Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1872-08-02
nIr. GreeIey's Letter of Acceptance of the
Democratic Nomination.
New YORK, July 18, 1872.


the 10th instant some further and fuller re-
spouse than the hasty unprem 'ditated words
in which acknowledged and accepted your
nomination at our meeting on the 18th in
slant.
That your Convention saw fit to accord its
highest honor to one who had been prominent
ly and pointedly opposed to your party in the
and sometimes angry controversies OF
the last forty years is essentially noteworthy
That many of you Liberal Republicans should
present another candidate for President, and
would more rapidly have united with US in
the support of Adams or rumbull Davis or
Brown, is Welt Known. | owe my adoption
at Baltimore wholly to the fact that had al
ready been nominated at Cincinnati, and that
a concentration, Of FORCES upon any new man
had been proved impracticable.
Grati6ed as am at your concurrence in
the Cincinnati termination, and certain as
am that you, Nasald not have thus concurred
had you NOT dse1ied4me upright and capable.
found nothingth the circumstance calculat-
ed to infame vanity or nourish self-conceit.
But that your Convention saw fit to reaffirm
the Cincinnati platform is to me source of
the profounaest satisfaction. That body was
constrained to take this step by no party ne
cessity, real or supposed. 1t might have ac-
cepted the candidates of the Liberal Republic
cans upon grounds entirely its own, or it might
have presented them as the first Wing conven-
ton did Harrison and Tyler, without adop-
ting any platform whatever.
That it chose to plant itself deliberately, by
vote nearly unanimous, upon the fullest and
clearest enunciation of principles which are
at once incontestably Republican and empha-
tically Democratic, gives trustworthy assur-
ance that new and more suspicious era is
dawning upon our long distracted country
Some of the best years and best efforts of my
life were devoted to struggle against chattel
slavery, struggle none the less earnest and
arduous because respect for constitutional OBJ
jections constrained me to act for the most
part on the defensive in resistance to the
diffusion, rather than in direct efforts for the
extinction, OF human bandage.
Throughout most of these years my vision
was uncheered, my eXertions were rarely an
mated by even 50 much as hope that should
live to see my country peopled by freemen
alone. The afirmance by your Convention
sive proof that not merely is slavery abolish
ed, but that it's spirit is extinct; that despite
the protests of respectable, but isolated, few,
there remains among US no party and no for
midable interest which regrets the overthrow
or desires the establishment of human bond
age, whether in letter or in spirit. I am
thereby justified in my hope and trust that
the first century of American Independence
will not close before the grand elemental truths
on which its rightfulness was BASED BY Jefer-
son and the Continental Congress of '76 will
no longer be regarded as glittering generali-
ties, but will have become the universally &C.
cepted and hohored foundations of our poll
teal fabric. demand the prompt applica-
ton of those principles to our existing condi-
Having done what could for the complete
emancipation of the blacks, I now insist on
trymen. Let none say that the ban has just
been removed from all but few hundred
elderly gentlemen to whom eligibility to office
can be of little consequence. My view con-
templates not the hundreds prescribed, but
the millions who are denied, the right to be
ruled and represented by men of their own
unfettered choice. Prescription were absurd if
these did not wish to elect the very men
whom they are forbidden to choose.
7 have profound regard for the people of
that part of New England wherein | was
born, in whose common schools I was taught
| rank no people above them in intelligence,
capacity, and moral worth but while they
do many things well, and some admirably,
there is one thing they cannot safely or wisely
undertake, and that is the selection for States
remote from and unlike their own, of the
persons by whom these States shall be repre-
sented in Congress. If they could do this to
good purpose, then republican institutions are
unfit and aristocracy the only true political
system. Yet, what have we recently witness
ed? q. B. Vance, the unquestioned choice
of large majority of the present Legis-
lature of North Carolina, majority back
ed by a majority of the people who voted
at its election, refused the seat in the Federal
Senate to which he was chosen, and the Leg
islature thus constrained to choose another i'll
his place or leave the State unrepresented for
years. l:.............
The votes of New England thus deprived
North Carolina of the Senator of her choice,
and compelled her to send another 10 his stead
another who in our late contest was,
like Vance, rebel, and fighting rebel, but
had not served in Congress before the war as
Vance had, though the latter remained faith
ful to the Union till after the close of his term.
| protest against the Acknowledgement OF a
State, presumptively Of number of States,
on ground so narrow and technical as this
The fact that the same Senate which refused
Id 1ICo
after that seat had been filled by another, only
serves to- plaeeq ina stronger light the indig-
nifty to North Carolina, and the arbitrary,
capricious tpfanny which dictated it.
thank you, gentlemen, that my name is
to be conspicueusly associated with yours in
a determined effort to render amnesty COM
plete and universal in spirit as we'll as in letter.
Even defeat in such case would leave no
sting, while triumph would rank with those
victories which no blood reddens, and which
evoke no tears but those of gratitude and joy.
Gentlemen, your platform, which is also
mine, assures me that Democracy is not hence
forth to stand for one thing and Republican,
ism for another; but these terms are to mean
in politics; as they have always meant in the
dictionary, substantially one and the same
thing, namely, equal rights, regardless OF creed
Or cline or color: [ hail this as genuine
new departure from outworn feuds and mean
ngless contentious in the direction of progress
and reform.
Whether shall be found worthy to bear
the standard Of the great Liberal movement
which the American people have inaugurated
is to be determined not by words, but-deeds-
with me, if steadily advance over me if |
falter. Its grand array moves on to achieve
for urcnuutry hers glorious beneficent destiny.