Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1868-06-02
the war to defy the national authority or to

GDe war TO QeIy Gne naGl0nal authority or TO
destroy the national Union. H
This principle has been the poll star of
those who have inflexibly insisted on the
Congressional policy your convention so
cordially endorsed. Baffied by executive
opposition, and by persistent refusals to
accept any plan of reconstruction proffered
oy Congress, justice and public safety at
last combined to teach us that only by an
enlargement of suffrage in those States
could the desired end be attained, and that
IL was even more safe to give the ballot to
those who loved the Union than to those
who had sought Intellectually to destroy it.
The assured success of this legislation Is
being written on the adamant of history,
and will be our triumphant vindication.-
More clearly, too, than ever before, does
the nation now recognize that the greatest
glory of republic is that it throws the
shield of its protection over the humblest
and weakest of its people, and vindicates
the rights of the poor and the powerless as
faithfully as those of the rich and the pow
erful. 81 l1s.5
1 r,joice, in this connection, to find in
your platform the frank and fearless
aVowal that naturalized citizens must be
protected abroad, at every hazard, as
though they were native born. Our
scendants of foreigners. Our fathers
established by arms their. right to
be called a nation. 1t remains for
us to establish the right to welcome to our
shores all who are willing by oaths of alle-
glance TO become American citizens.
Perpetual allegiance as claimed abroad is
only another name for perpetual bondage,
and would make all slaves to the soil where
first they saw the light. Our national cem-
eteries prove how faithfully these oaths of
fidelity to the adopted land have been seal
ed in the life blood OF thousands upon
thousands. Should we not then be faith
less to the dead, if we did not protect their
living brethren in the full enjoyment of
that nationality for which, side by side
with the native born, our soldiers of for
eign birth laid down their lives? o1 .i-
1t was fitting too that the representatives
of party which has proved so true to Ma
tional duty in time of war should speak so
clearly in time of peace for the mainte-
nance, untarDished, OF the National honor,
National credit and good faith, as regards
its debt, the cost of our National eXis-
tence.
do not need to extend this reply by fur
ther comment on the platform, which has
ELECTED such hearty approval throughout
the land. The debt OF gratitude it ac-
knowledges to the brave men who saved
the Union from destruction, the frank ap-
proval of amnesty based on repentance
and loyalty, the demand tor the most rigid
the sympathy of the party of liberty with
all throughout the world who long for
the liberty we here enjoy, and the
recognition of the sublime principles
of the Declaration of Independence, are
worthy of the organization on whose ban
ner they are to be written in the coming
contest. ~ t
Its past record cannot be blotted out or
forgotten. 1t there had been no Republic
can party, slavery would TODAY cast its
baleful shadow over the Republic. Ifthere
had been no Republican party, tree press
and free speech would be as unknown from
the Potomac to the Rio Grande as ten years
ago. If the Republican party could have
been stricken from existence when the
banner of rebellion was unfurled, and
when the response of no coercion was
heard at the North. we would have had
no nation to-day. But for the Republican
party daring to risk the odium of tax and
draft laws, our flag could not have been
kept flying in the field until the long hoped
for victory came. Without a Republican
party the civil rights bill, the guarantee of
equality under the law to the humble and
the defenceless, as well as to the strong,
would not be to-day upon our national
statute book.
With such inspiration from the past, and
following the example of the founders of
the republic who called the victorious Gen.
eral of the Revolution to preside over the
land his triumph had saved from its enc
mics, l cannot doubt that our labors will be
crowned with success, and it will be sue
cess that shall bring restored hope, conf
dence, prosperity and progress South as
well as North, West as well as East, and
above all the blessings under Providence
of national concord and peace.
tls Very truly, yours,
Il SCHUYLER CoLFAX.