New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1872-07-28
Baltimore, July 10, 1872.
MR.. GREELEY's ACCEPTANCE.


New YORK July Is, 1872.
GENTLEMEN: Upon mature deliberations
it seems I'll that l should give your letter OF
the tenth instant some further and
fuller response than the hasty, unpre
meditated words in which | acknO wledged
and accepted your nomination at our
meeting on the twelfth. That your con-
vention saw fit to accord its highest honor
to one VINO had been prominently and
pOintedly opposed to your party III the earn
est and angry controversies of the last forty
years. and essentially noteworthy that many
of you originally preferred that the Liberal
Republicans should present another candl-
date for President, and would more readily
have united with us in support of Adams,
Trumbull, Davis or Brown, is well known.
] owe my adoption at Baltimore to the fact
that | had already been nominated at Gin
cinnati, and that a concentration of force
upon any new ticket had been proven i'm
practicable. Gratited as l am at your
concurrence in the Cincinnati nOmina
tiOns certain as l am that you would
not have thus COncurred had you
not deemed me upright and capable, |
find nothing in the circumstance calculated
to indame vanity or nOurIsh sei-cOnceit.
That your convention saw tit, IN adopting
the Cincinnati ticket, to reattlrm the GIN
cinnati platform, is to me a source of the
UrOfOundeSt satisfaction. That body was
constrained to take this important step by
necessity, real or supposed. 1t might have
accepted the candidates of the Liberal Re
publicanS 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 a vzt9 nearly unanimous,
upon the fullest and clearest enunciatiOn of
principles which are at once incontestibiy
Republican and emphaticaily Demo
cratic, gives trustworthy assurance that
a new and more auspiciOus era is
daWnlng upon our long distracted
country. Some Of the best years and
best efforts of my life were devoted to
struggle against chatteI slavery, a struggle
none the less earnest or arduOuS because
respect for constitutional obligations con-
strained men to act for the most part on
the defensive IN resistance to the diffusion
rather than in direct efforts for the extinC-
ton. eff human bondage Throughout most
of those years my mission was Encheered.
! Ny eXertiOns were rarely animated by
even so much as hope that | should live
to see my country peOpled by freedmen
alone. The affirmation by your convention
of the Cincinnati platform Is most con-
elusive proof that not merely is slavery
abolished. but that its spirits are extinct;
that despite the protests of a respectable
but isolated few there remain among us
no party and no formidable interests
which regret the overthrow or discs tab
! lishmC mt of human bondage, whether IN
letter or in spirit. | am thereby justified in
nv hope and trust that the first century OF
American independence Will not close be-
fore the grand elemental truths oDlw leu its
rigL tfulness was based by Jefferson AMI the
! Continental Congress OF I776 will not be re
garded as Offering generalitles, but will
have become the universally accented and
hOnGred fOundatit Il of our political fabric.
}Fa1 Of
principles to our existing condition. Having
| done what | could for the complete enamel
| nation of the blacks, | now insist on full
! Acknowledgement of all my white coun ry-#
! men. Let none say the bar has Just been
removed from all but a few hundred elderly
| gentlemen, to whom eligibility to office can
! be Of little consequence. Ny view cOItem-
plates not hundreds prescribed, but millions
who are denied the right to be ruled and
represented by men of their untettered
! choice Prescription were absurd II they
| did not wish to elect the very men whom
! they are forbidden to choose. l have a
! profound regard for the people of
that part Of New England wherein
! | was born in whose common schools | was
| taught. and rank no other people above
/ them in intelligence, capacity add moral
| worth; but while they can do many things
| well and some admirably, there Is one
/ thing which I am sure they can not wisely
! or safely do, and that. is the selection for
| States remote from, and unlike their own;
of the persons by whom those States are to
! be represented in Congress. Ifthey could do
! this to good purpose, then Republican in
| situations were unfit, and aristOcracY the
| only true political system. Yet what have
we recently witnessed! ZebulOn b Vance,
the unquestioned choice of large majority
! of the present Legislature of North Carolina,
! a majority backed by a majority of the
| q In cd at o ref a
seat in the federal Senate, 10 which he was
! fairly chosen, and the Legislature thus con
! strained to choose another IN his place, or
! leave the State Tnreprescnted for years The
! votes of New England thus deprived North
! Carolina of the Senator of her choice and
| compelled her TO send another in his stead,
! another, who in our late contest, was. like
Vance, a re bel, ard a fighting rebel, but
! who had not served in Congress before the
/ war as Vance had, though the latter re-
| manned faithful to the Union till after the
! close of his term. | protest against this
| Acknowledgement Of State, presUmptively
! of number of States On grounds 50 mar
row and technical as this. The fact that the
/ same Senate which refused Vance his seat
/ proceeded to remove his disabilities after
/ the seat had been filed 10y another only
! serves to place in the strongest light the i'll
/ dignity, the arbitrary capriCIOusness and
! tyranny which dictated it. ] thank you,
/ ouslv associated with yours in a determined
/ effort to render amnesty complete and uni
/ vcrsal. in spirit as well as i'll letter. Even
! defeat in such cause would leave no sting,
/ while triumph would reward with those vic
/ tories which no blood Teddens. and which
! evoke no tears but tkOse-Ot gratitude and
! Joy. Gentlemen, your PLATFORM which is
also mine, assures me that Democracy Is not
] henceforth to stand for one thing and Re
| pubIieauism for another, but that these
| terms are to mean i'll politics, as they
/ ALWAYS have meant in the Democracy, sub
| stantiallv one and the same thing, namely,
/ equal rights regardless Of creed, or cline,
! or color. hail this as genuine new de-
| parture from out worn Teuds aud meaning
! less contentious, in the direction of progress
! and reform Whether l shall be found
/ worthy to bear the standard of the great
! Liberal movement which the American
! people have naugUrated is TO be determined
/ not bv words. but by deeds: with Inc, if l
/ steadily advance; over me, if talter. This
! grand array moves to achieve for our couu-
/ trv her glorious benefcent destiny
remain, gentlemen, yours.
HORACE GREELEY.
/ To the Hon. James R. Doolittle, Chairman Of the
! Convention and F. ". Shicks John {. McCaJe
aud others OF the Committee,