Chapter I: HAVE sometimes wondered whether our country was to be forever governed (6)

Enthusiastic cheers greeted all his points, and his audience
simply went wild at the end. It was a grand oration, and it
was listened to by enthusiastic and appreciative hearers,
upon whom not a single word was lost, and in whose hearts
every word awoke a responsive echo.

Nor did the enthusiasm which Col. Ingersoll created end
until the very last, when the whole assemblage arose and
sang "America" in a way which will never be forgotten by any
one present. It was a great ending of a great evening.--The
New York Times, May 31st, 1888.

New York City.

1888.

THIS is a sacred day--a day for gratitude and love.

To-day we commemorate more than independence, more than the birth of a nation, more than the fruits of the Revolution, more than physical progress, more than the accumulation of wealth, more than national prestige and power.

We commemorate the great and blessed victory over ourselves--the triumph of civilization, the reformation of a people, the establishment of a government consecrated to the preservation of liberty and the equal rights of man.

Nations can win success, can be rich and powerful, can cover the earth with their armies, the seas with their fleets, and yet be selfish, small and mean. Physical progress means opportunity for doing good. It means responsibility. Wealth is the end of the despicable, victory the purpose of brutality.

But there is something nobler than all these--something that rises above wealth and power--something above lands and palaces--something above raiment and gold--it is the love of right, the cultivation of the moral nature, the desire to do justice, the inextinguishable love of human liberty.

Nothing can be nobler than a nation governed by conscience, nothing more infamous than power without pity, wealth without honor and without the sense of justice.

Only by the soldiers of the right can the laurel be won or worn.

On this day we honor the heroes who fought to make our Nation just and free--who broke the shackles of the slave, who freed the masters of the South and their allies of the North. We honor chivalric men who made America the hope and beacon of the human race--the foremost Nation of the world.

These heroes established the first republic, and demonstrated that a government in which the legally expressed will of the people is sovereign and supreme is the safest, strongest, securest, noblest and the best.

They demonstrated the human right of the people, and of all the people, to make and execute the laws--that authority does not come from the clouds, or from ancestry, or from the crowned and titled, or from constitutions and compacts, laws and customs--not from the admissions of the great, or the concessions of the powerful and victorious--not from graves, or consecrated dust--not from treaties made between successful robbers--not from the decisions of corrupt and menial courts--not from the dead, but from the living--not from the past but from the present, from the people of to-day--from the brain, from the heart and from the conscience of those who live and love and labor.

The history of this world for the most part is the history of conflict and war, of invasion, of conquest, of victorious wrong, of the many enslaved by the few.

Millions have fought for kings, for the destruction and enslavement of their fellow-men. Millions have battled for empire, and great armies have been inspired by the hope of pillage; but for the first time in the history of this world millions of men battled for the right, fought to free not themselves, but others, not for prejudice, but for principle, not for conquest, but for conscience.

The men whom we honor were the liberators of a Nation, of a whole country, North and South--of two races. They freed the body and the brain, gave liberty to master and to slave. They opened all the highways of thought, and gave to fifty millions of people the inestimable legacy of free speech.

They established the free exchange of thought. They gave to the air a flag without a stain, and they gave to their country a Constitution that honest men can reverently obey. They destroyed the hateful, the egotistic and provincial--they established a Nation, a national spirit, a national pride and a patriotism as broad as the great Republic.

They did away with that ignorant and cruel prejudice that human rights depend on race or color, and that the superior race has the right to oppress the inferior. They established the sublime truth that the superior are the just, the kind, the generous, and merciful--that the really superior are the protectors, the defenders, and the saviors of the oppressed, of the fallen, the unfortunate, the weak and helpless. They established that greatest of all truths that nothing is nobler than to labor and suffer for others.

If we wish to know the extent of our debt to these heroes, these soldiers of the right, we must know what we were and what we are. A few years ago we talked about liberty, about the freedom of the world, and while so talking we enslaved our fellow-men. We were the stealers of babes and the whippers of women. We were in partnership with bloodhounds. We lived on unpaid labor. We held manhood in contempt. Honest toil was disgraceful--sympathy was a crime--pity was unconstitutional--humanity contrary to law, and charity was treason. Men were imprisoned for pointing out in heaven's dome the Northern Star--for giving food to the hungry, water to the parched lips of thirst, shelter to the hunted, succor to the oppressed. In those days criminals and courts, pirates and pulpits were in partnership--liberty was only a word standing for the equal rights of robbers.

For many years we insisted that our fathers had founded a free Government, that they were the lovers of liberty, believers in equal rights. We were mistaken. The colonists did not believe in the freedom of to-day. Their laws were filled with intolerance, with slavery and the infamous spirit of caste. They persecuted and enslaved. Most of them were narrow, ignorant and cruel. For the most part, their laws were more brutal than those of the nations from which they came. They branded the forehead of intelligence, bored with hot irons the tongue of truth. They persecuted the good and enslaved the helpless. They were believers in pillories and whipping-posts for honest, thoughtful men.

When their independence was secured they adopted a Constitution that legalized slavery, and they passed laws making it the duty of free men to prevent others from becoming free. They followed the example of kings and nobles. They knew that monarchs had been interested in the slave trade, and that the first English commander of a slave-ship divided his profits with a queen.

They forgot all the splendid things they had said--the great principles they had so proudly and eloquently announced. The sublime truths faded from their hearts. The spirit of trade, the greed for office, took possession of their souls. The lessons of history were forgotten. The voices coming from all the wrecks of kingdoms, empires and republics on the shores of the great river were unheeded and unheard.

If the foundation is not justice, the dome cannot be high enough, or splendid enough, to save the temple.

But above everything in the minds of our fathers was the desire for union--to create a Nation, to become a Power.

Our fathers compromised.

A compromise is a bargain in which each party defrauds the other, and himself.

The compromise our fathers made was the coffin of honor and the cradle of war.

A brazen falsehood and a timid truth are the parents of compromise.

But some--the greatest and the best--believed in liberty for all. They repeated the splendid sayings of the Roman: "By the law of nature all men are free;"--of the French King: "Men are born free and equal;"--of the sublime Zeno: "All men are by nature equal, and virtue alone establishes a difference between them."

In the year preceding the Declaration of Independence, a society for the abolition of slavery was formed in Pennsylvania and its first President was one of the wisest and greatest of men--Benjamin Franklin. A society of the same character was established in New York in 1785; its first President was John Jay--the second, Alexander Hamilton.

But in a few years these great men were forgotten. Parties rivaled each other in the defence of wrong. Politicians cared only for place and power. In the clamor of the heartless, the voice of the generous was lost. Slavery became supreme. It dominated legislatures, courts and parties; it rewarded the faithless and little; it degraded the honest and great.

And yet, through all these hateful years, thousands and thousands of noble men and women denounced the degradation and the crime. Most of their names are unknown. They have given a glory to obscurity. They have filled oblivion with honor.

In the presence of death it has been the custom to speak of the worthlessness, and the vanity, of life. I prefer to speak of its value, of its importance, of its nobility and glory.

Life is not merely a floating shadow, a momentary spark, a dream that vanishes. Nothing can be grander than a life filled with great and noble thoughts--with brave and honest deeds. Such a life sheds light, and the seeds of truth sown by great and loyal men bear fruit through all the years to be. To have lived and labored and died for the right--nothing can be sublimer.

History is but the merest outline of the exceptional--of a few great crimes, calamities, wars, mistakes and dramatic virtues. A few mountain peaks are touched, while all the valleys of human life, where countless victories are won, where labor wrought with love--are left in the eternal shadow.

But these peaks are not the foundation of nations. The forgotten words, the unrecorded deeds, the unknown sacrifices, the heroism, the industry, the patience, the love and labor of the nameless good and great have for the most part founded, guided and defended States. The world has been civilized by the unregarded poor, by the untitled nobles, by the uncrowned kings who sleep in unknown graves mingled with the common dust.

They have thought and wrought, have borne the burdens of the world. The pain and labor have been theirs--the glory has been given to the few.

The conflict came. The South unsheathed the sword. Then rose the embattled North, and these men who sleep to-night beneath the flowers of half the world, gave all for us.

They gave us a Nation--a republic without a slave--a republic that is sovereign, and to whose will every citizen and every State must bow. They gave us a Constitution for all--one that can be read without shame and defended without dishonor. They freed the brain, the lips and hands of men.

All that could be done by force was done. All that could be accomplished by the adoption of constitutions was done. The rest is left to education--the innumerable influences of civilization--to the development of the intellect, to the cultivation of the heart and the imagination.

The past is now a hideous dream.

The present is filled with pride, with gratitude, and hope.

Liberty is the condition of real progress. The free man works for wife and child--the slave toils from fear. Liberty gives leisure and leisure refines, beautifies and ennobles. Slavery gives idleness and idleness degrades, deforms and brutalizes.

Liberty and slavery--the right and wrong--the joy and grief--the day and night--the glory and the gloom of all the years.

Liberty is the word that all the good have spoken.

It is the hope of every loving heart--the spark and flame in every noble breast--the gem in every splendid soul--the many-colored dream in every honest brain.

This word has filled the dungeon with its holy light,--has put the halo round the martyr's head,--has raised the convict far above the king, and clad even the scaffold with a glory that dimmed and darkened every throne.

To the wise man, to the wise nation, the mistakes of the past are the torches of the present. The war is over. The institution that caused it has perished. The prejudices that fanned the flames are only ashes now. We are one people. We will stand or fall together. At last, with clear eyes we see that the triumph of right was a triumph for all. Together we reap the fruits of the great victory. We are all conquerors. Around the graves of the heroes--North and South, white and colored--together we stand and with uncovered heads reverently thank the saviors of our native land.

We are now far enough away from the conflict--from its hatreds, its passions, its follies and its glories, to fairly and philosophically examine the causes and in some measure at least to appreciate the results.

States and nations, like individuals, do as they must. Back of revolution, of rebellion, of slavery and freedom, are the efficient causes. Knowing this, we occupy that serene height from which it is possible to calmly pronounce a judgment upon the past.

We know now that the seeds of our war were sown hundreds and thousands of years ago--sown by the vicious and the just, by prince and peasant, by king and slave, by all the virtues and by all the vices, by all the victories and all the defeats, by all the labor and the love, the loss and gain, by all the evil and the good, and by all the heroes of the world.

Of the great conflict we remember only its glory and its lessons. We remember only the heroes who made the Republic the first of nations, and who laid the foundation for the freedom of mankind.

This will be known as the century of freedom. Slowly the hosts of darkness have been driven back.

In 1808 England and the United States united for the suppression of the slave-trade. The Netherlands joined in this holy work in 1818. France lent her aid in 1819 and Spain in 1820. In the same year the United States declared the traffic to be piracy, and in 1825 the same law was enacted by Great Britain. In 1826 Brazil agreed to suppress the traffic in human flesh. In 1833 England abolished slavery in the West Indies, and in 1843 in her East Indian possessions, giving liberty to more than twelve millions of slaves. In 1846 Sweden abolished slavery, and in 1848 it was abolished in the colonies of Denmark and France. In 1861 Alexander II., Czar of all the Russias, emancipated the serfs, and on the first day of January, 1863, the shackles fell from millions of the citizens of this Republic. This was accomplished by the heroes we remember to-day--this, in accordance with the Proclamation of Emancipation signed by Lincoln,--greatest of our mighty dead--Lincoln the gentle and the just--and whose name will be known and honored to "the last syllable of recorded time." And this year, 1888, has been made blessed and memorable forever--in the vast empire of Brazil there stands no slave.

Let us hope that when the next century looks from the sacred portals of the East, its light will only fall upon the faces of the free.

* By request, Col. Ingersoll closed this address with his
"Vision of War," to which he added "A Vision of the
Future." This accounts for its repetition in this volume.

The past rises before me like a dream. Again we are in the great struggle for national life. We hear the sounds of preparation--the music of boisterous drums--the silver voices of heroic bugles. We see thousands of assemblages, and hear the appeals of orators. We see the pale cheeks of women, and the flushed faces of men; and in those assemblages we see all the dead whose dust we have covered with flowers. We lose sight of them no more. We are with them when they enlist in the great army of freedom. We see them part with those they love. Some are walking for the last time in quiet, woody places, with the maidens they adore. We hear the whisperings and the sweet vows of eternal love as they lingeringly part forever. Others are bending over cradles, kissing babes that are asleep. Some are receiving the blessings of old men. Some are parting with mothers who hold them and press them to their hearts again and again, and say nothing. Kisses and tears, tears and kisses--divine mingling of agony and love! And some are talking with wives, and endeavoring with brave words, spoken in the old tones, to drive from their hearts the awful fear. We see them part. We see the wife standing in the door with the babe in her arms--standing in the sunlight sobbing. At the turn of the road a hand waves--she answers by holding high in her loving arms the child. He is gone, and forever.

We see them all as they march proudly away under the flaunting flags, keeping time to the grand, wild music of war--marching-down the streets of the great cities--through the towns and across the prairies--down to the fields of glory, to do and to die for the eternal right.

We go with them, one and all. We are by their side on all the gory fields--in all the hospitals of pain--on all the weary marches. We stand guard with them in the wild storm and under the quiet stars. We are with them in ravines running with blood--in the furrows of old fields. We are with them between contending hosts, unable to move, wild with thirst, the life ebbing slowly away among the withered leaves. We see them pierced by balls and torn with shells, in the trenches, by forts, and in the whirlwind of the charge, where men become iron, with nerves of steel.

We are with them in the prisons of hatred and famine; but human speech can never tell what they endured.

We are at home when the news comes that they are dead. We see the maiden in the shadow of her first sorrow. We see the silvered head of the old man bowed with the last grief.

The past rises before us, and we see four millions of human beings governed by the lash--we see them bound hand and foot--we hear the strokes of cruel whips--we see the hounds tracking women through tangled swamps. We see babes sold from the breasts of mothers. Cruelty unspeakable! Outrage infinite!

Four million bodies in chains--four million souls in fetters. All the sacred relations of wife, mother, father and child trampled beneath the brutal feet of might. And all this was done under our own beautiful banner of the free.

The past rises before us. We hear the roar and shriek of the bursting shell. The broken fetters fall. These heroes died. We look. Instead of slaves we see men and women and children. The wand of progress touches the auction block, the slave pen, the whipping post, and we see homes and firesides and school-houses and books, and where all was want and crime and cruelty and fear, we see the faces of the free.

These heroes are dead. They died for liberty--they died for us. They are at rest. They sleep in the land they made free, under the flag they rendered stainless, under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the tearful willows, and the embracing vines.

They sleep beneath the shadows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or of storm, each in the windowless Palace of Rest. Earth may run red with other wars--they are at peace. In the midst of battle, in the roar of conflict, they found the serenity of death. I have one sentiment for soldiers living and dead: Cheers for the living; tears for the dead.

A vision of the future rises:

I see our country filled with happy homes, with firesides of content,--the foremost land of all the earth.

I see a world where thrones have crumbled and where kings are dust. The aristocracy of idleness has perished from the earth.

I see a world without a slave. Man at last is free. Nature's forces have by Science been enslaved. Lightning and light, wind and wave, frost and flame, and all the secret, subtle powers of earth and air are the tireless toilers for the human race.

I see a world at peace, adorned with every form of art, with music's myriad voices thrilled, while lips are rich with words of love and truth; a world in which no exile sighs, no prisoner mourns; a world on which the gibbet's shadow does not fall; a world where labor reaps its full reward, where work and worth go hand in hand, where the poor girl trying to win bread with the needle--the needle that has been called "the asp for the breast of the poor,"--is not driven to the desperate choice of crime or death, of suicide or shame.

I see a world without the beggar's outstretched palm, the miser's heartless, stony stare, the piteous wail of want, the livid lips of lies, the cruel eyes of scorn.

I see a race without disease of flesh or brain,--shapely and fair,--the married harmony of form and function,--and, as I look, life lengthens, joy deepens, love canopies the earth; and over all, in the great dome, shines the eternal star of human hope.

RATIFICATION SPEECH.

* Delivered at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, June
29,1688.

Harrison and Morton.

1888.

FELLOW-CITIZENS, Ladies and Gentlemen--The speaker who is perfectly candid, who tells his honest thought, not only honors himself, but compliments his audience. It is only to the candid that man can afford to absolutely open his heart. Most people, whenever a man is nominated for the presidency, claim that they were for him from the very start--as a rule, claim that they discovered him. They are so anxious to be with the procession, so afraid of being left, that they insist that they got exactly the man they wanted.

I will be frank enough with you to say that the convention did not nominate my choice. I was for the nomination of General Gresham, believing that, all things considered, he was the best and most available man--a just judge, a soldier, a statesman. But there is something in the American blood that bows to the will of the majority. There is that splendid fealty and loyalty to the great principle upon which our Government rests; so that when the convention reached its conclusion, every Republican was for the nominee. There were good men from which to select this ticket. I made my selection, and did the best I could to induce the convention to make the same. Some people think, or say they think, that I made a mistake in telling the name of the man whom I was for. But I always know whom I am for, I always know what I am for, and I know the reasons why I am for the thing or for the man.

And it never once occurred to me that we could get a man nominated, or elected, and keep his name a secret. When I am for a man I like to stand by him, even while others leave, no matter if at last I stand alone. I believe in doing things above board, in the light, in the wide air. No snake ever yet had a skin brilliant enough, no snake ever crawled through the grass secretly enough, silently or cunningly enough, to excite my admiration. My admiration is for the eagle, the monarch of the empyrean, who, poised on outstretched pinions, challenges the gaze of all the world. Take your position in the sunlight; tell your neighbors and your friends what you are for, and give your reasons for your position; and if that is a mistake, I expect to live making only mistakes. I do not like the secret way, but the plain, open way; and I was for one man, not because I had anything against the others, who were all noble, splendid men, worthy to be Presidents of the United States.

Now, then, leaving that subject, two parties again confront each other. With parties as with persons goes what we call character. They have built up in the nation in which they live reputation, and the reputation of a party should be taken into consideration as well as the reputation of a man. What is this party? What has it done? What has it endeavored to do? What are the ideas in its brain? What are the hopes, the emotions and the loves in its heart? Does it wish to make the world grander and better and freer? Has it a high ideal? Does it believe in sunrise, or does it keep its back to the sacred east of eternal progress? These are the questions that every American should ask. Every man should take pride in this great Nation--America, with a star of glory in her forehead!--and every man should say, "I hope when I lie down in death I shall leave a greater and grander country than when I was born."

This is the country of humanity. This is the Government of the poor. This is where man has an even chance with his fellow-man. In this country the poorest man holds in his hand at the day of election the same unit, the same amount, of political power as the owner of a hundred millions. That is the glory of the United States.

A few days ago our party met in convention. Now, let us see who we are. Let us see what the Republican party is. Let us see what is the spirit that animates this great and splendid organization.

And I want you to think one moment, just one moment: What was this country when the first Republican President was elected? Under the law then, every Northern man was a bloodhound, pledged to catch human beings, who, led by the light of the Northern Star, were escaping to free soil. Remember that. And remember, too, that when our first President was elected we found a treasury empty, the United States without credit, the great Republic unable to borrow money from day to day to pay its current expenses. Remember that. Think of the glory and grandeur of the Republican party that took the country with an empty exchequer, and then think of what the Democratic party says to-day of the pain and anguish it has suffered administering the Government with a surplus!

We must remember what the Republican party has done--what it has accomplished for nationality, for liberty, for education and for the civilization of our race. We must remember its courage in war, its honesty in peace. Civil war tests to a certain degree the strength, the stability and the patriotism of a country. After the war comes a greater strain. It is a great thing to die for a cause, but it is a greater thing to live for it. We must remember that the Republican party not only put down a rebellion, not only created a debt of thousands and thousands of millions, but that it had the industry and the intelligence to pay that debt, and to give to the United States the best financial standing of any nation.

When this great party came together in Chicago what was the first thing the convention did? What was the first idea in its mind? It was to honor the memory of the greatest and grandest men the Republic has produced. The first name that trembled upon the lips of the convention was that of Abraham Lincoln--Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest and grandest men who ever lived, and, in my judgment, the greatest man that ever sat in the presidential chair. And why the greatest? Because the kindest, because he had more mercy and love in his heart than were in the heart of any other President. And so the convention paid its tribute to the great soldier, to the man who led, in company with others, the great army of freedom to victory, until the old flag floated over every inch of American soil and every foot of that territory was dedicated to the eternal freedom of mankind.

And what next did this convention do? The next thing was to send fraternal greetings to the Americans of Brazil. Why? Because Brazil had freed every slave, and because that act left the New World, this hemisphere, without a slave--left two continents dedicated to the freedom of man--so that with that act of Brazil the New World, discovered only a few years ago, takes the lead in the great march of human progress and liberty. That is the second thing the convention did. Only a little while ago the minister to this country from Brazil, acting under instructions from his government, notified the President of the United States that this sublime act had been accomplished--notified him that from the bodies of millions of men the chains of slavery had fallen--an act great enough to make the dull sky of half the world glow as though another morning had risen upon another day.

And what did our President say? Was he filled with enthusiasm? Did his heart beat quicker? Did the blood rush to his cheek? He simply said, as it is reported, "that he hoped time would justify the wisdom of the measure." It is precisely the same as though a man should quit a life of crime, as though some gentleman in the burglar business should finally announce to his friends: "I have made up my mind never to break into another house," and the friend should reply: "I hope that time will justify the propriety of that resolution."

That was the first thing, with regard to the condition of the world, that came into the mind of the Republican convention. And why was that? Because the Republican party has fought for liberty from the day of its birth to the present moment.

And what was the next? The next resolution passed by the convention was, "that we earnestly hope, we shall soon congratulate our fellow-citizens of Irish birth upon the peaceful recovery of home rule in Ireland."

Wherever a human being wears a chain, there you will find the sympathy of the Republican party. Wherever one languishes in a dungeon for having raised the standard of revolt in favor of human freedom, there you will find the sympathy of the Republican party. I believe in liberty for Ireland, not because it is Ireland, but because they are human beings, and I am for liberty, not as a prejudice, but as a principle.

The man rightfully in jail who wants to get out is a believer in liberty as a prejudice; but when a man out of jail sees a man wrongfully in jail and is willing to risk his life to give liberty to the man who ought to have it, that is being in favor of liberty as a principle. So I am in favor of liberty everywhere, all over the world, and wherever one man tries to govern another simply because he has been born a lord or a duke or a king, or wherever one governs another simply by brute force, I say that that is oppression, and it is the business of Americans to do all they can to give liberty to the oppressed everywhere.

Ireland should govern herself. Those who till the soil should own the soil, or have an opportunity at least of becoming the owners. A few landlords should not live in extravagance and luxury while those who toil live on the leavings, on parings, on crumbs and crusts. The treatment of Ireland by England has been one continuous crime. There is no meaner page in history.

What is the next thing in this platform? And if there is anything in it that anybody can object to, we will find it out to-night. The next thing is the supremacy of the Nation.-Why, even the Democrats now believe in that, and in their own platform are willing to commence that word with a capital N. They tell us that they are in favor of an indissoluble Union--just as I presume they always have been. But they now believe in a Union. So does the Republican party. What else? The Republican party believes, not in State Sovereignty, but in the preservation of all the rights reserved to the States by the Constitution.

Let me show you the difference: For instance, you make a contract with your neighbor who lives next door--equal partners--and at the bottom of the contract you put the following addition: "If there is any dispute as to the meaning of this contract, my neighbor shall settle it, and any settlement he shall make shall be final." Is there any use of talking about being equal partners any longer? Any use of your talking about being a sovereign partner? So, the Constitution of the United States says: "If any question arises between any State and the Federal Government it shall be decided by a Federal Court." That is the end of what they call State Sovereignty.

Think of a sovereign State that can make no treaty, that cannot levy war, that cannot coin money. But we believe in maintaining the rights of the States absolutely in their integrity, because we believe in local self-government. We deny, however, that a State has any right to deprive a citizen of his vote. We deny that the State has any right to violate the Federal law, and we go further and we say that it is the duty of the General Government to see to it that every citizen in every State shall have the right to exercise all of his privileges as a citizen of the United States--"the right of every lawful citizen," says our platform, "native or foreign, white or black, to cast a free ballot."

Let me say one word about that.

The ballot is the king, the emperor, the ruler of America; it is the only rightful sovereign of the Republic; and whoever refuses to count an honest vote, or whoever casts a dishonest vote, is a traitor to the great principle upon which our Government is founded. The man poisons, or endeavors to poison, the springs of authority, the fountains of justice, of rightful dominion and power; and until every citizen can cast his vote everywhere in this land and have that vote counted, we are not a republican people, we are not a civilized nation. The Republican party will not have finished its mission until this country is civilized. That is its business. It was born of a protest against barbarism.

The Republican party was the organized conscience of the United States. It had the courage to stand by what it believed to be right. There is something better even than success in this world; or in other words, there is only one kind of success, and that is to be for the right. Then whatever happens, you have succeeded.

Now, comes the next question. The Republican party not only wants to protect every citizen in his liberty, in his right to vote, but it wants to have that vote counted. And what else?

The next thing in this platform is protection for American labor.

I am going to tell you in a very brief way why I am in favor of protection. First, I want this Republic substantially independent of the rest of the world. You must remember that while people are civilized--some of them--so that when they have a quarrel they leave it to the courts to decide, nations still occupy the position of savages toward each other. There is no national court to decide a question, consequently the question is decided by the nations themselves, and you know what selfishness and greed and power and the ideas of false glory will do and have done. So that this Nation is not safe one moment from war. I want the Republic so that it can live although at war with all the world.

We have every kind of climate that is worth having. Our country embraces the marriage of the pine and palm; we have all there is of worth; it is the finest soil in the world and the most ingenious people that ever contrived to make the forces of nature do their work. I want this Nation substantially independent, so that if every port were blockaded we would be covered with prosperity as with a mantle. Then, too, the Nation that cannot take care of itself in war is always at a disadvantage in peace. That is one reason. Let me give you the next.

The next reason is that whoever raises raw material and sells it will be eternally poor. There is no State in this Union where the farmer raises wheat and sells it, that the farmer is not poor. Why? He only makes one profit, and, as a rule, that is a loss. The farmer that raises corn does better, because he can sell, not corn, but pork and beef and horses. In other words, he can make the second or third profit, and those farmers get rich. There is a vast difference between the labor necessary to raise raw material and the labor necessary to make the fabrics used by civilized men. Remember that; and if you are confined simply to raw material your labor will be unskilled; unskilled labor will be cheap, the raw material will be cheap, and the result is that your country will grow poorer and poorer, while the country that buys your raw material, makes it into fabrics and sells it back to you, will grow intelligent and rich. I want you to remember this, because it lies at the foundation of this whole subject. Most people who talk on this point bring forward column after column of figures, and a man to understand it would have to be a walking table of logarithms. I do not care to discuss it that way. I want to get at the foundation principles, so that you can give a reason, as well as myself, why you are in favor of protection.

Let us take another step. We will take a locomotive--a wonderful thing--that horse of progress, with its flesh of iron and steel and breath of flame--a wonderful thing. Let us see how it is made. Did you ever think of the deft and cunning hands, of the wonderfully accurate brains, that can make a thing like that? Did you ever think about it? How much do you suppose the raw material lying in the earth was worth that was changed into that locomotive? A locomotive that is worth, we will say, twelve thousand dollars; how much was the raw material worth lying in the earth, deposited there millions of years ago? Not as much as one dollar. Let us, just for the sake of argument, say five dollars. What, then, has labor added to the twelve thousand dollar locomotive? Eleven thousand nine hundred and ninety-five dollars. Now, why? Because, just to the extent that thought is mingled with labor, wages increase; just to the extent you mix mind with muscle, you give value to labor; just to the extent that the labor is skilled, deft, apt, just to that extent or in that proportion, is the product valuable. Think about it. Raw material! There is a piece of canvas five feet one way, three the other. Raw material would be to get a man to whitewash it; that is raw material. Let a man of genius paint a picture upon it; let him put in that picture the emotions of his heart, the landscapes that have made poetry in his brain, the recollection of the ones he loves, the prattle of children, a mother's tear, the sunshine of her smile, and all the sweet and sacred memories of his life, and it is worth five thousand dollars--ten thousand dollars.

Noise is raw material, but the great opera of "Tristan and Isolde" is the result of skilled labor. There is the same difference between simple brute strength and skilled labor that there is between noise and the symphonies of Beethoven. I want you to get this in your minds.

Now, then, whoever sells raw material gives away the great profit. You raise cotton and sell it; and just as long as the South does it and does nothing more the South will be poor, the South will be ignorant, and it will be solidly Democratic.

Now, do not imagine that I am saying anything against the Democratic party. I believe the Democratic party is doing the best it can under the circumstances. You know my philosophy makes me very charitable. You find out all about a man, all about his ancestors, and you can account for his vote always. Why? Because there are causes and effects in nature. There are sometimes antecedents and subsequents that have no relation to each other, but at the same time, all through the web and woof of events, you find these causes and effects, and if you only look far enough, you will know why a man does as he does.

I have nothing to say against the Democratic party. I want to talk against ideas, not against people. I do not care anything about their candidates, whether they are good, bad or indifferent. What, gentlemen, are your ideas? What do you propose to do? What is your policy? That is what I want to know, and I am willing to meet them upon the field of intellectual combat. They are in possession; they are in the rifle pits of office; we are in the open field, but we will plant our standard, the flag that we love, without a stain, and under that banner, upon which so many dying men have looked in the last hour when they thought of home and country--under that flag we will carry the Democratic fortifications.

Another thing; we want to get at this business so that we will understand what we are doing. I do not believe in protecting American industry for the sake of the capitalist, or for the sake of any class, but for the sake of the whole Nation. And if I did not believe that it was for the best interests of the whole Nation I should be opposed to it.

Let us take this next step. Everybody, of course, cannot be a farmer. Everybody cannot be a mechanic. All the people in the world cannot go at one business. We must have a diversity of industry. I say, the greater that diversity, the greater the development of brain in the country. We then have what you might call a mental exchange; men are then pursuing every possible direction in which the mind can go, and the brain is being developed upon all sides; whereas, if you all simply cultivated the soil, you would finally become stupid. If you all did only one business you would become ignorant; but by pursuing all possible avocations that call for taste, genius, calculation, discovery, ingenuity, invention--by having all these industries open to the American people, we will be able to raise great men and great women; and I am for protection, because it will enable us to raise greater men and greater women. Not only because it will make more money in less time, but because I would rather have greater folks and less money.

One man of genius makes a continent sublime. Take all the men of wealth from Scotland--who would know it? Wipe their names from the pages of history, and who would miss them? Nobody. Blot out one name, Robert Burns, and how dim and dark would be the star of Scotland. The great thing is to raise great folks. That is what we want to do, and we want to diversify all the industries and protect them all. How much? Simply enough to prevent the foreign article from destroying the domestic. But they say, then the manufacturers will form a trust and put the prices up. If we depend upon the foreign manufacturers will they not form trusts? We can depend on competition. What do the Democrats want to do? They want to do away with the tariff, so as to do away with the surplus. They want to put down the tariff to do away with the surplus. If you put down the tariff a small per cent, so that the foreign article comes to America, instead of decreasing, you will increase the surplus. Where you get a dollar now, you will get five then. If you want to stop getting anything from imports, you want to put the tariff higher, my friend.

Let every Democrat understand this, and let him also understand that I feel and know that he has the same interest in this great country that I have, and let me be frank enough and candid enough and honest enough to say that I believe the Democratic party advocates the policy it does because it believes it will be the best for the country. But we differ upon a question of policy, and the only way to argue it is to keep cool. If a man simply shouts for his side, or gets mad, he is a long way from any intellectual improvement.

If I am wrong in this, I want to be set right. If it is not to the interest of America that the shuttle shall keep flying, that wheels shall keep turning, that cloth shall be woven, that the forges shall flame and that the smoke shall rise from the numberless chimneys--if that is not to the interest of America, I want to know it. But I believe that upon the great cloud of smoke rising from the chimneys of the manufactories of this country, every man who will think can see the bow of national promise.

"Oh, but," they say, "you put the prices so high." Let me give you two or three facts: Only a few years ago I know that we paid one hundred and twenty-five dollars a ton for Bessemer steel. At that time the tariff was twenty-eight dollars a ton, I believe. I am not much on figures. I generally let them add it up, and I pay it and go on about my business. With the tariff at twenty-eight dollars a ton, that being a sufficient protection against Great Britain, the ingenuity of America went to work. Capital had the courage to try the experiment, and the result was that, instead of buying thousands and thousands and thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands and millions of tons of steel from Great Britain, we made it here in our own country, and it went down as low as thirty dollars a ton. Under this "rascally protection" it went down to one-fourth of what free trade England was selling it to us for.

And so I might go on all night with a thousand other articles; all I want to show you is that we want these industries here, and we want them protected just as long as they need protection. We want to rock the cradle just as long as there is a child in it. When the child gets to be seven or eight feet high, and wears number twelve boots, we will say: "Now you will have to shift for yourself." What we want is not simply for the capitalist, not simply for the workingmen, but for the whole country.

If there is any object worthy the attention of this or any other government, it is the condition of the workingmen. What do they do? They do all that is done. They are the Atlases upon whose mighty shoulders rests the fabric of American civilization. The men of leisure are simply the vines that run round this great sturdy oak of labor. If there is anything noble enough, and splendid enough to claim the attention of a nation, it is this question, and I hope the time will come when labor will receive far more than it does to-day. I want you all to think of it--how little, after all, the laboring man, even in America, receives.

[A voice: "Under protection."]

Yes, sir, even under protection. Take away that protection, and he is instantly on a level with the European serf. And let me ask that good, honest gentleman one question. If the laborer is better off in other countries, why does not the American laborer emigrate to Europe?

There is no place in the wide world where, in my judgment, labor reaps its true reward. There never has been. But I hope the time will come when the American laborer will not only make a living for himself, for his wife and children, but lay aside something to keep the roof above his head when the winter of age may come. My sympathies are all with them, and I would rather see thousands of... '' palaces of millionaires unroofed than to see desolation in the cabins of the poor. I know that this world has been made beautiful by those who have labored and those who have suffered. I know that we owe to them the conveniences of life, and I have more conveniences, I live a more luxurious life, than any monarch ever lived one hundred years ago. I have more conveniences than any emperor could have purchased with the revenue of his empire one hundred years ago. It is worth something to live in this age of the world.

And what has made us such a great and splendid and progressive and sensible people?

[A voice: "Free thought."]

Free thought, of course. Back of every invention is free thought. Why does a man invent? Slavery never invents; freedom invents. A slave working for his master tries to do the least work in the longest space of time, but a free man, working for wife and children, tries to do the most work in the shortest possible time. He is in love with what he is doing, consequently his head and his hands go in partnership; muscle and brain unite, and the result is that the head invents something to help the hands, and out of the brain leaps an invention that makes a slave of the forces of nature--those forces that have no backs to be whipped, those forces that shed no tears, those forces that are destined to work forever for the happiness of the human race.

Consequently I am for the protection of American labor, American genius, American thought. I do not want to put our workingmen on a level with the citizens of despotisms. Why do not the Democrats and others want the Chinese to come here? Are they in favor of being protected? Why is it that the Democrats and others object to penitentiary labor? I will tell you. They say that a man in the penitentiary can produce cheaper. He has no family to support, he has no children to look after; and they say, it is hardly fair to make the father of a family and an honest man compete with a criminal within the walls of a penitentiary. So they ask to be protected.

What is the difference whether a man is in the penitentiary, or whether he is in the despotism of some European state? "Ah, but," they say, "you let the laborer of Europe come here himself." Yes, and I am in favor of it always. Why? This world belongs to the human race. And when they come here, in a little while they have our wants, and if they do not their children do, and you will find the second generation of Irishmen or Germans or of any other nationality just as patriotic as the tenth generation from the first immigrant. I want them to come. Then they get our habits.

Who wants free trade? Only those who want us for their customers, who would like to sell us everything that we use--England, Germany, all those countries. And why? Because one American will buy more than one thousand, yes, five thousand Asiatics. America consumes more to-day than China and India, more than ten billion would of semi-civilized and barbarous peoples. What do they buy--what does England sell? A little powder, a little whiskey, cheap calico, some blankets--a few things of that kind. What does the American purchase? Everything that civilized man uses or that civilized man can want.

England wants this market. Give her free trade, and she will become the most powerful, the richest nation that ever had her territories marked upon the map of the world. And what do we become? Nobodies. Poor. Invention will be lost, our minds will grow clumsy, the wondrous, deft hand of the mechanic paralyzed--a great raw material producing country--ignorant, poor, barbaric. I want the cotton that is raised in this country to be spun here, to be woven into cloth. I want everything that we use to be made by Americans. We can make the cloth, we can raise the food to feed and to clothe this Nation, and the Nation is now only in its infancy.