Chapter II: Conclusion (1)

I wish I could sketch more in detail the work and history of the members of the Convention. But this paper is, I know, already too long. I have tried to tell how our Constitution was made. I could not narrate, within reasonable limits,

“What workman wrought its ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of its hope.”

It is enough to say that the work has proved strong and enduring. Through the groping inexperience of our State’s childhood and the still more perilous ambitions of its youth, through the storm of civil war and the calm of prosperous peace, the Wyandotte Constitution has justified the confident hopes of its early friends. The most marvelous changes have been wrought in this country since it was framed. The huge brick building in which the Convention held its sessions, long ago crumbled and fell. The distracted, dependent and turbulent Territory has grown to be a peaceful, powerful and prosperous State. Its hundred thousand people have multiplied to a million. Upon its vast and solitary prairies, where then bloomed a wild and unprofitable vegetation, “wherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom,” miles of green meadows now glisten with morning dew, and thousands of golden wheat-fields shimmer in the noonday sun, and millions of acres of tasseling corn, rustling in the sweet twilight air, tell of harvests so bountiful that they would feed a continent. Every quiet valley and prairie swell is dotted with pleasant homes, where happy children laugh and play and men and women go their busy ways in prosperous content. Eager learners throng eight thousand school houses. Church bells ring in nearly every county from the Missouri to the Colorado line. More than four thousand miles of railway bind town and country, factory and farm and store, into one community. And over all the institutions and activities of this great, intelligent and orderly Commonwealth, broods the genius and spirit of the Wyandotte Constitution. Under its ample authority and direction, just and generous laws have maintained the rights of citizenship, given protection to labor and property, stimulated enterprise, multiplied industries, opened to every child and youth the door of school and college, encouraged morality, fostered temperance, protected the weak, restrained the strong, and sternly punished outbreaking crime. And still the sunshine of popular confidence and favor falls upon the Constitution. It has outlived half of its framers, and when, a quarter of a century hence, the last surviving member of the Convention awaits the inevitable hour, the Wyandotte Constitution may yet be the chart and compass ordering and guiding the destinies of a State whose imperial manhood is foreshadowed by its stalwart and stately youth.

EIGHTH KANSAS VETERAN VOLUNTEERS.

Address, delivered at the reunion of the Eighth Kansas Veteran
Volunteer Infantry, held at Fort Leavenworth, October 10th, 11th
and 12th, 1883.

Surviving members of the Eighth Kansas Veteran Volunteer Infantry, to the number of about one hundred, assembled at Camp Pope, on the Fort Leavenworth reservation, on the 10th, 11th and 12th of October, 1883. The headquarters of the “Society of the Eighth Kansas” were established in a tent opposite the general headquarters for the soldiers’ reunion, designated by a banner bearing the following inscription:

HEADQUARTERS
EIGHTH KANSAS VOL. INFANTRY.
3d Brigade, 1st Division, 20th Army Corps,
1st Brigade, 3d Division, 4th Army Corps,
ARMY OF THE CUMBERLAND.

Beneath this was painted the badge of the Third Division, Fourth Army Corps—to which the regiment was longest attached—a blue triangle, bearing the names of the most prominent engagements in which the Eighth took part, viz.:

PERRYVILLE.
LANCASTER.
BRENTWOOD PIKE.
TULLAHOMA.
CAPERTON’S FERRY.
CHICAMAUGA.
CHATTANOOGA.
ORCHARD KNOB.
MISSION RIDGE.
KNOXVILLE CAMPAIGN.
DANDRIDGE.
KENNESAW MOUNTAIN.
PEACH TREE CREEK.
CHATTAHOOCHIE.
ATLANTA.
LOVEJOY STATION.
NASHVILLE.

On the afternoon of October 10th the roll was called by companies, and the day was spent in social greetings, in revisiting Fort Leavenworth, and in reviving recollections of the campaigns in which the command took part.

The Society elected the following officers for the ensuing year, viz.:

_President_—Colonel John A. Martin.
_Vice-President_—Lieutenant-Colonel John Conover.
_Secretary_—Sergeant Chas. W. Rust.
_Treasurer_—Lieutenant David Baker.

At the conclusion of the exercises in the “big tent,” the President, Colonel John A. Martin, delivered the following address, which was ordered printed in pamphlet form, together with the proceedings of the reunion and the names of those in attendance:

COMRADES OF THE EIGHTH KANSAS: There is always a charm in revisiting once familiar places after a long absence, and to a Kansas soldier this reservation will ever possess a fascinating interest. Here nearly all the troops young Kansas sent to the war were organized or equipped. And to those who were mustered here; who slept for the first time under canvas in the old blue-grass pasture, and there ate for the first time a soldier’s fare, Fort Leavenworth will always be holy ground.

I have paid many visits to this Post since the far-away days of ’61, but never have the scenes and incidents of that period been so vividly recalled as during the present occasion. The white tents, the trampled grass, the groups of men, half uniformed, half in citizens’ dress; the straggling stacks of arms, the marching columns, the orderlies coming and going, the notes of bugles and the music of fife and drum—these scenes and sounds seem to belong to the turbulent past rather than to the peaceful and prosperous present. The alien and unfamiliar feature is this great tent, and the speech-making within its canvas walls. The days of ’61 were not distinguished for talk. They were days of action. The speech-maker did his work then, as now, but not here on this reserve. I fancy that if “Old Prince,” that terror of the Kansas recruits, had caught a man making a speech on the reservation, he would have organized a drumhead court-martial at once, for his prompt trial and execution.

The place and the surroundings, as I have said, are familiar. And yet how vast the changes that have been wrought since the mustering here twenty-two years ago! It is doubtful if the adult male population of Kansas at that time greatly exceeded the numbers present at this reunion. The poor, harassed and feeble Territory has grown to be one of the greatest States in the Union, rich in all the elements of substantial prosperity; richer still in the imperial manhood of a citizenship which includes representatives of every regiment in the Union army. Plodding along in all the walks and ways of our now peaceful and quiet Kansas life are men who have fought on every battle-field of the civil war; men who were active participants in all the events of the greatest and most stirring drama of the world’s history; men whose personal recollections embrace the story of every march, camp, bivouac, skirmish and battle in which the armies of the Union engaged; men whose blood has been poured out in every combat where patriotism maintained the supremacy of our flag.

Is it any wonder that Kansas has, in the nearly two decades that have elapsed since the war closed, grown to be one of the greatest, most intelligent, and most prosperous of the States? Of what achievements, in the enterprises of civil life requiring courage, energy and resourceful vigor, is such blood and bone, and heart and brain, as make up her population, not capable? From the most sterile and reluctant soil a manhood of this order would wrest plenty. Is it wonderful that, when earth and air combine to aid its labors, this population should have made Kansas one of the greatest and most prosperous States in the Union?

I need not say how glad and proud I am, my dear old comrades, to meet and greet you, one and all, once more. It seems but a brief time since the Eighth Kansas Volunteer Infantry pitched its tents in the blue-grass of this reserve and was mustered into the service of the United States, “for three years or during the war.” But the whitening locks of many of its survivors, gathered here to-day, tell the story of time’s flight. The youngest soldiers in its ranks have reached middle age; the oldest are now old men, nearing the sunsets of their lives. The hardships and privations of march and camp, and the casualties of battle, decimated its ranks again and again during its long term of service; very many have since died, their lives shortened by wounds, or by the wasting effects of the campaigns in which they participated; and the survivors, scattered all over the country, probably do not number one-third of the 1,081 men who have answered “here” at its roll-calls.

It is no vain-glorious or empty boasting to declare, as I do, that to have served in the Eighth Kansas is a fact of which any man has a just right to be proud. No regiment in the army of the Union during the civil war can cite participation in campaigns of greater magnitude, events of more romantic and exciting interest, or marches over a vaster scope of country. Nor did any regiment more conspicuously illustrate, in camp or field, a loftier devotion to duty, a more unselfish patriotism, or a more constant courage.

The Eighth Kansas served in four of the great armies of the Union. Its service began in what was afterwards known as the “Army of the Frontier;” thence, early in 1862, it was transferred to the “Army of the Mississippi;” in the summer of the same year it joined the “Army of the Ohio;” and in November became a part of the “Army of the Cumberland.” With this military division it served until its final muster-out, in January, 1866.

Its organization was commenced in August, 1861, and its first company was mustered in on the 28th of that month. By the 12th of October, eight companies had been recruited and mustered; in December, the ninth was added; and early in January the regiment had its full complement. In February, however, a reorganization of Kansas regiments was made. Companies D and H, of the Eighth, which were cavalry, were transferred to the Ninth Kansas; Companies F and K were consolidated, and three companies of Colonel Graham’s battalion were transferred to the Eighth, making it a full regiment of infantry.

From the date of its organization, in September, 1861, until May, 1862, four companies of the regiment did duty along the Missouri border, in Southern Kansas; others formed part of the post garrisons at Forts Leavenworth, Riley, Kearney, and Laramie. Early in May five companies were ordered to Corinth, Mississippi, and proceeding to Columbus, Kentucky, by steamer, they marched thence along the line of the Mobile & Ohio Railroad to Corinth. After a service of two months in that army, the Division to which the Eighth was attached was ordered to reinforce General Buell. By rapid marches through Eastport, Mississippi, and Florence, Alabama, it joined the “Army of the Ohio” at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and took part in the extraordinary campaign which ended at Louisville, Kentucky. Thence it moved southward again, with the command to which it was attached, through Perryville and Lancaster to Crab Orchard, and thence to Nashville. There it remained nearly six months, doing provost duty, and there, in February and March, 1863, the five companies left in Kansas joined headquarters, and for the first time in its history the regiment was united.

Early in June, 1863, the Eighth rejoined its Division at Murfreesboro. It participated, during that summer, in the campaign against Tullahoma, and, late in August, forming the advance guard of the Twentieth Corps, crossed the Tennessee river at Caperton’s ferry, in pontoon boats. It took an active part in all the movements of the campaign which followed, ending with the battle of Chicamauga and the siege of Chattanooga. On the 23d of November, covering the front of its brigade as skirmishers, the Eighth captured Orchard Knob, the headquarters of Generals Grant and Thomas during the battles of the succeeding two days. On the 25th it participated in the storming of Mission Ridge, and its flag was one of the first, if not the first, planted on the summit.

Two days later the Eighth marched, with its corps, to the relief of Burnside, at Knoxville; took part in all the movements of that dreadful winter campaign, and formed a portion of the rear guard on the retreat from Dandridge.

Early in January, 1864, at Strawberry Plains, East Tennessee, four-fifths of all the members of the Eighth then present reënlisted as veterans. Returning home in February, the regiment received a furlough for thirty days. Reassembling at this Post, early in April, it returned to the South, and took part in the campaign against Atlanta. Thence, with its corps, it moved back to Nashville, and participated in the battle which ground the Rebel army of the West to atoms.

During the first six months of the year 1865, the Eighth was stationed at various points in Alabama and Tennessee, but late in July it was ordered to Texas, where it remained until the 29th of November, when it was mustered out, and ordered home for final discharge. It reached Fort Leavenworth on the 6th of January, 1866, and on the 9th was formally disbanded.

Its career, it will thus be seen, commenced at a very early period of the civil war, and terminated long after the last hostile shot had been fired. From the date of its organization until its final muster-out, there were 1,081 names on its rolls. But its largest numerical strength at any one time was 877, in March, 1862. The largest aggregate force, “present for duty,” was 656, at about the same date.

The records of its service show that it traveled 10,750 miles; participated in fifteen battles and many skirmishes; and lost in battle three commissioned officers and sixty-seven enlisted men killed; thirteen commissioned officers and two hundred and seventy-six enlisted men wounded; and one commissioned officer and twenty enlisted men missing; or a total of seventy killed, two hundred and eighty-nine wounded, and twenty-one missing; and an aggregate of three hundred and eighty killed, wounded and missing. Of the missing, nearly all were killed, and of the wounded about one-fifth died of their wounds. The regiment’s loss by the casualties of battle, it will thus be seen, was nearly sixty per cent. of the greatest number it ever had present for duty.

In addition to these losses three commissioned officers and ninety-two enlisted men died of disease; one hundred and ninety-two were discharged for disabilities resulting from wounds or disease; and fifty-three died of wounds. The total loss by death, including the seventy killed in battle, was two hundred and eighteen, and by discharge because of wounds and disease, one hundred and ninety-two, making a total loss, by death or disability, of four hundred and ten.

The regiment brought back to the State, and deposited at Topeka, three flags. Under the first, carried until it returned home on veteran furlough, in February, 1864, it marched 3,681 miles, and lost three commissioned officers and forty-nine enlisted men killed, ten commissioned officers and two hundred and eighteen enlisted men wounded, and twenty enlisted men missing. Under the second, carried until after the battle of Nashville, it marched 2,660 miles, and lost three commissioned officers wounded and one captured, and eighteen enlisted men killed and fifty-eight wounded. Under the third it traveled 4,409 miles, but sustained no loss in battle.

The largest loss the Eighth sustained in a single engagement was at Chicamauga, where out of a total of four hundred and six officers and men present, its killed, wounded and missing numbered two hundred and forty-three, or sixty per cent. of all engaged.

A brief, dull sketch this is of the services of the Eighth Kansas, I know. But I am anxious to condense it into as brief a space as possible; and dull as it is, it will revive in your memory a thousand thrilling recollections; meager as it is, it will give any soldier or any intelligent civilian who was an interested observer of the events of the war, a fairly comprehensive idea of the part the regiment bore in that great struggle. This is all I have sought to do. It would require volumes to tell the story in full. For this regiment not only saw all “the pomp and circumstance of war,” but all its ghastly desolation, misery and despair as well. It sounded all the notes alike of war’s pæan and of its dirge. The tramp of its swift and steady march echoed in the highways of twelve different States. Its bayonets flashed from Fort Laramie to the Gulf, and from Kansas to North Carolina. At Nashville it did duty in white gloves; at Strawberry Plains it was shirtless, shoeless, and in rags. It was feasted in Kansas and starved in Chattanooga. It hunted guerrillas in Missouri, combatted Longstreet’s veterans at Chicamauga, stormed the blazing heights of Mission Ridge, fought a continuous battle from Kennesaw Mountain to Atlanta, and broke the lines of Hood at Nashville. It built roads, bridged rivers, convoyed trains, destroyed railroads, operated mills, policed cities, gathered crops, and made history. And wherever it was, or whatsoever it was doing, the calm and patient endurance, the magnificent courage, the splendid discipline, and the unfaltering patriotism of its soldiers could always be relied on.

It is pleasant to remember, too, and I am sure there is no true soldier of the Eighth who will not proudly recall the fact, that on many different occasions the drill, discipline and military appearance of the regiment were complimented in official orders, issued from corps and army headquarters. At Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in June, 1863, the following order was published:

INSPECTOR GENERAL’S OFFICE, 20TH ARMY CORPS, }
MURFREESBORO, June 19th, 1863. }

I take pleasure in reporting to you the following extract from the
report of the Inspector of the First Division, especially as the
same regiments have attracted the notice of the Corps Inspector:

_Extract_—“The drill, military appearance and dress of the Eighth
Kansas is the best observed in the Division; that of the
Twenty-fifth Illinois next.

(Signed) H. W. HALL,
_Captain, and Inspector First Division_.”

Very respectfully, HORACE N. FISHER,
_Lieutenant-Colonel, and Inspector-General_.

HEADQUARTERS, 20TH ARMY CORPS, }
June 20th, 1863. }

Respectfully referred to Colonel Heg, commanding Third Brigade,
First Division, who will have this creditable compliment conveyed to
the above-mentioned regiments.

By command of Major-General McCook.

A. C. MCCLURG,
_Capt. and A. A. G._

On the 15th of July, 1863, the following order was issued:

HEADQUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF THE CUMBERLAND, }
INSPECTOR-GENERAL’S OFFICE, Tullahoma, July 15, 1863. }

COLONEL: I have the honor to make the following extract from the
semi-monthly inspection report of Lieutenant-Colonel H. C. Fisher,
Assistant Inspector-General 20th Army Corps:

_Extract_—“The Eighth Kansas, lately attached to this corps, is
splendidly equipped and well cared for. Its long stay in Nashville
has enabled it to attain a polish to a certain degree impracticable
in the field, but its example is valuable to the corps.”

Very respectfully, A. S. BURT, _Capt. and A. A. G._

To Lieutenant-Colonel Goddard, A. A. G.

HEADQUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF THE CUMBERLAND, }
TULLAHOMA, July 19, 1863. }

Respectfully referred to the commanding officer of the Eighth
Kansas.

By command of Major-General Rosecrans.

WM. MCMICHAEL, _Major and A. A. G._

A few weeks later the following order was issued:

HEADQUARTERS, 20TH ARMY CORPS, }
INSPECTOR-GENERAL’S OFFICE, WINCHESTER, TENN., July 31, 1863. }

COLONEL: I have the honor to call your attention to the following
extract from the report of Captain H. W. Hall, A. I. G. First
Division, on the camps of the Third Brigade:

_Extract_—“The camps of the Eighth Kansas and Twenty-fifth Illinois
are the best in the Division. These regiments vie with each other in
excellence in every respect, and are models worthy of imitation for
any troops with which it has been my fortune to associate.”

Very respectfully, HORACE N. FISHER, _Lieut.-Col. and A. I. G._

HEADQUARTERS 20TH ARMY CORPS, }
July 31, 1863. }

Respectfully referred to the commanding officer, Third Brigade,
First Division. The General commanding the corps is pleased to hear
so favorable a report of the regiments of this Brigade.

By command of Major-General Sheridan.

G. P. THURSTON, _A. A. G. and Chief of Staff_.

With these extracts I may fitly close this brief story of a regiment whose career was alike creditable to the State it represented and to the men who served in its ranks. I do not claim for the Eighth higher soldierly qualities than belonged to many other regiments. I simply assert that, having great opportunities to serve its country, it was always equal to them, and that wherever it was placed it did its whole duty. It was the only Kansas regiment that served in the great “Army of the Cumberland.” Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, and many other States had scores of splendid regiments in that grand army, but the Eighth alone represented the martial spirit of Kansas in its ranks. It would not be fair to say that the regiment was ever treated unjustly because of this fact; but it is true that when it first joined the army the Eighth was regarded with some suspicion and a great deal of curiosity. Whatsoever respect it won, whatsoever reputation it made, whatsoever fame it afterward enjoyed in that great army as a well-disciplined, brave and patriotic body of soldiers, was squarely and fairly earned by honest deserving, for it had neither original good repute nor the kindly aid of other regiments bearing the name of the same State, to promote its fortunes and its reputation. Alone in a great army of two hundred thousand, this little body of seven hundred men kept stainless the honor and added luster to the fame of Kansas. In less than six months after it joined the Army of the Cumberland, no regiment was better or more favorably known; and until its final muster-out it steadily held the respect and confidence of its commanding generals and of the troops with which it was most intimately associated.

In the noisy and distracting political feuds which were so numerous in Kansas at that day, the Eighth had no part nor lot. It was so far away as to be beyond even their echo. No man who belonged to it ever made money out of the war. One and all, officers and men, they came out of the army as poor in purse as when they entered it; but they brought back and deposited in the State House at Topeka three torn and tattered flags that all the wealth of this year’s harvest could not buy. Kansas will preserve among her priceless treasures, as long as her government shall endure, these ragged and faded flags—all that remain of the Eighth Kansas Volunteer Infantry except its few hundred scattered survivors and the history with which it glorified the name of the State.

SPEECH

Accepting the Republican Nomination for Governor, before the
Republican State Convention, July 17th, 1884.

GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION: I am profoundly sensible of the distinguished honor you have conferred upon me. To be selected for the Chief Magistracy of such a State as this, by even a bare majority of such a Convention as this, would be a distinction of which any citizen might justly be proud. To be nominated for that position, as I have been, with such unprecedented unanimity, and to know that your preference fairly voiced that of the great party you represent, is an honor which not only fills the measure of my ambition, but overwhelms me with anxiety. For how shall I deserve such generous confidence? How can I make return for your kindness, your trust, your friendship?

I can only say, at this time, that I accept your nomination with sincere gratitude, and that the duties and responsibilities it imposes on me I shall endeavor to discharge faithfully, honestly, and to the best of my ability, conscious that I have behind me, to guide, counsel and assist me, the best brain, the best thought, the highest and most enlightened intelligence, the purest and bravest purpose—in short, the Republican party of Kansas.

This State has been my home for nearly twenty-eight years. With its growth, its interests, its thoughts, my whole life, since boyhood, has been identified. I have watched, with anxious solicitude, every step and stage of its wonderful development, and every year my pride and confidence in its great future have been more than justified. I have, too, during all of that period, given my conscientious adherence to the Republican party. Doubt or question as to what party my allegiance was due, has never entered my mind. From the date of its admission into the Union until the present time, the Republican party has steadily controlled the destinies of this State. Can anyone truthfully assert that it has not governed wisely and well? Let the results of its rule—the abounding prosperity that fills the homes of Kansas; the peace, order and sobriety prevailing throughout its borders; its marvelous growth, unparalleled in the growth of any other American State—let these accomplished facts make answer. In its infancy the Republican party of Kansas enriched the history of a dark and troubled period with a record of duties bravely and humanely discharged. In its youth, when war-drums were throbbing and battle-flags were waving, the government it inaugurated not only protected the borders of the State against hostile invasion, but sent more men to the war, in proportion to population, than any other State of the Union. In its manhood it has given to the people an honest, economical, stable administration; has dotted every hill-top with schools; has made generous provision for the unfortunate; has sternly repressed outbreaking crime; and has made life and property as secure as they are anywhere under the shining stars. This is, briefly stated, the record of Republican administration in Kansas. Match it, if you can, with the history of any party in any other State.

This is not the time for a discussion of the broader issues of national politics. Blaine and Logan need no eulogy. For a quarter of a century, in war and in peace, their career has been inseparably associated with the grandest and most beneficent achievements of the Nation. The people know them, and love them, and propose to elect them.

And now, gentlemen, before you, the delegated representatives of the Republican party of Kansas, I renew my allegiance to Republicanism, to Kansas; to her constitution, her laws, and to the platform here adopted, which speaks for each and all of them.

SPEECH

Made before the Republican Convention of Atchison County, October 8,
1884.

GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION: Twenty-five years ago, on the 7th of the month of May, I called to order the first Republican convention ever held in this county. It was a mass convention, yet those in attendance hardly exceeded in number the delegates assembled here to-day, representing the Republican voters of Atchison county. It was called to organize the Republican party of the county, and to elect delegates to the first Republican Territorial convention, held at Osawatomie eleven days later. The Republican party of Atchison county and of Kansas has, therefore, just passed its twenty-fifth birthday. And to those who have been identified with its history during that long, eventful period, this rounding of a full quarter of a century of party life is an occasion of more than ordinary interest.

Our political opponents now and then sneer at the fact that Republicans “point with pride to the past.” But surely if the Republican party is to survive for another quarter of a century, its most ardent friends could wish for it no nobler record, no prouder history, no more beneficent and useful career, than that of the past twenty-five years. Kansas was, in 1859, a poor, weak, distracted, oppressed Territory. What a great, prosperous, imperial commonwealth it now is! A million and a quarter of people, living in the richest and most prosperous State of the Union—a State gridironed by railways, dotted with school-houses and churches, and growing steadily, not only in wealth and power and influence, but in all the elements of the most advanced civilization—the Kansas of to-day is alike the pride of her own citizens, and the wonder and admiration of the whole civilized world.

And why should not a political party, like an individual, proudly point to an honorable record of noble endeavors and great achievements? It is something to belong to a party that can be pointed to without blushing. It is something to have a record that does not have to be explained, denied, or lied about. When a man can say that he belongs to a party which crushed the Rebellion, abolished Slavery, preserved the Union, and made this a great Nation; a party that has dotted the land with school-houses; a party that gave to the people the Homestead Law, and established the best financial system the world ever knew, it is something to be proud of. And when he can add that he belongs to a party which intends to see that the civil rights of every American citizen are protected at home or abroad; that every legal voter shall have a right to cast one free, unintimidated ballot, and to have that ballot honestly counted; that the debt of gratitude the country owes to the soldiers and sailors of the Union shall be honestly remembered and repaid; that the people shall be protected against unjust extortions or discriminations by corporate power; and that laws enacted by the people, for the people, shall be respected and enforced—all this is also something to be proud of.

For twenty-five years I have annually, except during the period of the war and for about two years thereafter, called to order the Republican conventions of Atchison county. During all of that time I have been Chairman of your County Central Committee. To-day, probably for the last time, I discharge this pleasant duty, and I avail myself of the opportunity to return my sincere thanks to the Republicans of this county for their constant confidence and devoted friendship—a confidence and friendship that has never been denied me; that has never wavered or faltered during all the lights and shadows of twenty-five revolving years. Before I was a voter you made me the Chairman of your County Executive Committee, and annually, ever since, except during the years when I was absent in the army, you have reëlected me to this place. The measure of my gratitude to you, fellow-Republicans of Atchison county, cannot be expressed in words. I have tried to express it by ardent devotion to Republican principles, and by the most constant and enthusiastic efforts to promote and secure the triumph of the Republican party.

I want to add, as I think I can with entire truthfulness, that during all of this period I have never attempted to act the part of a political “boss.” I have avoided, rather than sought, authority or power to dictate nominations, or to control the action of conventions. No man can truthfully say that I have ever attempted to thwart a fair expression of Republican sentiment, or to force upon the party an unwelcome or an unworthy candidate, or to prevent the nomination of any man who was clearly the choice of the Republican voters. No man can truthfully say that I have ever provoked or encouraged factional feuds, or stirred up personal strife, in the party ranks. No man can truthfully say that I have ever refused to subordinate my personal interests, or my individual preferences or prejudices, in order to promote or secure Republican success. On the contrary, it has been my constant, earnest endeavor to harmonize, consolidate and strengthen the Republican party; to preserve peace in its ranks; and to make it a united, vigorous, and victorious party. To this end, and for these objects, I have often endured, without complaint, undeserved censure, and have preferred to be misunderstood and even misrepresented rather than to imperil Republican success by quarreling with those who misunderstood me. Time at last sets all things right, and I have always been content to await the just judgment of its final awards.

And now, gentlemen of the convention, invoking upon your deliberations the blessings of harmony and the saving grace of Republican common sense, and appealing to you to remember that your opponents alone rejoice over and are benefited by personal and factional feuds in your ranks, I await your pleasure.

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

Speech delivered at Washington, Kansas, October 24, 1884.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I must beg the charity alike of your silence and of your patient forbearance. I am not an orator. I make no pretensions as a public speaker. For while I have been talking to my fellow-citizens of Kansas for more than a quarter of a century, it has been through the medium of printed words, and not from the platform or on the stump. Only because I have been nominated by the Republican party of the State for an official position, and am thus, by the customs and usages of partisan politics, expected to attend and address such assemblages as this, do I appear before you. But I know the people of Kansas are as generous as they are intelligent, and hence, although fully conscious of my own deficiencies, I trust implicitly in their kindness, and shall endeavor as best I can to explain to you the reasons why I am a Republican, and why I think every good citizen should give his influence and his vote to secure the triumph to that party.

I am a Republican, first, because I believe the Republican party to be the most intelligent, progressive and beneficent political organization ever known in this or any other country. Its whole existence has been a blessing to the American people. It has enriched our history with a long record of splendid achievements. It preserved the Union. It abolished slavery. It enfranchised a race. It enacted the homestead law; and it has girded the continent with railways. It has given the people a sound currency, and it has protected, elevated and dignified American industries and American labor. It has glorified the history of the age with a long list of imperishable names—the names of Lincoln, and Seward, and Grant, and Sherman, and Sumner, and Garfield, and Blaine, and Logan, and a host of others, which will never fade from the recollections of a grateful people. In twenty-three years it has raised this Nation to the foremost place among the Nations of the earth, and made the American name respected all around the globe. It has elevated, improved and purified the civil service, and systematized all departments of the Government. It has collected the public revenue at a less percentage of cost than ever before, and handled the money of the Government at a far less percentage of loss than ever before. It has generously cared for the disabled soldiers of the Union, and for the widows and orphans of our dead heroes. The true Republican glories in his party’s history. He asks no man to forget a line or word of it.

I am a Republican because I am a KANSAN. I came to this State when it was a Territory governed by the Democratic party. I learned something of Democratic methods, policies and principles during those years. I saw a free people denied their dearest political rights. I saw all the power and authority of the National Administration exerted to fasten slavery upon this State, against the will of a large majority of its citizens. I know the history of that period by heart, and there is no record so stained with usurpations, so crowded with wrong, injustice and tyranny, so sullied with crime, as is the record of the years from 1855 to 1861, when the Democratic party controlled the affairs of Kansas. Contrast that period with the Republican administration of the past twenty-three years, and the development, the enterprise, the prosperity, the world-wide fame, that have gone hand in hand with it. I have seen Kansas grow from a half-tilled, forlorn strip along the west bank of the Missouri, into a splendid, imperial State, with nearly a million and a quarter of inhabitants—a State with nearly eighteen million acres occupied as farms, with over four thousand miles of railway, seven thousand school-houses and a thousand churches, and with property aggregating in value nearly five hundred million dollars. All this growth, all this enterprise, all this marvelous prosperity, began with and has continued under Republican rule—clean, healthy, intelligent rule, worthily representing the brain and heart and energy of a Republican constituency.

I am a Republican because I was a Union soldier. I know that there were loyal Democrats, and I shall never fail to do full justice to their patriotism. I have served side by side with them, in camp, and march, and battle, and I honor their courage and their devotion to the flag of the Republic. But I know, also, that while thousands of Democrats proved themselves true patriots during the war, the Democratic party, as a political organization, was persistently and consistently disloyal. At the outbreak of the war, it denied the right of the Government to “coerce a sovereign State,” and from the first flash of the gun at Sumter until the last shot at Bentonville, it never ceased to predict failure for the Union arms, and to strive to make its prophecy a reality. It discouraged enlistments, resisted the draft, and denounced and slandered the patient, suffering, great-souled President, upon whom the sorrows of a stricken Nation hung so heavily. It encouraged foreign countries to interfere in our affairs; it assailed the greenback currency, issued to meet the expenses of the war, as “worthless rags;” and it did all in its power to break down the credit of the Government. And finally, just on the eve of our complete triumph, when Grant was slowly tightening his grasp around the throat of the Rebellion, at Richmond, and Sherman’s invincible army was preparing to enter Atlanta, and the guns of Farragut were thundering victory in Mobile Bay, the Democratic party, assembled in national convention at Chicago, formally resolved that the war was “a failure,” and clamored for a dishonorable peace.

This is the record, briefly told, of the Democratic party during the civil war, when the fate of the Republic, and of human liberty the world over, were trembling in the balance. I am a Republican, as I have said, because of these facts. And while I honor the Democrat who, severing all party ties, cast his lot with the Union during the war, I shall never forgive, and never cease to execrate, the man who, during that dark period, was, in his sympathies and his actions, that meanest of all created beings, a “Copperhead.”

A generation has grown up since the close of the Rebellion, and there are those in this audience, I have no doubt, who do not understand the full meaning of this detested name. For their instruction, I want to add a few words concerning it. The underlying cause of the civil war was the affirmation of the right of secession. The Southern idea—and it was one that had been taught for generations—was that the States were sovereign; that a citizen’s first allegiance was due to his State; that the Union was a mere compact of agreeing States, from which any one or more had a right to withdraw whenever longer association was not desirable to it or them. The Northern idea was that the Union of the States constituted a Nation; that the Republic could not be broken up by one or more of the States; that a citizen’s first allegiance was due to the Nation; and that the interests of all the States were so indissolubly associated that the Republic had a sovereign right to protect them against attack by one or more of the States.

Educated for generations to believe in the right of secession, it is not strange that Southern men who did not believe any real cause for a dissolution of the Union existed, went with their States when they determined to secede. Taught, from infancy, that their first allegiance was due to the State, it was not singular that they rallied to its standard when it called on them, and that, during four years of desperate war, they fought, with a courage and steadfastness that challenges the admiration of all men, for the idea, the principle, they had been educated to believe was right.

But the men of the Northern States who sympathized with the Rebellion, and did everything in their power to promote its success, had no such excuse. Their conduct cannot be palliated or defended on any possible ground. If they believed in the Northern idea, that a citizen’s allegiance was due to the Nation, it was their plain duty to support the Union cause. If they believed in the Southern idea, that a citizen’s allegiance was due to his State, it was equally their plain duty to stand by and defend their own State and the cause it maintained.

The most loyal man can, therefore, respect the motives of the men of Southern birth who followed their States. But what man, Northern or Southern, Union or Confederate, can respect the motives and actions of those malignant, crawling, venomous human reptiles known as “Copperheads”—the men of Northern birth and education who kept up a constant “fire in the rear” upon the soldiers from their own States, and whose conduct prolonged the war for years, made thousands of graves in the Southern valleys, and filled thousands of Northern homes—the homes of their neighbors and townsmen—with a grief whose shadow has never been lifted, even to this day.

I am a Republican because I am in favor of an honest ballot and a fair count. No right-thinking, rightly-educated American citizen will ever grumble at the adverse decision of an honest majority. But if our form of government is to endure, the right of every legal voter to cast one vote for which party he pleases to cast it, and to have that vote counted as it was cast, must be placed beyond doubt or dispute. For nearly ten years past, in no less than eight States of this Union, popular elections have been a cheat and a farce. The shot-gun or tissue-ballots have made the decisions recorded at the polls. In at least five States, Mississippi, Louisiana, South and North Carolina and Florida, there has not been even the pretense of a fair, free vote for ten years past. Each one of these States is Republican by as large and as reliable a majority as is Iowa, Nebraska, or Kansas. But the voice of their legal voters is systematically and regularly stifled, either by force or fraud. There is no issue in politics, no question before the American people, so momentous in the consequences of its decision as is this one of a fair, free, honest ballot-box. Because its settlement involves all other questions that the ballot-box should settle. If I am prevented from voting by terrorism; or if my vote, when cast, is not counted, or is swamped by two other ballots fraudulently put into the ballot-box, I am absolutely deprived of the highest privilege of American citizenship—the constitutional right of aiding to choose the men who make laws for my government and expend the money I pay in the form of taxes. I shall never cease voting the Republican ticket until there is a final end put to terrorism, and tissue-ballots, and false counting, in the States lately in rebellion. All other questions, in my judgment, are dwarfed in the presence of this all-embracing, all-controlling question of a free, pure ballot-box. For that is the very foundation-stone, not only of popular government, but of human rights. On its proper settlement depends the intelligent, rightful decision of all other questions, social, moral, economic, or political—more than that, the very existence of the Government itself. If elections are a cheat, the rule of the minority is substituted for that of the majority. Majorities do not cheat at the polls. Ballot-box frauds are always the work of minorities. And if they are successful and long continued, what results follow? First, and inevitably, contempt for the decision of elections; then a refusal to acquiesce in the results so obtained; then social turmoil, rebellion, and civil war.

I am a Republican because I am opposed to the domination of the “solid South.” For fifty years the Southern States dominated this country. They were feebler in numbers, in wealth, in enterprise, in commerce, in all the elements that make a nation strong and great, than were the Northern States. Yet until the outbreak of the war, they governed the country absolutely. They made a frantic appeal to arms when their domination was at last challenged, and were crushed by arms. They have for the past eight years been kept “solid” by the most atrocious crimes that ever disgraced a civilized nation—by terrorism, by the Ku-Klux Klans, by midnight murder, by tissue ballots, by wholesale cheating and false counting. A South made “solid” by such methods is a standing menace to free government, and should be confronted by a North made “solid” by love of justice, peace, fair play, and a free and unintimidated ballot. The Republican party should remain in power until a Republican is as safe and as free in Mississippi as a Democrat is in Kansas; until every citizen, white or black, can cast his vote without fear, and have it honestly counted; and until the South consents to accept the idea of political toleration, and gives up the idea that it can ever again be the master of this Government.

I am a Republican because the Republican party is not ashamed of its past. No Republican is afraid or ashamed to have his children read the history of the past quarter of a century. The Democratic party, when anything is said of its past history, pleads for the mercy of oblivion and forgetfulness. If the false disciple was to come back to earth, he would probably say: “What, are you fellows still harping about those thirty pieces of silver?” In very much the same mournful, injured tone, the Democrats say to the Republicans: “What, are you still flaunting the bloody shirt?” The faithful Republican has a right to be proud of his party’s history. It has never abandoned a position it has once taken, and it has never taken a position not in harmony with the greatest good of the greatest number. No Republican ever tore down his country’s flag, and spat upon it. No Republican ever called the soldiers of the Union “Lincoln hirelings” and “lop-eared Dutch.” No Republican ever mounted guard around the prison hell at Andersonville. No Republican ever rejoiced when the armies of the Union suffered a defeat, or grieved when the hosts of the Rebellion were driven from fields of battle. No Republican was ever a member of those traitorous, sneaking, cowardly Copperhead organizations, the “Knights of the Golden Circle” and the “Sons of Liberty.” No Republican belonged to Quantrill’s brutal gang of ruffians and assassins, who burned defenseless Lawrence, and murdered her unarmed citizens. No Republican ever rode at night with the bloody Ku-Klux. No Republican ever took part in such brutal massacres as those at Hamburg and New Orleans. No Republican ever attempted to win a National election by forging a letter, or blackguarding a good wife and mother, or defacing the tombstone of a little child. No Republican ever voted to disfranchise the soldiers of the Union while they were absent fighting the battles of the country. No Republican ever called Abraham Lincoln a “baboon and an ape,” or denounced Ulysses S. Grant as a “drunken tanner” and a “brutal butcher,” or was caught, at midnight, scrawling “329” on his neighbor’s doorstep. There is a splendid anthem which, during the war, was sung in every camp, and to whose majestic music a million soldiers marched—the Song of Old John Brown. There is another, no less thrilling in its glorious chorus, which warms and stirs the hearts of patriotic Americans whenever they hear its splendid music—the song which tells the story of the great March to the Sea. No Democratic Convention ever sang, no Democratic Convention can sing or dares to sing, either of these songs.

Twenty-one years ago this fall a regiment of Kansas soldiers was engaged, for two days, in a desperate conflict with the armed hosts of treason, in the tangled underbrush at Chicamagua. Two years before, they had marched away from the State, proud, happy, hopeful, each with the glad picture of a country saved imprinted upon his heart and lighting up the future of his imagination. Life was as dear and love as sweet to those Kansas boys as to any of you assembled here to-day. But when the sun went down on the second day of that fierce battle, over sixty per cent. of those Kansas boys—sixty out of every hundred—were lying, dead or wounded, on the blood-stained field. They had been, for more than two years, my comrades, my friends, my “boys,” and I loved them, one and all. Not a shot fired at them, not a bullet that laid one of them low, was fired by a Republican.

These are things which, for one, I never intend to forget. I don’t want to forget them. I take pride, as a Republican, in remembering that no Republican has to apologize for any such wrongs, or crimes, or outrages as these.

The Democrats sneer at this kind of talk as “waving the bloody shirt.” But this insulting sneer only illustrates the character of that party. The “bloody shirt” that is thus derided is the old gray army shirt that covered the breasts of patriot soldiers, and was torn and stained by bullets aimed at the life of the Republic. That old gray army shirt went over the Rebel works at Donelson, through the cedars at Stone River, into the tangled forest at Chicamauga, and up the blazing heights of Mission Ridge. That old gray army shirt was torn and stained at Corinth and Antietam, and sanctified at Prairie Grove, Gettysburg, and Atlanta. That old gray army shirt is as full of glory, and as beautiful, in every true patriot’s eyes, as are the stars and stripes of our splendid flag, because it typifies the loyalty, the heroism, and the sacrifices of the glorious men who wore it, and with whose patriotic blood it was reddened. This is “the bloody shirt” that is made, in every campaign, the stale joke of every Democratic orator and the cheap catch-word of every Democratic journal.

I am a Republican because I am opposed to a “change” merely for the sake of change. This restless, senseless clamor is the very essence of stupidity. A demand for a change should have back of it some substantial reasons. There are absolutely none in the present condition of the National Government. The country is substantially prosperous. Labor is in demand, and commands good prices; capital is busy and secure. The party in power has justified the confidence of the people. Money is as plenty now as it has ever been, and it has a steady value. The man who has a dollar in his pocket knows that speculators and gold-gamblers cannot, by some juggle, take five cents or ten cents from its value, in twenty-four hours, as they could a few years ago. The public burdens have been largely reduced. Our exports far exceed our imports, and our balance-sheet with the world shows an immense sum in our favor. The boom of business is heard in the land. The preachers of calamity are out of date. Commerce, industry, enterprise, capital, labor, all feel the impulse of substantial prosperity running through every artery of public and private activities. These are the evidences, on every hand, of the wisdom of Republican administration. And what are we offered as an inducement for “a change”? Absolutely nothing save the cheap protestations of cheap and hungry Democratic orators and newspapers that, should their party be returned to power, it does not intend, as it threatened a few years ago, to destroy the public credit, cripple manufacturing industries, debase the currency, and destroy our banking system. Only this, and nothing more.