The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1871-07-20
SPEECH OF
HON. JNO. SHERMAN,
at the Republican State Isatih-
cation Meeting, Columbus, o..
June 2Ist, 1871.

u ---A
The preliminary work is now COM
plete. The Convention to-day has
been distinguished for its numbers,
ability and character. You have had
more than the usual diversity of
opinien as to candidates. Some feel
ing of disappointment is inevitable,
but on the whole, every delegate
will feel that he has been fairly
treated, and that he can now sup
port the ticket; not that it is just as
he wishes, but that it has been fairly
made by one of the ablest Conven-
tions that ever assembled in Ohio.
We all feel, too, that organization is
indispensable to success in every
movement, great or small.
The matters involved in this elec-
tion not only reach to every depart
.ment of our State Government, but
will affect the apportionment of our
State and the revision of our Consti-
tuition. It will affect you in the Ma
tionaI Councils, and will be a deci-
sive sign to the great Presidential
contest of 1872. It is, therefore, a
matter of pride and satisfaction to
see the Republican, party of Ohio,
with its glorious history and proud
record, enter into this canvass with a
ticket worthy its support, with its
principles sanetified by great success,
ready to enter upon new reforms,
and able to carry them out.
And we enter upon our canvass
with one satisfaction that does not
often fall to the fate of party. We
have the Endorsement and approval
of our political adversaries. We
have administered the Government
of the United States and of the State
now for ten years. We have had
many contests, in war and, peace
contests involving great changes in
our GOvernment-contests political
and administrative. We have real
lied the original idea of the founders
of our Government, supreme in it's
limited powers, surrounded and sup
ported by thirty-seven local State
Governments-and all now moving
on in harmony. We have emanci-
pated four millions of slaves. We
have secured, by the highest Consti-
tutiOnal sanctions, the liberty and
equality of all citizens before the
law. We have administered our in
ternaI affairs so that our credit is I'M
tarnished, our industry is prosperous,
our territories are forming into
States, new railroads are building,
old disputes are dying away, and
nothing is needed on the part of the
Government but the fair enforcement
of the Constitution and the laws for
the protection of persons and prop
erty. We have so managed our in
ternal affairs, and have so borne our
selves with foreign nations that we
have now no dispute or controversy
with any nation of the world, and
our strength and power have been
so demonstrated that we need not
fear that any nation will desire a
contest with us. The theory and
principle of Republican Govern
ment is so strengthened by our eX-
ample as everywhere to enlarge the
powers intrusted to the people. Even
the poor negro-emancipated by our
laws, and clothed with political
power is recognized by our old
Democratic adversaries as a man and
a brother.
I congratulate you that we have
now, in Ohio at least, the formal ap.
proval of the great distinguishing
measures of Republican policy, by
the recent Convention of Democratic
politicians here in Columbus. They
tell us they recognize as accomplish
ed facts the three amendments to
the Constitution, and they pledge
themselves to the full and faithful
enforcement of the Constitution as
it now is, so as to secure equal
rights to all persons under it, with
out distinction of race, color or con-
dition. So far we'll. 1t is a great
matter to secure even a formal ac-
quiescence in Constitutional changes,
especially when they involve the
rights of millions of people, and
when they have been so steadily op-
posed in all stages by the Democratic
party, North and South.
They were the issues of the war.
They were the issues since the war.
They were mainly the issues of the
last Presidential campaign. Oppo-
sition to them was the starch-the
uniting element of the Democratic
party. Where would they have
been without the hate of the negro ?
What bond holds the mass of the
people of the South to the Demo-
cratic party but negrophobia? Where
will Kentucky be without this tie ?
Her old afinities were not with the
Democratic party. Where will be
that great mass of honest but mis-
taken men, who feared the effect up
on our institutions of the citizenship
of emancipated slaves? Where will
be that other class of Democrats,
whose only political idea was found
ed upon prejudice against and hate
of negroes, and who in the mobs of
New York and in organized mObs
of the South, hunted down, whipped
and murdered negroes to prevent
them from exercising either civil or
political rights, and who whipped,