Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1864-06-17
Remarks of Benz. H. Steele at
the District Convention.
M. Chairman and Geatlemen

Mr.. Chairman ana GeattenieH :
l have been requested By Mr.. Baxter
in lis absence, as his neighbor and towns
man, to thank you on his behalf for any
expression of approval of his official
course, or Of continuance of your con-
fdence in him which your appreciative
kindness might lead you to make here
to-day.
That approval and endorsement you
could not have expressed more iorcibly
or more generously than you have by
this cordial and unanimous re-nomina-
tion. You all regret, and no one more
than myself, that Mr.. Baxter could not
be here to respond to it with his own
Ilps. need not say to you that it would
have given him the greatest pleasure to
have been here to-day, member OF this
convention of the Union men OF the
Third District of Vermont, and to have
met here his lifelong friends, from whom
he has always drawn sympathy and en-
couragement in every patriotic thought
and endeavor, and to have bere rendered
up to your charitable consideration an
account Of his stewardship as your public
servant and representative; but hls du-
ties at his post have detained, or ii he
could be away, it has seemed to him that
at this time there is a field Of usefulness
among those who have in their charge
The honor, the glory, and the life Of our
little commonwealth, imperatigely de
manding bis heartiest and most untiring
efforts. Wherever our thinned and gal
liant regiments are bearing the green
Icolors of Vermont, those efforts are and
always have been unsparing!y given, and
your interest in these will lead you TO
pardon bis absence on this occasion. II
he has rendered himself sufficiently fa-
milar with and respected by the Depart
ments to have been able in any case to
have afforded any efficient aid to Yer
monter in the service, il has not gratitied
the object of that assistance more than
It has Mr.. Baxter himself.
1t was always an honor to represent
| Vermont in Congress-Vermont, the
earliest independent soyereignty@on this
continent, bred as she was to selt-reliance
and educated in self-government, skilled
in selEdefence and living independent,
and alone outside British protection, and
ia defiance of Royal New York Gov
ernor before the first chords ot liberty
had been struck in the Continental Con-
gress by Adams, Henry or Otis. Yes
it was always an honor to represent YER
mont. rich in her earlier heroic history,
but how much more honorable to-day
than three years ago-to dag, when Ben
nington and Ticonderoga seem but a
brief and fitting preface Of the full re-
cord of those later fields Of glory in
which our Vermont Brigade, seconded
by the other scattered regiments Of the
State. have riyaled the gallantry and
devotion of the brave Six Hundred at
Balaklava. We need not read history
so far back as Antietam or Chancellors-
vile, not so far back as Port Hudson or
Gettysburg. The record since Grants
advance commenced, not quite thirty
days ago, of those Vermonters, our loved
friends and brothers, not yet cold IN their
graves, who stood when others ed,meet-
ing death bravely and afraid Of nothing
but dishonor--that record has iilusu ated
our history with a chapter of heroiSm,
and given our little State a title 10 the
respect and admiration of all brave and
good men, that makes the position ol
) your representative doubly honorable.
No man feels all this more than be
whom you have chosen this day. Nc
mans heart more than his warns with
pride for the State, or interest in the
cause, or sorrows more deeply for the
fallen.
, In thanking you on Mr.. Baxter's be-
. half for the renewed honor you this day
: do him, and in accepting for him the re-
sponsibilities to which nomination by
t YOU always leads, ! am very glad thai
5 his political faith is so clear, well defined
and perfectly understood.
He is for the Union and opposed t'
such Union men" as lend encourage
! ment to disunion by their opposition OIL
indifference.
He is for the Constitution and opposed
to those who love it so well as to endeav
or to compel it to strangle itself.
d He is for the enforcement Of the Lars
It substantially and in their spirit, and OP-
e posed to that artificial Interpretation b,
: which rogues and traitors escape justice
; He is for peace and for war till ou
t victories give it to us, and he is oppose
y tn thnse neaee men who would by 50