Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1871-08-20
SENATOR MORTON AT ST. LOUIS.

Gov. Morton made long speech at st.
Louis on the night of the 10th to one of
the largest audiences that ever assembled
in that city. Hon. Henry 7. Blow presid-
ed, and the audience contained large
number of the leading and most promi
nent Republicans of the city. He treated
the general question of reform in the fol-
lowing pithy and pointed language:
The Republican party is the great reform
party of this country. 1t has consummated
more and greater reforms IN the course of ten
years than all the parties that have gone before
it, but we have done one thing at 4 time, and
when we have done one great work we have Ia
ken up the next, and if there are reformers who
think the Republican party is not travelling fast
enough for them, let me ask them if there is any
other party they go to that promises any re-
form at all. The spirit of progress and reform
is the essential spirit of Republicanism, and we
shall enact the great reforms required for the
country from time to time, as the people are
ready for them and rs the condition of the coun-
try and as reason shall demonstrate the necessity
therefor. | say to all reformers, be not impa
tent; you have more reform to hope for from
the Republican party than you have from any
new party that can possibly be found. New
parties are not made to order. There is no man
! "A this country that has got capacity enough to
| Dullu up u uCW party lOE Is bUeIe any SCI VI
| men that have that capacity. Great parties
| spring from great public events, or they come
up from the inevitable condition of the country
or the state of public opinion. The Republican
party was called into existence by the repeal of
| the Missouri compromise, that great breach of
| faith that shook this nation to Its very founda-
ton. That was in fact the beginning of the
I war and | tell you no other party can take its
| place until it has proved false to its pledges
false to its principles, and until the public mind
| is satisfied that the reforms of the nation cannot
| be accomplished except by the formation of II
| new party. There are but two parties in this
| country, and there will be but two parties for
| some years to come. What decade may do
| or what twenty years may do, we cannot tell
but there Is no probability of there being q third
| party formed with any great national character
| during the next two or even six years. 1t Is
| therefore, simply choice between the Repub-
| lican and Democratic parties. Every road that
| leads out of the Republican party leads into the
Democratic party; everything that tends to
weaken the Republican party tends to strength
| en- the Democratic. party. 1t makes no differ
ence whether 1t IS intended that way or not, but
the absolute and inevitable effect of it is that
whatever weakens the Democratic party
| strengthens the Republican party.
Referring to the question of amnesty
upon which the sympathies of Republic
cans are appealed to, he says:
1 DuL my IrlenuS, thefe Is q class OF men who
engaged IN that rebellion whom | will never
vote to relieve. do not refer to the masses of
those who are under disability from the Fiji
teenth amendment, but l refer more particularly
| to those men who were in the Congress of the
United States and went out of it and organized
| the rebellion. Those men who had been educa-
ted by the government as soldiers, and who had
| eft our army and carried their swords over 10
the rebellion. So far as that class of rebels are
concerned l, for one will never vote TO relieve
them AS far as the general amnesty of others
| may be concerned, L shall be extremely liberal
out to the authors and creators of the rebellion
such men as Davis, TOOmbs and Breckenridge
those men who made the great national funeral
at which more than four hundred thousand
nen were buried who made more than one
hundred thousand wives widows, more than
| three hundred thousand children orphans,
| those men who sinned against light and knowl-
edge and, as l believe, committed the greatest
crime of this or any othar century, ! will
| never vote to take from them the last
| legal mark of disapprobation of their crime
The amnesty of such men, denOunce as NOR
| ally wicked and as a cruelty to future genera
\ tons; as q cruelty to the children that are now
! growing up. / am not willing to say that the
| rebellion was no crime. / am not willing to in
struct pOsterity that this rebellion was no crime;
| a.mere political difference; q mere question be-
| tween parties. BY voting to admit again to the
eongress OF the United States it may be even
10 the Presidency, the very men who
made that rebellion and were the cause of
all the suffering and sorrow, punishment
| has gone by. Nobody has been executed,
nooody mas been imprisoned, and now the last
| thlng TO mark treason as a crime even as mis-
demeanor, is the Fourteenth Amendment.
making these men that 1 spoke of ineligible to
office, and say if we were to turn around and
admit them to the Congress of the United
States again. ana y, tell you they will come if
nit such men as Davis, Toombs and Brecken-
ridge back there, we should stutify ourselves;
we should say that after all there was nothing