The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1872-07-27
GrePIey's Acceptance OF tine
Baltimore Nomination..

ukS dL OhiNAtHOAO
NEW YORK, July Is, 1872.
GENTLEMEN Upon mature deliber-
alton it seems fit that 1 should give to
letter of the 18th inst, some further and
fuller response than the hasty, unpre-
meditated words in which l acknowledg
ed and accepted your nomination, at our
meeting, on the 18th. That your con
ventiou saw fit 10 accord its highest hon
or to one who had been prominently and
poiutedly opposed to your party in the
earnest and angry controversy of the last
forty years, and essentially noteworthy
that many OF you originally preferred
that the Liberal Republicans should
present smother candidate for President,
and would more readily have united both
of us in the support OF Mr.. Adams, Mr..
Trumbuii Mr. Davis, or Mr.. Brown, is
we'll known. l owe my adoption at Bal
timore wholly to the fact that l had
already been nominated at Cincinnati,
and that concentration of the forces
on any new ticket had been proven i'm
practicable. Gratifed as | am at your
concurrence in the Cincinnati nonina
tioas certain as / am that you would
not have thus concurred had you not
deemed me upright and capable, l find
nothing In the circumstance calculated to
lisdaRf, vanity or nourish self conceit,
ssour convention say. fit, 10
SCfnenn1ti rick ct to'featirm
80 Cincinnati platform Is to me source
of the most profound satisfaction. That
body was constrained to take this impor-
tant step by no party necessity, real or
supposed. l might have accepted the
candidates of the Liberal Republicans
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 | choose, to plant Itself
deliberately, by vote nearly unanimous,
upon the fullest and severest enunciation
Of principles, which are at once incontest-
IDLY Republican and emphatically Dem.
ocratic. gives trustworthy assurance that
a new aud more auspieious era is dawn
ing upon our distracted country.
Some Of the best years and best efforts
of my life were devoted TO a struggle
against chattel slavery. struggle none
the less earnest or arduOus because
respect for Constitutional obligations
constrained me to act for the most part
on the defensive in resistance to the dit
fusion rather than in direct efforts for
the extinction of human bondage.
Throughout most Of those years my
vision was uncheered. and my exerlions
we're rarely animated by even so much as
hope that l should live to see my
country peopled by freemen alone.
~ vprr coDvpDtTOU nj
the Cincinnati platform is a most conclu-
sive proof that not merely is slavery
abolished, but that its spirit Is extinct /;
that, despite the protests of 4 respecta-
Bile but isolated few. there remains
among US no party and no formidable in
terest which regrets the overthrow or
desires the re-establshment of human
bondage, whether in letter OF spirit. |
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 Jefferson and
the Continental Congress of 1776 will
no longer be regarded as glitteTing gene
ralities, but will have become the uui-
versally accepted and honored founda-
ton OF our political fabric.
1 demand the prompt application of
those principles to our existing condi-
ton Having done what 7 could for the
complete emancipation OF the blacks, l
now insist on the full acknowledgment
of all my white countrymen. Let Doue
say that the bar has just been removed
from all but few hundred elderly gen
tlemen, to whom eligibility to Office can
be Of little consequence. Ny view con-
templates not a hundred prescribed, but
a million, who are denied the right to be
ruled aud represented by men of their
uufettered choice Prescription we're alb
surd if these did not wish TO elect the
very men who they are forbidden to
choose. | have profound regard for the
people of that New England wherein |
was born, in whose common schools
was taught. l rank no other people
above their intelligence, capacity, and
moral worth but while they do many
things we'll, and some admirably, there
is one thing I'm sure they cant wisely
or safely, and that is selection for seats,
remote from, unlike their own of the per
sous by whom those States shall be re
presented in Congress. If they could
do this to a good purpose. then Repub-
lican institutions were unfit aud arstoc-
racy the only lone political system. Yet,
what have we recently witnessed Zebu-
Ion B. Vance, the unquestioued choice
of large majority of the present Legis
lature of North Carolina, a majority
backed by a majority of the people who
voted at its election, refused seat In
the Federal Senate, to which he was
fairly chosen, and the Legislature then
constrained to choose another In his
stead, or leave the State unrepresented
/ for years. The votes of New England
thus deprived North Carolina of the Sem
ator of her choice, and compelled her to
send another 10 his stead-anotber who
10 our late contest was like Vance, q
rebel and fighting rebel, but who had
sRos, served in Congress before the war as
Vance had, though the latter remained
faithful to the Union till after the close
of his term.
l protest against the acknowledgements
of State, presumptive of number Of
States, on grounds so narrow and tech
nical as these. The fact that the same
Senate which refused Vance his seat
/ proceeded to remove his disa bilities after
that seat bad been filed by another, only
serves to place in the strongest light the
indignity to North Carolina, and the ar
bitrary capricious tyranny which die
tated it.
thank you gents, that my name is to
be conspicuously assoc ated with yours
in determined effort to render amnesty
complete and universal in spirit as we'll
as in letter. Even defest in such case
| would leave no sting while trinmnh