The spirit of democracy. [volume] (Woodsfield, Ohio) 1844-1994, 1872-08-06
B MIR. GREELEY's ACCEPTANCE.
NEW YoRK, July 19,, 1872.

'i-- NEW York, July 49,, 1872.
GENTLEMEN: Upon mature delibera-
ton it seems fit that I should give to
your letter of the 10th inst, some fur
ther and fuller response than the hasty,
unprecedented words in which l ae
knowledged and accepted your nomina-
ton at our meeting on the 18th.
1, That your Convention saw fit to ac-
cord its highest honor to one who had
been prominently and pointedly oppos-
ed to your party in the earnest and an
CRY controversies Of the last forty years,
is essentially noteworthy; and that
many of you originally preferred that
the Liberal Republicans should present
another candidate for President, and
would more readily have united with us
in the support of Adams, or Trumbull,
or Brown, is well known. owe my
adoption at Baltimore wholly to the
fact that l had already been nominated
at Cincinnati, and that a concentration
of forces upon any new ticket had been
proved impracticable. -
Grateful as | am at your concurrence
in the Cincinnati nominations, certain
as am that you would not have thus
eoncurred had you not deemed me up.
right and capable, l find nothing in the
circumstance calculated to intiame vani-
ty or nourish self. canceit. But that
your Convention saw Gt, in adopting
the Cincinnati ticket, to reaffirm the
Cincinnati platform, is to me q source
Of the profoundest satisfaction. That
body was constrained to take this i'm
portart step by no party necessity, real
or supposed. 1t might have accepted
the candidate Of the Liberal Republi.
cans upon grounds entirely its own, or
it might have presented them, as the
first Wing National Convention did
Harrison and Tyler, without adopting
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 incontestibly republican and
emphatically democratic, gives trust
worthy assurance that new and more
auspicious era is dawning upon our
long distracted country. Some OF the
best years and best efforts, of my life
were devoted to struggle against chat
tel slavery--a struggle none the less
earnest or arduous because respect for
constitutional obligation constrained me
to act for the most part on the defensive
in resistance to diffusion rather than in
direct efforts for the extinction of hn,
man bondage. Throughout most of
those years my vision was uncheered,
my exertions were rarely animated by
even so much as hope that l should
live to see my country peopled by free
men alone. hI
The affirmance by your Convention
of the Cincinnati platform il "a most
conclusive proof that not merely is sla-
very abolished, but that its spirit is ex-
tinet; that despite the protests of a re-
spectacle but isolated few, there remain
among us no party and no formidable
interest which regrets the overthrow or
desires the establishment of human
bondage, whether in letter or in spirit
l am thereby justified in my hoFe and
trust that the first century of American
independence will not close before the
grand elemental truths on which its
rightfulness was, based by Jefferson and
the Continental Congress Of '76 will no
longer be regarded as glttering gener-
alities, but will have become the univer-
sally accepted and honored foundation
of our political fabric. I demand the
prompt application of those principles
to our existing condition Having done
what could for the complete, emanci-
patton of the blacks, now insist on
the full enfranchisement of all my white
countrymen. Let none say the ban has
just been removed from all but a few
hundred elderly gentlemen, to whom
eligibility to office can be of little con
sequence. My. view contemplates not
the hundred prescribed, but the millions
who are denied the right to be ruled
and represented by the men of their un.
fettered choice. Prescriptions were ah.
surd if these did not wish to elect. the
very men whom they are forbidden to
choose .
have profound regard for the .peo.
PIE of that New England wherein ] was
born, in whose common schools / was
taught. frank no other people above
them in Intelligence, capacity and moral
worth; hut while they do many things
well and some admirably, there is one
thing | am sure they can not wisely OF
safely do, and that is the selection foT
States remute from and unlike Their