Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1872-08-01
To the Hon. Jdmss Brooks, New York.

kHvERpY JoSHsoy.
To the Hon. james Brooks, New York.
Ma. GRHELEy's LETTER op ACCEPTANCE
The following is Greeley's letter sccep-
ting the Baltimore nomination. in reply 10
the letter Of the Committee appointed to
notify him thereof:
NEw YORK. July ls.
Gentlemen Upon mature deliberatiou,
il seems Ct that I should give to your let
! ter Of s!le 10th ins. some further and full
Ter response than the hssty, unr.emedi
tated words in which scknowlcd gcd aud
accepted your nomination at our meeting
on the 18th. That your Convention saw
Fl: to accord its highest honor to onc who
had been prominently and poin:edly or
posed TO your party in the earnest. aud
sometimes angry controversies Of the last
forty years. is essentially noteworthy !:
that many Of YOU originally believed that
the Liberal Republicans should present,
another candidate for President. and
would more readily have united with us.
in support of Adams. Trumbull, Davis or
Brown. is we'll known. l owe my adop-
tion at Baltimore wholly to the fact that
| had already been nominated at Cincin-
natl, and that a concentration OF forces or
any new ticket bad been proved impracti-
cable. Grati6ed as l am at your concur
renee in the Cincinnati nominations. GER
tain as am ,ha, you could not have thus
concurred. had you not deemed me up
right and capable. I fnd nothing in the
circumstance calculated to inlamc vanity
or nourish self-conceit; but that your
convention saw fit. in adopting the Gin
cinnati ticket to reafirm the Cincinnati
: platform. is to me a source Of the pro-
foundest satisfaction. That body was
constrained to take this important step by
no party necessity. real or supposed 1t
might have accepted the candidates Of the
Liberal Republicans on grounds ofi,s own.
or it might have presented them as the
/ frs, Whig Convention did Harrison and
Tyler. without adopting any platform
whatever. That it chose to plant itself
deliberately b. vote nearly unanimous.
upon the fullest and clearest enuncia:ion
of principles. which are at once incontes-
tibly Republican and empha,;cably Demo-
cratic, gives Trustworthy assurance tha,
new and more auspicious era is dawn
ing upoa our long distracted country
Some of the best years and best efforts O:
my life were devoted to ! struggle against
cbattel slavery, struggle none the less
earnest and arauous because respect for
constitutional obligations 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 hu-
man bondage. Throughou, most Of these
years my vision was unchcercd. and rv
exertions were rafc'. animated by even so
much as q hope that I should live TO see
my country peopled by freemen nlnne.-
The affirmation by your Convention Of the
Cincinnati platform is 4 most conclusive
proof that. not NICELY is slavery abolish
ed. but that lis spirit is extinct; that. de-
spite the protest Of respectable but iso-
lated few. there remains among US no par
| ty and no formidable interest which re-
grets the overthrow or desires the rc-cs.
:ab!ishmcnt Of human bondage Whc,h-
er in letter or spirit. am thereby iusti-
fed in my hope and trust that the first
century Of American Independence will
not close before the grand elemental truths
on which its rightfuIness was based BY
Jefferson and the Continental Congress of
1856. will no longer be regarded as gilt
tering generali,ies. but will have become
the universally accepted and honored
foundations Of orr political fabric de-
mand the promp, application of those prin-
ciples to our existing condition. llavin.
done wha: could for the complete e,r.n-
cipation Of the blacks, I now insis, on the
full enfranchisemcnt o: all my white coun-
trymeu. Let none say that the ban has
just been removed from all but few hum
dred elderly gentlemen. 20 whom elicibil-
ity to Office can be of little consequence.
My view con.emp!ates not the hundreds
prescribed, bat the millions who are de-
MED the right to be ruled and rcpresen-
ted BY men Of their unfet,ered choice. -
Prescription would be absurd. If these did
not wish to elect the very men whom they
are forbidden TO choose. | have a pro-
found regard for the people of tina, New
common schools l Was taught. frank nc
other people above them in Intelligence
capacity or moral worth. but while they
do many things we'll. and some adm.ra-
bly,, there is on. thing which | am sure
they cannot wisely or safely DO. and that
is the selecting for States remote from aud
Unlike their own OF the persons by whom
those States shall be represented in Cen
gress. Ii they would do this 10 good pur-
pose, then republican constitutions are un-
mt, snd aristocracy the only true politics
system. Yet what have We recently wit
messed Z. b. Vance. the ungues,ioncd
choice OF large majority Of the rrcs-n,
Legislature of North Carolina. n majority
backed BY majorisy Of the people who 70.
ted at It's election. refused . seat in III.
Federal Senste. to which ke was fairly
chosen. and The Legislature thus con.
|. strained TO choose another in his stead, O,
leave the State unrepresented for year.
The votes Of New Ensland have thus de.
lr.ve3 North Carolina Of the Senator d