Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1872-10-03
THE POLITICAL SITUATION.
What Wendell Phillips
Thinks of It.
STRONG SPEECH AGAINST
GKEELEY.


following is report:
When | came here to night, as some
of you know full well, came to the
Republican platform at a moment when
the greatest, the Oldest and most hon
ored friend of my life has quilted it.
Why do / come here9 owe nothing
to the Republican party; ask nothing
of it individually. / came here honest
ly, sincerely, from full heart, because
I think that to-day the great conflict is
safe nowhere but in the Republican
party. Applause. I'll thought there
was question, if / thought 1t was
matter upon which to an honest man
there could be an honest difference of
opinion, you would not see me here.
You know me, some of you. Tor more
than thirty years, for in your presence
have carried my heart on my sleeve.
known and read of all men. You have
never heard me preach rash conf
dence in a Presidents you never heard
me ask you to put conf
dence in political party If | have
had any mission in the thirty years of
my Arab life, my hand against every
man and every mans hand against me,
it was to preach the doctrine of the
safety of distrust. | came tonight to
say to my fellow citizens, pour out
your hearts like, water and hold up
your hands for Gen. Grant. Loud APP
plause. He represents loyalty to-day,
and salvation after that. 1t is not the
man; am not going to enumerate his
faults, I know them; am not going to
catalogue his defects, for they are
patent; know all that can be said as
a laboring man, as a temperance man,
as an abolitionist, as business man,
Of petty criticism against the govern
ment; know Grant was said to have
been drunk years ago, but SO was Gratz
Brown this year; and | know that Hor-
ace is said to be a teetotaller; so is
Henry. It is after all six of one and a
half-a-dozen of the other.
As temperance man, if there was
time to note the difference between the
two tickets, think it would take q
Philadelphia lawyer and microscope
of six million times magnifying power
to find it out. tits not matter of in
dlvidual faults to-day. Mr.. Greeley,
with all his faults, with all his non
sense, with all his weakness--a bit of
wet brown paper instead Of NAH
had been nominated by the loyal party
of tn Sc States; if the men that went
up to Philadelphia representing peace,
honesty in the payment OF the debt,
protection for every citizen, the law
from Portland to New Orleans and San
Francisco, had chosen to nomin-
ate Mr.. Greeley, l should have said
g You run a. great risk to take a
blind pilot on stormy night, but 60
ahead, gentlemen. | trust the good
ship. | believe even with him we shall
weather the storm" But when party
gathers together made up OF every ele-
ment that the country has had reason
to dread for the last twenty years past,
with man at its head who never knew
his own mind SIX days consecutively,
I do not believe it. | do not look ut
the man. | see behind him the ele-
ments, the representatives which all
the country have reason to dread Now
if was telling You of the two men /
should go back to two words of old
English which common men use very
clumsily and loosely. You hear man
telling sometimes who has heard that
his brother has found million dollars,
and he says 81 am very much disap-
pointed He means he is surprised.
You hear another who has heard
that noted criminal has been arrest
ed, and he says he Is surprised. Now
when he is disappointed it means that a
man falls below his expectations. To
be surprised means that man gives
you thought. / have known Mr.. Gree
ley for forty years, and IN six months
of those forty years | have been hor-
ribly disappointed in him. Failure af-
ter failure to meet the crises that have
summoned him to manhood did not
grind ont faith in hmm in my foolish
confidence. | still continued in the
crazy hope that point would be
reached by and by where the man
would be found to have principle. 1t
never has been. Our friend has sacri-
feed his life TO save the remainder
He stands to-day the representative of
every principle he has denounced; no
man can deny it. On the cou-
trary. | acknowledge | am the
same man who came here in
1869 and lectured here" After Grant,
what .'-and every hour since l have
not been disappointed in Gen, Grant
| have been surprised Applause. ]
AS General Butler has said, it is not
question of men. The question is the
last, perhaps-and | AN not sure it is
that--but one of the last struggles of
defeated section to place itself at the
head Of the government. Now if l
have studied anything in my lie it is
the temper and characteristics of the
Southern leaders and the Democratic
leaders thsrt followed with them nj the