I pity the man, I execrate and hate the man who has only to boast that he is white. Whenever I am reduced to that necessity, I believe shame will make me red instead of white. I believe another thing. If I cannot hoe my row, I will not steal corn from the fellow that hoes his row. If I belong to the superior race, I will be so superior that I can make my living without stealing from the inferior. I am perfectly willing that any Democrat in the world that can, shall pass me. I have never seen one yet, except when I looked over my shoulder. But if they can pass I shall be delighted.
Whenever we stand in the presence of genius, we take off our hats.
Whenever we stand in the presence of the great, we do involuntary homage in spite of ourselves. Any one who can go by is welcome, any one in the world; but until somebody does go by, of the Democratic persuasion, I shall not trouble myself about the fact that may be, in some future time, they may get by. The Democrats are afraid of being passed, because they are being passed.
No man ever was, no man ever will be, the superior of the man whom he robs. No man ever was, no man ever will be, the superior of the man he steals from. I had rather be a slave than a slave-master. I had rather be stolen from than be a thief. I had rather be the wronged than the wrong-doer. And allow me to say again to impress it forever upon every man that hears me, you will always be the inferior of the man you wrong.
Every race is inferior to the race it tramples upon and robs. There never was a man that could trample upon human rights and be superior to the man upon whom he trampled. And let me say another thing: No government can stand upon the crushed rights of one single human being; and any compromise that we make with the South, if we make it at the expense of our friends, will carry in its own bosom the seeds of its own death and destruction, and cannot stand. A government founded upon anything except liberty and justice cannot and ought not to stand. All the wrecks on either side of the stream of time, all the wrecks of the great cities and nations that have passed away--all are a warning that no nation founded upon injustice can stand. From sand-enshrouded Egypt, from the marble wilderness of Athens, from every fallen, crumbling stone of the once mighty Rome, comes as it were a wail, comes as it were the cry, "No nation founded upon injustice can permanently stand." We must found this Nation anew. We must fight our fight. We must cling to our old party until there is freedom of speech in every part of the United States. We must cling to the old party until I can speak in every State of the South as every Southerner can speak in every State of the North.
We must vote the grand old Republican ticket until there is the same liberty in every Southern State that there is in every Northern, Eastern and Western State. We must stand by the party until every Southern man will admit that this country belongs to every citizen of the United States as much as to the man that is born in that country. One more thing. I do not want any man that ever fought for this country to vote the Democratic ticket. You will swap your respectability for disgrace.
There are thousands of you--great, grand, splendid men--that have fought grandly for this Union, and now I beseech of you, I beg of you, do not give respectability to the enemies and haters of your country. Do not do it. Do not vote with the Democratic party, of the North. Sometimes I think a rebel sympathizer in the North worse than a rebel, and I will tell you why. The rebel was carried into the rebellion by public opinion at home,--his father, his mother, his sweetheart, his brother, and everybody he knew; and there was a kind of wind, a kind of tornado, a kind of whirlwind that took him into the army. He went on the rebel side with his State. The Northern Democrat went against his own State; went against his own Government; and went against public opinion at home. The Northern Democrat rowed up stream against wind and tide. The Southern rebel went with the current; the Northern rebel rowed against the current from pure, simple cussedness.
And I beg every man that ever fought for the Union, every man that ever bared his breast to a storm of shot and shell, that the old flag might float over every inch of American soil redeemed from the clutch of treason; I beg him, I implore him, do not go with the Democratic party.
And to every young man within the sound of my voice I say, do not tie your bright and shining prospects to that old corpse of Democracy. You will get tired of dragging it around. Do not cast your first vote with the enemies of your country. Do not cast your first vote with the Democratic party that was glad when the Union army was defeated. Do not cast your vote with that party whose cheeks flushed with the roses of joy when the old flag was trailed in disaster upon the field of battle.
Remember, my friends, that that party did every mean thing it could, every dishonest and treasonable thing it could. Recollect that that party did all it could to divide this Nation, and destroy this country.
For myself I have no fear; Hayes and Wheeler will be the next President and Vice-President of the United States of America. Let me beg of you--let me implore you--let me beseech you, every man, to come out on election day. Every man, do your duty; every man do his duty with regard to the State ticket of the great and glorious State of Illinois.
This year we need Republicans; this year we need men that will vote for the party; and I tell you that a Republican this year, no matter what you have against him, no matter whether you like him or do not like him, is better for the country, no matter how much you hate him, he is better for the country than any Democrat Nature can make, or ever has made.
We must, in this supreme election, we must at this supreme moment, vote only for the men who are in favor of keeping this Government in the power, in the custody, in the control of the great, the sublime Republican party.
Ladies and gentlemen, if I were insensible to the honor you have done me by this magnificent meeting--the most magnificent I ever saw on earth--a meeting such as only the marvelous City of Pluck could produce; if I were insensible of the honor, I would be made of stone. I shall remember it with delight; I shall remember it with thankfulness all the days of my life. And I ask in return of every Republican here to remember all the days of his life, every sacrifice made by this nation for liberty; every sacrifice made by every private soldier, every sacrifice made by every patriotic man and patriotic woman.
I do not ask you to remember in revenge, but I ask you never, never to forget. As the world swings through the constellations year after year, I want the memory, I want the patriotic memory of this country to sit by the grave of every Union soldier, and, while her eyes are filled with tears, to crown him again and again with the crown of everlasting honor. I thank you, I thank you, ladies and gentlemen, a thousand times.
Good-night.
Note:--There was no full report made of this speech, the above are simply extracts.
EIGHT TO SEVEN ADDRESS.
(On the Electoral Commission.)
* The reputation of Col. Robert G. Ingersoll had taken possession of the Boston mind to such an extent that his expected address was spoken of as "The Lecture." People talked about going to it, as If on that night all other places were to be closed, and the whole population of the City turned into Tremont Temple. Long before the appointed hour a rare audience, for even lecture loving Boston, had assembled. Col. Ingersoll stepped upon the platform preceded by Governor Rice, and followed by William Lloyd Garrison, James T. Fields and others. After the presentation of two large and exquisite bouquets Governor Rice introduced Colonel Ingersoll, and the audience, the most acute and determined looking I ever saw In Boston, poured out their welcome! It seemed as if all the cheers that had been suppressed between the first of November and the decision of the Electoral Commission, found vent at that moment and the vigorous clapping was renewed and prolonged until it became an unmistakable salute to the recent brilliant campaigning of the great Western orator. It is hardly possible to speak in too high terms of the lecture which, under the title of "8 to 7," contained a witty, philosophical and intensely patriotic review of the political contest preceding and following the recent election, with wise and timely suggestions for preventing similar perils in the future.-- Boston, October 22nd,1877.
1877.
I HAVE sometimes wondered whether our country was to be forever governed by parties full of hatred, full of malice, full of slander. I have sometimes wondered whether or not in the future there would not be discovered such a science as the science of government. I do not know what you think, but what little I do know, and what little experience has been mine, is, I must admit, against it. We have passed through the most remarkable campaign of our history--a campaign remarkable in every respect.
It was bitter, passionate, relentless and desperate, and I admit, for one, that I added to its bitterness and relentlessness. I told, and frankly told, my real, honest opinion of the Democratic party of the North. I told, and cheerfully told, my opinion of the Democratic party of the South. And I have nothing to take back. But, to show you that my heart is not altogether wicked; I am willing to forgive and do forgive with all my heart, every person and every party that I ever said anything against. I believe that the campaign of 1876 was the turning-point, the midnight in the history of the American Republic.
I believe, and firmly believe, that if the Democratic party had swept into power, it would have been the end of progress, and the end of what I consider human liberty, beneath our flag. I felt so, and I went into the campaign simply because the rights of American citizens in at least sixteen States of the Union were trampled under foot. I did what little I could. I am glad I did it. We had, as I say, a wonderful campaign, and each party said and did about all that could be said and done. Everybody attended to politics. Business was suspended. Everything was given over to processions and torches, and flags and transparencies; and resolutions and conventions and speeches and songs. Old arguments were revamped. Old stories were pressed into service. The old story of the Rebellion was told again and again. The memories of the war were revived. The North was arrayed against the South as though upon the field of battle. Party cries were heard on every hand. Each party leaped like a tiger upon the reputation of the other, and tore with tooth and claw, with might and main, to the very end of the campaign.
I felt that it was necessary to arouse the North. I felt that it was necessary to tell again the story of the Rebellion, from Bull Run to Appomattox. I felt that it was necessary to describe what the Southern people were doing with Union men, and with colored men; and I felt it necessary so to describe it that the people of the North could hear the whips, and could hear the drops of blood as they fell upon the withered leaves. I did all I could to arouse the people of the North. I did all I could to prevent the Democratic party from getting into power. The first morning after the election, the Democracy had a banquet of joy, but all through the feast they saw sitting at the head of the table the dim outline of the skeleton of defeat. And, when the tide turned, Republicans rejoiced with a face ready at any moment to express the profoundest grief. Then came despatches and rumors, and estimated majorities, and vague talk about Returning Boards, and intimidating voters, and stuffed ballot boxes, and fraudulent returns, and bribed clerks, and injunctions, and contempts of courts, and telegrams in cipher, and outrages, and octoroon balls in which reverend Senators were whirled in love's voluptuous waltz. Everybody discussed the qualifications of Electors and the value of Governors' certificates, and how to get behind returns, and how to buy an Elector, and who had the right to count; and persons expecting offices of trust, honor and profit began to threaten war and extermination, calls were made for a hundred thousand men, and there were no end of meetings, and resolutions and denunciations, and the downfall of the country was prophesied; and yet, notwithstanding all this, the name of the person who really was elected remained unknown. The last scene of this strange, eventful history, so far as the election by the people was concerned, was Cronin. I see him now as he leaves the land "where rolls the Oregon and hears no sound save his own dashings." Cronin, the last surviving veteran of the grand army of "honesty and reform." Cronin, a quorum of one. Cronin, who elected the two others by a plurality of his own vote.
I see him now, armed with Hoadley's opinion and Grover's certificate, trudging wearily and drearily over the wide and wasted saleratus deserts of the West, with a little card marked "S. J. T. i5 G. P."
Then came the great question of who shall count the electoral vote. The Vice-President being a Republican, it was generally contended, at least by me, that he had a right to count that vote. My doctrine was, if the Vice-President would count the vote right, he had the right to count it.
The Vice-President not being a Democrat, the members of that party claimed that the House could prevent the Vice-President from counting it, and this was simply because the House was not Republican. Nearly all decided according to their politics. The Constitution is a little blind on this point, and where anything is blind I always see it my way.
It was about this time that some of the Democrats began to talk about bringing one hundred thousand unarmed men to Washington to superintend the count. Others, however, got up a scheme to create, a court in the United States where politics should have no earthly influence. Nothing could be easier, they thought, after we had gone through such a hot and exciting campaign, than to pick out men who have no prejudices whatever on the subject. Finally a bill was passed creating a tribunal to count the vote, if any, and hear testimony, if any, and declare what man had been elected President, if any. This tribunal consisted of fifteen men, ten being chosen on account of their politics--five from the Senate and five from the House,--and they chose four judges from purely geographical considerations. I was there, and I know exactly how it was.
Those four men were picked with a map of the United States in front of the pickers. The Democrats chose Justice Field, not because he was a Democrat, but because he lived on the Pacific slope. They chose Justice Clifford, not because he was a Democrat, but because he lived on the Eastern slope; that was fair. Thereupon the Republicans chose Justice Strong, not because he was a Republican, but because he lived on the Eastern slope. You can see the point. The Republicans chose Justice Miller, not because he was a Republican, but because he represented the great West. They then allowed these four to select a fifth man.
Well, it was impossible to select the fifth man from geographical considerations, you can see that yourselves. There was nothing left to choose between, you know, as far as geography was concerned. They then agreed that they would not take a Justice from any State in which the candidate for President lived. They left out Justice Hunt, from New York, and Justice Swayne, from Ohio. They knew of course that that would not influence them, but they did that simply--well, they did not want them there; that was all, and it would be unhandy to pick one man out of four. So they left Swayne and Hunt out. And then they would pick one man as between Justice Bradley and Justice Davis. Just at that time the people of the State of Illinois happened to be out of a Senator, and Judge Davis was there and expressed a willingness to go to the Senate.
And the people of the State of Illinois elected him, and therefore there was nobody to choose from except Justice Bradley, and he was a Republican.
Now, you know this runs in families. His record was good--by marriage.
He married a daughter of Chief Justice Hornblower, of New Jersey. Now, Hornblower was what you might call a partisan. Do you know they went to him--it was in the old times, and he was a kind of Whig,--they went to him with a petition, in the State of New Jersey, a petition addressed to the Legislature for the abolition of capital punishment, and Hornblower said, "I'll be damned if I sign it while there is a Democrat in the State of New Jersey."
As a matter of fact, however, I believe that Justice Bradley and all the other Justices, and all other persons on that tribunal decided as they honestly thought was right.
Judge Davis is as broad mentally as he is physically; he has an immensity of common sense, and as much judgment as any one man ever needs to use, and, in my judgment, he would have come to the same conclusion as Judge Bradley, precisely. These men were appointed--it was a Democratic scheme, and I am glad they got it up--and during that entire investigation, so much were the members of that party controlled by old associations and habits, and by partisan feeling that there was not a solitary one of the seven Democrats that ever once voted on the Republican side. And, as a necessity, the Republicans had to stand together. And so, notwithstanding the seven Democrats voted constantly together, the eight Republicans kept having a majority of one, until the last disputed State was given against the great party of "honesty and reform." And, finally, when they found they were defeated, they made up their minds to prevent the counting of the vote. They made up their minds to wear out the session and prevent the election of a President.
Just at that point, for a wonder, (nothing ever astonished me more), the members from the South said: "We do not want any more war; we have had war enough and we say that a President shall be peacefully elected, and that he shall be peacefully inaugurated!" As soon as I heard that I felt under a little obligation to the Democracy of the South, and when they stood in the gap and prevented the Democracy of the North from plunging this Government into the hell of civil war, I felt like taking them by the hand and saying, "We have beaten the enemy once, let us keep on. Let us join hands." I felt like saying to the Democracy of the South, "You never will have a day's prosperity in the South until you join the great, free, progressive party of the North--never!" And they never will.
Now, I say, I felt as though I were under a certain obligation to these people. They prevented this thing, and they made it possible for the Vice-President to declare Rutherford B. Hayes President of the United States. Now, right here, I want you to observe that this shows the real defects in our system of government. In the first place, our Government is being governed by fraud. If the very fountain of power is poisoned by fraud, then the whole Government is impure. We must find out some way to prevent fraudulent voting in the United States or our Government is a failure. Great cities were the mothers of election frauds. They inaugurated violence and intimidation. They produced the repeaters and the false boxes. They invented fan-tail tickets and pasters, and gradually these delightful and patriotic arts and practices have spread over almost the entire country.
Unless something is done to preserve the purity of the ballot-box our form of government must cease. The fountain of power is poisoned.
The sovereignty of the people is stolen and destroyed. The Government becomes organized fraud, and all respect will soon be lost for the laws and decisions of the courts. The legislators are elected in many instances by fraud. The judges are in many instances chosen by fraud.
Every department of the Government becomes tainted and corrupt. It is no longer a Republic, unless something can be devised to ascertain with certainty the really honest will of the sovereign people.
For the accomplishment of this object the good and patriotic men of all parties should most heartily unite. To cast an illegal vote should be considered by all as a crime. We must if possible get rid of the mob--the vagrants, the vagabonds who have no home and who take no interest in the cities where they vote. We must get rid of the rich mob too; and by the rich mob I mean the men who buy up these vagabonds.
Various States have passed laws for the registration of voters; but they all leave wide open all the doors of fraud. Men are allowed to vote if they have been for one year in the State, and thirty or sixty days in the ward or precinct; and when they have failed to have their names registered before the day of election, they can avoid the effect of this neglect by making a few affidavits, certified to by reputable householders. Of course all necessary affidavits are made, with hundreds and thousands to spare. My idea is that the period of registration, in the first place, is too short, and, in the second place, no way should be given by which they can vote unless they have been properly registered, affidavit or no affidavit. Every man, when he goes into a ward or precinct, should be registered. It should be his duty to see that he is registered. Officers should be kept for that purpose, and he should never be allowed to cast a vote until he has been registered at least one year. Sixty days, say, or thirty days--sixty would be better--sixty days before the election the registry lists should be corrected, and every citizen should have the right to enter a complaint or objection as against any name found upon that list. Thirty days, or twenty days before the election, that list should be published and should be exposed in several public places in each ward and each precinct, and upon the day of election no man should be allowed to vote whose name was not upon the registry list. Our wards and precincts should be made smaller, so that people can vote without violence, without wasting an entire day, so that the honest business man that wishes to cast his ballot for the Government of his choice can walk to the polls like a gentleman and deposit his vote and go about his affairs. Allow me to say that unless some such plan is adopted in the United States, there never will be another fair election in this country. During the last campaign all the arts and artifices of the city, all the arts and artifices of the lowest wards were spread over this entire country, and unless something is done to preserve the purity of the ballot-box, and guard the sovereign will of the people, we will cease to be a Republican Government.
Another thing--and I cannot say it too often--fraud at the ballot-box undermines all respect in the minds of the people for the Government.
When they are satisfied that the election is a fraud they despise the officers elected. When they are satisfied it is a fraud, they despise the law made by the legislators. When they are satisfied it is a fraud, they hold in utter contempt the decisions of our highest and most august tribunals.
Another trouble in this country is that our terms of office are too short. Our elections are too frequent. They interfere with the business of our country. When elections are so frequent, men make a business of politics. If they fail to get one office they immediately run for another, and they keep running until the people elect them for the simple purpose of getting rid of the annoyance. Lengthen the terms, purify the ballot, and the present scramble for office will become contests for principles. A man who cannot get a living--unless he has been disabled in the service of his country or from some other cause--without holding office, is not fit for an office.
A professional office-seeker is one of the meanest, and lowest, and basest of human beings--a little higher than the lower animals and a little lower than man. He has no earthly or heavenly independence; not a particle; not a particle. A successful office-seeker is like the center of the earth; he weighs nothing himself, and draws all things towards the office he wants. He has not even a temper. You cannot insult him.
Shut the door in his face, and, so far as he is concerned, it is left wide open, and you are standing on the threshold with a smile, extending the hand of welcome. He crawls and cringes and flatters and lies and swaggers and brags and tells of the influence he has in the ward he lives in. We cannot too often repeat that splendid saying, "The office should seek the man, not man the office." If you will lengthen the term of office it will be so long between meals that he will have to do something else or starve. Adopt the system of registration, as I have suggested; have small and convenient election districts, so that, as I said before, the honest, law-abiding, and peaceable citizen can attend the polls; so that he will not be compelled to risk his life to deposit his ballot that will be stolen or thrown out, or forced to keep the company of ballots caused by fraudulent violence. Lengthen the term of office, drive the professional hunter and seeker of office from the field, and you will go far toward strengthening and vivifying and preserving the fabric of the Constitution. That is the kind of civil service reform I am in favor of, and as I am on that subject, I will say a word about it. There is but one vital question--but one question of real importance--in fact I might say in the whole world, and that is the great question of Civil Service Reform. There may be some others indirectly affecting the human race, and in which some people take a languid kind of interest, but the only question worth discussing and comprehending in all its phases is the one I have mentioned. This great question is in its infancy still. The doctrine as yet has been applied only to politics.*
* Colonel Ingersoll then read the following letter, of which he was the author.
My Dear Sir:--In the olden times, during the purer days of the Republic, the motto was, "To the victors belong the spoils." The great object of civil service reform is to reverse this motto. Our people are thoroughly disgusted with machine politics, and demand politics without any machine.
In every precinct and ward there are persons going about lauding one party and crying down the other. They make it their business to attend to the affairs of the Nation. They call conventions, pass resolutions; they put notices in papers of the times and places of meetings; they select candidates for office, and then insist upon having them elected; they distribute papers and political documents; they crowd the mails with newspapers, platforms, resolutions, facts and figures, and with everything calculated to help their party and hurt the other. In short, they are the disturbers of the public peace.
They keep the community in a perpetual excitement. In the last campaign, wherever they were was turmoil. They fired cannon, carried flags, torches and transparencies; they subsidized brass bands, and shouted and hurrahed as though the world had gone insane. They were induced to do these things by the hope of success and office. Take away this hope and there will be peace once more. This thing is unendurable. The staid, the quiet and respectable people, the moderate and conservative men who always have an idea of joining the other side just to show their candor, are heartily tired of the entire performance. These gentlemen demand a rest. They are not adventurers; they have incomes; they belong to families; they have monograms and liveries. They have succeeded, and they want quiet. Growth makes a noise; development, as they call it, is nothing but disturbance. We want stability, we want political petrifaction, and we therefore demand that these meetings shall be dismissed, that these processions shall halt, that these flags shall be furled. But these things never will be stopped until we stop paying men with office for making these disturbances. You know that it has been the habit for men elected to bestow political favors upon the men who elected them. This is a crying shame. It is a kind of bribery and corruption. Men should not work with the expectation of reward and success. The frightful consequences of rewarding one's friends cannot be contemplated by a true patriot without a shudder. Exactly the opposite course is demanded by the great principle of civil service reform. There is no patriotism in working for place, for power and success. The true lover of his country is stimulated to action by the hope of defeat, and the prospect of office for his opponent. To such an extent has the pernicious system of rewarding friends for political services gone in this country, that until very lately it was difficult for a member of the defeated party to obtain a respectable office.
The result of all this is, that the country is divided, that these divisions are kept alive by these speakers, writers and convention callers. The great mission of civil service reform is not to do away with parties, but with conflicting opinion, by taking from all politicians the hope of reward. There is no other hope for peace. What do the people know about the wants of the nation? There are in every community a few quiet and respectable men, who know all about the wants of the people--gentlemen who have retired from business, who take no part in discussion and who are therefore free from prejudice. Let these men attend to our politics. They will not call conventions, except in the parlors of hotels. They will not put out our eyes with flaring torches. They will not deafen us with speeches. They will carry on a campaign without producing opposition. They will have elections but no contests. All the offices will be given to the defeated party. This of itself will insure tranquillity at the polls. No one will be deprived of the privilege of casting a ballot. When campaigns are conducted in this manner a gentleman can engage in politics with a feeling that he is protected by the great principle of civil service reform. But just so long as men persist in rewarding their friends, as they call them, just so long will our country be cursed with political parties. Nothing can be better calculated to preserve the peace than the great principle of rewarding those who have confidence enough in our institutions to keep silent while peace will sit with folded wings upon the moss-covered political stump of a ruder age. I am satisfied that to civil service reform the Republican party is indebted for the last great victory. Upon this question the enthusiasm of the people was simply unbounded. In the harvest field, the shop, the counting-room, in the church, in the saloon, in, the palace and in the hut, nothing was heard and nothing discussed except the great principle of civil service reform.
Among the most touching incidents of the campaign was to see a few old soldiers, sacred with scars, sit down, and while battles and hair-breadth escapes, and prisons of want, were utterly forgotten, discuss with tremulous lips and tearful eyes the great question of civil service reform.
During the great political contest I addressed several quite large and intelligent audiences, and no one who did not has or can have the slightest idea of the hold that civil service reform had upon the very souls of our people. Upon all other subjects the indifference was marked. I dwelt upon the glittering achievements of my party, but they were indifferent. I pictured outrages perpetrated upon our citizens, but they did not care. All this went idly by, but when I touched upon civil service reform, old men, gray-haired and strong, broke down utterly--tears fell like rain. The faces of women grew ashen with the intensity of anguish, and even little children sobbed as though their hearts would break. To one who has witnessed these affecting scenes, civil service reform is almost a sacred thing. Even the speeches delivered upon this subject in German affected to tears thousands of persons wholly unacquainted with that language. In some instances those who did not understand a word were affected even more than those who did. Surely there must be something in the subject itself, apart from the words used to explain it, that can under such circumstances lead captive the hearts of men. During the entire campaign the cry of civil service reform was heard from one end of our land to the other. The sailor nailed those words to the mast. The miner repeated them between the strokes of the pick. Mothers explained them to their children.
Emigrants painted them upon their wagons. They were mingled with the reaper's song and the shout of the pioneer. Adopt this great principle and we can have quiet and lady-like campaigns, a few articles in monthly magazines, a leader or two in the "Nation," in the pictorial papers wood-cuts of the residences of the respective candidates and now and then a letter from an old Whig would constitute all the aggressive agencies of the contest. I am satisfied that this great principle secured us our victories in Florida and Louisiana, and its effect on the High Joint Commission was greater than is generally supposed. It was this that finally decided the action of the returning boards.
Cronin is the only man upon whom this great principle was an utter failure. Let it be understood that friends are not to be rewarded.