. Is it possible the American people will
submit to the outrage?
But even if there was no design in this demonetization, if
it was simply an inadvertence, that is no reason it should
stand. Existing debts, public and private, were contracted
when silver as well as gold was money. To demonetize
silver increases the value of gold and thus increases the
burden of the debt. We agreed to pay so many ounces
of gold or silver at our option. That was the letter and
spirit of the contract, and we demand that it should be
kept in its letter and spirit. The Government in nowise
guaranteed the value in the market of the coin to be paid.
Whether gold or silver goes up or down in the world's
market has nothing to do with the obflgation to pay it.
The creditor and the debtor alike takes his risk the same
as if he had bought or sold copper or corn to be deliv
ered on a future day at a fixed price. Whether the com
modity rise or fall, each is equally bound by the bargain. A
dollar is not an ideality. It is four hundred and twelve and a
half grains of standard silver. It is twenty-five and eighty-
hundredth grains .oi standard gold. Every bond of the
United States, is payable in either of these dollars at the
option of the Government. To pay them in gold increases
the obligation hundreds of millions and takes the money out
of the pockets of tax-payers. These are reasons enough for
rehabilitating the silver dollar. But they are not half Pri
vate debts greatly exceed public debts in amount, and this
banishment of silver increases by a thousand miflions the
already heavy load of debt under which the people stagger.

REMONETIZATION OF THE SILVER DOLLAR. 419
Silver is banished to foreign parts as a felon, though natural
born in this country. Let the exfle be recalled and made a
leader. SILVER IS THE MOSES
To lead us out of the bondage of inflation dry-shod through
the Red Sea of resumption; and it is the only leader that
can. The best interests of the country, the interests of both
labor and capital, require our currency to rest on a solid basis,
and be as little subject to change in value as in the nature of
things anything can be. Such a currency must consist of the
precious metals and their equivalents. As the most perfect
balance-wheel for a chronometer is a composition of different
metals, the one checking the contraction and expansion of
the other, so the steadiest measure of value is composed of
both the precious metals. Each checks and supplements the
other. As a matter of justice and fair-dealing, as well as in
the interest of the toiling masses and of tax-ridden industrial
capital, there should be no resumption till after remonetiza
tion. Whatever may be the philosophy of the double or
single standard, debts contracted in the double standard
ought not to be required to be paid in the single standard,
for every one knows that gold has been appreciated by the
demonetization of silver. Besides, in proportion as the specie
basis is broadened, in that proportion is resumption made
easier. Nor let it be objected that the proper ratio does not
exist, according to the market price, between gold and silver.
It is the ratio in force at the time the debt was contracted,
and that ought to be the ratio in which payment is made.
If, in the course of events, after resumption has taken place,
it is found that our ratio of sixteen to one is not the proper
relation in commerce between the precious metals, let a dif
ferent ratio be established as investigation and experience
may dictate. But when both are legal tender at a fixed rate
to the dollar, anywhere near the commercial relation, they
will equiflbriate each other.

420 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
The ban of demonetization has lowered the crest of silver.
Make the twin metals co-equals in law, and they will stand
abreast in commerce. For the scientific settlement of the
question of the standards we can not wait. Full and imme
diate coinage and legal tender for silver is the need of the
hour and the harbinger of resumption and prosperity. In
due time the common-sense of nations will give to commerce
a uniform relative valuation of the precious metals, after the
discussions of enlightened thinkers have forced on provincial
theorists a "Parliament of Man." The philosophy of the
standards, double and single, must settle the dispute between
them after investigation and experience have furnished the
proper facts. Till then let us abide by the old ways and
return to that double standard which has been the world's
money for so many ages.
There are doubtless many other auxiliaries to resumption
which legislation might afford, to say nothing of the recuper
ating influence of a revival of business due to the renewal of
amity between the sections, and the natural growth and de
velopment of the country. But we can not now pause to
discuss them. The question is compHcated, and in popular
discussion general principles are sufificient. Modifications and
detafls are better fitted to the hafls of legislation than to the
debates of the hustings. AMERICAN CURRENCY.
But resumption of specie payment does not settle the cur
rency question. Gold and silver are the basis of a sound
currency, but experience has shown that for reasons too
numerous to detail, they are only a basis and not the whole
currency, and must, in this commercial age, be supplemented
by paper representatives of money ; and that this representa
tive money should at all times not only be based upon specie
and be equivalent to it, but convertible into it on demand.
After specie payments have been resumed, what shall

REMONETIZATION OF THE SILVER DOLLAR. 421
American currency be, and by whom shall it be issued?
Again we must appeal to principle and at the same time
recognize the existing condition of currency, as well as the
nature of American institutions and the habits of American
thought. Nor will it be amiss to consider the currency ex
perience of that Mother Country from which our ideas and
institutions are so largely derived. A system of paper issues
by private bankers grew up in England nearly two hundred
years ago, and was for some time practically independent of
the Government, In 1694 the -Bank of England was char
tered, and to that was given the exclusive privilege, at first,
of issuing paper money within a fixed radius about London.
Country banks had the right of issue, and afterward certain
London banks. But there was no limited liability. Every
banker has always been in England bound to redeem his cur
rency to the last dollar of his individual property. The sys
tem, however, was loose and ill-guarded, and during the
suspension of specie payment in the time of the Napoleonic
wars hundreds of banks sprang up, and a vitiated currency
resulted. Issues were allowed based simply on the credit
of the banker, and this led to much insolvency and suffering
among the people.
Without following the history it is enough to say that
finally, in 1844-5, Sir Robert Peel undertook to reform the
banking system of England, and his banking acts would have
made him justly famous had his country owed him nothing
else. He sought to require coin or bullion to be behind
every dollar of issue, and to give the Government alone the
right to issue paper money. And the same idea was ad
vanced by Gladstone and others in the debate of 1875 in the
British Parliament. But what was claimed to be the vested
rights of the bankers were too strong, and Peel was com
pelled to compromise so far as to leave the right of issue to
the banks, and also to leave a portion of their issues to be
based on credit instead of coin. He did, however, succeed

30

422 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
in limiting the amount of such issues to the amount then out
standing, and in requiring that all future issues of paper
money should be secured by coin or buflion, pound for
pound, in the vaults of the bank issuing it. So that for thirty
years last past in England no bank-note in excess of what
was out before has been issued except the coin or bullion was
in bank to redeem it. This is what experience has taught
Great Britain. The Bank of England had at the time of this
act about $70,000,000 of paper circulation based on the bonds
of the Government, and that circulation was left it. But as
to all in excess the law is explicit and is obeyed, that no
paper issue can take place except on specie actually deposited
in bank. The bank has its two departments, that of banking
proper and that of issue. The bank proper may fail as any
other bank may. The issue department is another thing,
entirely separate, and the circulation is therefore secure, for
it has Government securities deposited for the first seventy
millions, and gold for every other note. No wonder a Bank
of England note is equal to gold in every civilized country!
In America, from its earliest European settlement, the
banking system has been vicious in the extreme, though
reafly better for the note-holders now than it has ever been
before. A system of State Banks, with smafl security to
the bill-holder, flooded the country with a fluctuating cur
rency always at a discount when away from home, and liable
to be worthless at any moment. The late war taxed that
system out of existence, and it is not likely ever again to be
adopted. Whatever paper money is to be issued hereafter
will almost certainly be put into circulation by authority of
the Federal Government, and the question naturally arises
how shall that authority be exercised. Shall it be by direct
issue by the Government of its own promises to pay? Or
shall it be by authorizing some person or association to make
the issue? This is the plain, practical question. By the
genius of our institutions it would seem that, if there be any

REMONETIZATION OF THE SILVER DOLLAR. 423
profit in the privilege of issue, it ought not to be conferred
on private individuals or corporations, but ought, so far as
that goes, to be reserved to the Government. Of course, if
the Government is less qualified to perform the function than
individuals or corporations that would defeat the argument.
But in what respect is an individual or a corporation better
fitted to issue paper money than the Treasury Department?
Surely if the issue is to be barely on credit, the credit of the
whole Nation is as good as the credit of a part of the Nation.
And if it is to be based on specie, that specie can be as
secure in the Treasury vaults as in the vaults of any bank.
Besides, the allowing of individuals to issue paper money, on
whatever security, is to give this moneyed interest an influ
ence dangerous to the general interests of commerce, and
liable to exercise a controlling, if not a corrupting, influence
on politics and legislation. The coinage of money and
the issuance of currency should be totally separate from
banking. It is, however, objected that the Government ought not to
turn banker. But this objection arises from a misconception
of the subject. This would not be to make the Government
a banker. Banking in its essential sense is dealing in money,
not making it. A banker is a merchant in currency, and no
more makes it as a necessary part of his business than a dry
goods merchant manufactures his fabrics, or a grocer grows
his provisions. No one expects the Government to bank ; to
loan men money, deal in bills of exchange or receive and pay
out deposits. That is what banking properly is. We are not
now treating of the security pledged for the redemption of
the issue, but of the power to make it; and the argument
seems irresistible that if the Government is to supervise and
control it when made by others, and actually guarantee its
final redemption, as done in the case of the National banks,
it better make the issue direct. The question then, in the
present state of the country and the currency, is narrowed to

424 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
this: Whether the National banking system shall continue
based on Government bonds, or a National currency of
Treasury notes be issued, based on deposits of coin and
bullion ? To the one or the other it will finally come. And
I frankly say that if the condition of the currency and the
country permitted it, I should favor the issuance of all the
paper currency by the Government direct, and the issuance
of no paper dollar that had not a value dollar in coin or
bullion in the Treasury to redeem it on presentation.
But we must consider things as they are, not as financial
wisdom might have made them. When specie payments
have come, if the National Banks still survive, arid the green
backs are still outstanding, in whole or in part, we must then
deal with these currencies. The National Banking system,
with the improvement of specie payment, if special privi
leges are to be allowed at all, is perhaps as good as any banks
of issue can be made unless based on specie, doflar for dollar.
But special privileges ought not to be aflowed. Or, if the
system be continued, it ought to be improved by allowing any
individual to deposit bonds, and take out currency in amounts
large enough to prevent too much book-keeping at the
Treasury. For a privilege which is open to corporations
should be open to individuals. The system essentially con
sidered is that currency may be issued on the security of
Government bonds by the Treasury Department to private
parties to make profit on it to themselves, the payment of
the issues meantime being guaranteed by the Government
For what reasons should the Government thus become the
guarantor of a bank's issues without even being its parter in
the profits? Such a system is reconcilable to no principle,
and justified by no policy. Its existence stands limited by
law to 1884, and with the expiration of that time let it cease.
This gives an ample period for the banks to close their busi
ness in, and for the country to provide another method of
issue. Let all banks of issue, both Federal and State, be

REMONETIZATION OF THE SILVER DOLLAR. 425
dispensed with. Let all issues of currency be made by the
Federal Government alone. That Government has the right
to "coin money," and it would seem to follow by parity
of reasoning that if any thing else is to be money, in any
legal sense, it ought to be created and issued by the same
direct authority coining the money, whose representative
it is.
That issues are to be made by the General Government
direct, and it alone being settled, the basis of such issues is
next to be considered. We find more than three hundred
millions of Treasury notes outstanding, to whose issuance
there is no legal objection, whatever may be thought of the
policy, but whose legal tender quality many may think to be
unconstitutional and unjust. But the Supreme Court having
decided otherwise, to that decision, so long as it stands, afl
private opinions must yield obedience. When they have
arisen to par, let that quality cease, and all objection in law
is removed. Even the legal tender quality is really of small
consequence, so long as they are at par. Until they are par
they surely ought in justice to be legal tender for all debts
contracted while they inflated the currency. The question
of legal tender does not arise practically in one-thousandth
part of one per cent, of all mercantile transactions. Cur
rency at par with specie is always received as tender in fact,
whatever it may be in law, except by some spiteful fool who
wishes to annoy his debtor. Make greenbacks par by re
ceiving them for customs, and then treat them as Govern
ment tokens, receivable and payable in all Government trans
actions as a sort of demand exchequer bills, and they will
constitute a stable currency, whether legal tender or not, and
be equal in purchasing power to specie, if the issue be never
increased. When the Government is able to pay them with
out increasing the National debt, do so if public opinion
requires it. They have always been, even when at a dis
count, a conveniennt and popular currency; for even the

426 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
discount, unlike the old State bank notes, was uniform in all
parts of the country. And when they become par, for a
community to lash itself into a fury over the bagatelle of
their legal tender, would be
" Like an ocean into tempest tossed,
To waft a feather or to drown a fly."
Let no greater amount be left outstanding after specie
payment than will.circulate at par. Then let public opinion
prohibit the increase of the volume as inflexibly as "^the laws
of the Medes and Persians which change not ; " and they can
be retired or kept outstanding as experience may determine.
And if additional paper should be needed, as it would be if
the greenbacks were retired, let the law provide for the un-
Hmited deposit in the Federal Treasury by any one wishing
to do so of coin or bullion, and the issuance therefor of coin
certificates in suitable sums to circulate as currency, and
there would be an American Currency founded directly on
specie and equal to specie all over the commercial world.
This would be the people's money, made by and for the
people. And this would leave the volume of currency free
from Government control and free from the manipulations
of bankers and stock-jobbers, and practically as well as
legally, leave the volume of currency to be fixed by and
made equal to "the wants of trade."
Whenever business needed more paper money, specie
would be deposited and currency drawn out; whenever busi
ness did not require so much paper money, specie would be
drawn out, and exported or melted, as the owners chose.
Currency would be as little subject to fluctuation in value as
anything earthly can be, and it would afl be of the same
value, metallic and paper, and would be "Interconvertible
American Currency."
But all changes of such importance ought to come slowly,
so that as little injustice as possible be done between debtor
and creditor, producer and consumer, labor and capital.

REMONETIZATION OF THE SILVER DOLLAR. 427
When once accomplished and steadily adhered to, industry
will no longer be the slave of currency managers, nor made
to fatten those gamblers in premiums and discounts who
' ' toil not, neither do they spin. ' '

THE BUREAU OF INDUSTRY.
[A speech delivered at Morrow, Ohio, on the Republican proposition to
establish a Bureau of Industry, September 10th, 1877.]
The platforms of parties furnish a curious literature. They
often illustrate the adage of Talleyrand, that words were in
vented to conceal men's ideas. No wise man, therefore, will
be too stickling about their phraseology or much disturb his
slumbers by studying their platitudes. But still, if one is
disposed to look with a critical eye into party convention
utterances, it will be found that though words are used to
conceal ideas, they rarely succeed better than the poor ostrich
that fancies its body hidden when its head only is buried in
the sand. A case in point is the late Republican platform.
Almost every utterance in it is as equivocal as the late Belle
fontaine speech of the Republican candidate for Governor.
It damns with faint praise its doubtfully elected President and
the doubtful Republicanism of his policy. It prevaricates
on the remonetization of the silver dollar, and seems to look
toward the equality of silver and gold, while it rows toward
the supremacy of gold. It covers up its demand for ' ' forced
resumption" in the fog of its approval by the Cincinnati
platform of last year. It conceals from public view the
national bank and greenback question under the shadow of
solemn silence. In short, on all the questions between the
parties it is a masterpiece of the "how not to do it" policy.
But all shifts and devices are vain. Parties have their lives
and their ideas as much as men. They may be ashamed of
them and try to conceal them, but in the fable the long-eared
beast was known even when covered with the lion's skin, and
so the ear marks of underlying principles are found even in
the attractive verbiage of Republican rhetoric.

THE BUREAU OF INDUSTRY. 429
The distinction between the two parties has ever been, and
will be, that the Democracy is the party of the people, of
popular rights, of individual equality, of the distribution
of but little governmental authority over the widest practica
ble surface ; while the opposition, for they are only opposi
tion to Democratic progress, whether the}j are in or out of
power, is the party of large government, control, of the
paternal theory that the people are but the wards of their
rulers, of the concentration of power in the fewest possible
hands, of the subordination of the individual to the concrete
monopoly of the State. The Republican party is therefore
found to favor sumptuary laws, the interference of govern
ment with the ideas and habits of the citizen, the regulation
of his social and industrial affairs by public edict, and the
widest authority of public will over individual action. When
ever any new question arises, no matter what its character,
whether it be the immense immigration to America of intel
ligent and industrious foreigners, the relations of the late
slave to his former master, or the diversity of religious
opinion as to education, or the organizing of new communi
ties in the West, or the expansion of the railroad or telegraph
system, or whatever else, the parties divide on the same line.
The Democracy, free and expansive in thought and policy,
trusts the people with every new exigency of affairs, while
the opposition is never content till it can place every new
movement of the people under the leading strings of govern
ment. And so now, when a new industrial problem arises,
when there seems to be a temporary conflict between one
form of labor and one form of capital, no remedy is found in
the Republican brain but the strong arm of government con
trol. '
LABOR AND CAPITAL.
Which of these two theories of government is right or
wrong the people have never been agreed about, and per
haps never will be. Those having large property interests to

430 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
protect, and those distrustful of the popular virtue and intel
ligence, will continue to seek the protecting arms of govern
ment from the dangers of what they call the unenlightened
and vicious masses; while those whose fortune and whose
future lie in their own strong arms and free spirits will con
tinue to favor that individuality of existence and personal
independence of social and industrial action which govern
ment may curtail, but can not give, by its pragmatic over
sight or its crippling protection. Just where the line of
government interference begins, and where individual free
dom ought to be checked, is a large question, for which
there is no time now.
But all past experience shows that those nations have risen
highest in civilization and had the most beneficent influence
on the well being of the world whose governments have left
to their people the largest scope for individual development.
While in Eastern countries, and in many ancient nations, the
laws of caste and the perpetual control of the minutest affairs
of social and even domestic and industrial life made the sub
ject the menial of the State and the whole national life a
nightmare, in Western nations and modern times freedom
of social and domestic relations and the enlargement of
individual action in all the channels of industry and
business have pushed forward the tide of progress till every
ocean is a highway of commerce and every country a
hive of industry; and just in proportion, too, as they are un-
blighted by the mildew of the Government's fostering care.
In the light of this experience, and brought to the test of
the principles of our Government and the mental habits of
our people, how little has the State or Nation to do with the
question of the relation between labor and capkal? What is
labor and what is capital ? Is there a natural antagonism be
tween them, and if there be can government bring them into
accord or protect the one from the other? He would be a
narrow thinker who did not say that this is a great question,

THE BUREAU OF INDUSTRY. 431
and equally narrow who would say that it can be solved by
any bare theorizing, or in a year or a generation. It is the
great problem of modern society, and I make any suggestion
about it with the greatest diffidence. No attempt will be
made to argue it in its deep and broad bearings.
The suggestion is ventured, however, that no legislative
action should attempt to control or settle it until the absolute
necessity is shown for such interference, and until we are pre
pared to alter the whole genius and framework of our insti
tutions; for such interference can never be reconciled to the
principles of Republican Government. As to the necessity
for government supervision of the relations between labor
and capital, it will hardly be claimed to exist by any one as
to such relations in general. All wealth is the product of
labor, and labor, therefore, is the cornerstone of capital.
Labor is the producing agent, and capital is the product. All
property is in a sense capital, and everyone possessing prop
erty a capitalist. Almost every ordinary laborer is in that
sense a capitalist, for almost everyone owns something pro
duced by labor. In this sense, then, of these terms there
can certainly be no antagonism between them. Labor is the
father, and property the child, and while they belong to the
same person they can be no other than friends ; and this is
the case with three-fourths, at least, of the whole American
people. The great body of the industrial classes are both
laborers and property holders. While a man employs his
own labor on his own property surely all he needs of the
Government is the protection of his labor and capital by the
protection of his person and property. To him there is
no antagonism between labor and capital. When industry
and thrift have produced more property than the producer
can personally manage by his own labor, he employs
another who has less property than gives employment to
him, to labor for him. So employer and employee become
a natural and useful relation. Labor and capital become

432 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
distinctive names for things in reality — one in origin and
essence. Between all persons there is more or less antagonism. To
each his own personal existence and happiness are dearer
than that of another, and his wants and wishes more impor
tant to him than those of his fellows. So, when capital
belongs to one, and labor to another, as each values his own
possessions more than his neighbor's, their interests are more
or less in conflict. Each is property, and the owner of each
seeks to get for it the most he can from the other. The
owner of capital strives for high profits, and the owner of
labor for high wages. Afl other things equal, as wages rise
profits go down, and so the capitalist seeks cheaper labor.
On the other hand, the laborer increases his demand for
wages in proportion as the necessity of the capitalists for
labor compels him to pay more. This brings about that
competition, that law of supply and demand, which is the
soul of business and commerce, and the fountain of modern
wealth. It pervades every industry and regulates every pro
duction and consumption. This law is what is meant by
freedom of industry. The freedom of each to stipulate for
himself what he shall receive and pay. To pay a man
for what he does not earn, or fix by a power outside of
himself the price of his labor or his capital, is to rob him
of his individual freedom or invade his personal right of
property. And of course to do all this you must overturn the whole
frame work of modern iudustry and the whole nature of
American constitutional government. It would be to put
Communism in the place of Republicanism. There are but
few in this country, or, indeed, in Europe, who advocate
Communism proper. But, while disavowing the principle in
general, it is claimed that it ought to be made applicable -to
certain interests and employments. For instance, it is said
that no one ought to be allowed to loan money — one form

THE BUREAU OF INDUSTRY. 433
of using capital — above a rate fixed by law; and, as the gov
ernment has given that commodity alone the quality of legal
tender, there would seem to be force in the claim that this
privilege might properly be coupled with a condition against
its extortionate use. So, as common carrying corporations
in this country have only a limited liability, and are the bare
creatures of the statute, the statute may, it is claimed, justly
attach to the use of their franchise such conditions as shall
protect those who deal with them from an extortionate use
of their power over travel and transportation. And such a
right may be conceded to the government without recogniz
ing the doctrine of communistic control over property and
wages. Its policy might be quite ariother thing, and too vast
a subject for present discussion. But while government, as
a general proposition, ought not to give aid to either of the
competing parties? at the same time it should be careful to so
legislate as to hold the balance even between them. The
complaint which the Democratic party has constantly made
against its rival is that it is the ally of capital against labor;
that its poHcy as to tariffs, revenues, currency, banking,
corporations, and every feature of its commercial and finan
cial legislation is framed in the interest of money and not
of men. Capital is set over labor. The protection of
wealth is more regarded than the rights of the labor which
produces it.
Such are the instincts of the two parties, that the laborer
naturally looks to one, and the capitalist to the other, as his
peculiar friend. And yet, now, when the financial blunders
of the Republican system have beggared labor, instead of
proposing to abandon the system of favoritism, by which
the capitalist has fattened and the toiler grown lean, the Re
publican party seeks to win to its support the laboring masses
by a delusive scheme of placing them under the protection
of the Federal Government, by creating a network of leading
strings through which, like the canary bird, they are to be

434 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
ensnared. A gigantic federal organization, beginning with a
"bureau of INDUSTRY,"
Is to weave its web of control round the whole business of
the country. We need not, therefore, pause to consider the
merit, if any there be, of the idea that the government can
assume control of the relation between labor and capital as
an abstract proposition. We need not consider what the
State might properly do. The proposition has a broader
scope. The general government is to put its arms around
labor, and in the name of protection draw it into the devour
ing embrace of capital. REPUBLICAN PLATFORM.
That this proposition may be fairly understood I quote the
Cleveland Republican platform :
" 1. That Congress establish a Bureau of Industry.
"2. That Congress exert its authority over all National
highways of trade by prescribing and enforcing such reasona
ble regulations as will tend to promote the safety of travel,
secure fair returns for the capital invested, and fair wages to
employes, preventing mismanagement, improper discrimina
tions, and the aggrandizement of officials at the expense of
stockholders, shippers, and employes.
' ' 3. That provision be made for statutory arbitrations be
tween employes and employers to adjust controversies, rec
oncfle interests, and establish justice and equity between
them." Since the Federal Government began, my fellow-citizens,
no party has ever before announced so startling a proposition.
The Alien and Sedition laws are tame usurpations compared
with this tripple-drawered Bureau of Industry. It is offered
by the confidential adviser of the Republican claimant of the
Presidency, and indorsed by the Convention of the State
of which he is the favorite son. And so the platform speaks
"as one having authority."

THE BUREAU OF INDUSTRY. 435
My countrymen, if you have not forgotten all the teach
ings of our patriot fathers who founded the government, and
are not deaf to all the lessons of experience, you will not
fail to allow one even so humble as myself to discuss, with
out reserve, a proposition so revolutionary and so at war
with the whole genius of our institutions.
The only clauses in the Constitution from which a warrant
for such a Congressional power could be claimed to be drawn
are these: First, the following clause in the eighth section of
the first article: "To regulate commerce with foreign nations
and among the several States and with the Indian tribes;"
and, second, the last clause of the same section in these
words: "To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper
foi carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other
powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the
United States, or in any department or officer thereof." But to
construe these clauses properly we must look to the other
clauses bearing on the same subject. In the fourth article,
section 4, it is provided that: "The United States shall guar
antee to every State in this Union a republican foiin of govern
ment." And the Tenth amendment provides that: "The
powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States re
spectively, or to the people." No other clauses have material
bearing on the question. Before proceeding to discuss these
clauses and to show how utterly unwarranted this "Bureau
of Industry" theory is, let us consider the general nature of
our government. State and Federal, and the theories of the
respective parties as to their rights and powers.
FEDERAL SUPREMACY AND STATE RIGHTS.
It is history known to every school boy that the contest
whether the General Government should be National or sim
ply Federal well nigh rent asunder the Constitutional con
vention of 1787. The most powerful advocates of the rival

436 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
theories were Alexander Hamflton and Luther Marrin. To
Hamilton, the separate autonomy of States was not only a
political blunder, but an unmitigated curse. To Martin, any
limitation of the sovereignty of States seemed the destruc
tion of al! local government, and the surrender of personal
liberty to augment National grandeur. Neither could secure
the adoption of his ideas by the convention, and both left it
in disgust before its labors were ended. A compromise was
effected by which the Nation was created and the States pre
served. But the Nation was one of federative organization,
not aggregate unity. Martin never yielded his opposition,
but Hamilton, with his large practical sense, though beaten
in the convention, vigorously urged before the people the
adoption of the new Constitution, and took one of the most
prominent places under it. He now sought by executive
construction to achieve what he could not accomplish in the
forum of debate in the convention.
With him began that school of latitudinarian construction
which is ever seeking to enlarge the powers of the Federal
Government and belittle those of the States. For two gen
erations the States had enforced, in the main, a recognition
of their individual autonomy. But with secession war began
a new era, and since that time the party regretting their ex
istence, and seeking their overthrow, has gained immense
strength. Secession was a heresy so repugnant to the gen
eral sentiment of the people that to punish it they have
allowed invasions of the legitimate rights of States which
otherwise would have been indignantly rebuked. And now
the idea of national unity has gained so much upon the idea
of federative unity that, in some quarters, the States are
claimed to exist merely at the sufferance of the Nation.
John William Draper has claimed that the States derive their
existence as political organizations, not from the people of
each State respectively, but from the people of the United
States as an aggregate mass ; and that consequently whether

THE BUREAU OF INDUSTRY. 437
the States shall exist at all, and what powers they shall have
if allowed to exist, are questions to be determined by the
aggregate mass of the people of the whole nation in whom
he claims resides absolute and ultimate sovereignty. Senator
Morton, the ablest and most dangerous Republican leader,
has constantly acted on that theory and again and again
avowed doctrines based on it, though not so explicitly claim
ing it as Draper. Indeed, when analyzed, the whole Repub
lican policy of reconstruction and constitutional amendment
was the outgrowth of that conception, though doubtless
many who supported it did so in the heat of passion, without
being conscious they were ignoring and overthrowing in
principle the federative character of the republic. On prin
ciple and by the instinct of the party, the Democracy op
posed these invasions of the Federative organization of our
general government. And now, in accordance with its ante
cedents, and in furtherance of the long cherished design of
the subordination and final overthrow of the States and the
consolidation of all administrative power in one central Gov
ernment, the Republican party leaders are seeking to establish
a system of Bureaucracy inconsistent with the rights of the
States, and looking to their becoming mere departmental
divisions of the nation, as counties are the subordinate divis
ions of States. No Democrat who has the faintest concep
tion of the constitutional ideas of his party can fail to oppose
this system to the utmost of his power.
CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION.
My fellow-citizens, let us briefly examine what constitu
tional warrant there is for this new scheme of placing railroads,
with all their attendant working machinery of presidents,
directors, employes, roads, cars, transportation arrangements,
freight charges, fares, profits and wages, under the control
of the Federal Government. No free government has any
other than delegated powers, and if the Federal Government

31

438 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
assumes to take control of railroads created by State author
ity, it must show its constitutional right to do so. They are
creatures of the State Government, and to them the State
has delegated its rights of eminent domain over the property
of the citizen. If the franchise of the railroad, if the use of
the property so taken from the citizen can be enlarged, lim
ited, or controlled by the Federal Government, it is difficult
to see why that is not an invasion of the right of the State
over the creature of its own legislation, over the exercise of
the right of eminent domain incident to its own sovereignty.
Now, surely before the existence of the Federal Government
each of the thirteen States of the old Confederacy had a re
publican form of government, and that form of government
is expressly guaranteed to them by the Federal Constitution,
from which alone the Federal Government derives its au
thority. This guarantee is undoubtedly a solemn compact,
without which the present Union could never have been
formed. The States before that compact had the right to
lay impost duties and raise and maintain standing armies, and
their citizens were entirely free from the taxing power of the
old Confederacy. These privileges were surrendered, and in
return the States were guaranteed a republican government,
and were to be protected against foreign invasion and domes
tic insurrection. Every other State since that time has been
admitted into the Union on terms of perfect equality with
the original thirteen. Besides, the Tenth amendment ex
pressly provides that "the powers not delegated to the
United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the peo
ple;" and this amendment was, in fact, a practical part of
the very ratification of the Constitution. Whatever powers,
therefore, over their own territory, their own people, and
their people's property, are not "delegated" to the Union,
nor "prohibited" to the States, are "reserved" to theStates
and their people. No Federal power can lawfully override

THE BUREAU OF INDUSTRY. 439
this reservation. Republican government is reserved. Any
powers, whatever they may be, belonging to the general
government, must be subject to this reservation, and exer
cised in accordance with it.
COMMERCE AMONG THE STATES.
The grant "to regulate commerce among the States " is no
exception to the rule. That power, though it may go into
any State, must not invade the right of the State to Repub
lican Government, and to the exercise of all the agencies
necessary and proper to that form of Government. What,
then, is it in the sense of the Consdtution "to regulate com
merce among the States?" Commerce is the exchange of
commodities, and in a larger sense the transit of people from
Nation to Nation, or from State to State. This may be reg
ulated. To "regulate" is to subject to governing principles
or laws. To regulate commerce is neither to create, prohibit
nor destroy it. It can be no more than to police it. How
far this power extends has been one of the mooted questions
of constitutional law. The Supreme Court has never been
agreed on any principles that have had more than partial
application. The Court has even been divided on the ques
tion whether it is exclusive- in the Federal Government, or
may be exercised also -by the States. Over what subjects
matter it extends is stifl an open question. But, my feflow-
citizens, the Republican platform deals rather with the agen
cies of commerce than with commerce itself The chief
actors in commerce are the buyer and sefler. The common
carrier is but their agent. Is it intended to regulate the pur
chase and sale of commodities in the market? To operate
on the chief actors in commercial transactions? Perhaps not.
But it is sought to act on their agent, the common carrier.
And it is claimed that these common carrier railroads are
"National highways of trade." But the proposition is de
nied. They are in no sense National. Their existence, their

440 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
rights and powers, their obligations and restrictions, are all of
State origin, and subject to State control. They draw their
•breath of life from the State alone, and to police them is to
police the State. The hand of the General Government can
not be laid on them, without its being laid on the State at the
same time.
The power to regulate commerce among the States is found
in the same clause as that giving a like power over commerce
with foreign nations and with the Indian tribes. If the United
States can claim no right over the internal police of a foreign
nation by virtue of this power, how can it claim it over a
State, for the grant is co-extensive and in the same words in
each case? But it may be said that this is an absurd deduc
tion, since the constitution of one government can never be
claimed by any sane reasoner to carry its power into another.
And this is just the ground on which I place the argument.
The General Government has no more power over the States
while they remain in the legitimate boundaries of their gov
ernments, than it has over foreign nations. Into the territory
within the limits of Ohio, of course, the General Govern
ment extends in the plentitude of its power; but into the
governmental jurisdiction of Ohio it is as powerless to go
without usurpation as it would be to go into the territory or
governmental Province of Great Britain without conquest.
In a political sense, the State of Ohio is a political entity,
whose functions in the Government of its people are as much
outside of the political control of the General Government
as if the power of the latter did not extend over the same
territory as that of the former. Two governments extend
over the territory of Ohio — the State and the Federal.
The proud banner of the Nation, under which so many
thousands of Ohio's noblest sons battled and fell in defense
of the Federal Union, whose emblem it is, is ever welcome
on the soil of our State. But its presence carries not Fed
eral powers or National supremacy into that "republican

THE BUREAU OF INDUSTRY. 441
form of government" "reserved" to the State of Ohio as a
poHtical corporation, and solemnly "guaranteed" by the
"supreme law of the land." The power to regulate com
merce between Ohio and the rest of the States is a Federal
power, to be exercised, it is true, over the same territory
covered by the State Government, but outside of its consti
tutional jurisdiction as a State of the Union.
NATURE OF PROPERTY.
The very nature of property settles the question against
the right of the Federal Government over the subjects in
volved in the Republican platform. Publicists have differed
as to whether the right of property founded in nature or de
rived from political government. But the question is rather
theoretical than practical, since whatever may be the origin
of the right of property, it is of little value except as pro
tected by government. Whatever its origin, however, it is
clear that neither the general right of property is derived
from the Federal Government, nor its general protection im
posed upon it. These are matters of State jurisdiction. And
yet, the Cleveland platform, if it means anything, assumes,
so far as railroads are concerned, the whole control of that
species of property in all its connections and relations of per
sons and things. It assumes to fix its profits, regulate its
use, and supervise the relation between the shipper and the
common carrier, the employer and the employe. In short,
between labor and capital.
Such right of control is clearly anti-republican. One of the
chief guarantees of a republican government is security to the
person and property of the citizen. The citizen shall be lord
of his own person, and master of his own property. Both of
these rights are, of course, subject to the condition that the
State may within certain limits control either, for its own de
fense or preservation. But a republican government ceases
where communism begins. That is not a repubflcan gov-

442 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
ernment where the law, not the will of the parties contract
ing, determines what wages the employer shall pay the em
ploye, or what share of profits shall go to capital and what to
labor. The Cleveland platform, my countrymen, seeks to do
all this, and in so doing wantonly violates that clause of the
Constitution which guarantees to every State a republican
form of government, and that spirit which defends every citi
zen in his person and property.
The power to regulate commerce is not a power over per
son or property. Commerce, in the sense in which Congress
can regulate it, 'being barely transportation and transit, the
property or the persons interested in it can not be otherwise
affected by the right to regulate it than as that regulation
bears upon this transportation and transit. The right does
not go deeper and reach to the profits of the commerce or
the wages of its agents. Whatever may be the ownership
of the goods transported, or the relations to each other of
the persons engaged in transit, or the profit and loss of the
common carriers in the agencies employed, or the right to
contract for their own wages by the employes of the agency,
the power to regulate the commerce itself has the same ex
tent, and no control whatever over anything but that trans
portation and transit.
The right to regulate commerce, whether exclusive in the
Federal Government or shared by it with the States, may go
to the extent of protecting property or persons while in
transit, and legislating for their safety and comfort by such
appropriate regulations as tend to that end, and require the
instrumentalities of commerce to subserve that purpose, but
in that class of control the power ends. Neither in the Con
stitution nor in the past legislation of Congress is any warrant
found for the doctrines of the Cleveland platform. When
was it claimed that the prices of freight on the high seas or
the inland lakes and rivers could be fixed by act of Congress?
When was it claimed that securing "fair returns for the capital

THE BUREAU OF INDUSTRY. 443
invested and fair wages to the employes " engaged in commerce
was the object of the power "to regulate commerce among
the several States?" When was it ever enacted that the sal
aries of officials, captains, clerks, factors, or engineers on
ships or other commercial watercraft should be fixed by
statute? But, above all, what constitutional warrant is there
for ' ' statutory arbitrations between employers and employes to
adjust controversies, reconcile interests, and establish justice and
equity between themf" In short, make their contracts by
law? This is to rob both of their volition, and subject each,
as if a minor or an imbecile, to the guardianship of govern
ment. For so vast a power, the right to regulate commerce
is a false pretext, subversive of republican government and
destructive of the rights and interests of both labor and
capital. POLICY OF CONTROLLING RAILROADS.
My fellow-citizens, laying aside all constitutional questions
and all invasion of republican institutions, the impolicy of
the Republican scheme is so apparent as to need little argu
ment. How could it be practically carried out? Could gov
ernment determine how much profit railroad capital ought to
yield? Must it all yield equal profit? If not, how is it to
ascertain which is entitled to yield most? Who shall decide
whether fair returns are awarded capital, and what fair
returns are? And as to wages, how shall they be fixed? By
a Board of Government Control, or by an unbending statute?
And who shall decide whether a man shall be a brakeman or
a conductor? A brakeman of experience is worth more than
a green hand. A strong one fitted for one car, and a weak
one for another. One conductor may do well for a freight
train, and another for a passenger train. Who are to fix all
these things, government officials or railroad officials ? Surely,
whether wages are fair will depend on the man employed and
the kind of work he has to do, and whoever controls his
wages must control these things too, and nobody can see that

444 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
"fair wages to employes" are paid, or determine what they
are, who does not take into the account all the condi-,
tions of the employment And so "the aggrandizement of
officials at the expense of stockholders, shippers and employes"
can only be ascertained and dealt with by some authority
which takes full control of all the books, accounts, property,
and management of railroads. And this seems to be con
templated by the platform, and is foreshadowed in its third
item providing for statutory control under the delusive name
of "statutory arbitration." Thus the working arrangements
of the whole vast system of 70,000 or 80,000 miles of rail
way, with all the manifold complications of their business,
are to be taken out of the hands of railroad officials and
placed in the hands of Federal officials. A huge "bureau,"
with an army of a hundred thousand treasury eating retain
ers, would swarm around every workshop and depot, until,
like the locusts of Egypt, they would devour every green
thing in the field of railroad enterprise.
WEST, SHELLABARGER, AND MATTHEWS.
Nor, my countrymen, do the expressions of the platform
go beyond the opinions of the Republican leaders. Shella-
barger, in an elaborate speech, ignores the whole Federal
character of our government, and holds up the example of
England as to railroad management as the very embodiment
of wisdom and worthy of all imitation. He claims that the
government should take complete charge of the railroads,
and run them under Federal surveillance, much after the man
ner in which distilleries are supervised.
And so Matthews, in his ratification speech, at Cleveland,
in explicit language proposes that the Federal Government
shall intervene and fix the rate of wages to be paid and re
ceived by means of a Government Board of Control. Under
his system the employer and employe shall no longer meet
face to face and agree upon wages, but this shall be the work

THE BUREAU OF INDUSTRY. 445
of Federal Curators, appointed by a distant bureau in im
maculate Washington. Well might an honest laborer in the
crowd fear they would be bought off; for "capital," not
"labor," would alone have leisure and skill to manipulate
the Bureau of Industry in the far off Capital. No, Senator,
you know not or underestimate the intelligence of the laborer.
He may trust the fixing of his wages to a hard-hearted rail
road king even, whom he can look in the face and denounce
or appeal to, and whom he may quit if he gives no redress.
But when he is slavish enough to submit himself to the fangs
of an irresponsible Bureaucracy made and unmade by politi
cal elections, he is indeed the "born thrall" of capital.
But as in duty bound the candidate for Governor, Judge
West, gives us the ex cathedra interpretation of the platform.
In his Cleveland speech he says:
" I would go further and try the experiment — but I do not know that it
would succeed — I would arrange and fix a minimum of prices for all who
labor in the mines and upon railroads, and' then require that all the net re
ceipts and proceeds of the capital invested, the laborer at the end of the
year should, in addition to his fixed compensation, receive a certain per
cent, of the profits.
"Then, if the profits were insufficient to compensate you as liberally as
you could otherwise desire, bear with you* employers a portion of the loss.
But if their receipts be suflScient to make a division, we would in God's
name let the laborer, who is worthy of his hire, share a portion of the
profits." This is the gospel of Radical communism as delivered to
the faithful by Saint William !
APPEAL TO WORKINGMEN.
And now, fellow-citizens, considering the history of the
past, how strange it is that the Radical party should have the
audacity to make a special bid for the votes of the laboring
masses, and claim to be their special friend ! Has not this
party always been the especial advocate of a strong, central
ized government, ever inimical to the individual rights of the
masses? In the very adoption of the Constitution itself.

446 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
were not the amendments, constituting a popular bill of
rights, the work of the ancient Democracy? When did the
Republicans, or their political ancestors, ever propose an
amendment which did not tend to strengthen the arm of the
Federal Government, and remove local government and per
sonal control further from the people? This contra.st shows
the spirit of the two parties. And so as to laws and policies.
Has not every Republican measure operated to depress the
industrial classes? Who but the Radicals disordered the
currency and made the laborer take a dollar less valuable
than the bondholder's dollar? Who robbed labor of the
silver dollar — time out of mind the poor man's money? And
who now enforces resumption in gold alone? Who fastened
an oppressive tariff, like the Old Man of the Sea, upon the
back of industry, and made the toiling millions pay tribute
to the "myriad fingers of machinery"? Who gave away
the future homes of the people in the Far West to pamper
raflroad speculators? And who, by their oppressive taxes,
extravagant expenditure and ofificial corruptions, by Credit
Mobiliers, Black Fridays and Cabinet peculations, to say
nothing of prostrating the industries of the South by carpet-
hag government, who beggared the industrious laborer and
turned him into a "striker" or a "tramp"?
For nearly twenty years the Republican party has gov
erned the whole country with iron rule, and behold the pros
tration of industry, the pauperism of labor! Workingmen!
Have not the Democrats opposed all these things? Have
they not clamored for the freedom of industry, for the rights
of labor, for the interest of the masses? Whatever can be
done to ameliorate the hard life of the struggling millions,
toiling for bread, they have ever done and are ever ready
to do. Free industry from the exactions that are heaped
on it. Leave the laborer to exact what he can get from
capital by his own contract, and not deliver him, bound hand
and foot, to the tender mercies of ofificial arrogance or cor-

THE BUREAU OF INDUSTRY. 447
ruption. Son of industry, never surrender yourself to a
communistic control which shall bind you to feed and clothe
the thriftless and lazy as well as yourself! Never surrender
control over your own labor to any Government Bureau.
The hour that you do so is the last of industrial prosperity
and freedom. It has ever been the siren song of tyrants
that they would protect those whom they only meant to
destroy. The Radical bid this year for your votes is the delusive
promise of wages from the government. They know the
scheme is impossible of execution and is not meant to be
carried out. When the election is over you will hear no
more of it. It is but the cry of a campaign, like the Catho
lic school question of two years ago. Who ever heard an
other word about it after it had served the purpose of arous
ing popular prejudice and carrying an election? And so it
will be now. After the ides of October the echoes of Radical
sympathy with labor will be heard fading away. It is now
but a pretext to draw the attention of the suffering toiler
from the wrongs they have brought on him, and make him
forget that it is a forced gold resumption of specie payment
that has prostrated industry. That is the payment of debts
in a gold standard contracted in a currency standard, which
they themselves had inflated, that is now enriching the cred
itor and beggaring the debtor. And when it has served its
purpose it will be heard no more. See to it, ye men of toil,
that it subserves not its purpose! Hold your Radical op
pressors to a strict accountability for the wrongs you suffer,
and teach them that you have intelligence enough to know
whence come the burdens under which you groan.

AMERICAN COINAGE AND CURRENCY.
[An essay read before the American Social Science Congress, at Cincin
nati, Ohio, May 22d, 1878.]
The main object of this essay is to show that the volume
of all currency, whether metal or paper, should be made
' 'self -regulating." The problem of specie resumption will not
be discussed. Nor will it be claimed that the system herein
advocated ought to be adopted till the country shall ^e pre
pared for it by resumption, and by such deliberate consider
ation as shafl make it the outgrowth of a matured public
opinion. I.
MEASURE OF VALUE.
1. The paper money systems of the United States, from
the Colonial period till now, have been so illogical and crude
that, when addressing the popular reader, his mind may well
be recalled to the essential nature of money; for the right
understanding of any subject requires the cognition of its
elemental principles. Let us do this, then, before discussing
whether the money volume should be automatic, or how to
make it so. Money is a commodity, and buying and selling,
when analyzed, is but the exchange of equivalent values —
refined barter. Value is the power which one commodity
has to exchange for another. All money, then, essentially
such, must be, like any other commodity, a thing of value.
Labor is the origin of all values, but the law of demand and
supply regulates their power in exchanges. These exchanges
created money as a measure of value and a medium of ex
change. Experience, quite eariy in the progress of com
merce, selected the precious metals, for solid and unanswer
able reasons, as the material of money, and they have since

AMERICAN COINAGE AND CURRENCY. 449
remained the world's money. But, though commerce gave
origin to money, political government properly enough added
to its utility by coinage and other means of verifying its
weight and fineness.
2. The question remains, which of the two precious
metals constitutes the better standard of value, or whether
a better standard than either is found in the correlation of
both. But this is a question not to be settled by statute,
but by the automatic law of commerce. For, as money is
the creature and agent of commerce, its material and its
volume can be justly determined only by the need for its
existence as such creature and agent. And this law of com
merce will either keep both metals in circulation together,
or adopt an alternative standard, as commercial policy may
dictate. For many centuries some countries have used one
of the precious metals, some the other, and some both, as
their standard of value. It will be conceded that the com-
¦mercial value of either metal, measured in the other, will
be proportioned, all other things being equal, to the relative
existing quantities of each in use in the world, as money and
otherwise. So, as between themselves, the purchasing
power of a given weight of each metal is in the inverse
ratio of its quantity, and also in the direct ratio of the de
mand for its use. In direct ratio as it shall be used for
money or other purposes, its value rises, all other things
being equal, and in proportion, under like conditions, as the
uses to which it is applied diminish, in that proportion its
value sinks in exchange for the other precious metal, or for
commodities in general.
3. The quantity in value of each metal, gold and silver,
taking the whole world into account, is not now very differ
ent, and is not likely to be hereafter. The money of the
whole world is the reservoir from which each country draws
its supplies as needed, and a recognition of this principle
must underlie every wise monetary policy. And so, if the

450 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
whole world should demonetize either metal, no other con
trivance taking its place, such demonetization would vastly
increase the purchasing power of the other, and vastly
diminish the commercial value of the demonetized metal.
One-half of the world's money being gone, the general
prices of all commodities, measured in money, would greatly
decline; and the change would so unsettle the relations be
tween capital and labor, and so enhance the value of all out
standing obHgations, that wide-spread disaster would ensue
to every form of business, and even ruin to those deeply
indebted. And why should government be clothed with so
tremendous a power over the life's blood of all commerce
and labor?
Of course, if there were no outstanding obligations and no
existing prices, and the volume of money was now to be
fixed for the first time, these results would not follow, for the
volume would not be material except as to the question of
convenience, since in that case one-half the present volume
would buy as much as the whole does now. But present
business and labor relations having grown out of the general
use, for many ages, of both metals as money, the question
of the demonetization of either metal is one of practical
application, and not barely of theoretical reasoning.
Without entering the lists in the "Battle of the Stand
ards," it may be safely said that a closer and longer con
tinued study of the facts will most likely be required to settle
in the mind of the world which is right on general principles.
And so long as one country adopts gold, and another silver,
and some both, the general prices of commodities in the
commercial world will be adjusted to the general volume of
both metals used as money. At the same time the relative
value of each, when coined, measured by the other, will be
adjusted in the commercial world to the commercial relation
between them, except so far as coinage adds to their utflity.
The general commercial relation between gold and silver

AMERICAN COINAGE AND CURRENCY. 451
having, during this century, ranged between fifteen and
sixteen of silvef for one of gold, and the present and pros
pective production of each indicating no very material
change, a coin relation so near that standard as to secure the
circulation of both metals is a desideratum of the double
standard, proper, in any country. Could the whole commer
cial world be brought to adopt the same standard of relation
between the precious metals, and to fix it anywhere between
fifteen and sixteen to one, it is confidently believed that their
universal need for use as money would keep tnem everywhere
at par with each other, and enough of each in proportion
to their convenience, in circulation as currency in every
country, together with the paper based on them, to meet all
the currency wants of business and commerce.
Such a cosmopolitan regulation of coinage and currency,
however desirable, is likely to be long delayed. Still, the
suggestion is ventured that it wifl ultimately come, if not in
this age, in some future one. But until it does come, no
statute regulation can control the commercial law of demand
and supply, and secure for either metal a preference not
given to it by that law. II.
MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE.
1. We come now to consider the second use of money —
its function as a medium of exchange. At first, metal money
subserved all the purposes of such a medium. And even
yet for many of such purposes, especially in small transac
tions, it serves almost perfectly well. But when commerce
became wide-spread, money had to be transmitted, and its
transmission was difficult and dangerous. Supplemental con
trivances were invented to render its transmission unneces
sary. And thus bills of exchange, certificates of deposit, and
letters of credit came to take the place of traveling strong
boxes and armed guards, and have greatly reduced the re
quired volume of metal money. From these ingenious and

452 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
useful representatives of money has grown that mighty sys
tem of exchanges, checks and clearing-houses, now prevalent
in Europe and America, whereby France paid Germany a
war fine of eleven hundred miflions without carting buflion,
and London or New York transfers, by clearings, thirty
thousand millions a year without knocking the dust off a
single gold piece. We can not wisely consider a circulating
medium without bearing in mind these powerful agencies of
exchange. But, in addition to all these, commerce found it useful,
even in the smaller transactions of interior trade and daily
business, to substitute paper representative money for coin ;
though it must be confessed that the history of such money
has shown it liable to become the source of many abuses
and evils.
2. The inquiry arises at the threshold of the subject, on
what authority shall this paper circulation be issued? Pre
liminary to this inquiry, let it be remembered that it need
have no relation to mere banking. A banker is a dealer in
whatever is currency, commercial or legal. The creation of
money, actual or representative, or the issuance of currency,
no more belongs to the business of banking, properly con
sidered, than the gathering of the tea he imports belongs to
the business of the tea merchant, or the writing of books
pertains to bookselling. Money is the tool by which the
banker does his work, and he ought to use whatever is fur
nished him. If he does more it is but an incident, not a
necessary part of his business.
We have seen that commerce originated money, and gov
ernment legalized the selection. By parity, of reasoning, it
might be thought that commerce should be left free to origin
ate and organize into a system that representative money
which experience has proven to be necessary. As a specu
lative proposition, it seems plausible that commerce should
be left free to select its own agencies, and if the question

AMERICAN COINAGE AND CURRENCY. 453
were an original one, many arguments could be offered, hard
to be answered. But the same reasoning which justifies the
coinage of money by government to increase its utility, by
increasing the ease and rapidity of its use, would seem to
suggest that paper representative money should come under
the same supervising hand.
With a staid, cautious, economical people like the Scotch,
such free and unregulated issues may not be inadmissible.
But in a country like ours, if the issuance of such a cur
rency were left free to all, myriads of bills of all forms and
colors, denominations and vignettes, and with all conceivable
differences in the solvency of issuers, would produce "con
fusion worse confounded." The wideness of our territory,
the unsettled habits of our people, and the reckless spirit of
speculation prevalent everywhere, will render such a system,
for ages to come at least, chimerical, if not ruinous. It is,
besides, against the traditions, and habits of thought of the
American people, and so sure not to be adopted, as to merit
no further notice. The Government has heretofore taken
supervision, in some form, of the issuance of paper cur
rency, and will be quite sure to do so in the future.
3. Shall this supervision be by each State, or by the
Nation? Both governments have heretofore claimed and
exercised authority on this subject. The States, at one time
or another, have established hundreds of banks of issue. No
worse system, perhaps, ever existed. There was no uni
formity in anything pertaining to it. The bill-holders were
generally, if not always, ill secured, and often not secured at
all. Every conceivable fluctuation in the discount of these
bills obtained, for they were seldom at par, and numerous
spurious notes made a counterfeit detector indispensable on
every business counter. Suspensions of specie payments
were frequent and disastrous. The best of these bills were
received at different discounts in every distant city. In the
worst stages of our irredeemable paper, during and since the

32

454 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
war, the inconvenience was far less, for the discount was
practically the same all over the Union. The State bank
system of issues, therefore, it may be safely affirmed, wfll
never be renewed, and paper issues will be hereafter made
by the authority of the Federal Government alone.
III.
SELFtREGULATING VOLUME.
1. We have seen that money ought to be at the same time
the truest attainable measure of value, and the best attain
able instrument of exchange. Money having originated in
the necessities of commerce, its true volume can be fixed
only by the same creative agency. For if the volume be
controlled by causes extraneous to its origin, its natural value
relation to other commodities is artificiafly disturbed. Its
action on all trade and commerce becomes unhealthy, and in
consequence all the ramifications of business are diseased,
and the relations of labor and capital become hurtful to in
dustry, the sole producer of wealth. To make money, there
fore, the truest standard of value and the best instrument of
exchange, its volume must be automatic. The volume of a
currency can only be made self-regulating by conforming the
law of its issue to the law of its nature and the conditions sur
rounding its circulation. The two chief purposes of money
being to measure values and effect exchanges, its volume
ought to conform to these requirements as the head and
heart of the whole currency system. The best measure of
value is metal, the best medium of exchange is paper, and
so the volume of currency ought to be composed of both,
and the quantity of each should be self-regulating.
The relation, then, between these two necessary elements
of a commercial currency should be fixed by the law of the
nature of each, and the function each has to perform. The
precious metals being the measure of value, the variation in
the volume of metal money ought to be determined like the

AMERICAN COINAGE AND CURRENCY. 455
quantity of wheat or iron in the market, by the law of sup
ply and demand, and not by statute.
2. The constitution reserves to the Federal Government
alone the right to "coin money and fix the value thereof."
That is, to fix the coinage relation between gold and silver,
but of course not to fix the commercial value of either. This
makes it the function of Congress to provide for the coinage
without limitation of gold and silver — the money referred to
in the constitution — at a fixed standard of relation between
them, and then to permit them to circulate as money, or be
exported or melted, as the "wants of trade" may determine.
Congress has no constitutional right to demonetize either
metal, or by law fix the volume of the circulation of either.
The coinage of both metals is also the dictate of interest and
wisdom. We are larger producers of both these metals than
any other country, and it is our destiny and our duty to cul
tivate the widest commercial relations, with Asia and South
America as well as Europe, and we should therefore not pro
scribe the money 'of any of the countries of the com
mercial world with which we seek to deal. And besides,
" the doflar of the fathers " coined from silver was from the
first our monetary unit of value, and the legal measure of
money obligations, both public and private. This does not
require us to settle the merits of the double or the single
standard, for if no such adjustment can be made as will pre
vent the operation of Gresham's law, the failure will not
materially affect the volume of our metal money, for in that
case our system of dual coinage would give us practically an
alternadve standard, either metal circuladng, as it might be
for the time being the more demanded at home, and the less
valuable in commerce abroad. And of this let commerce
judge for itself
No possible material for money, can be entirely free from
fluctuations in value, and, as Professor Jevons has assumed,
the legal right of both gold and silver to circulate as equal

456 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
legal money would make a more invariable standard than
a measure of value composed of either.
3. Besides this, if it be true that the volume of currency
ought to be self-regulating, no system can accomplish this
but the legal right of unlimited coinage, for both gold and
silver, and then the freedom of commerce to circulate or
export either, as its interests may demand. If the principles
already stated are true, commerce, not government, should
fix the volume of currency. Not only should money be of
the material of steadiest value attainable, but its volume
ought to be automatic, not fixed arbitrarily, or by the interests
or opinions of any single class, or any number of classes,
of either capital or labor, but by the general needs, not only
of a particular country, but of the general commercial world.
Money, like breadstuffs or clothing, farm lands or ships, or
fixed or active capital, or labor, skilled or unskifled, should
come into existence or go out of existence as the general
needs of mankind may require, regulated or determined in
amount or in material by no law but that automatic law which
governs the movements of commerce and the many fingered
machinery of industry. How can this be secured except by
the government opening its mints to the unrestricted coinage
of money, whether of gold or silver, and then leaving the
coin to settle in the country or emigrate, as freely as its
owner may?
4. Paper representative money, in order to be 'safe and
useful as a medium of exchange, must be also a representative
standard of value. As it does not and can not in its nature
consist of actual value, its representative value must be con
vertible into an actual value on demand, or, in so far as it
fails, its value is fictitious, or at best discounted. It does not
and will not exchange for an actual value beyond what it will
command on presentation for redemption, whether immediate
or prospective. To the extent that its prospective value is an
element, it is credit money, and subject to all the fluctuations

AMERICAN COINAGE AND CURRENCY. 457
of other credit. If certain- to be convertible on demand, it
becomes practically representative value money and not credit
money, and constitutes perhaps in general business the best
medium of exchange known to monetary science. But its
convertibility must be free from doubt, practically certain;
for whatever element of doubt exists will make its value
fluctuating in spite of all statutes, and as a consequence to
that extent impair its usefulness as a medium of exchange,
the purposes of its creation.
This immediate and certain convertibility can only be guar
anteed by such a security for the issue and such a method of
making it as insures with as much certainty as anything
human can be insured, that its volume, like that of metallic
money, shall be self-regulating. No scheme for paper issue,
not based on this fundamental principle, has ever been able
to keep its paper issue at par with standard coin, at all times
and under all circumstances. IV.
MACHINERY OF PAPER ISSUE.
1. This brings us to the final question. What is the
proper machinery ior the issue by the Federal Government of
paper representative money? Shall such paper issues be
made by the Government directly, or made indirectly by
some agency created by Federal authority? This is the
largest monetary question in America.
Repeatedly since the organization of the Federal Govern
ment banks of issue have been organized under its authority.
The constitutionality of such legislation has always been
doubted by many, and often denied by able jurists. The
power, when questioned in the courts, has been sustained
only on the ground that such banks were fiscal agents of
the Government, and reasoning so feeble has satisfied such
only as wished to believe.
The Federal Government has on principle no more author-

458 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
ity to create or regulate banks of issue, or banks of any
kind, than it has to set up a woolen factory or an iron
foundry, to supply the people with cloth or castings. It
must be conceded, however, that of all the Federal banks
yet authorized, the present national banking system has the
most merit and the fewest faults. If any Federal system is
to exist, the present one, with some modifications relieving
it from every feature of monopoly, is perhaps as good as any
that could be adopted.
2. But, aside from all constitutional objections, it is diffi
cult to see why the national bank system should be tolerated
at all. In practical effect national bank bills are treasury
notes, issued from the treasury, and redeemed at and by the
treasury. The whole system is a clumsy machinery to do
indirectly what can be better done directly, and ought to be
abolished and its issues gradually retired. If the United
States Government is to issue notes to circulate as currency,
why is it necessary or desirable to employ the intervening
cog-wheels of two thousand banks? They are only govern
ment agencies circulating for their own profit currency issued
to them by the government, and guaranteed to the bill-
holder by the Federal treasury, to which alone he looks for
ultimate redemption.
As the Federal Government alone coins money, it would
seem to be a logical sequence that the same power alone
should issue such paper representative money as is intended
to take the place of coin in the currency of the country.
The same power which coins the one it would seem ought to
stamp the other. And as the one is issued by the govern
ment directly, why should not the other be? Each is to
have the function of money — the one as a measure of value,
the other as a medium of exchange.
And as commerce was the original creator of both, the
right of the government to coin money for the greater se
curity and convenience of its circulation is no higher than its

AMERICAN COINAGE AND CURRENCY. 459
right to stamp and secure the paper issue based on it and
designed to take its place as a more convenient medium of
exchange. Every reason, too, which demands an automatic
volume for the one equally requires it for the other. And
so the means which secure an automatic volume to the one
will equally secure it to the other.
3. The first and simplest method of securing the issue
of a paper currency to circulate at all times at par with
standard coin, and to be constantly convertible into it, and
self-regulating in volume, is to issue the paper currency
against an actual deposit of coin and bullion for every dollar
of the paper issue. This plan has been practically successful
for many years of peace and war in the admirable bank of
Hamburgh, and, with a modification, by Peel's re-charter
of the Bank of England. This system has been already
adopted also, to some extent, by the treasury of the United
States, through the issue of coin certificates. Let it be
extended to all coin and bullion offered for deposit, and thus,
by a slight change of existing statutes, can be secured a coin
paper currency possessing the merit of a value circulating
medium. 4. But the question still recurs, can not some form of
value security and redemption be devised for government
issues not requiring the actual presence, dollar for dollar, of
coin or bullion in the vaults of the treasury? Can not these
coin certificates be safely and successfully supplemented by a
government issue not based on such deposits, but still in
practical effect a value currency, and conforming to all the
monetary laws already defined ? This question is too large
for full discussion on this occasion, or by the present writer.
But its importance forbids its entire omission. It is one of
the very elements of the plan now suggested. The ablest
writers in England have long debated the principle involved
in this question, and the weight of authority, as well as rea
son, is that such a currency is not only possible and safe, but

460 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
dictated by the highest financial wisdom. And the question
can not be blinked in this country. The great paper cur
rency battle is, and will be for some time in the future, be
tween the government issue, as it will be after the resumption
of specie payments, and the National bank note. Which
shall supplement the coin certificate in the paper currency of
the country? Already the Secretary of the Treasury has
construed the resumption act as not requiring the cancella
tion of more greenbacks than shall reduce the volume to
three hundred millions, and as permitting, even after resump
tion, the re-issue as currency of the outstanding greenbacks.
If this construction is sustained by the country, then, unless
there be some additional legislation, the greenback remains,
for the time at least, a component part of our paper currency.
That the Federal Government has the constitutional power
to issue United States notes has never been doubted, for they
are only a form of debt. But in the issuance of "legal
tenders " we are met in the outset with grave difficulties.
The Federal Government has no power to make even gold
and silver a legal tender, except to itself Much less has it
the right to make its paper issues a legal tender as between
individuals. It can make them a legal tender to itself, and
this was always done before the greenback issue; and never
till the greenback issue were they made legal tender to any
one else. When the constitution was adopted, the word
money meant gold and silver. The consdtution did not
make them money. They were so by the common law. The
constitution gave Congress the power "to coin " this money,
and forbade the States to make anything else a legal tender.
Gold and silver being "lawful money," the courts held that
an obligation, however imposed, to pay money, was met by
the tender of such "lawful money." The legal tender qual
ity, therefore, of the then existing money, gold and silver,
was older than the constitution, and was neither derived from
it nor taken away by its adoption.

AMERICAN COINAGE AND CURRENCY. 461
5. There are three main elements of a safe government
issue: First. Its volume must be fixed as inflexibly "as the
laws of the Medes and Persians, which change not," at an
amount near the sum of money required to be paid the gov
ernment annually for all Federal taxes, and the issue must be
made receivable for all such taxes, at the pleasure of the
holder. It must be, besides, only a part of the whole circu
lating medium needed by business. Second. There must be
kept constantly on deposit in the treasury at least one-third
of the amount of the issue, as a redemption fund, and for
ever inapplicable to any other purpose; and all issues must
be constantly convertible into coin, when presented, at the
will of the holder. Third. There must not be paid out a
single dollar of any such issue received into the treasury, un
less it be, at the time of such payment, at par, at least, with
the highest-priced coin of the United States in the money
market of the country. The subsidiary coin of France, by
being thus received for public dues, and paid out only at
par, is kept automatic in volume, and always at par with full
coin. Give to this government issue the quality of full legal
tender to the government, and take from it the quality of
legal tender as between individuals, and it is not only consti
tutional, but the safest and best — because the best secured
and cheapest — paper circulating medium ever devised by the
wit of man.
6. The plan proposed, while conforming to the genius of
our government, would be similar in principle to the issue
department of the Bank of England. It would be superior
to it, because in nowise connected with a banking department
proper. Though the issue departnient of the Bank of England
cannot become insolvent, on the principle of that institution,
unless the government does, the banking department, through
the mutations of commerce, might, and thus throw discredit
on Bank of England notes. But the treasury of the United
States, under the system proposed, would have no connection

462 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
at all with loans, discounts or exchanges — the proper business
of banking.
7. If it be objected that this system of government issue
fixes the paper currency infiexibly, and takes from its volume
that elasticity which commerce requires in the circulating
medium, let it be answered, so does Peel's Act limit the
Bank of England issues on consols ; and yet the issues against
bullion are as flexible as the wants of commerce, and make the
whole currency of England completely automatic in volume.
Torrens, in his able essay on Peel's Act, justly says: "Under
the existing law, the reflux and efflux of treasure has been auto
matic, obeying the natural law of equilibrium ; and all forced
and artificial elevations and depressions, above and below the
level common to the com.mercial world, have been obviated."
And so the plan now suggested for this country, while con
forming to the principles and organization of our government,
would give, we have dared to hope, a system of American
currency, composed of coin and paper, constantly at par with
each other and thoroughly automatic in volume. It would
be a currency always equal to the needs of commerce, and
its volume regulated by them, and not by the ignorance or
caprice of rulers, and would be at the same time the best
practical standard of value, and the most convenient medium
of exchange.
8. If, again, it be objected that a government issue will
be subject to the partisan or ill-advised legislation of Con
gress, and that the limit of issue is likely to be broken over,
let it be answered that since the war such limit has not been
broken over. But if it had, why is the danger of over-issue
greater under the government-issue system than under the
National bank issue system? Both at last rest on the will
of the government. The bank bifls are now secured by what
is deemed to be adequate security in bonds. But is there
not as much probability that Congess, importuned by an
affiliated brotherhood of bankers, ramifying into every Con-

AMERICAN COINAGE AND CURRENCY. 463
gressional District, and some of them members on the floor,
may reduce the required deposit of bonds, as that Congress
would reduce the security required for direct government
issues? For the reduction of bank security, hundreds of
miflions of capital and many thousand individual interests
might clamor, while in the other case no private capital and
no individual interest at all would be enlisted. The only
effective check there can be on the abuse of either method
of issue is the fixed idea, resting on an enflghtened public
opinion, that the government issue, or the bank issue,
must be unmistakably and constantly "interconvertible with
coin."

THE NATIONAL DEMOCRACY.
[Response to a toast at the Sth of January banquet, 1879, at Columbus, O. ]
Mr. President and Gentlemen :
The National Democracy is one of the institutions of the
Republic. Cradled in the Revolution, it attained to full
stature with the Presidency of Jefferson. For sixty years,
with brief intervals, it held the reins of power with masterly
hand. It conquered in two wars, and by its diplomacy and
prowess it added Louisiana, Florida and California to the
National domain. Like the God Terminus of old, it was
ever bearing the boundaries of the Republic outward, till the
Union grew from a little fringe of Atlantic States into a vast
empire girded by the oceans, the lakes and the gulf Its
sagacious policy protected and fostered alike every right,
every interest, every section. It made the land to teem with
wealth and population, and the sails of our commerce to
whiten every sea. By its economic administration it paid off
the debts of the British war, and still left the Treasury so full
that its bursting coffers had to be emptied into the lap of the
States. But the natural Democracy was not confined to the material
interests of the country. Its laws and ideas omitted policies
and names. The tone it infused into American life blotted
from the statute books primogeniture, entails, religious tests
and cumbrous law forms. Its hardy simplicity banished
aristocratic modes of dress and courtly pomp from the fashions
of the people. It breathed into the masses that genuine repub
lican soul which has since inspired the institutions of public
and social life, and even of the household, and which has

THE NATIONAL DEMOCRACY. 465
given the masses that freedom and self-reliance and self-
respect which make the American people the strongest pop
ulation on the face of the earth.
Then came sectional dissension, and the grand old De
mocracy was rent asunder. Between the discordant wings of
the mighty host the Republicans worked into power. Always
a minority of the American voters, they conquered by our
divisions, and have ruled ever since by trampling down the
constitution, coercing States and crushing the people. It
may be that in working out the problem of our national life,
the storm of secession was a necessity, and though a tem
porary evil, a permanent good, since it cleared the political
atmosphere of the miasmatic power of slavary. And it may
be, too, that this could only have come through the Repub
licans, whose mission it was to destroy that institution.
But all this has passed from the arena of politics. It
has gone for final trial and judgment to the ordeal of the
future. The mission of the Republican party, for better
or worse, is ended, and it ought no longer to encumber
the ground.
The national Democracy had deprecated sectional strife
and shrunk with sickening heart from fraternal bloodshed .
But when the supreme hour came, and force alone could
preserve our beloved Union, they sent their full share of
defenders to the front. Still, even in the darkest midnight
of that gloomy struggle they did not forget the ancient love
of their fathers, and still longed for fraternal reconciliation
under a restored Union of co-equal States. And when the
war ended they were the first to recognize that it was not
barely a lawless riot, but a great revolution, and the first to
annoint with healing balm the wounds of the past.
Republican policy was revolution, and the agencies of
revolution are temporary, like the hurricanes that accom
pany it. Every revolution brings reaction, and the re
sult of no revolution can be registered as final untfl this

466 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
actual reaction has come, and has not undone its work. Tifl
the Republican party quits power, who can tell whether it
wfll not seek to push the revolution further ? And until the
Democracy has full power, who can know whether it will not
seek to turn back the revolution? The Nation yearns for
peace, and no permanent peace can come to the country till
these doubts are removed. When the pendulum of yonder
clock swings to the left, it is not till it has swayed back to
the right that the tick is heard and the lapse of time regis
tered. So with revolutions. Their work does not stand
recorded till it is undone by the rebound. Democratic
success is the rebound. Let Democratic supremacy be
peace. The first mission of the National Democracy is to expel
from the Capital rotten and usurping Republicanism and ex
tend over the whole land that broad spirit of Democracy
which rules by no sectional lines, and thrives on no race
prejudices. Men of America, be not deceived. No "Solid
North " and no "Solid South" must exist, either in the poli
cies of the country or the hearts of the people. They mean
oppression and misrule, estrangement and convulsion. Mason
and Dixon's line must be rubbed out of the political map,
and the color line must disappear from party politics. Sec
tions are unconstitutional. Sections are unpatriotic. Sections
'are myths of the past. The Nation and the States co-exist.
In the present and future the people are one in the Nation —
one in the State — and the just balance between the Nation
and the States must be recognized.
But even all this is not the whole mission of our party.
Power is ever stealing from the many to the few — going over
to capital at the expense of labor. The noble mission of the
National Democracy is, therefore, while it holds the constitu
tional balance between the Nation and the States, to main
tain the sovereignty of the people over all forms of mere
institution. The freedom, equality, individuality, domestic

THE NATIONAL DEMOCRACY. 467
safety and social progress of the citizen in all his relations to
Government, to industry and life, are the great aims of wise
politics. Imbued with these ideas the National Democracy
erects no Bastiles to imprison free speech, arrests no citizens
without writ, and by telegraph for criticisms of its policy
breaks down no constitutional guarantees for mere party
ends, provides no monopolies to fatten the rich and make
lean the poor. It feels that with the numerous and diverse
races and nationalities seeking protection under our flag,
each individual must be left free to find his own level ac
cording to the laws of nature and social development, and
not have his place defined and enforced by the edict of
Government. Still, the Democracy is ever watchful of the people's rights '
and the people's wants. Whenever the Constitution and the
Union under it need defense, whenever personal rights need
an advocate, whenever liberal ideas need a friend, whenever
the oppressed seek refuge from oppression, whenever free
thought and free speech are struggling for utterance, when
ever honest labor seeks bread for its toil, then it is the mis
sion of the National Democracy to be as the shield of pro
tection to the right and the sword of destruction to the
wrong. Our old creed of constitutional rights, and Democratic
principles haflowed by past victories, and tested by exper
ience through two generations of national progress and pop
ular weal, have become fixed elements of our politics. Ideas
grow. All true progress is grafted on past experience. Let
us, then, be driven about by the winds of no new doctrine.
Tolerate all minor differences; heal all dissensions. My
fellow Democrats, North and South, close up the sundered
columns of that mighty old host, and grind to powder all
opposition. Reorganize the shattered battalions. Dress up
the disordered Hnes and march shoulder to shoulder, in solid
phalanx, to assured victory and new generations of public

468 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
prosperity. Already the battle is almost won. We have
both Houses of Congress! Move the serried cohorts on till
we have scaled the last battlement and borne our chieftian in
triumph to the citidel of supreme power.

DEMOCRACY AS A SOCIAL FORCE.
[ A lecture read before the Normal School, at Lebanon Ohio, July 24, 1879.]
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Democratic Club :
The subject of this lecture is "Democracy as a Social
Force." And while the subject wfll be treated somewhat
out of the beaten track of political discourse, there will be
no aim to give you a philosophical essay, but only a popular
lecture. To invest the subject with its proper significance
we must constantly bear in mind that we are discussing it
from no narrow standpoint of party caucus, but from its
broad relations to human life.
The family is the molecular unit of society. The formation
of the family was the first step in the grand drama of
humanity; and from the family has sprung afl the ramifica
tions of human progress. Families grew into society and
society is the chief factor in all human institutions.
In the earHer stages of historical writing it was not, in gen
eral, deemed worthy the historic pen to transmit much to
posterity that related to mere society. The wars of kings,
the conquests of nations, and the cabals of princes, were
thought to be the main objects of human interest. And so
our knowledge of ancient society is quite limited. True the
books of the Bible give us graphic accounts of the religious
rites, the social ideas, the manners, habits and industries of
the Jewish people.
The every day life of no people of antiquity has come
down to us with such minuteness of detail as the isolated
Israelite. It is true, too, that Herodotus, and Casser, and
Tacitus and gossiping old Plutarch, and the poets, dramatists
and letter writers of Greece and Rome give us glimpses of

33

470 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
the social and domestic life of their own and foreign coun
tries. But still the social forces that were constantly mould
ing and organizing the industries, sentiments, and ideas of
the people, were little recognized or considered. And in
deed this has continued to be the case until quite recent
times. The rise of the Methodist Church was deemed un
worthy of notice by the English historian of that period,
though it is now a powerful religious force, and numbers mil
lions of members. Not even the immortal philosophy of
Bacon gained as full a page in the contemporary annals
of England as the fall of Raleigh.
It must not be thought, however, that society was idle.
Political government, its bare incident, presented to the com
mon imagination so glittering a picture of regal pomp and
omnipotent external power that few thought of the silent
workings of the masses beneath. To the superficial courts
and courtiers, mitred priests and bonnetted chieftains were
the Nation. But, under all these tinsel ornaments of society,
the ever developing people were slowly rising into import
ance, and preparing that great revolution in every depart
ment of life which has given the world the nineteenth cen
tury. . For a few generations past the thoughtful have come
to study society in all its phases. Instead of regarding gov
ernment as the master of society, they have learned that even
in the darkest ages it was but an outgrowth of that mightier
power which sometimes lay slumbering under it, and some
times burst its chains asunder. And they have been led,
therefore, to study and formulate the controlling forces which
are ever operating to develop the life, or restrain the growth
of the constituent masses of society. German thought has
perhaps done more than any other in this rich field of in
quiry. But Germany has not been alone. Critical histories
of the church, of science, philosophy, invention, government,
and civilization itself, abound in all the progressive nations.
Men have been taught that useful and important as govern-

DEMOCRACY AS A SOCIAL FORCE. 471
ment is, it is but the police arm of society, and bas little
useful function except to keep the peace. The pulpit, the
school room, the teeming volumes of the press, the manifold
avenues of industry, the social and domestic circle — -these
are the ruling forces in modern civilization, and the motive
power of modern progress.
These great agencies are not now to be discussed. The
ideas of society are its controlling forces. But these open
too wide a field for this lecture. A. single idea connected
with that incident of society — political government — has been
selected. Among all these social forces Democracy alone
has been taken, and this discourse will briefly essay to show
what influence it has had, and is still having, on the develop
ment and well-being of the people. Government always
comes organized for battle, and armed with the purse and
the sword. Men respect and fear whatever has the power to
protect or hurt, and the weak always seek alliance with the
strong. Before society, therefore, became strong and con
scious of its own strength, it sought to place all its rights
and interests in the guardian hands of government. The
growing church and the feeble peasant each sought protec
tion in its arms. The alliance between the church and the
Government was practically omnipotent, and for a time the
ruling force in society and in all its institutions. Still, in the
middle ages, all over Northern Europe especially, a secret
love of liberty, a strong sense of individual right, and indi-'
vidual equality, were more or less cherished, though little
seen on the surface. Democracy, the instinct of the people,
was alive, but imprisoned in the people's hearts. The gen
eral influence of both church and State tended to repress, not
encourage, this Democratic spirit. But some at least of the
ideas, both of the church and of the State, tyrannical as they
both often were in those dark ages, fostered the popular
impulse of liberty.
There was one element in the Catholic Church, and one

472 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
element in the English aristocracy, which operated strongly
to keep alive this Democratic sentiment. At first thought
this statement may seem to be a paradox, but it is not. The
Catholic Church in the strength of its power, tyrant though
it often was, was, nevertheless, in many respects, the asylum
of the oppressed. It sometimes made a haughty emperor, or
a brigand baron, kneel, bare-headed, at the feet of the Pope;
but it also opened wide the doors of its monasteries arid its
nunneries to the humblest fugitives from the wrath of blood
thirsty kings, or the lust of unscrupulous lords. Nay,
although the mailed hand sometimes held the keys of St.
Peter, even the lowest born thrall was eligible to the Papal
See, and every church was a sanctuary for the victims of
lawless power.
The nobility of England, whatever faults it may have in
other respects, has always been a Democratic aristocracy.
Even a yeoman might become a lord, and even the son of a
lord might fall into the ranks of the commons. Only the
eldest son took the title, and the younger sons often inter
married with those beneath them in legal rank. The blood
of the people was thus being poured into the veins of the
nobles, and the blood of the nobles was being poured into
the veins of the people. And so the feeling of clanship in
Scotland and other parts of Northern Europe, and the right
of trial by jury, fostered a fraternal feeling between the chiefs
and their dependents, and a sense of individual rights in the
humblest. But, judicial fairness compels us to add that, in
those ages, neither Church nor State is entitled to much
credit for liberal influence on the people.
ORIGIN OF DEMOCRACY.
It is proper, then, to inquire what it was that gave to
modern society its powerful Democratic impulse, before we
consider what effect on society that impulse has produced
and is now producing.

DEMOCRACY AS A SOCIAL FORCE. 473
Whatever the cause may have been, it is an undoubted
fact that in the earliest times the sense of freedom and in
dividuality, and the sanctity of the marriage vow pervaded
the Teutonic races to an extent unknown elsewhere. In the
woods of Northern Europe rude barbarians lived in a prac
tical Democracy. Their kings and chieftains were chosen by
themselves, their laws and usages were their own creation,
and a single wife was all the ideas of the people tolerated,
or the hardy warrior could afford to shelter and defend.
Nowhere else in the world's history was the independence of
the people, and the strength of the family tie such govern
ing ideas as among the ancient Germanic nations. Not only
did they choose their own leaders in peace and war, but their
wives were their comrades in every relation of life, and even
accompanied them to the field of battle, inflaming their zeal,
praising their valor and dressing their wounds. The women
themselves rushed into the fight if their husbands and brothers
were overcome, and died by their own hands rather than
become captive slaves. In a rude age such women were fit
mothers for heroes and Democrats. Tacitus, in his "Man
ners of the Germans," says of them: "There is, in their
opinion, something sacred in the female sex." We thus see
that in these ancient tribes were found the widest and deepest
elements of a strong society ; individual strength in the units
of the family; individual strength in the family, the elemental
unit of society.
Civilization came to these hardy races principally through
three sources : The spontaneous evolution of their own char
acter, contact with Roman civilization, and the introduction
of Christianity. From the Roman something of the culture
and of the ideas of the classic nations came to Western and
Northern Europe, and though that culture and those ideas
were not devoid of the Democratic spirit, the races to which
they came were so much more Democratic in the spirit of
their half-barbarous institutions that, in this respect, little or

474 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
nothing was gained from classical antiquity. Whatever they
may have gained from the civil law, and the philosophy and
literature of those old people, the Democratic spirit received
no appreciable new impulse. CHRISTIANITY.
It was different with Christianity. That was a system of
religion and of thought, embodying many of the ideas and
emotions of the oldest civilizations, and when engrafted on
the hardy character of the rude races that have since grown
into the modern nations of Europe and America, it added
another and vigorous element to the intellectual, social and
moral life of the people. Jesus of Nazareth and his Apos
tles and the primitive church did not so much create the new
Gospel of Faith as amplify and popularize the deep phil
osophy of the Hebrew religion. The idea of the unity of
God, the institution of a religion founded upon moral obliga
tion, and inculcating social and domestic duties, and fixing a
responsible relation between the Almighty and the humblest
soul, were the priceless legacy of the Jew to mankind. A
thousand years before the Sermon on the Mount, the sub
limest utterance in the annals of time, the Levitical law had
said: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," and ages
before "The Beloved Disciple" had enjoined protection and
charity to the widow and the fatherless, the old prophets
had taught benignant tenderness and mercy. This great
Hebrew conception of the Fatherhood of God and the
Brotherhood of Man, brought home to the heart by the
Savior, came upon the Middle Ages of Europe as a new
revelation, and added the crowning element to the principles
of social progress. It ennobled the human race into the
equal children of the Most High and co-heirs of eternal life.
It lifted Democracy from earth to Heaven.
GERMAN EVOLUTION.
But it was to the evolution of the internal character of

DEMOCRACY AS A SOCIAL FORCE. 475
these sturdy barbarians, more than to Classical or even
Hebrew thought, that the Democratic sentiment of modern
times is due. Classical learning was soon deformed by the
verbal jargon of schoolmen, and the spirit of Christianity
was soon buried under the formalism of the Church. Govern
mental tyranny crushed out popular liberty, and the feuds of
contending chieftains played the people as pawns upon the
chess-board of their petty ambitions. But the masses stifl
silently developed on the old basis of conscious individuality
which had made them the proud peers of their leaders in the
warrior life of their ancestors. Though a free press had no
existence, and free thought and free speech no recognition in
law or the canons of the Church, the moral and intellectual
growth of the people could not be repressed by the infalli
bility of popes, or the divine right of kings. The conscious
ness that the right of private judgment is the heritage of
man, awakened religious thought, and the Albigenses and
Woldenses on the continent, and Wycliffe in England, were
the forerunners of the religious Reformation of the sixteenth
century. That mighty event was not spontaneous; it was
the outgrowth of what had preceded. The invasion of the
Moors, the Crusades, the revival of learning, the study of
the civil law, the invention of gunpowder, the compass and
the printing press; the growth of industry and commerce, the
decay of the feudal system, the discovery of America, had
broadened the ideas of society and weakened the hold of
anointed rulers on the minds of the people. Inspired by the
new ideas of the age, Liither, the great apostle of the Refor
mation, defied the thunders of the Vatican and made Infalli
bility tremble on the throne of its power. Half Europe
became Protestant, and the Church only saved itself from
complete overthrow, and maintained itself as a mighty power
since, by correcting most of the abuses which drove the
people of Northern Europe from its fold.
Then came all over Europe those three centuries of convul-

476 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
sion in Church and State which were the stormy youth of
modern Democracy. The assertion in Germany of the right
of free religious thought was soon widened on the English
side of the channel into the assertion of the right of free
political thought. But the hold the doctrine of the divine
rights of kings and priests had upon the thought of the peo
ple was too strong to be ^roken without centuries of intel
lectual and physical war. In every conceivable way which
the acutest sense of danger could devise, the divinely
anointed few sought to trample down the unanointed many
and maintain the vantage ground they had gained in the dark
ages. So little did even the wisest comprehend, as yet, the
great principles of freedom of conscience and of thought,
that one reformer persecuted another, while the old Church
persecuted all alike. The fires of the Inquisition burned
heretics as a merciful relief from severer tortures. Calvin
burned Servetus in the name of the Reformation. Henry
the Eighth and his successors applied pains and penalties,
fire and faggot, to every creed not professed by the ruling
king. John Knox persecuted Episcopalian and Catholic with
equal rigor. French tyranny exterminated or banished the
Huguenots. The Sicilian Vespers and the Massacre of St.
Bartholomew still leave their blood stains on the skirts of the
Church. Everywhere in Church and Kirk and Conventicle,
mercfless intolerance and bloody persecutions marked the
progress of the struggle. Neither party practiced what it
preached. The Church forgot the divine precepts of mercy
which fell gently as the dews of heaven from the lips of
Jesus. The Reformation refused to others the freedom it
claimed for itself Zealots, in the name of the right of pri
vate judgment, assailed each other for the most trivial differ
ences in the least important ceremonies, and invoked the
secular arm to exterminate heresies they could not conquer
by argument.

¦ DEMOCRACY AS A SOCIAL FORCE. 477
POLITICAL WARS.
The Church was in some countries a part of the State and
in others the State was a part of the Church. Religious con
troversy, therefore, led to political controversy; religious
war to political war. The struggles of the people to throw
off the political shackles that bound them were quite as per
sistent and led to quite as much convulsion as their rebellion
against priestly thralldom. England was the leader in this
contest as Germany had been in the previous one. And
England paid back to the continent the debt she owed Ger
many by sending her liberal political ideas across the Chan
nel, though they took feeble root and had stunted growth.
Appropriate brevity forbids the detail of those intense pop
ular conflicts in England, which prepared society for modern
Democracy, but it is a theme lofty as the sanctity of human
rights. The brave spirit of the British commonalty, inher
ited from their German ancestors, and kept alive by many
of the laws and usages of England, was constantly protesting
in some form against the aristocratic tyranny of the govern
ment. The middle classes were the citadel of English lib
erty. The Crown and the Nobility slowly and cautiously yielded
more and more freedom to the people, and so prevented that
terrible revolution which afterwards drenched France in
blood. The link between the nobles and the commons,
already mentioned, gave each some sympathy with the other.
Royalty itself bore closer relations to the people than else
where in Europe. But even all these softening influences
were insufficient to prevent bloody conflict. Charles the
First assumed to rule as a despot; defied the Lords and
Commons; trampled down the Constitution; mocked the
rights of the people. His head rolled on the block! Then
came the Commonwealth, the Restoration, the Revolution
of Eighty-eight. The Revolution of all the epochs of
British history, or indeed of any history, save our own, has

478 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DyRBIN WARD.
the most significance to an American. Here is found the
grandest English assertion of the popular right of self-gov
ernment. It was the crucifixion of the divine right of kings,
without hope of future life. It was the choice of a ruler by
the voice of the people. It was the crowning of a king as
the servant, not the master of his subjects. And it remains
to this day the Magna Charta of the people's supremacy in
England. It was during these convulsions in the social and political
progress of the mother country that the American colonies
were planted. Indeed, the English emigration to America
was largely due to these civil convulsions at home. Our an
cestors sought religious and political freedom in this country
quite as much as their worldly advancement, and in some in
stances even more. They brought with them, as might be
expected, the elements of progress and conservatism as they
existed in England, and the people sought for more enlarged
liberty here, as they had done there. Religious bigotry and
poHtical inequality were planted in the new settlements,
though not with the same vigorous roots they had in the old
country. Indeed, popular rights made a long stride towards
full recognition when high-born and low-born, rich and poor,
had to battle with the privations of a wilderness. The social
force of Democracy was greatly accelerated when the haughty
scion of an old house found it a necessity to court the friend
ship, and even the favor — perhaps finally the family alliance
— of an humble son of toil. No one fact in the whole course
of its history up to that period gave so strong an impetus to
the-idea of equality among men as the early settlement of
this country. The bigotry and intolerance, religious, political
and social, which marked the early history of the Colonies,
were mild compared with what they had been abroad. Still,
the struggle in its milder form went on. The exactions of
the British Crown, light though they were, if weighed by the
standard of what their ancestors had borne with little reluct.

DEMOCRACY AS A SOCIAL FORCE. 479
ance, provoked here inquiry and opposition. The educated
young men of the period studied the political writings of
Milton, Montesquieu and the ancients. They looked deeply
into the origin and the elemental ideas of government, and
when their remonstrances brought no relief from the oppres
sions of the Crown, they proclaimed that immortal Declaration
of Independence, which was the death knell of absolutism
throughout the civiHzed nations. This declaration was a new
era' in the political ideas of the world. The Magna Charta,
the Petition of Right, the Great Rebellion, the Habeas
Corpus Act, the Revolution, and all the other great muni
ments of title to English liberty, had done much to secure
popular rights. But they were all founded on precedent,
and not on the natural rights of the people. They were the
assertion of the prescriptive rights of Englishmen, not dec
larations of the rights of man. For ages, advanced thinkers,
as well as the instinct of the masses, had recognized that
men had rights by nature and were equal before God.
But never before had the lofty dream of the philosopher
and the divine instinct of the people found expression in the
formulas of the statesman. That noble proclamation, by the
founders of a new government in the wilds of America: " We
hold these truths to be self-evident : That all m,en are cr'eated
equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain in
alienable rights ; that ainong these are life, liberty and the pur
suit of happiness, and that to secure these rights governments
are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the
consent of the governed," was the clarion voice of liberty to
an enthralled world ! It was the stern mandate of humanity
to government everywhere, that kings and rulers were made
for the people, and ought to be made by the people. It was
the trump of Gabriel, proclaiming to the doctrine of divine
right, "time shall be no more," and awakening to new life
milHorTs whose ancient liberties had been dead for many cen
turies! As Newton's law of gravitation gave a new element

480 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
to natural science, so this declaration gave a new element to
political science. To England it gave at once a responsible
ministry and loss of her American colonies, and, in due
time, freedom of conscience, a free press, the Reform bill.
Catholic emancipation, removal of Jewish disabilities, and
the repeal of the Corn Laws. To brave, generous Ire
land it gave nerve to O'Connell, her Demosthenes, and
gave freedom of Catholic worship and the dis-establishment
of the Episcopal Church to her tax-ridden people. To
France, the ally of our early days, it gave the French
Revolution and her present bloodless Republic. In this
country it breathed a new life into the people, and became
in their hearts the sacred oracle of American liberty. By
it, as a supreme law, all institutions are measured, and no
institution deemed worthy of respect which does not con
form to its principles. OUR GOVERNMENT.
Ideas crystallize into institutions. And when Independence
was achieved, the State Constitutions and the Federal Consti
tution organized into practical force the ideas of the Declara
tion. In the organizations of both these forms of govern
ment, each the complement of the other, the same old con
test was continued between the prerogatives of government
and the rights of the people. It was hard to make some
men realize that all government must spring from popular
consent, and still harder to make them admit that the people
were capable of governing themselves. One class of thinkers
favored the most aristocratic forms of institution they could
get the people to bear, and the other favored the most dem
ocratic forms to which they could make their opponents
peacefully submit. In these differences are found the germs
of subsequent political parties in America. Fortunately for
the country, and the social progress of the people, the cause
of liberty triumphed, and the most liberal institutions ever

DEMOCRACY AS A SOCIAL FORCE. 481
established became the legacy our fathers bequeathed to those
who hear me now.
Let it not be thought that this conflict ended with the
establishment of the Constitutions for the new-born States
and the new-born Nation. All subsequent legislation and
systems of policy, and tides of popular thought, have been
marked by the same conflict of opinion, except as disturbed
in their operation by that exotic, African slavery. When it
is remembered that at the beginning of our government
many old aristocratic laws of English parentage lingered on
the Statute books, and many old caste prejudices lingered in
the hearts of the people, it is not wonderful that it took time
for the social power of the democratic idea to erase the one
from our country's laws and banish the other from our peo
ple's hearts. Still much of the work has been slowly yet
permanently done. Full religious toleration, in almost all
respects, is now the law of the Nation and all the States.
The law of primogeniture has disappeared forever, let it be
hoped, from American soil.
Entails are brought within rational boundaries. Law forms
are pruned of their clumsy excresences. The law of evidence
is almost everywhere freed from the encumbrance of religious
tests, exclusion from interest or race and party connection
with the cause to be heard. Imprisonment for debt has in
the main disappeared. The rights of married women in their
own property are being recognized, imperfect though the
legal methods of protection often are. The right of suffrage,
the strongest safe-guard of liberty, is practically universal
and freed from religious or property qualifications, though
still a prey to the seductions of the demagogue and the
briber, and the frauds of the baflot-box and the returning
board. Milder punishments have taken the place, in general,
of the gibbet and the whipping post. Popular thought as
well as law accords religious freedom to every sect, and un
trammeled opinion on every subject. All this and much

482 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
more has been secured to the people by Democracy as a
Social Force.
We come now to inquire how this powerful social agency
found voice in the affairs of the States and the Nation. From
the beginning the country was naturally divided into two
political parties, and so are all free countries. The party of
progress, and the party of conservatism. The one pushes
forward, the other holds back. The people push forward,
the aristocracy holds back. The one seeks change that it
may better its condition ; the other fears change lest its con
dition be worse. The parties first formed in this country,
through some change of name, still battle with each other
for supremacy. It must be conceded that not all in either
party believe its principles. Accident, ignorance or interest
often determines party afifiliations. Sometimes men's minds
change, or their interests buy them over, and they pass from
one side to the other. There are trusted leaders now, on
each side, who were once trusted leaders on the other. And
so the people, too, sometimes change parties even when no
price is paid for their conversion. And it may, and some
times does happen that progress is true policy at one time,
and conservatism at another. In such a crisis wisely enough
whole parties may change places. Long continuance in
power tends to benumb the sense of responsibility, and gen
erally begets corruption. And so a party often deserve to.be
driven out of office, as a punishment for its bad practices,
whatever its principles may be. But still the general spirit
of the parties remains. They are the action and re-action
of social progress. Society never can stand still without the
living death of China. It must move forward or it will go
backward. The party of progress must generally be in the
ascendant or the community retrogrades. The JDemocratic
party is the party of progress.
The Opposition party is the party of conservatism. These
distinctions are co-eval with the parties, these parties are co-

DEMOCRACY AS A SOCIAL FORCE. 483
eval with the Republic. While Democracy rules, the Re
public advances. While the Opposition rules, the Republic
retreats. The country may for a time be materially pros
perous under the Opposition rule, but the institutions of the
Republic decay and the spirit of popular liberty declines.
The fundamental ideas of the Democratic party are imbedded
in our system of government. The general ascendancy, there
fore, of Democracy, sins though it may sometimes commit,
is essential to the perpetuity of our institutions and the future
freedom and grandeur of the Nation. Its overthrow is the
ultimate downfall of the present Constitutional Republic, and
the substitution of some other form of National Government.
THE PRINCIPLES OF THE DEMOCRACY.
The principles of the Democratic party may be expressed
in three grand canons : First, The sovereignty of the people.
Second, The supremacy of the Federal Constitution. Third,
The perpetuity of the Constitutional Union.
The sovereignty of the people is the fundamental canon of
right government The Democracy has ever recognized this
doctrine, and made it the corner stone of all its constitutions
and poHcies. But stifl one disturbing element of our popu
lation formerly interfered with its practical application. In
the first settlement of this country, the people, as that word
was then understood, did not embrace African slaves. Slavery
had existed at some time in all the ancient and middle age
nations, but even the lowest European races had ceased to be
slaves before the colonization of this country. With the re
vival of commerce in modern times, the greed of the superior
races had made merchandise of the African and had, as a
slave, transplanted him with many cruelties from his native
country into Europe and America. Before our Independence
the mother country was mainly responsible for the introduc
tion of slavery into the Colonies. The Declaration of Inde
pendence found slavery in all the States. The Constitution

484 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
allowed the importation of slaves for twenty years, and the
traffic was then forbidden. The Eastern and Northern States
made little profit from slavery among themselves, and there
fore gradually sold their slaves to their Southern neighbors,
or got rid of them by manumission. In the meantime the
seafaring people of the Northern seaboard actively carried on
with much profit, so long as the traffic was allowed, the
importation of slaves from Africa to the Southern States.
Modern invention having greatly accelerated the growth and
manufacture of cotton, the Southern States raised the article
in abundance. And the same commercial spirit, which had
profited by the slave trade, now sought to turn an honest
penny by setting up cotton factories on the mill streams of
the sterile East. And these same enterprising dealers, being
willing to trade in whatever promised a fair return on the in
vestment, employed their shipping interest, driven from the
slave trade, in the transportation to these factories of the cot
ton bales, which their Southern neighbors had grown by the
very slave labor they had formerly brought them from Africa.
Both sides grew rich, and both sides profited equally by the
tofl of the slave. The system, however, was at war with the
whole spirit of modern civilization, and an incubus upon the
healthy growth of Democratic ideas. True, there seemed
some extenuadon in the antecedents and present condition
of the negro. He had been in his own country immemorially
a slave. He had never made any advance worth notice in
religion, art, science or industry. He had reared no temples,
systematized no faith, produced no invention, conceived no
phflosophy. While the philanthropist denounced slavery as
a monstrous social wrong, as doubtless it was, stfll it could
not be denied that American slavery, bad as the system was,
was a vast improvement on what the negro had suffered in
his own country. Contact with the European races had lifted
the African barbarian out of the dense savagery of his native
land. Injurious as it might be to the white man, it had cer-

DEMOCRACY AS A SOCIAL FORCE. 485
tainly improved the black man. Still there were many of the
wisest who doubted whether this alien race could be safely
incorporated into the body politic, and become a part of that
sovereign power — "the people." And the difficulty of stop
ping half way between slavery and full citizenship, and the
limited extent of Federal power, tended to a toleration of
slavery rather than endanger the peace, perhaps the institu
tions of the country. At last, the subject grows to be the
source of incessant sectional strife. The descendant of him,
who had imported the slave and grown rich by the gains,
denied to the descendent of him, who .had bought the im
porter's human chattel and grown rich by slave cotton, equal
rights in the territories purchased by the "common blood
and treasure " of both the brethren.
Let us not debate again the by-gone questions underlying
the inauguration of this civil strife. The slave controversy,
considering the traditions, the passions, and the interests of
each party, presented "an irrepressible conflict," incapable
of any solution except what it received. Let us rejoice that
slavery is dead forever! The revolution through which the
country has gone has given full right of citizenship, and of
suffrage to the late slave, and all parties acquiesce in the re
sult, whatever any may have thought as to the policy of
the measure, or of the means employed for its accomplish
ment. The late slave has surprised every one by the
rapidity with which he is coming to recognize his new re
sponsibility and the docile aptitude he exhibits in acquiring
the knowledge and habits of a freeman. The still unsettled
political and social problems, which his presence in America as
a sovereign member of the electoral body must from time to
time evolve, can be awaited by every patriot with confidence
in the continued triumph of his country's institutions. The
Democratic principle that the people are sovereign demands
of the party the constant recognition of the political freedom
and equaHty of every citizen and of every interest. It re-

34

486 SPEECHES AMD ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
quires that the enactment of every law, the shaping of every
policy, the creation of every institution, the formation of
every treaty, the organization of every court and army, the
construing of every constitution and statute, the levying of
every tax, the appropriation of every dollar, the estabflsh
ment of every office and the choice of every officer, indeed,
the exercise of every governmental function, shall be with an
eye single to the rights and welfare of the people, the whole
people, and nothing but the people ! The Democracy legis
lates for no monopolies, it levies no duties or taxes to give
one class an advantage over another, it gives to no moneyed
corporations the power to control the currency and enrich
themselves, it grants no subsidies to grasping speculators, it
creates no cumbrous system of revenue with a horde of offi
cers to eat out the people's substance, it champions no cur
tailment of the people's rights to institute a strong govern
ment and centraflze power at the Capital! It recognizes in
short that the people own the government and that all its
agents are but their servants. OPPOSITION IDEAS.
The Opposition on the contrary, though it has been dragged
forward somewhat into more liberal ideas by Democratic in
fluence, has from the beginning of the Republic distrusted
the people and grudgingly yielded to an increase of their
power. They have sought to make the Government paternal
in its character, and to make the people its dependent wards.
Their idea is that government should be a strong, gorgeous
sovereign, leading the people into the paths of obedience and
reverence for authority, and teaching them to take their very
ideas from those in power over them. In their creed, intefli-
gence and property have succeeded to the divine right of
kings. They treat the accumulation of wealth in the hands
of the few as the only assurance of popular stability, and are
ever dreading the turbulence of the masses. They are the

DEMOCRACY AS A SOCIAL FORCE. 487
natural allies of moneyed monopolies, and seem to act on
the maxim that it is the prime duty of the State to protect
the rich, and leave the rich to protect the poor. By banks,
tariffs, subsidies, land grants, and the whole tenor of their
financial legislation during this century, the building up of a
moneyed aristocracy is the central idea of the party. Even
the enfranchisement of the late slaves, though favored by
many honest phflanthropists, was in the minds of their con
trolling leaders, linked with the same ruling policy. It was
thought that the simple-hearted African could be held forever
as the born thrall of their party, and the perpetual prop of
its power.
In a word, the Democratic party is a social force, defend
ing the people against the exactions of aristocratic power
and the extortions of corporate wealth. The opposition
is a social force, strengthening the hands of government
at the expense of popular rights, and the hands of capital
at the expense of labor.
THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION.
Second. The Supremacy of the Federal Constitution is
the ^gis of popular liberty. That constitution is not only
the organic law of the Nation, but it guarantees the indi
vidual autonomy of each State. The autonomy of the
States is an integral part of the Federal system. There may
be a consolidated Republic without this individual autonomy
of each State, but a Federal Union there cannot be. When
ever the doctrine is established in the public mind that the
Nation can act en masse on the rights of the States, the Con
stitution is abolished in theory and will soon be abolished in
fact. And whenever it is established in the public mind as a
true construction of the Federal Constitution that a change in
that Constitution, attempted by the concurrent action of even
all the other States, can take from any one State, without its
consent, a single element of the sovereignty pertaining to its
autonomy as a State of the Union, the Federal Union has in

488 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
theory ceased to exist, and will soon cease to exist in fact.
The sheet anchor of the Federal RepubHc is the sovereign
autonomy of the States. And this has been the doctrine of
the Democratic party ever since the adoption of the Consti
tution. The opposition, on the other hand, in the convention
that framed the Constitution, struggled to make the States
mere provinces of a consolidated Republic, and have sought
ever since to subordinate them as far as they could to the
central government. Every amendment to the Constitution
made by the Democratic party guaranteed some right to the
people or the States. Every amendment made by the Oppo
sition curtailed some right of the people or the States. Let
it be admitted that there have been Democrats who pushed
the doctrine of State sovereignty too far. And let it be ad
mitted that all members of the Opposition have not yielded
to the doctrine that the Nation can constitutionally abolish
the States at its pleasure. But the general drift of thought
in each party has been what is now stated, and each as a
social force has occupied, and now occupies, the position
here assigned it. John Wflliam Draper, with great elabora
tion, contends that the people en masse constitute the Nation,
and that the States were created by and exist only at the
sufferance of that Nation. Senator Morton, the acknowl
edged leader of the party, held the same doctrine. The
whole reconstruction policy of the party, including the Con
stitutional amendments, is based upon that idea.
By the Federal Constitution a few enumerated powers are
committed to the Central Government, and all other powers
of government are "reserved to the States, or the people re
spectively." The great value of this provision is that it dis
tributes power to the extremities, instead of consolidating it
at the center. It remits to the States the local government
of their people. It trusts the people with the choice of
their own rulers, with the government of their own States.
Tyranny always revels in the dark, and shuns the light. The

DEMOCRACY AS A SOCIAL FORCE. 489
farther the governing power is removed from the people, the
less they see of its workings, and the more opportunity there
is for fraud and oppression. The Democratic party is the
champion of local self-government, and the Opposition in
vokes power in local government from the federal center.
The State provides full machinery for the protection of the
ballot-box, and yet the Opposition finds it necessary to sur
round the polls with supervisors and marshals, bristflng with
federal authority and loaded with the federal purse.
PERPETUITY OF THE NATION.
Third. The perpetual obligation of the Union, under the
Constitution, is the bulwark of internal peace and national
grandeur. Our fathers saw, from the first, the great difficulty
of preserving this Union among States so diverse in many
of their ideas and interests, and felt that no system consistent
with enlarged and actual liberty was possible, except through
the cordial recognition of all that each State was the sovereign
ruler of its own internal affairs, and by the strict confinement
of the Federal authority to its own limited powers. This
led to discussions as to where the boundaries between State
powers and Federal powers were constitutionally drawn.
And this source of friction in our governmental machinery is
inseparable from the system, good as the system is.
Disputes as to their meaning is one of the evils of written
Constitutions, however desirable such Constitutions must be
admitted to be ; and it could not be supposed that a system
so new and complex as ours would be understood alike by
all classes of reasoners. Most of our statesmen have held,
without question, the constitutional doctrine that the Union
is a compact of perpetual obligation, dissolluble only by the
right of revolution inherent in the people under all systems.
Still, several times in the history of the Republic the consti
tutional right of secession has been asserted. But such
assertions, in whatever form they may have come, were

490 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
always coupled with charges of aggression, and somewhat
imbued with the spirit of revolution. When the State inter
vention doctrine, of the resolutions of Ninety-eight, was pro
claimed it was placed on alleged — nay, on actual — infractions
of the Constitution by the Federal Government.
The alien and sedition laws were the arbitrary edicts of
tyranny, not laws in pursuance of the Constitution. The
New England secession, proposed by Josiah Quincy, was
based on the assumption that the annexation of Louisiana
was an unwarranted exercise of Federal power, and that this
breach of the Federal compact by the central government
released the States from the obligations of the compact.
And so the revolutionary action of the Hartford convention
in the British war, and of South Carolina's nullification under
Calhoun and Hayne were based on what were claimed to be
insufferable grievances. In none of these instances was it
claimed as a right, pure and simple, that a State at its own
sovereign pleasure could quit the Union when there had been
no infraction of the Constitution, but only that it had a right
to judge of such infraction for itself and was not bound to
accept the decisions of Federal tribunals. It was at least in
its essential nature revolution. And even in the late seces
sion movement, which stained the annals of the country with
the blood of civil war for the first time, it was insisted by the
South that the aggressions of the North, and Federal infrac
tions of the Constitution, had released the seceding States
from their allegiance to the Union. Indeed there has been
at no time any large body of men who have claimed that, in
the absence of any violations of the rights of the States under
the Constitution, a State of its own volition could withdraw
from the Union. Nor can it be claimed that there ever was, ¦
until the late secession rebellion, any serious immediate dan
ger to the existence of the Union. Unjustifiable and ill-
judged as the late rebellion was, it was only after a quarter
of a century's incessant agitation in the North for the limita-

DEMOCRACY AS A SOCIAL FORCE. 491
tion of the spread, and the final abolition, of the institution of
slavery in the South, that the latter became so infuriated as' to
seek protection to their social system in secession and war.
But when we consider the position of the two parties from
the beginning of the century down to the secession war —
when we weigh their influence as social forces — how immeas
urably Democratic love of the Union preponderates over
that of the Opposition. For a generation every epithet
which the vocabulary of hate could devise was heaped by
opposition leaders on the head of the slave-holder, though
the North had done as much to plant slavery in the South as
the South itself Every possible means of wounding the
pride and galling the feelings of our Southern brethren was
resorted to. The flag was denounced as a "flaunting lie"
and the Union itself was anathematized as a " covenant with
death and a league with hell." Meanwhile the Democracy
was pouring oil on the troubled waters, lauding the Union
of the States, deprecating sectional strife, and with soothing
voice recalling the joint glories of the past, and conjuring all
sections by the ancient amity of the fathers. But when no
soft words and no sacred memories could turn away sectional
wrath, with a devotion to the Union unparalleled in history,
the Democracy of the North rushed to the field of battle in
its defence. Not animated by party hate, not impelled by
personal ambition, or hope of plunder, but inspired by a lofty
love of the Union. AMNESTY.
And when the prowess of the Nation's arms had over
thrown secession, the Democracy everywhere proposed the
immediate restoration of the Union, and sought to bring, as
soon as possible, the return of sectional concord and amity.
The Opposition refused to restore the old Union, but con
tinued to hold the States as conquered Provinces, till the
Federal compact itself could be reconstructed by eliminating
from the States, North and South, many of the rights they

492 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
held under the old Union. At no time has the general in
fluence, or the ideas of the Opposition, favored, in all its
integrity, the Union among the States which the Constitu
tion created. They denied that a State could secede, but
they claimed that the Nation could dismantle a State. As
against a State the Union is, in their creed, a perpetual
obligation ; but, in its favor, it is no shield against absorption
by the Nation. In the Democratic creed, the Nation and the
States co-exist. The States can not secede ; the Nation can
not absorb the States. And it has ever been the mission of
the Democratic party to hold the just balance of power be
tween the two Governments. DEMOCRATIC UNION.
Love of the Union is not simply an intellectual conception,
it is an emotion of the heart. The Union should bind the
States together as a great National family — a brotherhood of
patriots — not as a wrangling partnership of discordant sec
tions. In the Democratic party there are no sections, no
North, no South, no East, no West. It exists in every State,
in every county, township and village. It is as broad as the
Union, and pervades city and country with the warm spirit
of fraternal love for Northron and Southron, for native and
foreign. Wherever the flag is, there is found the Democratic
party under its folds. No section shrinks with dread lest it
gains power. No race or industry fears injury from its laws.
No caste or monopoly expects favors at its hands.
Personal rights and personal property, the rich and the
poor, the high and the low, are all embraced in the brawny
arms of its protection, and not a privilege, or a right, is ex
tended to one class, or one interest, which is not equally
extended to all. Its motto is: "Equal rights to all, special
privileges to none." Adhering to these grand principles there
stands the old Democracy, as it has stood during the century,
the unflinching defender of the people, the Federal Constitu
tion and perpetual Union !

BAYONETS AT THE POLLS.
[A speech delivered at Dayton, Ohio, September 2d, 1879.]
My Fellow-Citizens :
In this canvass I propose principally to discuss Federal
interference in our elections. A generation ago this subject
would have sounded strangely enough in the ears of a pop
ular audience. That the people could not be trusted with
their own elections, but required supervision from Washing
ton, would have been, in the days of our fathers, a prop
osition so startling as to have aroused intense excitement.
But the continued aggressions of Federal power for years
past upon the right of local self government have so accus
tomed the people to them that a new invasion now excites
little more than a passing remark. Formerly the Federal
Government was so lightly felt that the common citizen had
almost to be reminded of its existence at all. Now its heavy
hand is laid on every industry, and its grasping ambition
seeks control of every institution. This steady march of im
perialism since the war I have seen and opposed; and, though
its advance has not been much checked, I have the proud
satisfaction of knowing that no citizen, as my published
speeches abundantly show, has been more untiring and per
sistent than myself in opposition to its progress.
Others will discuss before the people the financial and cur
rency question more fully than I shall, and I leave to General '
Ewing, General Warner and the rest the more elaborate
discussions of those questions. Secretary Sherman himself
says: "Compared with this issue (meaning the Federal
power in the States) all other issues are secondary," and
Judge Taft devotes his whole speech to this election question.

494 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
Nothing could more clearly show the inherent weakness of
his cause than the feebleness of his utterance. He is ad
mitted to be a man of great ability and patient research, and
yet he does no more than surround the subject with an atmos
phere of luminous fog., There is nothing in the speech of
either, on this subject, that deserves answer, and I need not
break the line of my argument to notice either of them. But
the importance they attach to the matter is sufificient excuse
for my elaboration of the whole subject, and will, I hope,
gain your toleration of the great length of this speech.
While very many Republicans not only admit States to be
useful institutions, and not subject to overthrow at the will
of the Federal Government, but their right to local govern
ment sacredly cherished, yet even these are such blind
worshipers of the grandeur of Federal power, and are',
withal, so indignant at the late effort at secession, as to over
look and belittle the real and benign functions of the States.
But the mass of the leading men of the Republican party do
not at heart love the Federal system at all, and secretly long
for the overthrow of the States, or at least for such a modi
fication of our system as shall preserve them only as orna
mental figure-heads.
Now, my fellow-citizens, one of the means by which it is
sought to dismantle the States, and to rob them of their local
sovereignty over their own internal affairs, is to lessen the
people's affection for them. It is sought to make the system
of States responsible for the late rebeflion, and thus teach
the people to distrust them. It is said the South advocates
them. It is said the Democracy of the North advocates State
rights, and they are the special friends of Southern rebels.
Then, it is said, the States are seeking to invade the powers
of the Federal Government. And at last, as the final nail, as
they hope, in the coffin of popular love for the States, it is
mockingly said the Democracy are in afliance with the old
secessionists, and are going to undo afl that has been done,

BAYONETS AT THE POLLS. 495
repeal the late amendments to the Constitution, pay the Con
federate debt, re-enslave in practical effect the colored popu
lation, pension the rebel soldiers, and make Jeff Davis Presi
dent of the United States! By all these appeals, absurd as
they are, to the passions and prejudices of past sectional
strifes, it is sought to retain power, and by one link after
another to forge that chain of subordination about the States
which will make their continued existence a mockery and a
sham, and their final overthrow rapid and certain.
THE AMENDMENTS.
By those who advocate Federal interference at the polls
the right to do so is rested on the Constitution as originally
adopted, and on the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
And our denial of the right, the Republicans claim to be a
denial of the validity of these amendments, and a purpose to
overthrow them. Without binding any one else by my ex
pression of opinion, I have always denied, and still deny,
that .these amendments were ever constitutionally adopted.
They are not amendments in the constitutional sense of the
word, but they were formally "acceded to" by States
enough to constitute a legal majority. The amendments and
the methods of their adoption were both " revolutionary and
void," but the acquiescence of the people and the States to
whom the "reserved " powers belong rendered these revolu
tionary proceedings valid.
REVOLUTION LEGISLATES.
All the States acquiesced in these amendments by sending
members to Congress, enacting laws and electing Presidents
under them. The Federal Government itself was established
by revolution, as indeed most governments have been. I
made the last public utterance against the adoption of the
Fifteenth Amendment, and was the first one of any of its
opponents to publicly acquiesce in its practical validity. The
whole Democratic party has since, in every form, acquiesced

496 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
in these amendments, and it is idle, as well as unjust and
mischievous, to charge that any party. North or South, seeks
to repeal them. It could neither be done by the voluntary
action of the States, for that would fail of the requisite ma
jority; nor by force of arm's, if any were reckless enough for
the attempt, for that would end in ruinous defeat. The peo
ple want peace. They are tired of civil and sectional strife.
Though there were differences of opinion as to the right and
the policy of these amendments when they were made, now
the emancipation and the enfranchisement of the African
race have been settled and acquiesced in by the American
people as final. Every partisan assertion to the contrary is
meant only for party purposes, and is unworthy of statesmen
— nay, even of demagogues.
This question, then, of National supervision of State polls
is to be considered tn the light of the Constitution and all its
amendments ought to be discussed with no narrow party
objects, for no party can always hold power, but with broad
reference ,to the great fundamental law of the Republic, and
the still greater question of popular rights and interest. The
people at last are sovereign over all institutions, and though
this sovereignty can only be exercised through their right of
revolution, no statesman ought ever to forget that the right
exists. All policies, and the constructions given to all Con
stitutions and statutes, must conform to the general spirit of
public liberty and the ultimate rights of the people. Afl gov
ernment is but a trust for the people.
FIRST PRINCIPLES.
My, countrymen, one of your great thinkers has said that
" a frequent recurrence to flrst principles is essential to liberty."
And the wise consideration of this question of Federal elec
tions requires a recurrence to first principles, and all the
more since there seems at present to be so much forgetfulness
of them. The true meaning of the terms used is also essen-

BAYONETS AT THE POLLS. 497
tial to accurate discussion. The words "people," "sover
eignty," "State," "Nation," are constantly in the mouths
of demagogues and flippant editors, with no more comprehen
sion of their true political meaning than a poll-parrot has of
Latin grammar. Neither the word "sovereignty" nor the
word "Nation" occurs in the Constitution. The United
States are not said to constitute a nation, and the States are
not said to be sovereign. Afl the powers of the United
States are enumerated and defined, and so far as those powers
make the United States a "nation" they are a nation, and
so far as they confer "sovereignty" they are sovereign over
States and people.
That among the nations of the earth the United States are
a "nation" nobody has ever denied; and that they are
among these nations a sovereign "power" is too plain for
argument. That the several States, as such, have no sover
eignty in relation to foreign nations, and can have no national
relations with them, is, likewise, too plain for dispute. The
question, then, as to the meaning in American politics of
these terms is to be settled without any reference whatever
to the foreign relations of our Government. Their true
political meaning at home is to be derived from our Constitu
tions of government, general and local, and it is of small
moment in this discussion to attempt to fix their meaning,
except to say that to quibble about the "sovereignty " of any
Government in this country is a waste of words. The "peo
ple " alone are sovereign, though they may sometimes have
to assert that sovereignty by the sword. A Nation, in the
language of the law-books and the lexicons, means a people
united under one Goverment. As to foreign affairs this is so
of the United States; as to domestic government it is not
fully so. At home we have two Governments. The people
for general purposes are united under one Government. For
local purposes the Union has thirty-eight separate Govern
ments within its borders. If those, therefore, who are con-

498 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
stantly emphasizing the word ' ' Nation " mean anything more
than rhetoric, they must mean to overthrow these thirty-eight
local Governments by the Constitution called "States," and
make the Federal Government a National Government, in
their sense of the word, by giving it full power of legislation
in local as well as general matters. If they do not mean
this they mean nothing ; and, if they do mean this, they are
disturbers of the peace, and enemies of the prosperity and
Hberty of the people. SOVEREIGNTY.
Sovereign and supreme are identical in political meaning.
Again, in the language of the law-books and the lexicons,
they mean simply the highest authority, and all quibbles
about whether sovereignty can be divided or must be a unit
is but darkening counsel. The United States and the several
States are alike supreme, subject only to the people's right
of revolution. In many European Governments sovereignty
is a unity, as in France and England. But in America it is
divided between the United States and the several States.
Each is supreme — "sovereign." Each is supreme in certain
functions of government and powerless outside; and both the
Republics, State and Federal, are required to make up the
full complement of governmental powers. In France the
Republic is a unit and supreme in all the functions of gov
ernment. But in America the Republic is dual. The
National branch of the system can no more legislate for the
States in the matters reserved to them than it could legislate
for France. Ohio and every other State possesses powers,
has "reserved rights,'' over which the United States,
neither as a "Nation," nor in any other character, has a whit
more constitutional power than France or Russia. Men of
Ohio, is this not so? The United States has its Federal juris-
dicdon over the whole territory of the Union, and its Con
stitution, "as the supreme law of the land," goes into every
State, and is gladly welcomed there. It has its Courts, its

BAYONETS AT THE POLLS. 499

postoffices, its custom-houses, its Internal Revenue, its forts
and arsenals, its marine and commercial regulations — all its
constitutional jurisdiction.
But over the Constitution and laws and police of the sev
eral States within the boundaries of their reserved powers
the Federal Union has, constitutionally, not even the shadow
of control, so long as they remain republican in form. And,
even then, it is not the power to create or establish a State.
It is but the obligation to guarantee a republican form of gov
ernment to a State. The guaranty binds the Union not to
invade this republican form of State Government itself, nor
allow it be done by foreign invasion or domestic insurrection.
The States gave up the war power to the Union, and the
Union, as a correlative obligation, bound itself to protect the
already established form of the State Governments. But
there the power of Federal interference with the rights of
the States ceases. This has nothing to do with the doctrine
of secession, for secession is not a constitutional right of the
States, and the Federal Union has a right to defend its own
existence and its own constitutional jurisdiction, wherever
and by whomsoever invaded. But the States have equafly
their own rights. And though Senator Morton, in the pleni
tude of his vengeance, and in his eagerness to strike the
prostrate " South, did claim that the Federal Government
could punish murder or arson in a State, if the State did
not, he afterward, in a cooler moment, expressed opinions
exactly the reverse. Who would claim now that States are
not supreme over the general, personal and property rights
of their own people? Can not Ohio change her Constitution
and laws at her own pleasure? Can she not abolish the ofifice
of Governor and lodge the executive authority in a council
of three, or five, or ten ? Can she not establish a single legis
lative body, instead of a Senate and a House? Can she not
confer judicial powers on the Governor or the Legislature?
Does not the State determine afl the laws reladng to and

500 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
regulating the rights of person and property? Whence came
the laws concerning marriage, divorce, support of children,
descent of property, wills, settlements of estates, execution
of deeds, rate of interest on money, statutes of limitations,
husband and wife, infancy, full age, the whole code of civfl
rights and civil procedure ? What authority enacts your crim
inal code and punishes crime? Whence came your habeas
corpus, trial by jury, and all your guarantees of personal
freedom? Who is the guardian of your hearth-stones and
your graves? All these, the most sacred rights of humanity,
are derived from and are under the exclusive protection of
the home Government — the State.
THE PEOPLE.
The word "people," in the sense of being a repository of
political power, the constituent body politic, is used but once
in the body of the original Constitution, and but once in the
amendments. It is provided in article I, section 2, paragraph
1, that Representatives in Congress shall be chosen "by the
people of the several States ; " and the word is defined as mean
ing the voters in each State for the most numerous branch
of the State Legislature. There is no other definition in the
Constitution, or any of its amendments, of the word when
used to express the constituent body politic. As a body
clothed with political power, the Constitution recognizes no
"people" except the electors for Representatives thus pro
vided for; and it neither recognizes in its government power
in nor confers power upon any other political body known
as "people." The Tenth Amendment is a reservation that
whatever is not delegated to the Union is retained by the
States or "the people;" but this reservation is no grant of
power to the people under the Federal system. It thus
appears that the only political power in the Federal Govern
ment secured to the people by the Federal Constitution is a
power secured to "the people of the several States."

BAYONETS AT THE POLLS. 501
THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES.
But it is said, and said by so great an orator as Webster,
that there is such a political body politic or constituent body
as the "people of the United States," as he claimed is
proved by the preamble to the Constitution. This argument
would be unworthy of notice if it had not emanated from so
great a man as Webster. Its shallowness has been exposed
a thousand times, but genius can keep alive for a time the
baldest errors. The preamble," as first adopted by the Con
vention, read: "We, the people of New Hampshire, Mass
achusetts," etc., naming afl the States of the old Confed
eracy, but the Committee of Revision threw it in its present
form: "We, the people of the United States." This
change was adopted for a very obvious reason. There were
thirteen States in the old confederation, and the new Consti
tution provided that it should go into effect when nine States
acceded to it, and no one could tefl which nine might accede.
How, then, was it possible to recite in the preamble of what
States the new Uijion would be composed? But this has
been explained so often that it needs no further comment.
The whole question is set at rest by the Constitution itself.
There is not a single act ever performed by the American
people en masse, neither in forming, amending or execudng
the Federal Constitution, nor electing the officers or making
the laws under it. The people of the United States never
did act en masse, and so long as the Federal system exists
they never wifl and never can. The people of the several
States are the only political "people" known to the Federal
Constitution. THE UNITED STATES.
It now becomes necessary to advance in the argument one
step farther. The people of the several States, in the political
sense, are the constituent elements of the Federal Union, as
wefl as of the States themselves. The people of each State
have delegated power to each State, and also to the United

35

502 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
States. And they have made the Federal Union to rest en
tirely upon States as the sources of afl its authority, though
its laws have direct operation upon the people, in the general
sense of that term. The States, then, rest on the bed-rock
of the people, and the Union rests upon the States. There
never was so beautiful and strong a temple of popular liberty
since the world began ! The heaviest structures are always
best sustained by arches. The Federal system, resting on
the States as its arches, is far stronger than any consolidated
system could be which could be founded on the ruins of the
States. But it has become the fashion of late to mock at the
States, and to charge the advocates of "State sovereignty"
with being enemies of the nation. One of the leading news
papers of the United States is constantly making merry over
the feebleness of States, in its classic language, "pinned to
the Union by the bayonet." Let us examine this question.
STATES.
My fellow-citizens, that the States arg an indestructible
part of the present system of government is clear to all who
are not either purposely or unconsciously seeking its over
throw. This will appear from the briefest review of history,
or the feeblest analysis of the Federal Constitution. The old
Revolutionary Confederacy was confessedly bound together
only as a political league ; and, as such, carried on war, levied
quotas of men and money on the several States, made treaties
with foreign powers, and concluded peace with the mother
country. Its ordinances operated only on States, and not
directly on the people. The Federal convention met by
States, acted and voted by States, and not per capita ; adopted
the Constitution by States, and submitted it to the people for
ratification through States. It was ratified by conventions
called by each respective State, each acting for itself sepa
rately. It was at first ratified by nine only of the thirteen
States, and several held out for years before they ratified.

BAYONETS AT THE POLLS. 503
The Government went into operation under Washington, and
laws were passed affecting the States that had ratified, and
every one understood that those States that had not ratified
were not affected by them, and, until ratification, formed no
part of the Union. So well was this understood that laws,
after the accession to the new Union of the States that held
back, were passed bringing them within the operation of
laws passed before their accession. That the States formed,
and through the people of each State ratified, the Constitu
tion is confirmed by every page of our history.
AUTONOMY OF STATES.
When we turn to the Constitution itself, the indestructible
autonomy of the States is written in every clause. We have
seen that the word "Nation" never appears in that instru
ment. The words "United States" frequently occur. The
word "Union" sometimes occurs. But the ruling word in
the Constitution, the one oftenest occurring, as expressive
of political entity, is the word "States." States are the
jewels everywhere sparkling in the Federel crown. In the
Constitution and its amendments, brief as they are, the word
now so hated and sneered at by Republican orators and the
Republican press, appears in diamond luster no less than
ninety-three times. _ The grand old charter, signed by
Washington, says the work was "done in Convention by the
unanimous consent of the States present;" and provides that
' ' the ratiflcation of the Conventions of nine States shall be suf-
flcient for the establishment of this Constitution between the
States so ratifying the same." It also provides that "new
States" may be admitted into the Union, and that the
United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a
repubflcan form of Government. And it provides that amend
ments can only be made by the States of this Union. If,
therefore, the Federal Union is not the offspring of the
States, made by them, ratified by them, altered and amended

504 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
by them, and their very existence declared to be and guar
anteed to be as perpetual as the Union itself, words are in
capable of expressing meaning. And everywhere through
out the whole instrument the States are shown to be the pil
lars and the only foundation on which the Federal edifice
rests. The Constitution abounds with recognitions of the sover
eign rights of States, and with their voluntary delegation of
certain of these rights to the United States. Direct taxes
may be apportioned among the States according to their rep
resentative members, but each State shall have at least one
Representative. Each State shall have two Senators, and
Representatives in proportion to population. They are to
have the training of the militia under officers of their own
appointment, and may actually engage in war when invaded,
or when they are "in such imminent danger as will admit of
no delay." They may lay imposts and duties on exports or
imports when absolutely, necessary for executing their in
spection laws; and, with the consent of Congress, may even
collect duties and imposts generally for the use of the Treas
ury of the United States. They may, with the consent of
Congress, levy tonnage duties, keep troops and ships of war
in time of peace, enter into agreements arid compacts with
each other and with foreign powers. Their citizens are guar
anteed the rights of citizenship interchangeable, the habeas
corpus, the right of suing in the Federal Courts (as the State
itself may do, though it can not be sued except by its peer,
another State), the right of petitioning for redress of griev
ances and bearing arms, the right to be secure in their
persons and houses, papers and effects, from unreasonable
searches and seizures, from the quartering of soldiers upon
them in time of peace, from prosecution for infamous crime
except upon an indictment by a Grand Jury, from being
twice tried for the same offense; and they are guaranteed the
right not "to be deprived of life, liberty or property without due

BAYONETS AT THE POLLS. 505
process of law." All these rights of the citizen impose limita
tions on the Federal Government, and most of them were
made conditions by the States of their accession to the Union.
And as if to put the binding seal on the charter of limitations
on the power of the Federal Government over the people, it
is declared in the Ninth Amendment that " the enumeration
in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be consti ued to
deny or disparage others retained by the people." Against the
rights of the people nothing is to be taken by implication !
But the individual and indestructible autonomy of the
States is quite as fully recognized by the Constitution in the
limitations imposed on their sovereignty, as by the rights
guaranteed to them and their people; for the prohibitions
would be a work of supererogation unless they restrained
the States from the exercise of powers they would other
wise have.
"No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance or confed
eration; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money;
emit bills of credit; make any thing but gold and silver coin
a legal tender in payment of debts ; pass any bill of attainder,
ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts,
or grant any .title of nobility." The States are also by impli
cation prohibited from the importation from abroad of slaves
after 1808; and are bound to pass no law preventing the re
capture of fugitives from one State owing service in another,
and are bound to deliver up fugitives from justice. And,
significantly enough, these are the only absolute limitations
on the sovereignty of the States found in the old Constitu
tion and the old amendments. The last three amendments,
the work of revolution, are scars on the Constitution, which
mar its symmetry, but do not destroy, or even materially
weaken, the sovereign autonomy of the States. They are
but guarantees in favor of the rights of a former servfle class,
and, though right enough in themselves, should have been
left to be given, like the guarantees of the rights of all other

506 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
classes, by the States themselves. And though valid, as
before said, by the acquiescence of the States, they have
logically no appropriate place in the Federal Constitution.
But even these amendments fully recognize the indestructible
autonomy of the States.
STATES DURING SECESSION.
My countrymen, if any thing were needed to confirm the
view of the State sovereignty I now contend for, the action
of the States lately in secession during that period, and the
subsequent action of the Federal Government, afford that
confirmation. Did not every State in secession during that
whole period exercise all the powers of State sovereignty
over her whole people, except the blacks, who were by rev
olutionary force taken under the special guardianship of the
Federal Government? Were not the courts open, marriages
contracted, divorces granted, estates settled, wills and deeds
made, punishment inflicted, and every function of a State
Government fully exercised during the war? And has not
every department of the General Government and every
branch of the National Judiciary held afl such proceed
ings valid?
Were deeds, and wills, and marriages, or any proceedings,
not affecting the rebellion, held for naught during this period
in the South? No. The Federal power trampled down the
rebel hosts and overturned the Southern Confederacy, and
for political purposes held the revolted States as subject prov
inces; and, by the Radical construction policy, for a time
ignored and defied every principle of political liberty, and
forced upon the reluctant South and the whole country Rad
ical political changes ; but the civil proceedings of the States,
even though in rebellion, where they were within the long
recognized purview of State authority, were treated as valid,
and so held repeatedly by the Supreme Court of the United
States. The States were held to be supreme within the

BAYONETS AT THE POLLS. 507
sphere of their sovereignty, even while they were in rebellion
against the Federal sovereignty.
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
My fellow-citizens, let us now consider in what way the
Federal Government is legally and practically, in all the
sources of its political power, the creature of the several
States. Federal power is organized into three departments —
the Legislative, the Executive, and the Judiciary. The Leg
islative consists of the Senate and House, usually called the
Congress, and, in a qualified sense, of the President. The
Upper House of Congress is chosen by the Legislature of
each State, and that Legislature is precisely what the State
pleases to make it, so that, though it chooses Federal Sen
ators, the Federal Government has no control over it in any
way, except to fix the time and manner of voting therefor.
The Federal Government can fix no qualification for Members
of the State Legislatures, and has no power even to compel
them to elect Senators at all. It is a privilege conferred, and
not an obligation which the Federal Constitution furnishes
any means to enforce. It is a right of which the State can
not be deprived, but it is a right the exercise of which the
United States can not coerce. The Lower House of Congress
is chosen, in the language of the Constitution, " by the peo
ple of the several States, and the electors in each State shafl
have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most
numerous branch of the State Legislature." The voters,
therefore, for the Lower House of Congress are such as the
States may make them, and vary in their qualifications accord
ing to the pleasure of the several States. As in the case of
Senators, the Federal Government has no power to fix or
alter these qualifications, and no power to enforce the exer
cise of suffrage. In strict law all voters in popular elections
are officers created either by Constitution or statute. The
voters who choose Congressmen are State ofificers created by

508 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
the State and answerable to the State only. The Constitu
tion has conferred on Congress no power to compel them to
vote. But the full consideration of this subject I will at pres
ent postpone. It is enough now to say that the people elect
no other Federal functionary. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTORS.
The President of the United States is chosen by Electors,
and over the choice of these Electors the Federal Govern
ment has no control whatever. The Constitution says : ' ' Each
State shall appoint in such manner as the Legislature thereof
may direct" the Electors to which it is entitled. The ap
pointment may be made by the Legislature itself, as was for
merly done in many States, and as the carpet-bag Legislature
of Florida did during the reconstruction period, because it
was known the people would not vote the Republican ticket.
The States, therefore, and those that they clothe with power,
absolutely decide who shall be President. If these Electors
fail to elect, then the House elects, voting by States. The
Executive, with the hundred thousand arms of his patronage,
and his veto on the will of Congress, is an officer chosen by
the States. It is only necessary to add that the Judiciary
and all other officers of the Government are chosen directly
or indirectly by the President and the Senate. Thus it is
shown that every officer of the Federal Government owes his
place directly or indirectly to the ofificers and the organiza
tions of the States. The people — the political people of each
State, the constituent body of voters, ofificers in whom is lodged
the ultimate sovereignty of the States — choose the lower
branch of Congress, and the Legislatures choose or direct
the choice of Senators and Electors.
Taking, then, the whole Constitution, with all its amend
ments, old and new, two propositions are indisputably clear:
First, the States have in the Federal Union a well defined
and indestructible autonomy; second, the Federal Union

BAYONETS AT THE POLLS. 509
derives all its life from the States respectively through their
people, and would cease to exist if they were destroyed, or
if they refused to -choose ofificers for it. The life's blood of
the Union is poured into its veins from the arteries of the
States, and the Federal Union would die if that flow should
cease. The States alone are the organs of Federal life, and
there is constitutionally no nation but the Federal Union.
Whoever seeks to make any other nation must do so by
revolution. In the light of this history, these clauses of the Constitu
tion, these precedents of the past, who can doubt that the
States are the sovereign, integral, indestructible elements of
the Federal Union? They are the oxygen without which
every flower of Federal beauty would wither, and every
corner-stone of Federal power would crumble into dust.
FEDERAL ELECTIONS.
My fellow-citizens, the point is now reached in this discus
sion where, in view of what has been established, we are to
inquire into the constitutional right of the Federal Govern
ment to interfere in the election of Members of Congress
and surround the pofls by Supervisors, Deputy Marshals and
bayonets. We have seen that the Federal Government
makes no voters. We have seen that voters are officers cre
ated by Constitution or statute. We have seen that they are
ofificers created and their qualifications fixed by the several
States, and not by the United States. It is clear, therefore,
that no Federal power has or can have any right at the polls
to inquire into their qualifications. It is also clear that the
Federal Government holds no elections for Members of Con
gress. There are, therefore, no Federal elections provided
for by the Constitution. What right, then, has the Federal
Government to supervise and control, or even influence,
elections not held by itself, and in which it has no voters?
This is a vastly important question to the American people.

510 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
Whoever controls elections controls the Government Free
elections are free Government. Mifltary elections are des
potism. Surely, if the Government of -the United States
seeks to supervise elections, it is bound to show its constitu
tional authority, for the Constitution expressly provides that
"the powers not delegated to the United States, nor prohib
ited b'y it to the States, are reserved to the States respect
ively, or to the people." The Federal Government, there
fore, must show that the charter of its existence, the Federal
Constitution, confers this power before it can be legally exer
cised. It will hardly be claimed by the most latitudinarian
advocate of National sovereignty that the United States can
fix or alter the qualifications for the electors of Members of
Congress. The clause giving power to Congress "to make
all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into
execution " the powers vested by the Constitution in the
Government can not, and no one seriously claims that it can,
enlarge the powers granted by the Constitution. So that the
grant must appear elsewhere if it exists, and this clause only
gives power to execute the grant. In the old Constitution
and the old amendments there can not be any shadow of
claim for this authority, unless it be derived from one or more
of three certain clauses of the Constitution.
They are these: Article 1, section 2, in speaking of mem
bers of the Lower House to be chosen by the people of the
States, says: "The Electors in each State shall have the
qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous
branch of the State Legislature." The Constitution, there
fore, fixes the qualifications of voters for Congressmen at
whatever may be the qualifications Qxed from time to time
by the several States for their voters. This leaves the voter
for Congressmen to be created by State laws or State Consti
tutions; and there can be no shadow of claim that Congress
has any right to act at afl on the subject, unless it would be
to hold that the Constitution did not execute itself, and that

BAYONETS AT THE POLLS. 511
Congress could pass a law declaring that the State voters in
the respective States should be electors at Congressional
elections. This would be a mark of supererogation, and has
never been done. Nothing could more conclusively show
that it has always been the uniform construction of the Con
stitution that Congress has nothing to do with the choice of
members of either branch of Congress, except to fix the time,
place and manner of the choice, and judge of the validity of
the elections of its own members. The members of neither
House of Congress are Federal officers at all in the constitu
tional sense, and can not be impeached as such, as was held
at the close of the last century in the case of Senator Blount.
They are ofificers of the States, not of the United States.
Judge Story, alluding to the reasons for the Blount case,
says: "But it was probably held that civil ofificers of the United
States meant such as derived their appointment from and
under the National Government, and not those persons who,
through members of the Government, derived their appoint
ment from the States, or the people of the States. In this
view, the enumeration of the President and Vice President
as impeachable ofificers was indispensable, for they derive, or
may derive, their ofifice from a source paramount to the Na
tional Government. And the clause of the Constitution now
under consideration does not even affect to consider them as
officers of the United States. It says the President, Vice Pres
ident, and all civil officers of the United States ( not all other
civil ofificers), shall be removed, etc. The language of the
clause, therefore, would rather lead to the conclusion that they
were enumerated as contra-distinguished from, rather than as
included in, the description of civil ofificers of the United
States. Other clauses of t,he Constitution would seem to
favor the, result; particularly the clause respecting appoint
ment of ofificers of the United States by the Executive, who
is to 'commission all the officers of the United States;' and

512 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
the sixth section of the first article, which declares that ' no
person holding any office under the United States shall be a
member of either House during his continuance in office,;'
and the first section of the second article, which declares that
' no Senator or Representative, or person holding an ofifice of
trust or profit under the United States,' shall be appointed an
elector.' " — [Story's Com. on Const., Sec. 793,J
Let these pregnant words of Story be commended to the
modern consolidationalists.
But the voter for Congressman is also an officer of the
State, and not at all an "officer of the United States;" and
this has been recently held by the Supreme Court of the
United States, full of Republican Judges, appointed during
and since the war. In Minor vs. Happersett, 21 Wallace,
178, the Court says thus: "The United States has no voters
in the States of its own creation. The elective ofificers of
the United States are all elected directly or indirectly by State
voters. The members of the House of Representatives are
to be chosen by the people of the States, and the electors in
each State must have the qualifications requisite for electors
of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature. Sen
ators are to be chosen by the Legislatures of the States, and
necessarily the members of the Legisalture required to make
the choice are elected by the voters of the State. Each
State must appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof
may direct, the Electors to elect the President and Vice-
President." In the United States vs. Cruikshank, 2 Otto, 555, the Su
preme Court reaffirmed the doctrine in these words:
"In Minor vs. Happersett, 21 Wafl. 178, we decided that
the Constitution of the United States has not conferred the
right of suffrage upon any one, and that the United States
have no voters of their own creation in the States. In the
United States vs. Reese et al. (supra, page 214), we hold
that the Fifteenth Amendment has invested the citizens of

BAYONETS AT THE POLLS. 513
the United States with a new constitutional right, which is,
exemption from discrimination in the exercise of the elective
franchise on account of race, color or previous condition of
servitude. From this it appears that the right of suffrage is
not a necessary attribute of National citizenship; but that
exemption from discrimination in the exercise of that right
on account of race, &c,, is. The right to vote in the State
comes from the State ; but the right of exemption from the
prohibited discrimination comes from the United States. The
first has not been granted or secured by the Constitution of
the United States, but the last has been. "
The line of distinction between the Federal and State Gov
ernments is thus drawn in this case: "The Government of
the United States is one of the delegated powers alone. Its
authority is defined and limited by the Constitution. All
powers not granted to it by that instrument are reserved to
the States or the people. No rights can be acquired under
the Constitution or laws of the United States but such as the
Government of the United States has the authority to grant
or secure. All that can not be so granted or secured are left
under the protection of the States." And Story says (Com.,
sec. 826), in discussing the clause relating to the manner of
elections : ' ' Nor can it be said with correctness that Congress
can in any way alter the rights or qualifications of voters."
LATE AMENDMENTS.
Nor have the late amendments to the Constitution made
any change in respect to this matter, except to prevent the
exclusion of voters on account of race or color. This is too
plain on principle to need discussion as proof, and has been
repeatedly recognized, not only by the ablest men in the Re
publican party, but by the Supreme Court. The late Sen
ator Morton, the greatest common-sense intellect the Repub
lican party has produced, and who grew so excited during
the passionate reconstruction era as to threaten the destruc-

514 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
tion of the States themselves in furtherance of his designs,
on the 23d of January, 1876, in his place in the United States
Senate, said (pages 4079-80) :
"So far as the Congressional election is concerned, we
have agreed in the Constitution to leave the question as to
who may vote for Members of Congress to the States, by
providing that every person who may vote for members of
the most numerous branch of the State Legislature may vote
for a Representative in Congress. We have no power over
that. The Fifteenth Amendment, however, guarantees that
the colored man shall have the full right that anybody else
has — that is, he shall not be prevented from voting on ac
count of his race or color. So far as the election of President
is concerned, that is a matter that belongs absolutely to the
States. They may choose the Electors by the Legislature,
they may authorize the Supreme Court to appoint them, or
they may provide for their being elected by the people.
They may provide for a different class of voters for Presi
dential Electors from those who are entitled to vote for Mem
bers of Congress. As the Constitution stands now, the
States can provide just as they please in that regard. The
State of Iowa, to-morrow, by her Legislature, notwithstand
ing the law she has upon her statute-book for electing her
Electors by the people, may, in defiance of that law, choose
the Electors who shall vote for President and Vice-President.
There is no power under the Constitution to prevent it. So
I think that, so far as that is concerned, it does not meet
the point"
The Supreme Court says: "The amendment did not add
to the privileges and immunities of a citizen. It simply fur
nished an additional guarantee for the protection of such as
he already had. No new voters were necessarily made by
it. Indirectly it may have had that effect, because it may
have increased the number of citizens entitled to suffrage
under the constitution and laws of the States, but it operates

BAYONETS AT THE POLLS. 515
for this purpose, if at all, through the States and the State
laws, and not directly upon the citizen."
Again: The clause in Section 5, Article 1, providing that
"each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and
qualifications of its members," does not confer the power we
are searching for. The Constitution gives to both Houses
the rights common to legislative bodies; but all that is meant
by the clause is that each House is the judge of "elections,
returns and quaHfications of its members;" not to conduct
the elections or returns, nor to fix the qualifications of mem
bers. These are fixed by the Constitution or statute. A
single House can make no statute. If Congress even had the
power to provide for Congressional elections and returns,
and to fix qualifications of members, it must be exercised in
the form of law, and could not be exercised under this right
" to be the judge" of whether the law had been complied
with. Surely each House may judge whether its members
are duly elected; and in doing so inquire whether iflegal
votes have been given, or illegal returns been made, and to
do so may look into and construe the State statutes, as well
as any Federal regulations touching the subject. But it is
the power to judge, not to legislate.
TIMES, PLACES AND MANNER.
My feflow-citizens, the minions of tyrannic power are now
driven to the last ditch. One more of the three clauses re
ferred to remains to them, and they take refuge in that and
perish there. Congress may by Ardcle 1, section 4, fix the
times, places and manner of holding Congressional elecdons ;
but even this power is secondary, if not subsidiary, to the
primary right of the "State, by the Legislature thereof"
Let us not pause to inquire whether the Congress has the
primary right and may act in the matter without awaiting the
acdon of the State. There is no disposition to question any
right to which the Federal Government is fairly entitled. Let

516 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
the power, then, for the argument's sake, be considered as
plenary, how far, after all, does it extend?
Until quite recent times Congress did not assume to regu
late this subject at all. Let us not criticise that. Properly
enough, in 1866, Congress did regulate the time and manner
of electing Senators, and the statute still stands, and I know
of no reason to doubt either of its propriety or its constitu
tionality. It subjects the State Legislature to no surveiflance
from supervisors, marshals or soldiers. And, as in 1871, it
was provided that elections for the lower House should be by
baflot; and, in 1872, in districts of contiguous territory, and
by legislation in subsequent years, the time of election was
made uniform all over the country, with slight modifications.
No one, that I am aware of, questions the wisdom or con
stitutionality of these statutes. Still they are only directory
to the State, and not to be enforced by Federal ofificers or
Federal machinery. If not observed, the House, in its power
"to judge" of the "elections and returns" of its members,
may refuse to seat a member not chosen according to their
provisions. But in no other way could the Federal Govern
ment enforce obedience to them, unless indeed some judicial
process could be framed to reach the case, which is very
doubtful. All these statutes are directory, but clearly within
the power of Congress "to make or alter such regulations."
They were not made for party power. Let them stand.
SUPERVISORS AND MARSHALS.
But, my countrymen, in the pride of their power, the Re
publican party, with the aid of here and there a Democrat
who seemed to overlook the dangerous precedent, went one
step further, and now seek, under the specious pretense of
protection to the polls, to practically take charge of and con
duct the elections, both Federal and State ; not only super
vising the manner of voting through the most arbitrary and
unconstitutional methods, but assuming the right to decide

BAYONETS AT THE POLLS. 517
on the qualifications of voters themselves, and of arresting
on suspicion and without warrant any citizen, however illus
trious, or however innocent of wrong. Let us hold up,
to the righteous scorn they deserve, these unconstitutional,
arbitrary, tyrannical and infamous statutes! And let us
finally consign them to a dishonored grave with the Alien
and Sedition Laws!
The general spirit of these statutes is not only repugnant
to the right of States and unwarranted by the Federal Con
stitution, but odious and offensive in their methods of en
forcement. Under the pretext of protecting citizens of the
United States in their right to vote, they assume to punish
generally offenses at all elections, whether State or Federal.
This is done, of course, under the hollow sham of protecting
the late freedmen, but with the actual purpose and effect of
seeking to control the States by Federal intervention. What
may be the constitutional right of Congress to pass laws to pro
tect and enforce the right of suffrage guaranteed by the late
amendments I will not pause to discuss. The question now
made is on the Supervisors- and Marshals. Can Congress
confer on these officers the powers sought to be conferred?
The leading sections of these acts were passed in 1871 and
1872, and are contained in the Revised Statutes, sections
from 2011 to 2031 inclusive. They provide for the appoint
ment of two Supervisors of Elections in each voting precinct
in cities of 20,000 inhabitants whenever two citizens shall re
quest it, and in any county or parish when ten citizens shall
request it.
Wherever the State law requires registration they supervise
that, but this does not concern Ohio now. They are to attend
at the elections whenever members of Congress are to be
elected, and take their places beside the ballot-boxes, and to
personally inspect and scrutinize the manner in which it is
done, and personally scrutinize and count each ballot, and
make returns to the Chief Supervisor of such count, and

36

518 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
make any statement either of them may wish to make as to
-the truth and fairness of such election ; and shall report, also,
if molested in the performance of their duties, and any one
molesting them is to be fined and punished. And they are
authorized " to challenge any vote offered by any person whose
legal qualiflcations the Supervisors or either of them may doubt."
They are to be aided by as rnany Deputy Marshals as the
United States Marshal may choose to appoint. The Super
visors are authorized to challenge voters on suspicion, as we
have seen, and then the statute provides, section 2022:
' ' The Marshal and his General Deputies, and such Special
Deputies, shall keep the peace and support and protect the
Supervisors of Election in the discharge of their duties, pre
serve order at such places of registration and fraudulent voting
thereat, or fraudulent conduct on the part of any officer of elec
tion, and immediately, either at the place of registration or
polling place, or elsewhere, and either before or after register
ing or voting, to arrest and take into custody, with or without
process, any person who commits, or attempts to commit, any
of the acts or offenses prohibited herein, or who commits
any offense against the laws of the United States."
And then the statute provides that the person arrested
shall be taken before a United States Commissioner and
tried for an offense against the United States Government.
So the Federal Government punishes for violating a State
law! And then, to cap the cHmax of audacity, if any honest
citizen not having the fear of this despotic usurpation before
his eyes', and who has been taught that a man ought not to
be arrested without warrant, and so resists this tyranny, the
posse comitatus must subdue him. Section 2024:
"The Marshal, or his General Deputies, or such Special
Deputies as are thereto specially empowered by him in writing
and under his hand and seal, whenever he, or either, or any
of them is forcibly resisted in executing their duties under
this title, or shafl, by violence, threats or menaces, be pre-

BAYONETS AT THE POLLS. 519
yented from executing such duties, or from arresting any
person who has committed any offense for which the Marshal,
or his General or Special Deputies are authorized to make
such arrests, are, and each of them is, empowered to sum
mon and call to his aid the bystanders or posse comitatus of
his district."
Is it possible, my fellow-citizens, that all this can be done
with impunity under our dual form of Government, State and
National? Have we not seen that the Federal Constitution
guarantees to each State a republican form of government?
Have we not seen that the powers not delegated to the Gen
eral Government are reserved to the States and the people?
Have we not seen that a Congressman is a State and not a
Federal officer, and that his election is a State and not a Fed
eral function? Have we not seen that the General Govern
ment has no elections and no voters? Have we not seen
that the States alone fix the qualifications of voters? Have
we not seen that the Federal Government as well as the State
protects the citizen in his person, houses, papers and effects
from unreasonable searches and seizures? Have we not seen
that the right of the citizen to be thus secure was made a con
dition of the adoption of the Federal Constitudon? Nay, is it
not also true, Men of Ohio, that your own beloved State, of
which we are afl so justly proud, expressly guarantees to
her citizens in her constitutional bill of rights that ' 'Electors,
during their attendance at elections and in going to and return
ing therefrom, shall be privileged from arrest, in all cases, ex
cept treason, felony and breach of the peace?" Can it be that
we have sunk so low in our spirit of personal and pubHc lib
erty as to make no remonstrance by word or vote against this
pracdcal surrender of our State to an invasion which breaks
over every guaranty of our existence as a State of the Union
and disregards the dearest rights and liberties of our people?
Both governments rest in the last resort upon the voters
of the State. We now see the elecdons seized upon in afl

520 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
the great cities by a horde of Supervisors and Marshals,
aided if need be by the bayonet, and we tamely kiss the rod
that chastises us ! Low detectives and disgraced policemen,
confessed criminals and social outlaws, are clothed with power
to arrest on suspicion and without warrant, and then compel
the Governor or a Supreme Judge, or a Judge of Election,
or a minister of the gospel, to form part of the posse comita
tus, and aid to drag our best citizen before an illegal tribunal !
These irresponsible instruments of tyranny are not even re
quired to give bond for their good behavior. Shall all this
continue as if the States and their people "have no right
which" the Federal Government "is bound to respect?"
SUPERVISORS CONTROL STATE ELECTIONS.
But, my fellow-citizens of Ohio, if there was no other con
stitutional objection to these statutes, their control of the
State elections would condemn them. If all this can be done
by Congress it surely must be made applicable to elections
for members of Congress, and not to elections for State
ofificers. If Congress has the power to control Congressional
elections, as is claimed by the advocates of the system, it can
only be because it is given under the power to regulate the
manner of such elections, and not under any power to control
or supervise State elections. Such a power would not be
contended for for a moment. Nor can it be claimed that
when the States, in the absence of Congressional regulation,
provide as the Constitution enjoins upon them for the election
of members of Congress by regulations of their own, they
are overstepping their power. If Congress is dissatisfied with
those regulations, and has the power to change them, this
can not give the power to regulate and supervise State elec
tions. And if the State for convenience, and as she would
certainly have a right to do, chooses to elect members of
Congress and her own State ofificers on the same printed
tickets, and under the same regulations, the United States^

BAYONETS AT THE POLLS. 521
in making new regulations, must provide to withdraw the
election of members of Congress from the election of State
ofificers, and provide their own ballot-boxes, their own regu
lations and their own machinery. In exercising their power
they must not invade the power of the States. But that is
just what these statutes, in their whole scope, attempt to do.
They supervise as fully the election of State ofificers as the
election of Congressmen. It is an unconstitutional effort to
bring the State organizations under the control of Federal
power by an insidious claim of defending and purifying elec
tions, and those who oppose it are insidiously charged with
favoring fraud, violence and corruption at the polls.
POLICE POWER TO KEEP THE PEACE.
My countrymen, not only is the political power of the
State invaded, but its civil power, its police power over its
own people is encroached upon. That the general police
power resides in the State is beyond question. In the civil
sense the United States have no right to keep the peace
within the several States. In the military sense it is their
duty to do so, and protect the State from military invasion.
But they have no right, even in case of organized domestic
violence, to interfere except upon the appHcation of the
State itself. How, then, can they interpose at elecdons
or elsewhere, simply to keep the peace — the civfl peace —
and arrest for assault and battery or any civil disturbance?
Even if they would have a right to arrest for a violation of
their own election laws, the right would extend no further,
and would never apply to policing generally those assembled
at elections.
The truth is, the whole internal police power is in the
State, and no statute of the United States (and the United
States has no common offenses) would authorize the Com
missioner before whom the Deputy Marshal should take his
culprit to hold him to bail or commit him. The uniform

522 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
opinions of all lawyers and judges bear out this view. Red-
field, the law-writer, says as to the police power: "This
power of the State exterids to the protection of the flves,
Hmbs, health, comfort and quiet of afl persons, and the pro-
. tection of all property within the State." And the great
Constitutional writer, Cooley, the pride of our neighboring
State, Michigan, says: "In the American Constitutional
system the power to establish the ordinary regulations of
police has been left with the individual States, and can not be
assumed by the National Government." And Justice Story,
in deciding a great case while on the Supreme Bench, uses
this language: "To guard, however, against any possible
misconstruction of our views, it is proper to state that we are
by no means to be understood, in any manner whatsoever,
to doubt or to interfere with the police power belonging to
the States in virtue of their general sovereignty. That police
power extends over all subjects within the territorial limits
of the States, and has never been conceded to the United
States." The present Chief Justice of the United States, in
speaking of executing Federal process, significantly says:
"True, it may sometimes happen that a person is amenable
to both jurisdictions for one and the same act. Thus, if a
Marshal of the United States is unlawfully resisted while
executing the process of the Courts within a State, and the
resistance is accompanied by an assault upon the officer, the
sovereignty of the United States is violated by the resistance,
and that of the State by the breach of the peace in the
assault. * * * It is no more the duty or within
the power of the United States to punish for a conspiracy to
falsely imprison or murder within a State than it would be to
punish for false imprisonment or murder itself." And so, in
1868, the present distinguished Secretary of State, the great
lawyer of New York, while Attorney-General of the United
States, in instructing United States Marshals, said: "The
special duty and authority in the execution of process issued

BAYONETS AT THE POLLS. 523
to you must not be confounded with the duty and authority
repressing disorder and preserving the peace, which, under
our Government, belongs to the civil authorities of the State, and
not to the civil authorities of the United States." Nor has this
been altered by the late amendments. The Chief Justice
says in the case already cited:
"The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits a State from de
nying to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protec
tion of the laws; but this provision does not, any more than
the one which precedes it, and which we have just considered,
add anything to the rights which one citizen has under the
Constitution against another. The equality of the rights of
citizens is a principle of republicanism. Every republican
government is in duty bound to protect all its citizens in the
enjoyment of this principle, if within its power. That duty
wa.s originally assumed by the States, and it still remains
there. The only obflgation resting upon the United States is
to see that the States do not deny that right. This the
Amendment guarantees, but no more. The power of the
National Government is limited to the enforcement of this
guarantee." And yet in the exercise of a power so flagrantly unconsti
tutional, it is now claimed by the whole RepubHcan party,
their fraudulently elected President included, that for the bare
purpose of keeping the peace the Federal Government may
bring to the aid of their' party
THE ARMY. AT THE POLLS.
My fellow- citizens, our own Constitution provides that
"the mifltary shafl be in strict subordination to the civfl
power." But what avails this, if the Federal Government,
simply to keep the civil peace of the State, a matter not mil
itary at all, and not within its jurisdiction at all, can surround
your polls with bristling bayonets? Yet this is the provision
of the Revised Statutes, section 2002, and the persistent de-

524 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
mand of the whole Republican party, backed up by the veto
power of the President. For the last one-hundred and fifty
years such a claim would have cost any sovereign of England
his head. If persisted in and allowed here, it will cost the
people of this country their liberties ! Be not deceived, the
ballot can never preserve liberty when pinned to the box by
the bayonet. Think not the power will never be used. It
has been used. Glittering steel has gleamed in Southern
sunlight around the most sacred assembly in a free State, the
sovereign voters at the polls. Armed troops have expelled
Legislatures chosen by the people, and installed those not
elected. What has been may be. The feeble reasoning of
the President and his followers convinces no one, not even
themselves. They are not willing to trust the people with
their own elections, and will never willingly free the ballot
from the bayonet. Am I not right? Why do they so tena
ciously cling to their claim of the right to keep the peace at
the polls by the sword, when they know they have not even
the right to keep it by the baton, or the writ of the civil
ofificer? The power of the statutes, then, swarming with
Supervisors and Marshals, is reduced at last to its final analy
sis, "The bayonet at the polls." Like the deeds of the law
less barons of old, the charter of their power is sealed by
the hilt of the sword. It now only extends to the larger
cities, but if that be submitted to, the system wifl soon be
extended to every village and hamlet and voting precinct in
the whole Union. FEDERAL COURTS:
Gentlemen, we have seen that these statutes encroach upon
the internal sovereignty of the States, and attempt to transfer
powers to the Federal Government not constitutionafly be
longing to it. And the argument is so conclusive that it is
difficult to understand how any one willing to abide by the
Federal system, and wifling to be convinced, can doubt the

BAYONETS AT THE POLLS. 525
conclusions. But if there be those who care nothing for the
States or for their rights, like the Commercial newspaper and
politicians of that ilk, let it now be shown that this invasion
of the States is only a part of the unconstitutionality of these
Election Laws. In principle and in practical effect they
overthrow the checks and balances of the Federal system as
well as invade the powers of the States. It is an effort to
enthrone imperial policy within the Federal Government
itself We have seen that that Government is organized into
three grand departments. And these laws seek to clothe
the Executive Department, through the machinery of the
Judiciary Department, appointed by the Executive, with
power to control the Legislative Department. Surely the
most stickling advocate of Federal supremacy — even Mr.
Halstead — can not claim that the President ought to be
made, or constitutionally can be made, the supreme arbiter
of the system. Each department of Federal power must
be left to its own functions, or all the struggles of our
fathers and their sons since to crystaflize a repubflcan sys
tem into an effective and safe 8gency for the protection
of the natural and acquired rights of the people, must be
abandoned. These Federal Statutes clothe the Courts with power over
the elections of members of Congress. Can this be constitu
tionafly done? Can the Executive, through the Courts, all
of whose ofificers and agents are appointed by himself,
directly or indirectly, supervise the choice of that co-depart
ment — the Federal Legislature? First, let us inquire whether
it can be done through that agency, and that whether it can
be done at all. If Congressional elections must be super
vised, can it be done by the Judiciary arm of the Govern
ment? I insist not. Each department has its own functions
and is constitutionally incompetent to perform any other.
The Judiciary Department can only perform judicial duties.
Something growing out of or connected with functions, j udicial

526 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
in their nature. And the Constitution expressly declares
that this power shall extend to "all cases in law and equity".
arising under the Constitution ; and Story says: " It is clear
that the Judicial Department is authorized to exercise juris
diction to the full extent of the Constitution, laws and treaties
of the United States, whenever any question respecting them
shall assume such form that the judicial power is capable of
acting upon it. When it has assumed such form it is then a
'case;' and then, and not till then, the judicial power at
taches to it." Nothing can be clearer than that the appoint
ment of Supervisors under the Election Laws is not a
"case " in the sense of the Constitution. This was conceded
by Judge Baxter, of the Circuit Court, last year. And this
decision was unavoidable under the definition of the word
"case" always given by the Supreme Court. But it has
been claimed that the power to appoint Supervisors rests on
that clause in the Constitution which authorizes Congress to
vest by law ' ' the appointment of such inferior officers as they.
think proper in the President alone, in the Courts of law, or in
the heads of Departments." This clearly means nothing more
than that the "inferior ofificers so appointed shall belong to
the departments in which they are appointed, and not to
others. Could a Court be authorized to appoint a Deputy
Postmaster, or a Door-keeper of the Senate, or a Private
Secretary to the President, or a corporal in the army ? With
just as much legal warrant, nay more, than it can appoint a
Supervisor of Elections. The whole procedure is extra con
stitutional from beginning to end, and subverts the classifica
tion and distribution of powers provided by the Constitution.
POWERS OF THE HOUSE.
But, gentlemen, the President can not constitutionally
control or influence the elections of members of the House
through the courts or any other machinery. It is, together
with the Senate, an independent department of the Govern-

BAYONETS AT THE POLLS. 527
ment, not owing either its power or its election to the action
of any other department of the Federal Government, and
can be no otherwise controlled in its action than by the qual
ified veto of the President.
Nothing can be more important, therefore, in our constitu
tional system than the election of Congressmen, free from
the influence or interference of the Executive.
True, the present statutes are the work of both depart
ments, the Executive and Legislative. But one Congress
can not bind or curtail the rights of another. And if, for
party purposes, one party should pass a law in dererogation
of the free election of a future one, that gives it no constitu
tional sanctity. A moment's consideration will show us that
the Constitution could never have meant to give the Execu^
tive the least power over the choice of either branch of Con
gress. The Senate has the power to pass upon all his im
portant appointments; corfirm or reject all his treaties; and,
finally, to try all impeachments of himself or his appointees.
Surely, a well regulated Constitution could never, in a
Republic, leave the choice, or any interference in the choice,
of such a body to the Chief Executive, whose action they
are authorized to overrule, and whose ofificial life they can
terminate. And so of the House, and even more so. The
Government is entirely without revenue, except as granted
by the House. War can never be made without the sinews
of war — money; nor can any other operation of the Govern
ment be carried on. Unless the House grants supplies, the
army and navy would have to be disbanded, and every func
tion, even of civil government, would cease. If the Electoral
Colleges do not elect a President, that duty devolves on the
House, and the House originates all impeachments. Surely
the Constitution has not given the President the power, nor
the Congress the right to confer the power, to dictate or in
fluence in any way the election of this branch of the Govern
ment, into whose hands every other branch and department

528 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
is completely surrendered. Afl the traditions and antecedent
political experiences of our people show that no such power
was intended to be conferred, and every line of the Constitu
tion shows it has not been conferred.
PRACTICAL OPERATIONS.
My fellow-citizens, why linger longer on the constitutional
question, important as that ought to be? Even aside from
all the considerations already addressed to you, why should
the polls be surrounded by supervisors, marshals and soldiers?
Are the people incapable of self-government? Can they not
be trusted to conduct their own elections? Are men not
chosen by themselves, but appointed by strangers, better
fitted to supervise elections, and insure fairness, and prevent
frauds, than those they may elect? The bare suggestion is
an insult to the intelligence and virtue of the American peo
ple. The system of the Revised Statutes gives to a Judge
who may live a hundred miles from the polls, and be an utter
stranger to all its voters, on the demand of two citizens, no
matter how irresponsible, or even infamous, and who may
be strangers even to the Judge, the power to take charge,
through his supervisors and marshals, of the polls against the
wish or consent of the masses who are to vote. And any
one even suspected of a purpose to vote illegally, or charged
with assault and battery, or any disorder or breach of the
peace around the polls, whether growing out of the election
or not, may be taken under arrest before any Commissioner
of the United States the Deputy Marshal may choose, though
he should be one hundred miles distant. The law requires,
if he wishes to deny his guilt, that he shafl furnish his wit
nesses at his own expense, and, though acquitted, he can
never recover back his costs and expenses. Even if the
Supervisors and Marshals were always honest and true men,
is it possible the American people, when they come to under
stand it, will submiit to so onerous a system? But these

BAYONETS AT THE POLLS. 529
officials are not always honest; and as to the Marshals, the
majority of them are usually of the lowest types of civilized
humanity. Bummers, political hangers-on, suspected or
acknowledged social outlaws — these are the usual and most
available material for Special Deputy Marshals in afl the
cities where the statute has been invoked. The whole scheme
originated to perpetuate the power of the Republicans, and
was designed simply as a
POLITICAL ENGINE
To retain that party's control of the Government. It was
demanded by no necessity, and has subserved no good. It
has oppressed the citizen and rendered the elections more
fraudulent and corrupt than ever before. No one can deny
that it is openly and confessedly used as the sworn ally of the
Republican and the sworn enemy of the Democratic party.
In the appointment of the Supervisors there is a show of fair
ness, as they are required to be of different political parties.
But as the Chief Supervisor has control^ and is appointed by
a Judge appointed by a Republican President, he wifl neces
sarily be a Republican partisan, and wifl, as in party duty
bound, choose a strong Supervisor from his own party and a
weak one as his colleague from the other. As to the special
Deputy Marshals, there is no pretense of fairness to the re
spective parties. The United States Marshal appoints them,
and boasts, at least in Cincinnati, that he did not mean to
appoint any Democrats, and made a mistake if he did. They
are instructed to go to the polls incognito with their badges
of ofifice hid under their coats, and directed to report to the
Republican Committee at the polls, so they may aid the
cause. Meanwhile, many of them electioneer for the Re
publican ticket — even the State ticket — and keep the Dem
ocrats in utter ignorance that they are Federal spies, unless,
indeed, some row occurs where they can t^e the Republican
side by showing their ofificial badges, and hustling off with-

530 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
out warrant some obstreperous Democrat who was so ignorant
of the badge — the concealed weapon of Federal majesty —
that he talked and voted Hke a freeman in a free country.
Such has been its practical workings wherever it has been
tried, and from its essential nature such must be its prac
tical workings wherever tried and controlled by whatever
party. The system itself is vicious, and whether controlled
by Republicans or Democrats is dangerous, if not ruinous,
to popular liberty. CORRUPTION OF THE SYSTEM.
Gentlemen, time will not suffice to dwell on the corrup
tions of this system. But its "offenses are rank, and smell
to heaven." Investigating committees have laid bare the
tyranny and rottenness of Supervisors and Marshals in some
of the chief cities, and every investigation made has dis
closed the same bribing use of all its machinery to advance
the Republican party, in whose hands and whose instrument
it is. In New York the infamous John J. Davenport, Chief
Supervisor, as well as United States Commissioner and Clerk
of the United States Court, caused more than one thousand
men to be arrested in 1878 on charges of fraudulent attempts
to vote, and actually Compelled about thirty-four hundred to
surrender naturalization papers on which they had voted for
years, and which the Courts, afterward held to be perfectly
valid. He had in an upper story a large iron pen, like the
Black Hole of Calcutta, in grim humor called Fort Davenport,
into which he crowded on election day hundreds of poorly-
clad, shivering wretches whom he had illegally snatched from
the polls, whose title to vote was perfect, whom he detained
all day, and not one of whom was ever brought to final trial ;
and by which proceeding he and his satellites realized some
;^15,000 or ;^20,000. And even all these outrages are but a
part of his nefarious conduct. In preceding years it was
worse, if possible. In 1876 he had a thousand and seventy

BAYONETS AT THE POLLS. 531
Supervisors, and twenty- five hundred Deputy Marshals, and
any number of Commissioners, costing the Government
^94,587. And nearly all these persons — at least a majority
of them — wei-e the scum and filth from the lowest purlieus
of the city ; and so in Philadelphia and St. Louis and all over
the South. In St. Louis the Republicans boasted that they
had carried the election of three Congressmen by Supervisors
and Marshals.
In the report of the Frost contested election case, a witness,
Mr. Barnard, says: "Mr. Taft asked Mr. Mudd how many
Marshals he had. Mr. Mudd referred him to me, and said 1
had charge of the Marshals, and I said, ' one thousand and
twenty-eight!" The old gentleman wheels round his chair
and says: "Were there no others out in Missouri you could
have made Marshals?' Says I, 'Mr. Taft, we went in to
win ; ' and he said, ' You bring a good deal of sugar in your
spade!' Yes, verily; he had brought three Republican Con
gressmen from a Democratic city ! And this was the Stalwart
Grant Attorney- General who now shouts hozannas in praise
of Federal interference in elections! Already sixty-four
cities in the North and ten in the South are liable to these
odious laws. Their aggregate population is more than eight
millions, and the system cost in 1876 nearly ^286,000 of the
people's money. If a stripling youth, but eight or nine
years old, has grown to such proportions in rascality and
expensive habits, what will the monster be when it gets its
growth? When not only seventy-four cities, but a hundred
thousand polling places, are infested by the secret agents of
an unscrupulous party, armed with the plenary power to
arrest without a warrant, what will be the riiultitude or the
mangy leprosy of its host, or the bribing power of its expense?
PRETEXTS FOR THE SYSTEM.
My fellow-citizens, it is claimed that the system is demanded
by the peculiar condition of the States lately in rebellion.

532 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
which Secretary Sherman says " indicates a civilization scarcely
above barbarism." But the system was really meant to coerce
the large cities of the North, as the history of its origin cer
tainly shows. Let it rest, however, if its advocates wish to
place it there, on the need for it in the South, and how shal
low the pretext is ! I am ready to admit all that can be hon
estly and without sectional prejudice claimed as to the short
comings of the South. I am ready to admit that they
reluctantly submitted to the domination of the North. I am
ready to admit that they yielded grudgingly to the rule of
their late slaves under the tutelage and guidance of carpet
baggers from the North. I am ready to admit that they take
a different view of the powers of the Federal Government
than that taken by the simon-pure Stalwarts of the Republi
can North. I am ready to admit that they have not always
acted on the highest principles of philosophic wisdom or
Christian forbearance. But I can not forget that the old
Adam in man appears much the same whether man is found
on the sterile rocks of New England or the rich savannas of
the South. I can not forget that within a generation a pure,
innocent Catholic- institution, with the precepts of mercy '
written all over it, was in New England ruthlessly destroyed
by a mercfless mob. I can not forget that within a genera
tion millions of men all over the Union combined in secret
conclaves to crush the Catholic faith and ostracize men of
foreign birth. I can not forget that in our beautiful city
of Cincinnati mob law has repeatedly reigned supreme. A
mob threw a printing-press into the Ohio River, and the
Germans fortified themselves "over the Rhine" within my
memory. The "Regulators" ruled in Caflfornia, the Plug-
Uglies in Baltimore, and during the war Union enthusiasm set
aside all law in the North but the unwritten law of loyalty to
the Union. All honest men, therefore, who are wflling to
concede equal rights to all sections must pause and inquire
what it is that lies behind the afleged lawlessness of the

BAYONETS AT THE POLLS. 533
South, and what are the true remedies for that lawlessness,
if it exists. THE UNION.
Let no one say that this advocacy of the perpetuity of the
States is disloyal to the Union. The Union! Palsied be the
tongue that utters a reproach upon thy fair name, and with
ered be the arm that strikes a blow at thy sacred form ! In
the history of this world, in the holy chronicles of liberty,
in the common affecdons of mankind, no political institudon
is more revered than the American Union. Achieved by
the prowess of our ancestors, who sprang from the noblest
races of Europe, dedicated by the sacrificial blood of heroes,
cemented by the consent of the constituent States, protected
by the valor and loyalty of its people against enemies from
without and within, guaranteeing to State and people justice,
domestic tranquility, common defense, general welfare, and
the blessings of liberty, sanctified by its high priests on the
battlefield, in the legislative hall, in the Executive chair, in
the diplomacy of Nations, it is the consecrated temple of our
grandeur as a Nation and our liberties as a people. Its citi
zen treads the soil of every Nation, a conscious sovereign,
and its flag is welcomed in every clime. At home and abroad,
on land and sea, the Great Republic is the theme of praise on
every tongue, and her majestic power the shield of her hum
blest son. Her history, her freedom, her great people, her
intellectual and moral culture, her vast industrial resources,
her wide territory, her unfaltering faith in her future, make
her the peer of any Nation in the world's history. Men of
America, worship in this mighty temple of liberty! Lay
your offerings on its shrine of. peace and freedom; walk
securely in its lofty aisles, watch and strengthen the founda
tions of the edifice, guard its portals against every foe; let
no impurity defile its holy recesses, and swear by the memory
of the fathers to perish, if need be, for its protection ! And
the prayer of him who speaks fs, that this divine altar of the
37

534 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
patriot may be eternal as the earth ; and that if these stately
columns and the grand superstructure above them must fall,
before his eyes are closed forever, let him who bled for their
preservation die in their defense as they fall, and be buried
under their crumbling ruins !

CITIZENS' MEMORIAL.
[Speech of Durbin Ward, delivered at Cincinnati, O., May 30, 1881.]
Cities outlive governments. Civilization grows cities, but
they generafly live, after the civilization which gave them
birth, is dead. Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, Mexico, where
are the civilizations which produced them, and how long
passed away are the governments which first ruled them?
And even in our own country, have not New York and St.
Louis, New Orleans and San Francisco, young as they are,
owed allegiance to successive sovereignties?
In our Union, all the great cities, save Washington, have
been located by the enterprising. pioneer, and have owed less
to file government than government has owed to them. Their
sites have been determined, their foundations laid, and their
superstructure reared by the sagacious judgment and hardy
industry of the people.
The location of all the great cities of this country, through
the whole existence of American civilization, is already un
changeably made. Of all the hundreds that have sprung up,
and will yet spring up in the United States, Cincinnati now
stands and will always stand in the front rank. The basin in
which she is situate, taking both sides of the river, ere long
to be spanned by bridges at every principal street, and to
become practically Cincinnati, is now seventh in weight of
the great centers of our country's population. And her
place is more likely to rise than fall in grade by any future
census. Cincinnati is also that city which will continue to lie
nearest the center of our national population. But whether
we keep pace, or not, with the other great cities in popula
tion and wealth, Cincinnati is already large enough for afl the

536 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
purposes that cities subserve in human progress and hap
piness. All the material and mental agencies found any
where, which the high culture of the age both produces and
requires, are found in our midst.
And all this has been achieved by those who laid the foun
dations of your city, and those who builded thereon, in a
single lifetime. The gorgeous forests that covered this good
ly valley and crowned yonder picturesque hflls gave way
before the woodman and the builder; cabin and church and
school house arose as by magic. These men of head and hand
and heart not only made the "wilderness to bloom and blossom
as the rose," but they fifled the new born city with the ap-
pHances of modern culture. Now your basin is one hive of
industry, your river banks tied together by bridges, your
hill-tops covered with parks and palaces, your streets ^thronged
with tramways and your squares cooled by bubbling fount
ains. They have made you the handmaid of art, the patron
of literature, America's most iflustrious musician. You 'Arite
by lightning to afl the world, and you talk by lightning to
your neighboring villages.
It is fitdng, ladies and gendemen., that we should afl occa
sionally turn aside from the thorny paths of toil and business,
or the primrose paths of pleasure, or even from climbing up
the rugged hills of knowledge, to recall the virtues and
achievements of those who have gone before us. The great
dramatist has said "the evil that men. do live after them, the
good is oft' interred with their bones." For once he was
wrong. Fortunately for mankind, the good that men do
does live after them, and the evil rarely does. The blemishes
on great characters are but the tarnish gathering on their
achievements during their rough voyage over the sea of life.
But generous posterity brushes it off and leaves the genuine
metal burnished and bright.
Those, whose memories we now celebrate, doubtless had
the foibles common to humanity; but we forget them, and

citizens' MEMORIAL. 537

delight to hold up to the rising generation their good deeds,
to stimulate them to an honorable emulation of the worthy
dead. But, Mr. President, how shall one, at best but a denizen
of your fair city, and to whom so many of the former leaders
of Cincinnati life were not personally known, appropriately
speak their praises in this presence. Highly as I appreciate
the compliment of my selection to say a few words to-night,
those few words must be general, for time does not suffice to
portray, whatever my ability might be, the salient points in
the character of even a single one of our city's galaxy of
benefactors. That noble son, to whose eulogy you have just
listened, well deserved all that was said. But even Homer
pauses, in recounting the exploits of his champion, to give a
muster roll of the other heroes of the story. Not even that
can be done to-night, except as it appears in the gallery of
portraits around us. If I were to utter but a word of eulogy,
where could I begin, or end?
To speak only of those it was my good fortune to know,
now rise on my memory the revered figures of President
Harrison, Judges Burnet, McLean, Wright, Este, Torrence,
and in later days those with whom I came in personal and
professional contact. Chase, Storer, Spencer, Gholson, Corry,
Pugh, Pike, Burgoyne, Anderson, Mitchel, Zinn and the
rest. And in the line of letters, Hammond, Dawson, Cutter,
Fosdick and that sweet singer. Read. And in science,
Vaughn and Ormsby Mitchel. But not to be tedious, my
mifltary friends linger in my memory still more fondly and
vividly. The two gallant Joneses — Fred. JOnes, the brother
of that valuable living citizen. Col. Jones — and Will Jones,
the son of that good old merchant, John D. Jones; the
daring McCook, of that fighting family who shed more blood
for the Union than any family in America, and, ah ! nearer
and dearer than any, my bosom friend, the poet hero Lyde.
They afl fefl by my side on the field except poor murdered

538 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
McCook; but they all live, and will live in the grateful
memory of this city and of their country.
Men of Cincinnati, cherish in your heart of hearts, and
teach your children to cherish affectionately, the memory of
those who have passed from us; but, by their deeds, founded
and reared your city's greatness and rendered her name
famous at home and abroad.
Nor should you fail to remember that the breed of great
cities is not extinct. Your graveyards are not your only
estate in high citizenship. In all the walks of life you may
still be proud of your living as well as your dead benefactors.
Your chronicles of living usefulness, generosity and distinc
tion are already written and being written. You have had
two Presidents, one Chief Justice, and two Justices of the
Supreme Court; and your chronicler has written on his scroll
of city fame, "And he counted heroes as he counted men,"
the enduring names of Longworth, Groesbeck, Tyler David
son, Probasco, Dexter, Kilgore, Sinton, West, and then
blazoned his illuminated page with this mighty dome of
music, and graved it with the name of Reuben Springer.

SELF-GOVERNMENT.
[A Fourth of July Oration delivered at Hamilton, Ohio, July 4th, 1882.]
My Countrymen:
It is good for us to be here. These celebrations are edu
cators of the rising generations. The third and fourth and
fifth generations since the Declaration are around me, and
yet the scene is vivid and fresh. When memory carries us
back, and boyhood's celebration of the Fourth of July is re
called, it seems as but yesterday, when under the shade of
the primeval forests, the glories and privations of the olden
time were recalled. The music of the fife and drum, the
roaring of cannon, the rude homespun garbs and ways, the
grotesque procession, the speeches and toasts, the hearty
cheer, the old Revolutionary soldier guests, with white locks
and tottering steps, all come up as though time and care had
written no wrinkles on our brows. Then let us, with cheer
ful hearts, revel in the joys of this sacred day. Put away
the bickerings of the hour, the struggles of partisan zeal,
and be faithful and grateful children of the republic.
On some occasions I have discussed on this day the princi
ples of our government, the high obHgations of patriotism,
the huge proportions of our republic, or the grandeur of the
Revolution ; and sometimes I have reviewed the progress of
American ideas, institutions, or general development. But
may we not as well to-day link the present with the past and
consider the
DUTIES AND DANGERS OF SELF-GOVERNMENT?
When we look backward and consider the people of the
Revolutionary period, we have just cause to be proud of our
ancestors. When we study the actors in that drama, we feel

540 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
to be dealing with sturdy men of the antique mould. And
when we compare the events of this era with those of any
period of history, it is no wonder they have fixed the admir
ing gaze of the world. The people, the leaders, the events,
all belong to a heroic age. Pioneers in the wilderness of the
New World, they were for the most part plain, industrious,
honest, religious peasantry, full of courage and of hope. All
European nationalities had their places, and even the despised
African was among the first to spill his blood in the cause.
The armies were fifled with a yeomanry inured to hardship
and toil. From such a subsoil stern patriotism was a natural
growth, and heroism spontaneous. During the long and
weary years of the struggle, men and women alike submitted
to every privation which war, and even want, could inflict.
Poorly clad and fed, almost without pay, and long without
communication with the dear ones at home, for a postal sys
tem then scarcely existed, the soldier marched and fought, in
winter and summer, with but occasional victory; nerved only
by an unfaltering faith in final triumph. See the little army
in dreary midwinter, defeated and routed, crossing the Dela
ware on the ice, and marking their pathway through the
snow by the bloody prints of their bare feet, and say, my
young friends of the fifth generation, can gratitude ever be
deep enough for such devotion and endurance? And can
patriotism ever be too intense for a country bought with such
a price? Then turn to the rude cabin where the long suffering but
still hopeful wife strives to feed and shelter her little flock,
and spin and weave the garments for her soldier husband at
the same time. See her plain attire, her care-worn and
anxious face, her pious trust in Almighty help. All over,
the feeble thirteen, from Massachusetts to Georgia, scenes
like these taught the haughty foe that hero, and heroine alike
were invincible. Bless the memories of the Revolutionary
mothers! Blend with the warlike deeds of the fathers the

SELF-GOVERNMENT. 541

unostentatious but equal merit of their patient, enduring and
patriotic mothers and wives.
To those who have little considered the subject, the Amer
ican Revolution means the war in which Washington was
Commander-in-Chief. True this was the Revolutionary War,
but it was only one act in the grand drama of the " Revolu
tion." The settlement and growth of the country, the con
quest of Canada, and the attempt to tax the Colonies vi^ere
the precedent acts; and the estabflshment of the Federal
Constitution, with the consequent inauguration of the new
government under it, were the subsequent acts completing
American Revolution. The elements of American character
were found in the colonization of these States. The strong
and ardent from the best races of Europe, the germs of re
ligious freedom and republican liberty, the daring enterprise
that conquered a wilderness, and the middle age contempt
for labor which introduced slavery, were the roots of good
and evil from which grew the American Liberty Tree. The
French and Indian war, as it was then cafled, ending in the
conquest of Canada, brought the Colonies in closer contact,
and taught them their strength as well as aroused their ambi
tion. Indeed, Colonial power had really won the victory.
The Cavalier and the Puritan had come to know and esteem
each other, though separated by social ideas and two hun
dred leagues of forest. The real Revolution had been grow
ing for an age, and when the French and Indian war was
over, it rapidly drifted into the Revolutionary war. The
Crown treated the Colonists as political vassals, and they
drew the sword and achieved independence.
The birth of no nation had ever been so glorious. The
colonists had brought a full blown civilizadon into the wilder
ness, had grown in stature and in courage by buffeting with
the hardships of their position, and now, in imagination at
least, "the whole boundless condnent" was theirs! They
had won their independence against the attack of the British

542 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
in their front and the Indians in their rear. They had been
weakened by internal dissension, ill-considered finance and
ifl-organized government. But their great principles, their
bravery in the field, their constancy in adversity, their patri
otism even at the fireside, had won for them the sympathy
and admiration of the world, and gained for them that
material aid from abroad, without which success would have
been long delayed if indeed it had ever been possible.
French money, arms and men, Dutch loans and European
sympathy, strengthened the arm and encouraged the heart
of colonial struggle, and now when victory came the glad
right hand of fellowship was extended to us by the nations
of Europe. From these small beginnings the infant State
has grown into the great Republic, and takes her place in a
single century among the chief powers of the earth. Ameri
can ideas are taking root in Europe. The great impulse of
our Revolution is shaking the foundations of old institutions
and teaching everywhere the brotherhood of man. No single
event in political history has ever so revolutionized the world,
and since the Roman Empire no nation has ever had so grand
a future as lies open to the United States .
OUR GOVERNMENT.
And now, my countrymen, we have reached the point
where the past is linked to the present. The heroism of the
Revolution is history! It is memory, it is sentiment, it is
teaching, and it is revered in the patriot heart. But inde
pendence, glorious as it was in idea and act, did not give or
ganized, constitutional government. It nourished the seeds
of Hberty long before sown in the bosom of their mother
earth, society, and enabled those seeds to germinate and
grow up into that yet living organism, our American system
of government. That has not come down to us barely as a
legacy of glory, like the memory of the patriot fathers, or
the War of Independence. It is a living, present, potential

SELF-GOVERNMENT. 543

fact. With that the present and the future ages have to
deal. Through the fiery furnace of repeated wars, through
the experience of three generations of statesmanship, as well
as through the corrupting contact of pardsan and sectional
strifes, American institutions have descended to you, my
countrymen, and are now in your hands. A fortress of free
consdtudonal government is yours, an estate rarely inherited
by any people, and it is for you to squander or moitgage it
flke a spendthrift, or send it down to the future rinincum-
bered. Shall tyranny dismantle its battlements, or corrup
tion sap its foundations?
Let us consider what manner of government we have.
What are its requirements and duties, its difficulties and
dangers? The federative system of the United States has sought to
define and organize a constitutional system of self-govern
ment, which shall secure the liberties of the people, social
order, property rights, and a National and State power,
strong enough to protect the rights and interests of afl, at
home and abroad. In the organization of this dual system,
our home rights are under the protection of the State, and
all others under the protection of the Union. The people
alone are sovereign, and in our system have reserved to
themselves the right of revolution. By that right, they may
revoke any Constitution, State or Federal. But having es
tablished our co-ordinate system of State and Federal Gov
ernment, they have made that system the "supreme law of
the land," subject only to the right of revolution, "a right
inestimable to them and form.idable to tyrants only."
In inquiring into the rights and duties of the people under
our Government, we must have, if we would not err, a clear
conception of what is meant by the term "people." In gen
eral language the term implies all classes, native and foreign,
male and female, young and old. They are all people, and
under the protection of the Government, and subject to its

544 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
laws. But in the political sense it means those clothed with
political power. The sovereignty of the people means the
sovereignty of the " political people." While it is true that
those not included in the body politic are not entitled to suf
frage, it is equally true that in many ways they have rights
which give them immense influence in the Government. By
the pulpit, the press, the school room, the fireside, and by
all the forms in which opinion and influence may effect the
action of others, all classes may aid to shape the laws and
policy of the country. And, indeed, it is their duty to do so.
The wife and the mother, having to be governed by the laws,
are bound in good conscience to give whatever counsel and
aid they can toward good laws and enlightened policy. It is
the right and duty of all, whether voters or not, to be well
versed themselves, and to help others to be so, in all that
pertains to the well-being of the people, of whom they form
a part. But this duty is what moralists call an imperfect
obligation, not enforced by positive law. And it is not of
this duty I am particularly to speak. The "political people"
of the United States are the voters of the several States. In
them resides the sovereignty, and in their hands is placed the
destiny of the Republic and its people."
This principle cannot be too often or too urgently im
pressed on the minds of the people in all conditions of life.
The voters are absolute sovereigns with no power on earth to
coerce or control, except public opinion, or the dread power
of revolution. True, they are bound in theory by constitu
tions, but these are only wax in their hands. They make
and unmake constitutions. The voter is the primary ofificer
of the constitution. The organic law makes him what he is,
and he owes aflegiance to public opinion alone. In our
country, as well as in Europe, this body politic — this electoral
college of the people — has been greatly broadened of late,
and now in our country it embraces practically all male adult
citizens. Neither property, knowledge, virtue, physical

SELF-GOVERNMENT. 545

strength, nor any test of fitness is required. Age or sex
alone excludes. But why should sex exclude? Not want
of property, for that does not exclude males. Not want of
knowledge, or virtute, or strength, for ignorant male vaga
bonds, too crippled to stand up at the polls, may vote taxes
upon the property, and war upon the homes of the most in
telligent and upright matrons in the land. I. would not say
that the right of suffrage ought to be taken from those who
have it, but I will say that the reasons usually assigned for
the exclusion of women will not bear the test. If it be said
it would bring diverse interests and dissension into the house
hold, it can be answered that this is not more likely than
difference in religion, or the wife's separate property. Nor
would I say absolutely that I would enfranchise woman ; her
rights and interests may be sufficiently protected through the
the affection of her father or husband. It is a grave ques
tion. But I say when the intefligent good women of the
country decide to ask suffrage, it wifl not be withheld by my
vote. My only reason for afluding to the subject now, is to
fasten on the minds of all who hear me the vast powers of
the voter, and to ask you to hold him to the strictest respons
ibility in the administration of his trust.
THE VOTER IS A TRUSTEE.
But, as is usual with those whose obligations cannot be
enforced by law, he performs his duty when he pleases, and
as he pleases. No law punishes him for not voting, and not
even pubflc opinion punishes him for voting wrong. What
is it to vote wrong? To vote through mere passion or pre
judice, or for favoritism or dislike, or without knowing how
to vote right. My countrymen, you that are clothed with
the right of suffrage, is your duty performed intefligently,
considerately, with a full consciousness that you are choosing
public servants not to advance your own interests, but to
promote the pubflc good? Pause and ponder!

546 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
"the MACHINE."
We need not stop to inquire whether any immediate dan
ger menaces the institutions of the country. It is enough to
ask ourselves whether it can be justly said that the great
public trust of suffrage is being wisely administered, and
whether its exercise is securing good government to the
masses of the people. And in so far as it is riot, it is the
duty of afl good citizens to arraign suffrage at the bar of
public opinion to give an account of its stewardship. How is
suffrage organized and registered ? Is it done as in the simple
days of the Republic? Is it done deliberately and honestly
at all? Not that thousands do not vote considerately and
conscientiously. Of course they do. But the question is,
are the methods and appliances for carrying elections con
ducive to, or even intended to produce, a full and fair ex
pression of the popular will, and by that expression to secure
the best government for the people? If that be the object,
the means used would seem to be singularly inappropriate,
and the result singularly deficient. A full and fair vote is
what the whole people, as well as the "political people,"
have a right to demand ; and legislation for the masses, and
not for the classes, is the mandate of free government.
It is undoubtedly true, however, that to all free govern
ments parties are an inseparable incident, and serve in many
instances a salutary purpose. And it is equally true that afl
parties must have some system of organization and concen
tration of action. And it must also be conceded that as
voters consist of every class of society, all can not be influ
enced by like arguments, or brought into action by like in
ducements. An appeal to principle may be sufificient for
one, while another can only be moved by playing on his
prejudices. And so, too, candidates often influence voters
by mere personal popularity, without reference to the princi
ples they profess, or even to their essential fitness for the
place. There must, therefore, be more or less laxity in the

SELF-GOVERNMENT. 547

methods of political action. All these things show the dififi
culties of self-government, and should^ arouse the intelligent
voter to meet and overcome them. You are members of
the electoral coflege, and are bound by every consideration
that can address itself to freeman to perform your own duty,
and require every other man to perform his. The ofificers
you choose make or administer the laws.
How are ofificers made? The primaries are held to choose
delegates to a convention. The primaries are manipulated
by the "bosses," large and small, of party "rings." Thou
sands of the best citizens all over the country never go near
them. The "workers," by personal importunity or influence
over the bread of the humble laborer, or through the dram
shop, or by ready cash, can too often control votes enough
at the primaries to put ' in their men, and fix the convention
for their candidate. The "boss of the machine" becomes
the master of the party, and throws his toils around all
public ofificers and dictates all public policies.
Let it not be understood that all primaries are thus con
ducted. Crowds of honest, intelligent voters attend them.
But they give so little thought to the real magnitude of these
assemblies, and so little study to the methods by which they
are governed, that their voices are too often unheard amid
the clamor of the corrupt or unthinking. It is not then to
counsel against primaries that these words of warning are
spoken. Perhaps, after afl, no better form of collecting the
public will can now be used. Whatever is worth doing at all
is worth doing well, and I urge on the people to attend these
primary meetings. Guard, improve and purify them. In no
other way can you even start right on your road to reform.
GREASE FOR THE WHEELS.
Then comes the canvass and the election. Whatever else
may be involved, the "spoils of ofifice" are at stake. The
henchmen of the chiefs are looking for their share of the

548 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
booty, and why should they not be? Have not most of
those, who have wielded power for years past, gone in poor
and come out rich ? And is it not the laborer who helps to
make the millionaire worthy of his hire? Do they not know,
does the country not know, that few who have lately ruled
long at the Federal Capital, have fafled to become rich?
Money, therefore, becomes the motive power of the election.
And can you expect that in a community, whose ruling
thought is haste to get rich, condemnation will come to the
candidate who stakes his all — and all his friends can raise —
to secure a prize where there may be "millions in it?" My
friends, the use of money at elections must be stopped, or
our Republic cannot endure. He who bribes to be elected, is
ready to be bribed after he is.
But the evil does not stop here. Profit, not honor, be
comes the motive to candidacy. The candidate must be rich
enough to bear his assessment and the capable poor must be
excluded. High statesmanship is ended; personal aggrand
izement is inaugurated. The officer must make back what
he spent for his election, and public taxes are his spoils. He
lives by the "machine." As of old he shouts: "Great is
Diana of the Ephesians." Patronage becomes power. An
army of one hundred thousand office-holders are taxed as
their tenure of office, and they pay their assessments out of
the taxes the people pay into the treasury. Their assess
ments are expended in the interest of the "machine." The
voter is the vassal of the ofifice-holder. The office-holder is
the vassal of the "boss." The President is the lord para
mount of his mesne lord, the "boss." When a chief mag
istrate refuses to a "boss" Senator the dispensation of pat
ronage in aid of his own aspirations, and in reward for the
power of his "ring" in carrying a State and making that
chief magistrate, like the turbulent barons of old, he rebels,
and indignantly resigns his place in the Senate. Under this
new feudal system the workers swear fealty to the "bosses,"

SELF GOVERNMENT. 549

and the "bosses" own the rulers. Still this evil, great as it
is, might be borne. Who holds the ofifices if they be well
administered, is of small moment. Nevertheless, as men
must be the agencies through which afl administration is
carried on, their ability and purity are matters of the
first importance. Even to get good men into ofifice,
therefore, no patriot should hesitate to put an everlasting
end to "machine" politics. MONOPOLIES.
But all this is only the husk on the kernel of the system.
The kernel — the wheat — or rather the cheat of the system,
is not the men it .enables to strut "dressed in a little brief
authority; " but it is found in its measures of policy, its grind
ing exactions. Legislation comes to be not for the benefit
of the people, but only for the enthronement of monopoly.
Are not the rich every day becoming richer and mfllionaires
more numerous? Are not the poor every day becoming
poorer, and beggars and paupers more numerous? Where is
the Revolutionary simplicity, which made our fathers heroic,
and our Declaration a fact instead of a theory? Any one,
who for a moment looks abroad, with eyes unbeclouded with
the glamour of tinsel prosperity, can not fail to see that ruling
power, governing wealth, is stealing from the many to the
few. Scarce a law is passed in the interest of the toiling
masses. The statute book is filled with protection to special
interests. The power to pay imposts is tortured into laws
taking from the laboring consumer, and paying to the
manufacturer, five dollars for every one it pays into the
Treasury. The laborer groans and struggles in poverty
that the landlord may revel in wealth at the sea shore,, or
over the water.
The Government issues to bankers, and guarantees the
payment, bills to be loaned for profit, when coin deposits in
the Treasury might furnish an equal amount of paper cur-

38

550 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
rency, dollar for doflar, without a cent of cost, and without
an aflfiflated organized brotherhood of capitaflsts to control
the currency and fatten on Government credit. Two hun
dred miflions of acres of public land and sixty millions of
money are given to railroad syndicates at the expense of the
people, and robbing the young farmer of the homestead right
of entry. A public debt is fastened for generations on the
tax-payer, while the revenu'es of an onerous tariff, height
ening the price of all you buy, are pfled up in the Treasury
and squandered in extravagant expenditures. Everywhere
is enormous exaction, and everywhere extravagance, corrup
tion and luxury run riot. In the meantime labor, restless
under burdens which almost double every article of consump
tion to the poor, in bflnd despair, is year after year seeking
relief in commotions and strikes. Why is all this? Have
not your crops been bountiful? Has not heaven blessed you
with health? Is not the country in profound peace? The
answer comes: "We sow, and others reap; we produce,
and others consume."
In your hands, voters of the republic, is the remedy.
This is the day when freed from other cares, filled with the
memories and glories of the past, and fired by the patriotism
of the early time, you ought to forget all but country, and
ponder the difificulties and dangers that surround you.
CONCLUSION.
Behind us is the sacred past. Imagination, the magician
of the mind, robes that past with the hues of the present.
More than one hundred years after the birth of the republic
we stand by its cradle. A gorgeous panorama rises around
us, and the grandeur of the Revolution is pictured on the
impassioned mind. The present recedes to the background
as the refleving touches on the bold canvas, and Washington
and Jefferson and Hamilton and their compeers stand forth
in simple majesty, while thrifling eloquence fills our ears.

SELF-GOVERNMENT. 551

and a hundred battle fields bound our vision. Behold
Independence Hall, its rude benches, its immortal signers!
There Washington, "first in war, first in peace, and first in
the hearts of his countrymen," is seen resigning to the conti
nental congress the sword that achieved independence, and
resuming the plow-share. Flying from power he
" Pants for the refuge of his rural shade ! "
And there is the great Constitutional Convention, with
Washington once more at the helm, and sage Franklin with
his hoary head, and Madison, and the conscript fathers whose
wisdom added government to independence !
And here, too, nearer and dearer to our hearts than all
these, are the patriot mothers whose tender hands assuaged
the bleeding soldiers' wounds, and whose ascending prayers
"stayed up his hands who was the Moses of the fight"
Around us is' the teeming present. We are being borne
onward by the rushing tide of fifty millions of restless human
life. Where is the current carrying us? And what are the
duties of the hour? The patriots of the Revolution were
battling against poverty and weakness. We are surfeited
with wealth and reveling in omnipotent power. Theirs was
the task of maintaining an infant republic for the people at
home, and making for it a respectable place among the na
tions of the world. Ours is the stfll more difficult task of
preserving public order without invading liberty, of stopping
the aggressions of organized wealth without invading prop
erty. We are not forming but administering institutions.
We are no longer the simple farmer republic of old. We are
a numerous people. Our fifty millions are of nearly all the
races of the earth, and nearly afl the grades of human im
pulse and intelligence. Every man is struggling for mastery
over each other. Every opiriion is claiming to be orthodox,
and denouncing every other as heterodox. Organization has
come to be the* engine of assault or defense. It builds and

552 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
wields railroads and telegraphs by the hundred thousand
miles. It incorporates the favorite interests of the 'rich into
companies for every business purpose in thousands of millions
of money. And even labor, so long the unprotected prey
of capital, has at last begun to feel that in union there is
strength, and to seek by organization that just reward for
toil and sweat always so grudgingly bestowed when it can be
securely withheld.
In the meantime, simplicity of life and manner has passed
away. The president no longer rides from his rural home
to the capitol on horseback, and takes the oath of ofifice as
unostentatiously as the humblest local magistrate. And as
in public life so in all life. Wealth and luxury are supreme
objects of desire. Mammon is the god of this world, and
wealth, like Dives, is cautious of investments in the next.
His bloated worshipers drink not at the fountain of simplicity
and purity, but increase their thirst for ifl-gotten gains by
increasing drafts from the bilge- water of luxury and corrup
tion. From neither the fraudulent and haughty miflionaire,
nor the crestfallen and despairing poor, are we to look for
salvation from the destruction that seems to stare Liberty in
the face. From the great middle class, the bone and sinew,
the brain and muscle of the people, must come now, as
ever, the redeeming arm.
And who shafl dare say that this great middle class, the
farmer, mechanic, merchant, business man, young profes
sional man, the industrious, producing, organizing, thriving,
intelligent and aspiring masses of the country, will not have
virtue, courage, knowledge and manhood enough to guard
liberty from the siren voice of serpent corruption and rescue
labor from the ravenous claws of cormorant monopoly? In
all times past the defenders of the republic have had prowess
enough to successfully champion her cause. When inde
pendence needed the arm of the infant people to defend her
against British arrogance, like Hercules in the cradle, they

SELF-GOVERNMENT. 553

strangled the tyrant that assailed them. When a generation
later "free trade and sailors' rights" were invaded on the
high seas by the mother country, American valor maintained
American rights. When the wants of the republic required
Louisiana and Florida they became ours. When Mexican
insults to our flag disturbed our border and resentment be
came a national duty, the people extended the boundaries
of the republic to the Pacific Ocean and opened the Ameri
can gateway to the Orient. When we needed the snowy
furs of Alaska, the people reached out to the North Pole and
took them. And when convulsion at home disordered our
federal Union, the people trampled alien and sedition laws.
Burr conspiracies, Hartford conventions, and South Carolina
nullifications under foot. When at last the hydra-headed
monster. Secession, "reared its horrid front!' did not the
people by the miflion rally to the Union and restore yonder
flag, ' ' not a stripe erased or polluted nor a single star ob
scured f "
And now when greed and corruption assail public liberty
by fraud and indirection, will the people be less vigilant in
peace than they have shown themselves invincible in war,
and circumspect in diplomacy? Peace has her duties as wefl
as war. Henceforth no foreign foe can menace the republic.
The enemy is in our bosom. Shun the minions of corrup
tion and monopoly as you would shun pestilence and famine.
The spirit of the republic is "Liberty, Equality and Frater
nity." Down with "Machine Politics" — down with monop
oly — down with party assessments — down with bribery at
the primaries and the pofls! Let the people assert their
sovereignty and snatch the reins of power from the hands
grimed with filthy lucre, and rule the country themselves, in
the interest of liberty, law and order.
" God said — I am tired of kings !
I suffer them no more !
Up to my ear the moaning brings
The outrage of the poor !

554 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
Think you I made this ball
A tiling for havoc and vpar —
Where tyrants great and tyrants small
May harry the weak and the poor ?
Lo ! I uncover the land.
Which I hid of old time in the west ;
As a sculptor uncovers his statue.
When he hath wrought his best.
I will divide my goods.
Call hither the wretch and the slave !
None shall rule but the humble
And none but toil shall have.
I will have never a noble ;
None of lineage counted great ;
Fishers and choppers and ploughmen
Shall constitute the state."

ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM.
[A speech delivered at Gallon, Ohio, August 25, 1883.]
Fellow-Democrats of Ohio :
It may be expected, this year, that in opening a canvass
before the people I would make some reference personal to
myself. I have thought I could serve you better with the
opportunity an office might afford than in private posidon,
but that is for you to decide; not my will, but your will, be
done. And, however I may be situated, whether in ofifice
or not, I shall, in the future as in the past, consider it a duty
and a pleasure to do all I can for my country and my party.
I can not quit the subject without thanking my friends for
their ardent support of my aspirations, and assuring them
that I shall cherish through life the deepest gratitude for their
unselfish devotion.
Fellow-citizens, the cardinal principles of our party have
been the guide of the Nation during most of its existence.
Perhaps, no fitter time to recall them than now could be
selected. The country is in no ferment of excitement. It is
not a Presidential year, and the people's minds are more open
to reason and readier for the exercise of calm judgment than
when some great National party struggle arouses popular
passion. The all pervading idea of Democracy is the sover
eignty of the people. Its principles of action relate to their
safety and welfare. Those principles are naturally classified
into such as pertain to the constitutional organization of gov
ernment, and such as grow out of its administration. Each
class springs from the central idea of the people's sover
eignty, and each aims to secure their safety and welfare.
The Democratic party has ever held definite views as to the

556 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
nature and proper organization of our State and National
Governments, and as to the constitutional relations between
the States and the Federal Union. These questions have
always been, and still are, and will ever continue to be while
our political system lasts, the broad and deep dividing line
between parties in America. Constitutional questions abide,
while questions of policy are ever changing with the chang
ing wants of society. DUAL GOVERNMENT.
My countrymen, the fundamental constitutional idea of
American Democracy is that our system of government is
dual — State and National. The Federal Constitution is a
social compact creating an "Indissoluble Union of Inde
structible States," subject only to the right of revolution.
This idea has ruled the general Democratic mind of the
country in peace and war, though certain political doctrin
aires in all sections have sometimes disputed it, and oftener
given it a false application. At bottom the doctrine of
Nullification of old and Secession more recently was only a
claim that the right of revolution, which they called nullifica
tion or secession, resided in the organic state, and not in its
individual members — the people. All parties admitted the
right of revolution as inherent in the people and inalienable
by them, but afl except the Secessionists denied that it was
lodged in the organic state as a political sovereignty as well
as in the people. The Republicans, on the other hand, deny
that the States have an indestructible existence coeval with
the Nation. They deny the individual autonomy of a State,
and make it subservient to the existence and the 'wifl of the
Nadon, whatever they may mean by a term not found in
the Federal Consdtution. As to fundamental insdtutions,
there, on each side of this line and separated by ir, stand
the two parties. And this distinction between them is not
immaterial, or even of small importance. It is constantly of

ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 557
the utmost consequence. It shapes and dominates the con
stitutional ideas and policy of each party on every question
where the rights of the States over their internal affairs can
arise. Though less prominent in the public mind at some
times than others, it ought never to be lost sight of by the
friends of popular liberty. While the Union, under the
Constitution, is the shield of harmony and peace among
the States, and of our national power and glory abroad, the
sovereignty of the States over their local affairs is the sword
of defense guaranteeing ' ' life, Hberty and the pursuit of hap
piness " to the people at their hearthstones.
STRICT CONSTRUCTION.
Gentlemen, as a consequence of this flne of demarcation,
the parties differ as to their construction of the meaning of
the Constitution. A strict construction of the instrument is
a canon of Democratic interpretation. Our party treats afl
government as a mere delegation of power and seeks to con
fine it strictly within the limits of that power. Government
must show its warrant before it exercises authority. Repub
licanism on the other hand, claims a liberal construction of
all constitutional grants. It seeks to accumulate power in
the hands of the general government, and limit State power
to the narrowest bounds that astute ingenuity can make
plausible. With them defense of State rights is provin
cialism, if ngt half treason, while extension of national
power and activity of national control as against the States is
high statesmanship, lofty patriotism. States are to be belit-
tied and crippled, while they attach some mythical holiness
to the word "Nation," and seek to enlarge and enthrone
national control of every interest and institution. Democ
racy means the simplicity of equality and freedom, while
political RepubHcanism means the grandeur of Empire. The
one distributes and the other concentrates power.
Fellow-citizens, the history of the whole country illustrates

558 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
forcibly the division of parties here indicated. We cannot
now pause to elaborate. But has not every act of the Repub
lican party since it had exfstence been in the direct line of de
nying the autonomy of the States, and affirming and enlarg
ing the power of the " Nation " over their local affairs? Let
us not recall the stormy period before and during the war.
That was practical revolution, and let us bind no one, on
either side, with its extravagant claims. But since the war
was over, has not each party acted, and does it not stifl act
on this line of demarcation? What -was the whole Recon
struction Poflcy but a claim that the general government
could constitutionally invade the power of the States at its
pleasure? There existed no war, and these things could be
claimed under no revolutionary right. The powers exercised
were claimed as the inherent right of the Nation against
which no State right could be set up. And so the policy of
surrounding the polls with supervisors and marshals and bay
onets, is the boldest effort yet made to render the Federal
Government omnipotent over State institutions in their very
origin at the ballot box. All these things were opposed by
that gallant old party which had stood by the Constitution,
the rights of the States, and the liberties of the people, from
the days of Jefferson down. And all these things were done
by the Republican party in the name of the Nation. And
now, my fellow-citizens, is not this constitutional idea of the
Demccracy the corner-stone of all that is best in our institu
tions? Can we safely remove the protection of our dearest
rights of person, of property, of liberty and of home from
the guardianship of the State, whose ofificers are in our very
midst, to the distant capital of this vast country? No,
"that government is best which governs least," and that ad
ministration is purest which is nearest the watchful eyes of
the people. DEMOCRACY PROGRESSIVE.
But, gentlemen, our adversaries scofifingly tell us that the

ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 559
Democratic party has no principles, that it struggles only for
the spoils of ofifice. Is it evidence of' lack of principle that
we submit to be excluded from National power for twenty
odd years, rather than go over to our adversaries and take
the fat places they had to offer ? It is our steadfast adherence
to principle that has kept us alive and out of ofifice. During
the sixty years of our rule, no country was ever better gov
erned, and none ever progressed with such rapid strides. We
gave the Union nearly all its new territory, and nearly all its
new States. We robbed no citizen of a right, we fostered
no special interests, we built up no monopolies. The States
and the people were secure in local self-government. We
moved with the progress of the age. One evil alone was
beyond control of any party. That rent us asunder and
drove us from power. A million Democrats from the North
rallied to the support of the Union in the field and the rest
saved the Constitution from overthrow at home. We have
grown strong in defense of constitutional liberty and popular
rights. Democracy is never old and decrepit; it is new and
living as the wants of society. Democracy is never new; it
is as old as the love of liberty. One of the merits of our
party is, that it is at once conservative and progressive. It
has no dead past to bury. Its march is onward with steady
step to the front. Whatever sustains the true life of Dem
ocracy, we appropriate as we advance. Whatever begins to
rot on our hands, we cremate to avoid contagion. He that
lags in the march is left by the wayside, to ramble into some
other camp, and he that dies in battle, we bury with the
honors of war. PATERNAL POLICY.
But, fellow Democrats, while we keep constantly in mind the
elemental constitutional ideas of our party, we must now, as
ever, keep pace also with the wants of the age. So, when
nothing in the state of affairs makes it necessary to press prom
inently forward in advocacy of constitutional rights, we must

660 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
be Stifl alert as to administrative poHcy, and look with an eye
single to the safety and welfare of the people. Republican
policy is based on the idea that government is paternal and
should lead the people, instead of being guided by the people.
Democracy, on the contrary, bases its policy, on the idea
that the people can be, and ought to be, trusted to control
their own actions except as public order requires limitation.
What dreamers call the general welfare ought not further
to control individual rights than to require each man to so
enjoy his own rights and his own property as not to invade
or endanger the like rights of others. On this line of de-
marcation the policy of the two parties has always been and
still is divided. Under the claim that it was demanded by
the general welfare, the opposition to the Democracy, for it
has had many names, has enforced its paternal theory of
government. The State was everything; the individual
nothing. Hence, national banks, protective tariffs, internal
improvements by the Government, railroad grants, subsidies,
and many other forms of controlling the masses and their
rights and interests by governmental action. To all this,
true Democracy is opposed. Their theory is the largest
liberty of private action in everything consistent with order
and harmony in society. These different conceptions of the
functions of government are not at all new. They are as
old as civilization. And the Republican theory has always
produced dead conservatism, and the Democratic theory
conservative progress. In Sparta of old, the government
was rigidly paternal, and society as vigorously policed as a
military camp. Athens was a free democracy. Sparta
added practically nothing to the world's progress. Athens
became the nursery of science and philosophy, poetry and
art, and the teacher of future ages. Even on the battlefield
the cultured Athenian held his own against the machine
soldiery of Sparta. Look to the grandfatherly decrepitude
of paternal China. Look anywhere to the progressive

ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 561
nations of the world. They advance in proportion as indi
vidual freedom is the spirit of the State.
And now, gentlemen, imbued with these ideas of constitu
tional and personal liberty, the practical needs of the hour
require' our attention. The platforms of party conventions
are of little worth. The spirit of a party controls. Still,
even these utterances more or less reflect the spirit of a
party, though too often imperfectly expressed. They serve,
however, to indicate what is uppermost in public thought.
We will this year be concerned principally with questions
of administrative character, and these are indicated in both
party platforms. THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION.
One of the most important questions of State policy
grows out of the traffic in intoxicating liquors. Under the
old Constitution, the traffic was conducted under special
license, and general retafl was prohibited. The Democratic
Constitutional Convention, which framed our present Consti
tution, left the question to the decision of the people by
submitting a separate clause. The subject had for years
excited the community, and great division of opinion pre
vafled. As is wefl known the Prohibitionists and "Free
Whiskey" men united for opposite reasons, and the no-
license clause was adopted. The first claimed that without
license the sale would be illegal, and the other that it would
be free and untrammeled. The first two Legislatures under
the new Constitution, both Democratic, grappled with the
question, and finally decided that while prohibition was
unconstitutional, or at least unpolitic, they had the power to
regulate the traffic and prohibit sales to be drank where sold.
The law fefl dead in most places, so that "free whiskey"
became the general rule. The Scott law repeals this statute,
and makes the sale of intoxicants free on the payment of a
tax. The Supreme Court having decided /the Scott law to

562 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
be constitutional, we need not debate the law question to a
popular audience, though I must say I doubt the force of
the reasoning on which the decision is made to rest. The
late Legislature has also submitted two constitutional amend
ments on the subject, one for prohibition and one for legisla
tive control.
The questions then for the people to decide in this canvass
are, whether they will require the General Assembly to re
peal the Scott law or modify it, or whether they will adopt
one of the two Constitutional Amendments submitted.
The repeal of the Scott law returns us to untaxed traffic,
still practically free, and takes out of the treasury some two
miflions of money. If the constitutional right to tax exists,
which I doubt, it is because you can tax a business simply,
for the statute, as to the tax, has no police elements in its
provisions. Construing the preamble in connection with the
body of the statute, the evils it is intended to prevent are
only that the business had escaped taxation. This tax is in
no sense a form of police, and as a tax for revenue it ought
to be apportioned according to the extent of the business.
The sale of one barrel of whisky ought not to be taxed as
much as the sale of one hundred barrels. If the law, then, is
constitutional let it be amended in that respect, and also
stripped of its tyrannical penalties, and stand as the best the
RepubHcans can do until we can put something better in its
place. Shafl we adopt either of the Constitutional Amend
ments as to the liquor traffic ? Prohibition is incapable of
actual enforcement, if it were even desirable, and need not
be further considered. The other amendment is obscure and
delusive, and not needed if the Scott law be constitutional.
This law is one of the shrewdest pieces of legislation ever
invented. No "circumlocution ofifice "ever more adroitly
studied "how not to do it." After striving all winter to
carry water on one shoulder and whiskey on the other, the
ne plus ultra of the jugglery was reached in the Scott law.

ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 563

It was thought it would be a winning card with the hard-
.fisted tax-payer, and touch his pocket nerves. And then, it
was thought it would please the saloon keeper by giving
him a legal sanction for his business, and keep him out of
the clutches of informers or poflce officers. And then it
would open a dram shop where the honest workingman
could console himself with his social glass with the proud
consciousness that he was . lessening his taxes at the same
time. And then it was thought it would appease the stal
wart temperance man because it would make shekels for the
treasury without /2'c^«.f2>?^ the "accursed traffic" — collecting
tribute from the Devil in the name of the Lord. It was
intended to court the tax-payer and the saloon keeper, the
tippler and the temperance man at the same time. But it is
no settlement at afl of the question, and whfle it may catch a
stray vote, it is a mere party expedient and leaves on our
hands the vexed question. We are thus thrown back to
the temperance issue with little guide as might be expected
from Republican tampering legislation, and called on to
settle it on Democratic principles. The whole matter is but
a temporary incident to social development, and has to be
dealt with on the broad principles of social progress.
THE USE OF STIMULANTS.
The use of stimulants is as old as humanity, and will con
tinue, so far as we can see, during the life of the race. The
right of each individual to use them, if in so doing he inter
feres with no one else, is a clear right of personal liberty.
Whether such use is beneficial or not to him, only concerns
others so far as others are affected by it. But in very numer
ous instances it does affect others, and when it does the ques
tion becomes one of public order. Like every other matter
affecting others than the individual himself, it becomes a mat
ter of police. The experience of all the world shows the
sale of intoxicants does affect, more or less, the public order

564 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
of society. And hence, so far as it does affect pubflc order,
society has a right to police that sale. Clothe government,
therefore, with the right to regulate and poflce the sale of
stimulants in the interests of public order. Let no man be
prohibited from sefling stimulants, who obeys a judicious
police, and none, capable of self-control, from buying; but
let the traffic be controlled, as every other business is con
trolled, by the dangers incident to its conduct. Amend the
Constitution so as to regulate and tax by license. License is
not, as some seem to think, permitting a trafific which could
not otherwise be carried on, for the sale of stimulants in the
absence of constitutional or statutory prohibition would be
no more illegal than the sale of bread or broadcloth. License
is only an exemption from general prohibition, and not
needed, except where that prohibition exists. Licensing,
then, is only a form of policing and taxing the retafl of stim
ulants, and the best method of regulating such trafific. The
amount to be paid for the license to sell can be graduated
according to the amount of the trafific, and can easily be
determined by competent authority, and thus the whole busi.
ness be conducted without injustice or oppression to any one.
The retailer can receive his license, pay his tax therefor, and
be protected in his business. But he must see to it, as every
other business man has to, that he does not invade the rights
of others. No honest dealer, or saloon keeper, could object
to these conditions, any more than the dealer in provisions,
or the shipper of glycerine, could object to police inspection.
The Deniocratic party is no advocate of intemperance. It
treats this question as it does every other in the light of ex
perience, and in recognition of the right of the individual,
and of the police powers of government. True, it attaches
less importance to the coercive power of law than to the
more potent mandate of public opinion.
THE TARIFF SYSTEM.
My fellow-citizens, the coming election not only involves

ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 565
the choice of State officers, but the selection of a United
States Senator. National as well as State issues may there
fore properly be debated in this canvass. The Tariff question
and Civil Service are the most important subjects now likely
to be considered and they both involve Administrative Re
form. On these questions I shall ask your attention to-day
and repeatedly during the canvass, though with such brevity,
as wfll be rather the statement of my opinions than the argu
ments sustaining them.
The tariff question has been much debated ever since
Adam Smith formulated the science of political economy.
Almost the whole body of economists have for a hundred
years condemned the principle of protective duties, and now
scarcely one ripe thinker in political economy is found in
Europe or America whose writings do not sustain freedom
of trade. Statesmen have not been so well agreed, though
the protective idea has not held its place in legislation so
much by the force of reasoning as by the power of influence
and the' difficulty of adjusting the details of tariffs to the
standard of revenue. In the early history of our country
protection was claimed for our infant manufacturing indus
tries. Many of our greatest statesmen favored the claim.
Both Webster and Calhoun, at different periods of their lives,
sustained and opposed protective duties, and Webster's anti-
protective speech of 1824 is the ablest effort of his life on
any economic question. Four years later he took the other
side with equal zeal. Calhoun favored protection in the
early days when Webster opposed it, and opposed it in the
later days when Webster favored it. Nothing could better
iflustrate the notable remark of Gen. Hancock that protec
tion was a local question. Each of these great men favored
or opposed protection according to the altered interests of his
section. Clay was the steadfast friend of his protective
"American System," and through life treated what he termed
"our infant manufactures" as the wards of the government.

39

566 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
The Democrats in 1846 enacted a Revenue Tariff, and the
principle stood unrepealed till the war necessities of secession
changed the policy of the government. After the slavery
issue became prominent, the tariff question dropped out of
sight until very lately, and, therefore, my feflow-citizens, you
have heard little of the subject in public discussion. It is
now rising into importance and will require wise considera
tion. Gentlemen, it would seem to be the natural course of
industry that each man should produce and sell whatever
suits him best and pays him most, and buy and consume
whatever suits him best and costs him least. We have free
dom of labor, of speech, the press, religion, thought. If we
are not to have freedom of commerce, trade, production,
consumption, it devolves on those who seek restriction to
show for what reason. Freedom is the general rule, and why
in these matters should there be restriction ? Whatever
might have been the needs of our young manufactures at the
beginning of the century, they have now had two genera
tions of growth, and are still demanding greater protection
than ever before. So the logic would seem to be that the
more protection is given, the more it is needed. Let us
regard the question practically. The Government has to be
supported with money, and this has to be raised by some
form of tax. Suppose the Government had, by selling its
public domain, raised and invested a fund, the interest on
which would defray the expenses of the National Govern
ment, surely even the most rigid protectionist would hardly
claim that tariff duties should be levied. What use would the
Government make of the money ? But the Government
does need to lay and collect taxes for its support and to pay
its debts. The money may be raised by a tariff or internal
revenue, or both. I confess I favor both, though I would
collect both by the same ofificers. Since we are to have a
tariff, the principle on which it shall be levied and the com-

ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 567
modifies on which its duties shall be laid, both become
important, and sometimes -determine each other. As a prin
ciple, shall duties be levied except for revenue, or shall they
be levied also for protection ? This question may well be
divided into two branches. Where an industry is already
being protected, the protective principle ought only to be
abandoned, if at all, slowly and gradually, so that such in
dustry might conform itself to the change, Wisdom requires
that even acknowledged evils should not be uprooted with
violence, where the sudden change injures existing interests,
and where a more gradual one would preserve them. On
the other hand, where the adoption of the revenue principle
and the exclusion of the protective principle would not affect
injuriously, existing interests and investments, the protective
principle ought to be abandoned at once if it is wrong.
REVENUE TARIFF.
And now, my fellow-citizens, let us consider for a moment,
a tariff for revenue, for the tariff must raise revenue, what
ever else it does. I fear the phrase, "tariff for revenue only,"
is very liable to mislead. It may convey different meanings
to different minds. Some may construe it as meaning that a
"revenue tariff" should be so adjusted as that no " incidental
protection" should follow. This would involve levying duties
on only such articles as could not come into competition with
home production, for whenever that competition does arise
"incidental" protection follows a tariff for revenue. Such
articles are too narrow a basis for revenue, and by checking
importation might defeat revenue entirely. When protection
incidentally follows a duty, whose purpose is revenue barely,
it would be refining too much to say that the unavoidable
incident should not follow, though the article itself might be
a proper subject for revenue. Taxes of all sorts ought to be
so levied as to impose the least burthens on industry. This
principle requires tariff duties to be laid on articles whose

568 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
consumption is not reproductive. Whatever is consumed
in the reproduction of other wealth adds to the aggregate
wealth, and therefore is beneficial to the tax-payer by broad
ening the basis of future taxation, and hence lessening the
per cent, to be levied. As heavy a tariff duty as they will bear
ought therefore to fall on luxuries, not with any idea of en
acting laws of a sumptuary nature, to check or control their
consumption, but because their consumption is not, as a rule,
reproductive of wealth ; and hence they bear the tax without
burthening industry. Again, it is a canon of political econ
omy that the last stage before consumption at which a tax
can be levied least burthens industry, because the amount of
the duty being an element of cost to the consumer, he then
pays no interest on the tax; whereas, if paid at an earlier
stage, each dealer must have profit on his investment. One
other element in a revenue tariff we must pass over for want
of time, and that is the proper selection of articles to be
taxed. Experience only can determine that in detail, though
the principle .should be to equalize, as near as possible, the
burthens to the consumer. THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF.
My fellow-citizens, let us look for a moment at the essen
tial idea of protection. It is that the home producer cannot
produce an article here and compete in the market with the
foreign producer, because the foreigner can undersell him.
He therefore asks that the foreigner shall pay a duty so he
can not afford to sell his article so cheap as to exclude the
home article. The producer at home would not ask a tariff
if it did not enhance the price. "The very argument that
he uses is (to quote my own words of last year) that without
protection he cannot compete with the foreigner, who, unless
burthened with tariff duties, could supply the consumer
cheaper than he could. And so he demands that the foreign
article shafl be made as dear to the consumer as his own, in

ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 569
order that he can compete with him. If, therefore, the price
was not raised to the consumer by protective duties, a pro
tective tariff could do the home manufacturer no good, for
still the foreigner could undersell him in the home market.
* * * But it is claimed by the protectionist that the hpme
manufacturer cannot compete with the foreigner because of
cheap labor abroad, and in the next breath he tries to per
suade the operative here that protection increases his wages.
If the trouble with him is that his foreign competitor undersells
him by reason of cheap labor, how can he better himself by
raising the wages of his operatives at home? Does he not
hire his operatives as cheap as he can ? And would he favor
a protective tariff to raise their wages? Indeed, both of his
propositions are too baldly fallacious to admit of argument
or deserve answer. He knows the tariff does increase to the
consumer the price of the foreign article and his own too.
And he equally knows that he does not seek to increase the
cost of his own article by increasing the cost of the labor
that enters into its production. And the manufacturer knows,
too, that for every dollar the protective system pays into the
treasury it pays five into his own pocket."
Suppose, however, my hard-working operative, that pro
tection did enhance the price of your wages, would that be
of any practical value to you under the protective system ?
Money is worth only what it wifl buy. You have to feed,
clothe and shelter yourself and family. When you go into
the market with your wages you have to pay higher for
every protected article. Sugar, salt, hats, shoes, clothing of
wool, silk, cotton, flax or fur — nearly everything you eat or
wear, and household and kitchen furniture, every hoe, axe,
spade, pen and penknife, ink, paper and pencfl, and almost
every other article has in some form paid tribute to protec
tion. If protection did increase your wages 25 per cent.,
the average duties on the articles you consume are about 50
per cent. Your wages might be raised ;^10 a month, and

570 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
you would get one-fourth less to live on for the money. My
honest laborer, you suffer more than any one else from the
delusions of protection.
But, my fellow-citizens, there is another aspect of this
subject quite as practical and even more important to you.
If the principle of protection is admitted, what are to be the
protected industries ? Shall they be all the industries of the
country alike, or only a part of them ? Surely, if one indus
try is protected all ought to be, if all need it, and to the
extent that each does need it. Now, gentlemen, I am not a
doctrinaire as to protection. I am not ready to carry out a
theory, however correct in principle, until the condition of
the country and the tone of public thought make it
practical. Believing the doctrine of protection to be fallacious, I rec
ognize, at the same time, that there are so many who differ
with me that I do not expect protection to be at once aban
doned, even where it does not effect existing investments.
The most we can hope for now is such a reform in the appli
cation of the protective principle as shall prepare the coun
try, as speedily as may be, for its abandonment. While,
therefore, the industries of other sections are protected, we
must insist on the protection of the industries of our own
section. If the woolen, cotton and silk fabrics, if the leather,
salt, iron, coal and timber interests are to be protected, then
we must protect the farmer, the gardener, the wool grower,
the stock raiser, indeed, every interest. I live in a Congres
sional district largely engaged in paper manufacture, in to
bacco raising, in barley, wheat and all agricultural products.
Shall they not be protected while the others are? So long as
the principle of protection shapes legislation at all, the appli
cation of this protective principle is to be the prime consid
eration, and hence the details of the system must be pro
ducing constant conflict among the various interests and
sections. Wherever any action of mine can influence the

ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 571
question, I shall insist, so long as protection remains, upon a
fair rule of protection to all interests and afl sections aflke.
But I shall, at the same time, strive to bring the whole coun
try to feel that afl sections and all interests alike are safer
without the protective principle than with it, when the sub
ject is considered in all its bearings.
My fellow-citizens, the protectionist points with triumph to
the prosperity of the country and claims that to be the result
of his system. There are, indeed, certain elements of pros
perity, but what evidence has any man that they are due to
protection? The Democratic tariff of 1846 was in the main
a revenue tariff, and the country never had greater industrial
prosperity than during its existence. But even now it is not
the highly protected interests that give the country its pros
perity, as an examination of the subject, for which I have no
time, will abundantly show. What has protection ever done
for the great agricultural, planting, mechanical, transportation
and shipping interests? Are the manufacturers of wooden-
ware, mechanical and agricultural instruments, carriages, roll-
ing-mifls, railroad machinery, and the products of the myriad
workshops of the country ' ' protected " in any effective
sense? Nay, they are crippled; for their stock in trade is
taxed by tariff duties which, as they increase the price to the
consumer, lessen his ability to buy. There may be a few
favored interests growing rich off protection, but the masses
of the people, the hard-working toilers at the bench, the an
vil and the plow, are not. They are not and cannot be en
riched by paying a tax to other interests that cannot thrive
without the aid of that tax. Must one man work at a Dusi-
ness and divide his earnings with another who works at a
business in which he cannot make profit? Is a system right
which makes one man work to support another? But why
does the capitalist who manufactures need protection ? Cap
ital is cheap and abundant. America is no longer poor.
Interest is low. Nine-tenths of the producing power of fac-

572 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
tories is machinery, not men. And skilled labor commands
very little more in America than in England. With fifty
miflions of the most intelligent and enterprising human beings
on earth, and unbounded supplies of the raw material, if our
people cannot compete with foreign nations in producing
what we consume, the remedy is not found in protection.
Commerce exchanges the productions of one country for
those of another, and each is the gainer if each can import
cheaper than produce. Commerce affords the real protection
to home industry by giving through exchange of products
the largest returns to capital and labor.
My fellow-citizens, the Republican party advocates the
protective principle, and the Democratic party the revenue
principle. The protective principle, like all its other policies,
is founded on the -fraternal idea. The Government must
direct the people what they shall produce themselves and
what they buy from abroad. It builds up a favored class, pro
motes monopolies, and taxes labor to enrich capital. It
makes the poor man pay more tax, in per cent, on the value
of his coat and blanket, than the rich man pays on his.
Taxes the farmer, mechanic, workingman, on the implements
of his industry, on every article of clothing and comfort of
home, not barely to support the Government, but to enrich
the manufacturer. The Democratic party, on the other
hand, supports a revenue tariff "limited to the necessities of
the Government economically administered." In adjusting this
tariff for revenue, we insist that it shall impose no unequal
burthens, but encourage all industries alike, without creating
or fostering monopolies to rob labor of its just compensation.
I would not have worded the platform quite as it is worded,
but the idea is there. It leaves freedom to industry, and
levies taxes to support the Government only, and not to
build up special interests. I heartily concur also in the
platform's denunciation of the reduction of the tariff on
wool, while it leaves a highly protective duty on woolen

ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 573
goods. The proposition is so monstrous that the Repub
licans themselves have had to recede from it, and the wool
growers owe the Democracy a debt of gratitude for forcing
the Republicans to do them justice.
Gentlemen, the whole tariff ideas of the two parties divide
on the line beween capital and labor. A Republican tariff is
in the interest of capital ; a Democratic tariff is in the interest
of labor. The one protects money; the other protects men.
A man is better than a dollar. The dollar, in the thousand
forms of aggregated capital, is strong enough to take care of
itself The man, unorganized and competing, is ever the
prey of the dollar, organized and combining. He needs
freedom from governmental favoritism to capital. Repub
Hcan tariffs enslave; Democratic tariffs enfranchise labor.
Republican restrictive legislation has driven our ships from
the ocean. Under Democratic free legislation, the breeze
will kiss our merchant flag in every clime and on every
sea. Capital and labor at home will each have its just re
ward. Legislation will not, as now, make the rich richer,
and the poor poorer. Democratic taxation, like the dews of
Heaven, will fall on all alike, and not, as now, exempt the
rich by taxing the poor. CIVIL SERVICE.
My countrymen, I must not be silent as to civil service.
If we had time to consider it in its largest sense, we would
begin with primaries, conventions and elections. The free
dom, intelligence and purity of the voting power are above
all price to the institutions and policy of the country,
though unfortunately not always above a money value in
actual politics. But to-day, the civil service to be discussed
involves the appointment of subordinate ofificers under the
Federal Government. This is a most important subject,
and one that of late has attracted much attention. Our
platform demands, as the first step in the reform, "a change

574 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
in the Executive administration itself." In that view I heartily
concur. A new party came into power simultaneously with Seces
sion, and for twenty-two years, except in rare cases, has held
every ofifice worth having in the civil administration. The
Civil Service has been during that period a close corporation,
in which none could be stockholders except Republicans.
Service to the country, or fitness for the place passed for
nothing unless the applicant could show his party patent of no
bility. Nay, Democrats were jeered at as disloyal, though
they had bled for the country or defended the Constitution
against those who reviled it as "a covenant with death and a
league with hell." The administrators of the Civil Service
banded together to keep their party in power, contributed
money to the cause, went home on leave to manipulate con
ventions and electioneer at the polls. In short, became a
trained army of political mercenary soldiers, armed with the
influence and patronage of the Government, and obeying no
call but the command of their master, the Republican party.
Their votes and influence determined the last two Presiden
tial elections. Against this abuse of the Administrative
power and patronage, the Democracy has been constantly
outspoken and bold. But their warnings and denunciations
have been unheeded by those in power. The frauds and
corruptions of the service have gone on from bad to worse.
Jay Hubbefl and his Committee, in defiance of law, bled
department clerks at his pleasure, and Star Route wicked
ness defrauded the Government and elected a President with
the plunder. The first and essential step in Civil Service
reform, my countrymen, is therefore to muster out of service
these disciplined cohorts of Republican power, and put in
their places Democratic, honest and competent successors.
"They have aflowed themselves to be made the' mercenaries
of a party, apd are no longer fit to be the servants of the
whole people." Indeed, no party can safely be trusted with

ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 575
unrestrained power so long, and the subordinate officers in it
least of all, for they feel responsibility to their superiors
alone, and not to the people. The chiefs feel some respon
sibility to public opinion and the people. When the chiefs
go out, let their dependents go, too. Of course, trained men
in the several departments must be retained to instruct their
successors, but let the body of» the Civil Service give place to
new men, gradually and circumspectly, selected from the
Democratic ranks. This is not only justice but good policy,
for the country ought to feel that the Government is not the
property of one party.
The grip of the Republican party on the civil service was
remorseless till they felt power slipping away from them.
Then they began to plead for non-partisan civil service, so as
to retain their liegemen already in place, and weaken their
rivals by giving them fewer places to bestow upon their fol
lowers. If there were no other reason for opposing the re
cent Civil Service Act, it would be enough that practically it
gives Republicans in ofifice an advantage over Democrats out
of ofifice. First,- let the parties be equalized, at all events,
before applying competitive tests.
TRUE REFORM.
Gentlemen, there is a civil service reform, however, in
which I most heartily believe, and which I hope yet to see
the Democratic party inaugurate. That is, to conform the
civil service itself to the principles of Democracy. We must
conform the service to the Democratic idea of the distribu
tion of power, not its concentration. Practically, the Presi
dent is now responsible for the appointment of one hundred
thousand ofificers. Afl this ought to be changed. The de
tails would be matter of much consideration, but the princi
ple ought to be to distribute, not to concentrate, the appoint
ing power. Let it afl be regulated by statute, so far as that
can be constitutionally done, and even amend the Constitu-

576 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
tion, if that be necessary, so as to take the enormous burthen
off the President and Senate. Give Cabinet, Bureau, Cus
tom House and Postal Department ofificers fuller powers of
appointment and complete responsibility for the appointees.
There would then be better opportunity to investigate quali
fications, and less potency in influence and patronage. Even
a wise system of competitive examination among Democrats
may aid to secure a good civil service, though my own faith
in it is small. The distributive principle of appointment is
worth far more.
Fellow-Democrats, is it wise policy, all things considered,
whatever may be done abroad, to attempt to make civil ser
vice non-partisan under institutions like ours? The governing
power here is lodged in the people. All reasoning teaches,
and all experience proves, that the people govern and must
govern through the instrumentality of parties. The English
system is relied on. One branch of British power is lodged,
it is true, in the people, but it is counter-balanced by royal
prerogative and hereditary peerage. Parties have great
power in England, but here they are omnipotent. The party
in power is the government, and should be hel4 to full re
sponsibility for every detail. It ought, therefore, to select
its own agents, and not be allowed to escape accountabflity
on the ground that some of its agents are not chosen by
itself I would reject nothing simply because it is British,
but I would adopt nothing not suited to the genius of our
people and the character of our institutions. Parties, gen
tlemen, like the people themselves, are of different grades of
intelligence and virtue, of different habifs of thinking, and
of different tastes and aspirations. Ofificial positions differ
in grade, in honor, in emolument. The ambition of one is
as wefl gratified by a clerkship in the Pension Department
as that of another by a Cabinet portfolio. Members of par
ties are also moved by motives. One is ever awake to prin
ciples, one loves honor, one money. One goes with the

ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 577
party from principle or ambition, one from prejudice or edu
cation, and one from interest or habit. When the party,
therefore, is struggling to carry an election, all these motives
and influences are at work.
The Republic is no Utopia, nor the age a millenium.
Whfle one is aspiring to the Presidency, another seeks a
Senatorship, and someone else thinks of a Mission. The
party regards these as laudable ambitions. And would it be
less laudable for one of humbler pretensions to think of a
Bureau, a Consulate or a Clerkship ? May he of ambition
for the high place work for his party's success because he is
assured it brings the ofifice, and must he of the humbler
aspiration feel that party success does not affect his chances ?
Will not he in his heart say that party is aristocratic, what
ever it calls itself, which reserves its high places for its chiefs,
but provides none for its humbler adherents ? He becomes
either lukewarm or mercenary, unless he is philosophical
enough to understand and adhere to principle, or stupid
enough to go with the crowd. If you leave open to the
great middle class of the young and ardent, the hope of pro
motion in the party, ambition for some place suited to their
abilities is sufficient to prompt to active duty ; but if you
exclude that class, the temptation to accept money as the
reward for his work is tenfold enlarged. You have crushed
his aspirations for honorable place in his party, and made
him a paid vassal of the " machine." The greed for money
is unbounded, and its corrupt use in politics is the monster
evil of parties. It corrupts Government at the fountain-
head, and non-partizan Civil Service renders it still more
potential by making it the only selfish motive to action with
thousands who would be moved by honor if honor were open
to them. I reject and despise the maxim "to the victors
belong the spoils. " Ofifices should be created and adminis
tered for the public good, and not for private or partizan
gain. There should be no " spoils of ofifice," no "cohesive

678 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
power of public plunder." First, distribute the appointing
power, and then diminish the number of office holders to
the mininum required to administer the government, and
let the appointing power be as near the people as practic
able. Even study whether the people themselves may not
be entrusted with the choice of postmasters, thus remitting
the selection to the respective localities. But I make this
as a hint rather than a recommendation. The great central
thought, without which reform is impossible to any large
extent, is division of the appointing power.
My fellow-citizens, having thus organized the civil service,
let no man holding a Federal appointment be allowed to con
tribute money to influence the baflot. The Federal Govern
ment has no elections and Federal office-holders ought not
to surround the polls with their hireling agents of corruption.
This has been one of the worst evils of Republican misrule.
Afl their apparent effort to stop it has been but a pretense,
and these assessments for party purposes will go on so
long as the Republicans hold power. Neither Star Route
prosecutions nor Civil Service convictions will stop it till a
change of administration changes the civil service now in
ofifice. For one, should we ever attain power, I shall
favor the most rigid reform attainable in this respect.
Let us crush and put down forever Federal interference
in elections. FUTURE DEMOCRACY.
My countrymen, you must excuse me if I am something
of an enthusiast for the principles of my party and the future
of my country. I religiously believe in both. Our party
will endure with the institutions of our country, and for many
centuries to come, I confidently hope, nay, profoundly be
lieve, both will fill this broad Republic with their benificience
and glory. It is the habit of Americans to boast of their
country. But the patriot cannot do less. Cold indeed must

ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 579
be the spirit that is not warmed with admiration of the
grandeur of the American Republic. Her mighty domain,
her unexampled resources, her matchless institutions, her
glorious history, more than all — her people. Never before
in the world's history was such an empire of power brought
into harmony under one government, one language, one des
tiny. Roman Empire had her centre at the Efernal City
and ruled in military grandeur over continents. China has
her vast region and swarming millions. Russia is enthroned
amidst her snows. And England by her arms, diplomacy
and commerce rivals the power of old Rome. But the
United States are measured in one compact territory, from
ocean to ocean, and from the Arctic to the Tropic, as a Re
public of Republics. We behold her material resources;
her stone and iron and coal and gold and silver, her diversi
fied cereals and fruits and timber and animals and birds; her
rivers and mountains and lakes, her teeming cities and busy
factories, her raflroads and telegraphs; her intellectual and
moral power, her churches and colleges, her free speech and
free press and free thought and free labor and free commerce;
her nicely balanced Federal and State institutions, her cour
age and intelligence and youth and hope, until we ask in won
der what is to be her future? Government is only one force
in society and cannot fully control the future of any country.
But still, what party but the Democratic could rule the polit
ical destinies of such a country? What are other parties
and their poHcies but evenescent organizations to deal with
the accidents of our progress, not to develope and harmonize
the National life of the Republic? They come and go, but
the Democracy endures. Federalists, National Republicans,
Whigs, Anti-Masons, Abolitionists, Barnburners, Know^
Knothings, Free Soilers, where are they? Dead and buried.
" A school boy's tale, thewonder of an hour."
They served a temporary purpose, and gave up the ghost.
And so must the present Republican party pass away. The

580 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
future cannot be entrusted to its guidance. Slavery was only
one of the accidents of our progress, and would have per
ished without abolition agitation or secession war. It would
have lived longer, but would have wasted away from the Na
tional life as an unhealthy excrescence, leaving its scar, but not
poisoning the body politic. All the poflcies of these tem
porary parties have become too narrow for the expanding
Nation. All their systems of currency have been but passing
expedients. Their system of internal improvement might
suit a rude country of villages and forests, but it is useless in
the presence of dense population and vast capital. Protec
tion may have served as the swaddling clothes of our infant
manufactures, but now that American industry has put on
the toga virilis, it must put away childish things and advance
with manly courage to battle with a competing world.
On the other hand, my Democratic friends, our party is
perennial. Its principles are suited to every phase of Na
tional progress, every need of social development. It dis
cards centralization and paternal government. It teaches
that when hundreds of millions gather under our flag, from
every clime and nation, no repose can be had, except under
that dual system of government which gives indestructible
autonomy, both to the Union and the States, and leaves the
largest liberty of individual action. Break down or enfeeble
the States, and rule from the Federal Capital by Satraps or
Pro Consuls, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and the cor
ruptions and licentiousness of Persia or Rome will extinguish
public liberty, or drown the struggling Nation in a sea of
blood. Or clothe government with paternal power over the
social movements of the people, and our civilization would
be stereotyped into a lifeless conservatism. The past of the
Democratic party guarantees the country against these evils
from its rule in the future. My comrades, to us, and those
who come after us, the preservation and enforcement of our
principles are committed. Banish from your counsels and

ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. 681
your methods all time serving policy or ambition, all chi
canery or corruption, if any exists, all vacillation and timidity,
and press forward to victory in October, and next year and
all future years. Rally and uphold the standard of constitu
tional liberty and personal rights, not only as the guide of
the hour, but that they may be transmitted in full vigor and
with progressive power to our children's children as a legacy
enduring forever.

40

DECORATION SPEECH.
[An oration delivered on Decoration Day, May 30, 1884, at Memphis, Tenn.]
The past and present are the father and mother of the
future. That future necessarily inherits the characteristics
of its parents. Time, the Chronos of the ancients, feeds on
his own children. Age after age brings growth and decay in
the everlasting life of the human race. Each age emerges
from the past and glides into the future through boundaries
too shadowy to be fixed on any chart of history. But stifl,
culminating epochs are chronicled as flood tides on the sea
shore of human progress. The American age in which we
have lived, now sinking to its close, has been tempestuous
and revolutionary. The Secession war was the flood tide of
this age. Its ebb tide is at our feet. The memory of that
stormy epoch calls us together to-day. We are not here to
recall its strifes. We are not here to weep again over the
faflen. Most of the eyes whose tears rained on the bier of
comrade or husband, son, brother or lover, are gone to that
home where weeping is no more, and the mourners that yet
linger have had their grief assuaged by the healing hand of
the Great Physician. Nor do we come as victors to exult
over a conquered foe. We exult indeed over the triumph of
our cause, for our victory was not only victory to us, but
victory to the vanquished. With melancholy pleasure, there
fore, we consecrate these flowers on the altar of patriotism,
as the gift offerings of grateful hearts.
The occasion naturally suggests to the thoughtful citizen
reflections upon the causes and consequences of the Seces
sion war. But in these reflections we should not narrow our
selves to the consideration of the immediate partisan or sec-

DECORATION SPEECH. 583
tional struggles, which blew the sparks of passion into the
flames of war. Nor should we simply survey the field of
battle, and count the victories and defeats, or number the
slain, or reckon the cost of the conflict, or the wrongs of
either side in waging war or securing peace. These would
not bring up from the depths of American life the real causes,
nor reach forward to the real consequences of the late Rebel
lion in the now accomplished Revolution. The essential
causes of the Secession War were as old as the American
people, nay, as old as the civilization of modern Europe.
But we may not rehearse the long story of European civiliza
tion or American popular growth. We may, however, as
reconciled brethren of the same great National famfly, gird
ourselves for the future by a correct comprehension of the
past. In the Middle Ages Europe was not concentrated into
great empires and kingdoms as now. Feudal dukes and
barons acknowledged only nominal allegiance, and rendered
but refractory obedience to their sovereign. Petty princes
bore sway as sovereigns all over Europe. This familiarized
the people and their rulers with local customs — local inde
pendence — local government. Free cities grew up, and every
where local municipalities fostered home government. In
England, more than elsewhere, these ideas survived the over
throw of the feudal system, and imbued English life with
strong tendencies towards distribution of power. Counties
and boroughs had representation in Parliament, and even
to-day within the old walled city of London, and in some
duchies in the kingdom, are retained many of the privileges
and usages of "ye olden tyme." By theory the sovereign
sits in person in the courts of each county. Ireland for gen
erations after her conquest had her Parliament, and even yet
local institutions and religions hold sway in Ireland and Scot
land. The very kingdom is legally Great Britain and Ireland,
and the national flag bears alike the cross of St. George, St.

584 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
Andrew and St. Patrick. The colonists brought these tradi
tions and political tendencies with them to the new world,
and government at home became still dearer to them as their
supreme government was on the other side of the ocean.
But beyond all these elements of our national system, each
colony, under its own charter from the Crown, was planted
in isolation in the wilderness, among hostile savages, and
grew up into a little community which governed and de
fended itself Each was independent of the other, and each
was subordinate to the crown of England. No colony sought
to interfere with the local concerns of any other, and none
would have tolerated any such interference. The right of
local government was, in the minds of our ancestors, the
right of self-government, and this they traced back to imme
morial origin.
These traditional conceptions, my fellow-citizens, were the
germs of our national life, and in the fullness of time grew
into the War for Independence.
In the hearts of the people, the cause of Independence
was the" cause of personal liberty. Not in the abstract sense
of the natural rights of man, but in the practical sense of the
immemorial rights of Englishmen. It naturafly followed that
when the Declaration of Independence estabflshed a new
Nation, that Nation drew the essential elements of its life
from the parent country, modified by its new conditions of
material existence and the revolution which gave it birth.
Upon the autonomy of the several Colonies, the revolution
waged no war. It was not the existence of the respective
Colonies that was felt to be oppressive; it was that their
Governments were dominated by the power of the Crown.
It was against the supremacy of England that Independence
fought, and not against the existence or local institutions of
the several colonies.
Revolution legitimates its conquests, but is Hmited by their
boundaries. So when the American Revolution expelled

DECORATION SPEECH. 585

British power, that Revolution succeeded to the rights of the
sovereignty it had conquered, but did not extinguish the
Colonies it had turned into States. As no warfare had been
waged against them, from them no State rights had been
conquered. They were born into the Nation, therefore, as
integral elements of the Nation, and can only be eliminated
from that Nation by revolution, the same power that gave
them existence. Nations are not created by parchments.
People grow into nations. And the national organization
springs from the political wants and ideas of the people.
Their material conditions and Surrounding largely control
the wants and shape the ideas of every people, and this is
strikingly true of the American people. The Declaration
of Independence did not create the Nation ; it only heralded
its creation to a startled and admiring world. That Nation
was proclaimed as consisting, and did in fact consist, of
States, and a Federal Union of States. This was the Nation
that had grown into existence, slowly, but surely, during near
ly two centuries of Colonial dependence. Dual existence is
the Nation's unwritten Constitution, sealed by the blood of
revolution. Independence did no more within the States
than extinguish British sovereignty, and enthrone Federal
Union. And it did no more within the Union, than make
it a nation among the nations of the earth.
The form of government a nation may assume is but the
garment it wears, and may be changed at the pleasure of the
nation, though that change may sometimes require revolu
tion. As to the States, the American revolution having left to
each its individual autonomy, each was the sovereign arbiter
of its own interior government. The Federal Union was one
arm of the dual nation, but the government which the revo
lution gave the Union was a loose confederacy, so feeble as
to practically paralyze that arm. Foreign countries had no
relations with, the States, and therefore while they could and
did rule their respective communities in their local concerns.

586 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
the foreign relations of the country became hopelessly em
barrassed under the revolutionary Confederacy. It became
apparent that the Union must have a better and stronger
government, or a new revolution would destroy the Union
itself, and rend the nation into as many fragments as there
were States in the Confederacy. My countrymen, no period
of American history deserves more accurate and dispassion
ate study than the period from the close of the revolutionary
war to the inauguration of the present Constitution. Every
step in the formation and adoption of that Constitution was
revolutionary. In all periods after the Declaration of Inde
pendence it had been admitted that the Union alone had
sovereignty abroad, and the States alone had sovereignty at
home. This anomalous condition could not last. There was
distrust abroad and dissension at home.
All parties felt that some remedy for existing evils must be
found. In this spirit the Federal convention met. For two
years the stormiest intellectual revoliLtion raged that ever
marked the political history of this country. It was not like
the Revolutionary war for Independence, full of fervor, cour
age and sacrifice. It was not like the late Secession Revolu
tion, full of stormy patriotism, fanaticism and blood. It was
an intellectual war to settle whether the very nature of the
nation should be changed ; its dual life blotted out, and the
States as individual sovereignties take place as petty powers
among the family of nations. Or whether they should be
merged into one consolidated nationality where State lines
should have no existence. The conflict of opinion, interest
and passion was intense. The key point of the fight was on
the line of the continuance or the destruction of the States.
The enemies of the States found them so strongly intrenched
in the popular affections that their utter overthrow was im
possible. It would have led to civil war in every State.
But it was not thought impossible to subjugate them by indi
rection. It was therefore proposed that their governors and

DECORATION SPEECH. 587
judges should be appointed and hold ofifice at the pleasure
of the Federal Government, and their laws be subject to Fed
eral approval. On the other hand, the friends of the States
struggled to preserve them, and continue their relation to the
Union strictly on the federal basis. One party obstinately
insisted on a National Republic; the other on a Federal
Union. Everywhere, in the convention and out of it, the
numbers were nearly equal, and in the public mind the argu
ments so nearly balanced that decision seemed impossible.
The Federal convention was on the verge of dissolution.
The States inflexibly refused to surrender their autonomy.
They could live without the Union, but the Union could not
live without them.
The Union might be destroyed, and civil war ensue ! But
amidst the storm, personal liberty would be the lode star
of the people! Whatever might come, home government,
the guardian angel of the hearthstone, they had inherited
from their fathers, and they would die to defend! Sages
paused and invoked Almighty guidance. As when the Divine
Nazarene stretched forth his hands to the stormy waves,
breathing in mild accents: "Peace! Be still!" the billows
of strife were lulled to repose; the spirit of compromise
brooded over the troubled waters. Concession after conces
sion was made on both sides, and the rising sun of the new
era was seen among the clouds above the horizon. The Fed
eral Constitution was presented to the people for adoption.
Not to the people of the Union aggregated into one mass, but
to the people of each of the several States as an individual
community of the Federative Nation. After bitter and
doubtful contests in the several States, that Constitution was
acceded to, and the American Union — a Republic of Re-
pubHcs — became the fundamental law of the Nation. It was
a charter sealed with the thirteen seals of the thirteen States ;
the federative seals of the several States affixed by the people
of each, not the aggregate seal of the whole people of the

588 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
Union as a single body politic. It was the social compact of
a federative community, and guaranteed an "Indissoluble
Union of Indestructible States." Citizens of the States were
citizens of the Union, and citizens of the Union were citizens
of the States. The Constitution and laws of the Union went
into every State, and bound every citizen to allegiance and
obedience. Allegiance to the State was fealty to it as a State
of the Union, and not as an independent Nation. The two
could never be in conflict, for the Union and the States were
only correlative arms of one sovereignty. This Constitution
of Government only organized the Union and the States into
harmonious action, but did not destroy the uriwritten Con
stitution which made them the two arms of one Nation ; the
right to assert its honor and defend it from attack, the right
to fold its people to its heart.
The Government thus ordained was both national and fed
eral; national abroad, federal at home; national in imposing
its laws on the people directly, and not through the medium
of State governments ; federal in that the States gave to the
General Government all its ofificers. The President was
chosen by electors, selected as each State might direct. The
Senators chosen by the Legislatures of the several States.
The members of the lower House of Congress by voters
made such by the government of each State. In all choice
of ofificers, in all amendments to the Constitution, the people
of the States acted federatively and not aggregately. There
was not one function of government to be exercised by the
people of the Union, acting together en masse.
Such was the Constitution, my countrymen, the people,
guided by the wisdom of the fathers, gave the American
Republic. Certain doctrinaires at home and abroad have
cavilled at some of its provisions and some of its omissions,
and have sneered at the blind worship of it by our people.
Faults it may have. But no plan of government in the
course of time ever surpassed the perfection of its organism.

DECORATION SPEECH. 689
It bound together the discordant States of the past, and
gave new life and hope and courage to a perishing nation.
It was everywhere regarded as the supreme law — the funda
mental landmark of our political system.
But as might well have been expected, differences of opin
ion soon arose as to the meaning of the instrument itself It
is one of the incidents of all language, spoken or written,
that different minds give to it different constructions. The
Holy Oracles themselves have led to interminable disputes.
One class of thinkers favored a liberal and another a strict
construction of the Constitution, and this divergence of opin
ion has continued down to the present day. But the only
great Constitutional dispute we need now consider is the right
of secession. This right has been asserted and denied in all
sections and in all periods of the Republic. It was a threat
repeatedly made when the Federal Government was, or was
thought to be, acting outside of its constitutional authority,
but never when it was conceded to be acting within its dele
gated powers. It was a right claimed to arise from the nature
of the Federal compact. But critically considered, it was
only a form of asserting a right of revolution in the essential
sense of that word. The threat of secession was made in
New England, and the right asserted in Virginia and Ken
tucky before the beginning of this century. It was pro
claimed again in New England upon the acquisition of Louis
iana and during the British war. It was fiercely hurled by
each antagonist at the head of the other during the memora
ble Missouri Compromise Debate. [ It was attempted to be
practically exercised in the tariff conflict in South Carolina.]
And during the last generation no subject but slavery occu
pied so much of public thought. During the whole existence
of the government up to the close of the Secession War, the
greatest intellects in the nation have discussed this question,
and statesmen have generally taken the sides their interests
or their passions have dictated. Every shade of opinion has

590 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
been evolved from open secession to the ultimate absorption
of the States into one aggregate national community. The
debate has had its evfls, but has been also productive of some
good. Though it was one of the chief causes of the late re
bellion, it preserved the love of the people for the States. A
right of secession has no place in the American system, ex
cept in that natural right of revolution inherent in the people
everywhere to throw off any government when its oppres
sions and wrongs justify the act.
Now, my fellow-citizens, having considered one of the
chief causes of the Confederate War, it is time to consider
the other. Slavery was planted in the colonies during their
infancy under the fostering care of the mother country.
That it took deeper root in one section of country than an
other, was owing to no moral reasons or religious convictions.
The material interests of each section gave to each its course
on this subject. The climate and productions of the South
fostered slavery, and the enterprising commercial spirit of the
North fostered the African slave trade. If one has to answer
for the lash of the overseer, the other has to answer for the
horrors of " the middle pas.'sage." New England Puritanism
was ready, for the endowment of its ministry, to sell Quakers
into slavery in the Barbadoes. And even after the conscience
of the world began to be awakened, the slave trade took
refuge in the Constitution to enable Northern slave merchants
to stock the plantations of the new States of the South,
quite as much on the demand of one section as the other.
In our own day it was not until the greed for political power
was grafted on sentimental aboltionism, and slavery propa-
gandism on the other hand sought new conquest, that the
slave question involved the country in war. How can the
impartial thinker doubt that the one party was as honest as
the other? Each was mainly governed by its supposed inter
ests, tinctured in its feeling by sentiment and prejudice.
But to the judicial ear some questions are no longer open

DECORATION SPEECH. 591
to argument. That slavery was abhorrent to the instincts of
eplightened humanity, that the public opinion of the world
was against it, that its very advocates gave it faltering sup
port, no longer admit of question. That it had ceased to be
of real advantage to master or slave, whatever it may have
once been, subsequent events have clearly proved. It may
have civiHzed the savage African by contact with his Euro
pean master. It may have opened the forests and marshes
of the South to culture sooner than free labor would have
done. But the system was worn out. The spirit of the age
condemned it, and it had to go. The right of each State
under the Federal Constitution to tolerate or establish slavery
could not rationally be denied ; so the right of each State to
tolerate and defend free discussion could not be denied, and
free discussion created a public opinion fatal to the institu
tion. The minor phazes of the struggle are unworthy of
recall. It is enough that crimination and recrimination exas
perated the sections and plunged the country into civil war.
The fiery furnace of revolution melted the chains of slavery
forever. My feflow citizens of all sections, the sooner we acknow
ledge the late war to have been a revolution, the sooner its
real significance will be realized and acted upon by the whole
people. The war was waged on both sides outside of consti
tutional law. Whatever might be the right of secession, it
was only partially attempted to be exercised by the seced
ing States. Before formal secession began, arms, forts, arse
nals, custom houses and post offices,, the admitted property
of the United States, had been seized and appropriated by
rebellious force. Thousands joined the arms of the Confed
erate States from States that had never seceded, and some
of the chief officers of the Rebel Government were from
States that adhered to the Federal Union. The movement
was in every just sense a rebellion, and its success would
have been in every just sense a revolution. It is to be re-

592 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
membered that it was not aimed at the national existence of
the non-seceeding States, nor was it aimed at the federative
system. It sought only to establish a separate nation by
withdrawing the Confederate States from the United States.
The new nation was to have practically the same form of
national organization and government as the Federal Union.
Nor was it an effort to overthrow popular liberty. Every
personal right would have been as secure under the new
nation as the old. It was not true, as was so often charged
at the North, in the fervor of the hour, that Secession was
an assault upon popular rights anywhere. We must do them
justice ; it was an attempt to separate by force from the
Union, to escape from what their fancied or real wrongs
made them believe were intolerable oppressions. It was not
a war upon republican institutions.
In the North, this civfl war was at first Constitutional re
sistance to secession, but it ended in revolution. The ten
years covering the revolutionary period began with the
Charleston convention of 1860, and ended with the Fifteenth
Amendment As soon as the Charleston convention broke
up, the cool observer saw that peaceable secession or civil
war must follow. Preparations for separation began at once,
and the Presidential choice made amicable adjustment im
possible. Rebellion and secession followed. War became
flagrant when the President called for troops. That cafl, let
us not forget, was for troops "to suppress insurrection."
The Federal Government proclaimed to the world that war
was not made upon the States and their institutions. It was
waged simply to restore the Union, leaving the existense and
the rights of each State unimpaired. War was not made
upon the people of the South, but upon the armies of the
Confederate Government. Like all war, it more or less de
vastated the country through which the armies marched.
But this was not its object. At length the President, as an
avowed war measure, proclaimed freedom to the slaves of

DECORATION SPEECH. 593

those in arms against the Government. The proclamation
did not profess to abolish slavery, or abrogate the laws of the
States protecting the institution. It only claimed to operate
in the "insurrectionary districts," and on those in arms
against the Government; not on the non-seceding States, or
on adherents to the Federal Union. It was legally waste
paper, but as a revolutionary document it electrified the civ
ilized world and immortaflzed the "Martyr President."
When the war closed it had accomplished the result for
which it had been begun. It had suppressed the "insur
rection " ; it had overthrown that local illegal combination —
the Confederate States Government; it had restored the
Federal Union. As a revolution it had done more ; it had
abolished slavery. But with the exception of the right to
protect slavery, not a right of a State had been destroyed or
impaired. It had, however, aroused the revolutionary spirit
which abolished slavery, and that spirit demanded constitu
tional guarantees for the abolition. It was in vain that zealots
were told slavery was already aboflshed and its re-establish
ment impossible. It was in vain that it was urged to be
beyond the amending power of the Constitution. The revo
lution demanded the measure, and the Thirteenth Amend
ment recognized an already accomplished fact. The revolution
went on. The old distrust of States was renewed. Their
rights were sneered at, as were provincialism. They were
denounced as the sources of all our dissensions, as enemies
to national repose and flberal progress. It was even claimed
that the "Nation " alone, as they called the Union, had fufl
sovereignty, and that the States were its creatures, having
only the powers which that sovereignty might choose to
grant. In this spirit the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amend
ments were adopted. They were the work of revolution,
and are stronger guarantees for that very reason, for revolu
tion alone could revoke them, and "revolution never goes back
ward." The equal right, therefore, of every race and color

594 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
has the same sanction as the original Constitution, and will
endure as long as the nation.
The Secession revolution, which modified the Government,
bears close analogy to the American revolution which founded
it. A long war formed part of each. In each there were
two acts : a war for the Union and a struggle to maintain the
States. In each the States lost some rights, and in each pre
served their autonomy. How glorious the result ! There
stands the Union in its grandeur defending and honoring the
nation at home and abroad ! There stand the States, their
battlements scarred by a century of conflict, but stfll rugged
and strong, and founded upon immovable rock ! There stands
the nation of States, floating its flag with an emblematic
union of stars over all its Stafes and its whole people in
equal protection and love ! And there it will stand for untold
ages to come ! Let us hope to the end of time !
My countrymen, the revolution is ended. We have entered
upon a new era. We must now swear by the blood of the
fathers to transmit the Republic to our children without stain
upon its escutcheon. It is due to the memories of those
whose achievements we have inherited, and to ourselves,
that we shall intelligently and manfully meet the duties and
dangers of this age. The constitutional structure of the
Republic is established with as much permanence as human
organization can attain. Every nation has gone through the
formative process of revolution, and we take our place with
the rest on the page of history. It is henceforward the
administration of fundamental institutions, rather than their
creation, which is the calling of the statesmen, and that ad
ministration affords a field wide enough for the wisest. The
preservation of individual rights and the well-being of the
whole, people must be its cardinal objects. The detafls of
public policy are unsuited to this occasion. It need only be
said that no repose can be had, and no progress made, with
out full recognition by all that the past is irrevocable.

DECORATION SPEECH. 595

In the administration of these institutions our first duty,
my fellow-citizens, is to understand their full import and carry
out their true spirit. , That gradual changes in the condition
of the people ought to make gradual changes in their institu
tions, results from the very essence of good government, for
government has no function except to protect the rights and
foster the interests of the people. But so long as the Repub-
flc covers the vast area lying between the oceans, and extend
ing from the pole to the tropic, the fundamental landmarks
of our system separating the powers of the Union from those
of the States, and preserving the existence of each must be
the broadest duty of national statesmanship. Over a small
territory, with homogenous population, possessing simflarity
of local wants, and practical unity of social ideas and habits,
an aggregate government with full powers of legislation is
amply sufficient. But when a national government covers a
continent with varions climates and productions, populated by
diverse races, and abounding in diverse ideas and interests,
the people can only be correllated into harmonious political
action by a series of local and interior governments suited to
their condition. The Union conserves their general interests
and the States their particular interests. Whatever minor
changes oiir national progress may require, we must never
forget that neither the sanctity of the fireside, the popular
rights of the masses, the high sense of individual manhood,
nor the constantly increasing material interests of industry,
can be as well conserved by a distant government, however
well administered, as by a home government whose rulers
are in the midst of the people they rule. But the distant
government is less likely than the home government to be
wisely and purely administered, not only by reason of lack of
sympathy with the people and lack of knowledge concerning
their wants, but because the latter gives better scope to that
keen-eyed scrutiny, fraud and corruption, so naturally dread.
Love the Union, then, as the defender of the Nation, and the

596 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
peace-maker among the States, but cling to the home govern
ment of the State as the sheet anchor of popular liberty!
Our constitutional system administered in this spirit becomes
organic and strong from the center to the extremities of the
Republic. The government moving on its mission of equal
rights and equal protection to all, through the complex func
tions of the Union and the States, carries with it both its
loving and chastising hand from the cabin of the humblest to
the palace of the mflflonaire.
But, my fellow-citizens of the South, it is not alone, nor
even chiefly, in the governmental execution of laws, that the
true spirit of institutions is best administered. The laws
must indeed be ejiecuted. Still, there is in all communities
an unwritten law, sometimes more powerful than the Statute
Book. This latent power is everywhere. We of the North
have felt, and still feel, its potency. The elements of pro
gressive society are ever, more or less, in unrest. New Eng
land once witnessed the destruction* of the home of innocent
Sisters of the Old Church, through the fanaticism of religious
bigotry. The Mormons were driven by force of arms from
Iflinois. Hostile relations, threatentng war, once existed
between the native and foreign population of the Northern
and Eastern States. To secure peace in society has ever
been difficult, and is one of the noblest objects of govern
ment. To harmonize antagonism of race, diversity of origin
among those composing the same society, is one of the
hardest problems presented for solution to the statesman and
social philosopher. This problem, the course of events forces
upon the whole country, and particularly upon you of the
South, and, like the riddles of the Sphinx, it must be solved
wisely, or destruction follows faflure.
In the late seceding States a very large minority, and in
some of those States a majority, of the whole population
consists of a race who were but lately slaves to masters, in
whose midst they now live. They were manumitted through

DECORATION SPEECH. 597

a war waged by their masters, the salient object of which was
to enslave them forever. Let us deal fairly with this race,
and fairly with their late masters. Does the world's history
present a higher sense of confidence than was exhibited by
the Southern slave-holder? He carried on a war to per
petuate the bondage of his servants, and left his home and
all that was dearest to him in their keeping. His wife and
his babes, the pictures of his ancestors, the title deeds to his
estate, his flocks and herds, his plantation, and all that was
his, he placed in the keeping of the faithful servants v/ho
had grown up with him from infancy in that patriarchal
family where each had been taught that obedience from the
servant, and protection by the master, were the duty of both.
If the master had supposed his slave hated him with the
vengeance cruelty begets, would he have left him in the rear
to light the torch of the incendiary or imbue his hands in the
blood of the helpless ? And if the great mass of the slaves
had suffered the tortures* which fanaticism painted as the in
separable attendant of the patriarchal institution, would he
have lingered round the old homestead of the plantation and
toiled to support the family of the absent master who was
fighting to enslave him? The confidence of the master and
the faithfulness of the slave to the trust reposed in him, were
compliments to each, and the best proof that they were not
the enemies which revolutionary frenzy had tried to make the
world believe. Nor can it be claimed that the colored man
was ignorant of the nature of the struggle and indifferent to
its result. He knew full wefl, ignorant though he generafly
was, that Union success meant freedom to his race, and Con
federate success, slavery. While miflions of them labored
for and protected the families left in their charge, everywhere
they lent to the Union armies a helping hand ; and thousands
of them fought under the Federal flag. 'This reciprocal con
fidence and faithfulness on each side shows that, though there
was doubtless occasional cruelty, as there always is wherever
41

698 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
one person has irresponsible power over another, yet that in
the main the slaves were kindly treated, and were, as a con
sequence, sincerely attached to the persons and families of
their masters ; and that while longing for freedom they would
not purchase it by incendiary violence.
Men of the South, of all races, do not these considera
tions conjure you to live together in peace and amity ? All
races have emerged from barbarism and servitude to civiliza
tion and freedom. Even Saxons were once serfs in Germany
and Britain. Slavery took the Negro from Africa, where he
was already s slave, and civilized him in America. And now,
American institutions place the former master and slave as
political equals, face to face, on the same soil. It is the duty
and the interest of all, that repose should come to society,
by each giving respectful recognition to the rights of the
other. Let it be remembered that if slavery was wrong it
wofked out some good. It brought Christianity and ultimate
freedom to a race that had immemorially been heathen and
slaves. And if the late master should sometimes feel the
loss of his former property in slave labor, both he and gen
eral industry are gainers by the change. Aid each other to
more fully educate all classes that they may be better fitted
for the high obligations of citizenship. We must pacify the
sections and the races, and leave the ages to come to work
out the social problems of our complex civilization. Let the
"color line" be blotted from American poHtics, and Mason
and Dixon's Hne erased forever from the party geography of
the Union !
My fellow-citizens of the whole Union, while we justly
cherish our home governments, we must not narrow our
ideas, but broaden them to embrace the whole country. The
States are but parts of the Union, and it exalts our concep
tions to feel that we are members of a great commonwealth
of States and people, equal in magnitude and power to any
on the globe. "American Citizen " is a title of honor where-

DECORATION SPEECH. 599

ever human language is spoken. This commonwealth is now
in our keeping, and fraternal affection throughout all its bor
ders strengthens it at home and abroad. A domain, wide
enough for all, girded by ocean and gulf and lake, with
mountain and river as grand as any on earth, with soil, min
eral, climate, production and population diversified enough
to make a world, we have every element for the grandest
nation in history. By liberal commercial and trade regula
tions, offering the exchange of our surplus productions for
what we can better import than produce, and which shall
waft the sails of our commerce over every sea and into every
port; we can quicken our industry and afford to the agri
culturist, planter, manufacturer, tradesman, miner and mer
chant, open markets everywhere, and reach fields of wealth
only waiting to be gathered.
And now that our civil war is over, shall we not link our
selves by the tenderest ties of amity? The "Father of
Waters," the grand artery of the Republic, which bathes the
site of your beautiful city, is typical of the brotherhood of
our people, as it rolls its tide from the bleak water-shed of
the continent to the flowery savannas that border the gulf,
and carries in its mighty current commingled rain drops
from thirty States and Territories. Commercial and indus
trial intercourse and exchange permeate every region of the
country. Schools, churches, literature, the press and the
forum give interchange of ideas. Now let us draw still
closer. Ally family with family until society. North and
South, shafl be interlaced with the silken ties of domestic af
fection. And then should a foreign foe ever menace our
safety or insult our national banner, the sons of the North
and South will stand shoulder to shoulder, vieing with each
other in defending the glory of the nation and its flag.
Men of Tennessee, the land of Presidents and Statesmen
and Heroes, I come commissioned by the loyal hearts of
Ohio, likewise the land of Presidents and Statesmen and

600 SPEECHES AND ORATIONS OF DURBIN WARD.
Heroes, and the second born daughter of Virginia, " the
mother of States and Presidents," to accept your invitation
with open arms and fraternal heart. No more welcome duty
could have been assigned me. In my veins are mingled in
equal shares the blood of the South and the North. Born
in the South, a citizen for life in the North, linked by ances
try, birth, kindred and marriage with Virginia, Pennsylvania,
Maryland, New Jersey, Kentucky, Indiana, and my own
loved Ohio, who could more appropriately come, as the
guest of your generous people, in the spirit of reconciliation
and enduring peace among the once dissevered States of our
now united Union ? I first came in war; I now come in peace.
Confederate and Federal now clasp hands in friendship,
which once clutched weapons in enmity. Each thought him
self right then, and now each is magnanimous enough to
admit that the other then thought himself right. Gross, un
cultured tribes carry on their feuds for ages, and when there
is seeming peace, dare not remind each other of the old
strife lest it kindle war anew. But it is our just pride that
we can talk over the past and exchange forgiveness without
fanning the dying coals of strife. The very embers have died
out, and the fiery rage of the past is but ashes.
" No more shall the war cry sever;
No more shall the winding rivers be red;
We have banished our anger forever.
When we garland the graves of our dead."
Ladies. and gentlemen, the deepest emotions of the heart
are invoked by the ceremonies of this day. In the spring
tide of the year, when all nature is bursting into new life and
bloom, we come here to honor the dead. We strew on the
graves of the departed the frail mementoes of the passing
hour. On this memorial day, when thousands are decorating
these little mounds of earth, how many a soldier's pulseless
heart lies mouldering in the shady groves of the South. Side
by side, the hardy son of the North and the chivalrous

DECORATION SPEECH. 601
Southron lie in repose, covered by the same green sward,
decked by nature with wild flowers, blooming over each in
impartial love, while the wood-lark is carrolling a requiem
to the memory of both. May these blossoms, coming
perenially from the hand of the Great Father, be evangels
to us all of everlasting fraternity and union.

THE END.

YALE UNIVERSITY

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