The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1872-08-01
Greele,,s Letter Of Acceptsnce.

UIcelt!>S Ltttef VI ACCcptSHCCs
New YoRK, July 23.-Thc following is
Mr.. Greeley letter, accepting the Baltimore
nomination, in reply to the letter Of the COM
mittce appointed to notify him thereof:
New YoHK, July IS, 1872.
Gentlemcn,-Uponm mature delberation, it
seems fit that should give to your letter Of
the 10th instant some further and fuller re-
Spouse than the hasty, unprecedented words
10 which | acknowledged and accepted your
nomination at our meeting on the 18th in
slant.
That your Convention saw fit 20 accord it's
highest honor to one who had been promi-
nently and pointedly opposed to your party
in the earnest and sometimes angry contro-
verses Of the last forty years is essentially
noteworthy. That many of you desired that
the Liberal Republicans should present an
other candidate for President, and would
more rapidly have united with us in the sup
port Of Adams or Trumbull, Davis or Brown,
is well known. l owe my adoption at Bati-
more wholly to the fact that | had already
been nominated at Cincinnati, and that
concentration Of forces upon any new man
had been proved impracticablc.
| GratiGed as [ am at your concurrence in
the Cincinnati nomination, and certain as 1
am that you would not have thus concurred,
had you not deemed me upright and capable,
found nothing in the circumstance calcula-
ted TO infame vanity or nourish self conceit.
But that your Convention saw fit to reafirm
the Cincinnati platform is to me source of
the profoundest satisfaction. That body was
constrained to take this step by no party ne.
cessity, real OF supposed. 1t might have ac-
cepted the Candidates of the Liberal Republi
CAPS upon grounds entirely its own, or it
might have presented them as the first Wing
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 cearest cnunciation of principles which
are at once ucoutestably Republican aud en-
phatically Democratic, gives trustworthy as
surance that new and more suspicious era
is daw ming upon our long distracted country.
Some of the best years and best efforts of my
life were devoted to struggle against chat.
tel slavery, struggle none the less earnest
and arduous because respect for constitution
al objections constrained me to act for the
ulDSL pdlt w CuC VSICuolt0 III ICSlSGdulC W tu0
diffusion, rather than IN direct efforts for the
extinction, Of human bondage.
Throughout most Of these years my vision
was uncheered, my exertions were rarely an
timated, by even SO much as hope that |
should live to see my country peopled by free.
men alone. The afirmance by your Conven-
ton of the Cincinnati platform is most con-
elusive proof that not merely is slavery abol-
ished, but that its spirit is extinct; that de-
spite the protests Of a respectable but isolated
few. there remains among us no party and no
formidable interest which regrets the over
throw or desires the establishment Of hu-
man bondage, whether in letter or in spirit.
am thereby justified in my hope and trust
deuce will not close before the grand eletnen-
tai truths on which its rightfuness was based
by Jefferson and the Continental Congress
of '76, will no longer be regarded as glitter
ing generalities but will have become the uni
versally accepted and honored foundations of
our political fabric. I demand the prompt
application of those principles to our existing
condition.
Having done what I could for the complete
eman cipation of the blacks, [ now iusist on
the full enfranchisement Of all my white coun-
trymen. Let none say that the ban has Just
been removed from all but few hundred ell
derly gentlemen to whom eligibility to office
can be of little consequence Ny view con-
templates not the hundreds prescribed, but
the millions who are denied the right to be
ruled and represented by men of their own
unfettered choice. Prescription were absurd
if these did not wish to elect the very men
whom they are forbidden to choose.
1 have profound regard for the people of
that part of New England wherein was born,
in whose common schools l was taught. l
rank no people above them in Intelligence,
capacity, and moral wort h but, while they
do many things we'll, and some admirably,
there is one thing which they cannot safely
or wisely undertake and that is the selection
for States remote from and unlike their own.
of the persons by whom these States shall be
represented in Congress. IF they could do
this to good purpose, then republican institu-
lions are unfit and aristocracy the only true
political system. YET what have we recent
ly witnessed? q. B. Vance, the unquestion-
ed choice Of large majority Of the present
Legislature of North Carolina, majority
backed by majority of the people who vot-
ed at its election, refused the seat in the Fed
eral Senate to which he was chosen and the
Legislature thus constrained to choose anoth-
er IN his place or leave the State unrepresept-
ed 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, rebel, and fighting rebel, but
had not served in Congress before the war as
Vance had, though the latter remained faith
full to the Union till after the close of his
term. protest against the disfranchisement
of a State, presumptively Of a number of
1 States, on ground SO narrow and technical as
this. The fact that the same Senate which
refused his seat proceeded to remove his dis
abilities after that seat had been filed by an
other, only serves to place in a stronger light
the indignity to North Carolina. and the ar
bitrary, capricious tyranny which dictated it.
| | thank you, gentlemen, that my name is
to be conspicuously associated with yours in
a determined effort to render amnesty COM
plete and universal in spirit as we'll as in LETT
ter. Even defeat in such case would leave
no sting, while triumph would rank with those
victories which no blood reddens, and which
| evok q NO faa re hnt thoso nf rYot;trdo ond ;ov