The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1872-08-01
Mr. GreeleY's Aeeeptance.

chile and admirable exposition oi
his views on amnesty;
New YoHK, July Is, 1872.
GENTLEAIEN Upon mature de
liberation It seems fit that 1 should
give to your letter of the 10th inst
some further and fuller notice than
the hasty unprecedented words in
which / acknowledged and accepted
your nomination at our meeting on
the 18th.
That your convention saw fit to
accord its highest honor to one who
had been prominently, pointedly
opposed to your party in the ear
nest and angry controversy of the
last forty years, is eminently
noteworthy. That many of you
originally preferred that the Liber-
al Republicans should present an
other candidate, and would more
readily have united both Of us in
the support Of Adams or TrumbuIl,
Davis or Brown, is well known. l
owe my adoption at Baltimore
wholly to the fact that had already
been nominated at Cincinnati, and
that n concentration of forces on
any new ticket had been proved
impracticable. Gratifed as / am at
your concurrence in the Cincinnati
nomination, certain as I am that
YOU would not have thus concurred
had YOU not deemed me upright
and capable, 1 find nothing in the
circumstance to iniame vanity or
nourish self-conceit.
But that your convention saw fit
in adopting the Cincinnati ticket to
reaffirm the Cincinnati platform, is
to me a source of the proIOundest
satisfaction. That body was con-
strained to take this important step
by no party necessity, real or sup
posed. 1t might have accepted the
candidates of the Liberal Republi-
cans upon grounds entirely its own,
or they might have presented them
as the first Whig National COnven-
ton did Harrison and Tyler, with
out adopting any platform whatev-
er. That it chose to plant itself
deliberately by vote nearly unani-
nous upon the fullest and clearest
enunciation of principles which are
at once incontestably Republican
and emphatically Democratic, gives
Trustworthy assurance that n new
and more auspicious era is dawning
upon our ong-distracted country.
Some of the best years and efforts
Of my life were devoted to a strug-
gle against chattel slavery, a strug-
Gle none the less earnest or a duous
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 eextinct-
ion of human bondage Through
out most of those years my vision
was uncheered, my eXersions we're
rarely animated by even so much as
a hope that 1 should Iive-to see my
country peopled by freeraen alone.
The aftirmance by your convention
of the Cincinnati platform is a most
proof that not merely is
slavery abolished, but that its spirit
is extinct; that despite the protests
of a respectful but isolated few,
there remains among us no party
and no formidable interest which
regrets the overthrow or desires the
establishment OF human bondage,
whether in the letter or in the spirit. /
[ am thereby justified in my hope
and trust that the first century of
American indepcndece wiz not close
before the grand elemental truth on
which its rightfulness was based by
Jefferson and the Continental Con
gress of'76 will no longer be regard |
ed as glittering generaIities, but will !
have become the universally accept
ed and honored foundation of our
political fabric.
] demand the prompt application 4
Of those principles to our existing
Having done what l
could for the complete emancipation |
Of the blacks, / now insist on the |
full enfraacisement of all my white |
Let none say the ban |
has just been removed from ali but |
4 few hundred elderly gentlemen, to
whom eligibility to office can be Of
little consequence. My view con
templates not the hundred pre-
3cribed, but the millions who are |
deemed the right to be ruled and
by men of their unfet- |
.ered choice. Prescription were alb
,urd if these did not wish to elect |
,he men whom they are forbidden
% choose.
] have n profound regard for the |
people of that New England where |
n I was born, in whose common |
schools | was taught. ] rank no |
Dther people above them in intelli- |
gence, capacity and moral worth. |
But while they do many things well, |
md some admirably, there is one |
hing which l am sure they can not /
10 wisely or safely, and that is the /
selection for the States remote from /
md unlike their own, of the persons
~ whom those States shall be rep
in Congress. Ifthey could |
10 this to good purpose, then repub-
lean institutions were unfit andI
the only true political
system. Yet what have we recent
Y witnessed? ZebuIan B. Vance,
he unGuestioned choice ofa large
of the present Iegislaturei
,fNorth Carolina, a majority backed |
~ a majority Of its people who
'oted at its election, refused q seat
n the Federal Senate, to which he
vas fairly chosen, and the I.eglsla-
are constrained to choose smother
n his stead or leave the State IN
epresented for years. The votes OF
Sew England thus deprived North
carolina of the Senator Of her
.hOice, and compelled her TO send
mother in his stead, another who in
,ur late contest was, like Vance, a
ebel and a fighting rebel, but who
lad not served in Congress before
he war as Vance had, though the
after remained faithful to the Union
i'll after the close OF his term. IL
protest against the disenfranchise-
nent OF . State, presumptiYeiv Of a
lumber Of States, on grounds so mar
ow and technical as this. The fact