The Shasta courier., 1872-09-28
STAND BY THE REPUBLICAN, coLoRs i!
SPEECH
Hon. Henry Wilson,
OF MASSACHUSETTS,
AT GREAT FALLS, NEW HAMPSHIRE
February 24th. 1872
February 24th. 1872.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies' and Gentlemen
During the year on which we have entered the
people of the United States will be summoned to
elect Chief Magistrate. There are seven mill
ion persons in the country entitled to the right
of suffrage. They are now ranged into two
great political parties One calls itself the
Democratic party; the other takes the name of
tine Republican party Each of those political
organizations has history, platform of princi-
pies, and programme of policy. To one or the
other Of these parties the people of the United
States will commit, for four years, the precious
interests of the Republic. 1t devolves upon the
citizens of New Hampshire to give the first vote
of the campaign upon which We are entering.
Whatever may be the result it will be deemed
and taken throughout the country as an ndca-
ton of public sentiment, and the victory, to
whichever party it may come, will give to that
party in the nation more numbers than it has
voters in the State of New Hampshire
l come here tonight in behalf of the Repub-
lican party of the United States three and half
million strong to speak to the Republicans of
New Hampshire; to ask them to call the battle
roll anew, and to redeem their State and place
her where she has so long been, and where she
ought to be again, at the head of the Republican
column. | am not here to beittle the Demo-
cratic party | know it has power | know it
has elements of strength; | know it will fight
great battle this year for the control of the Gov
ernment. | pity the weakness or despise the
folly that undertakes the power of the Demo
cratic party. 1t has vast elements of strength ;
it has wealth. prejudice, passion, and pride
of race. | know it has able men in its ranks,
and have no sympathy with that disposition
which prompts us always to bettle whatever we
oppose.
l do not come here to apologize for the Repub-
lican party. | would as soon apologize for the
spots on the sun that has bathed the world to-
day in light and beauty. The Republican party
needs no apology and no defense. There is no
body of men ip America to-day who from their
past history or present position have right to
arragn it before the nation, before the nations,
or before God.
There was a struggle, beginning in 1882, and
continuing until the spring of lS6l-the period
of one generation-between these antagonistc
forces; but it was a struggle of thought, of
voice, of the press, struggle of votes. Liberty
at last triumphed. Then the slavemasters raised
the banners of rebellion hurled their section
into a wicked and brutal, barbarous and bloody
civil war. These are historic facts. They will
go into the history of our country; and when we
who are here tonight, when the men of this
generation shall all have passed away, in other
days, with clearer lights than those of the pres
ent, the human family will recognize these facts
and historians will record them for the study
and admiration or condemnation of after gen.
erations.
We have had a serious contest, bloody strug
gle, in which some Of the bravest and noblest
have gone down and sleep in soldiers graves
In this struggle, where stood these two great
parties that divide the nation to-day? Where
ytDa tba 81,
Republican party? Here tonight assert it, and
there is not a man on Gods earth can contradict
it, for the record is against him. that from the
year 1882, when William Lloyd Garrison and
eleven other faithful and fearless men signed
their names to the declaration that black men
had a right to liberty, and that they would do
what they could, sanctioned by law, humanity,
and religion, to emancipate the bondman, and to
lift up the poor and lowly in the land, from that
day to this hour, every moment of the time and
on every distinct issue, the Democratic party has
been on the side of privilege, the side Of caste
the side of brutal, Ignorant degraded barbar-
ism. Measured by the standards of the philoso-
pliers and statesmen of the ages measured by
the law of the living God, there has not been
"a moment when it was not clearly, plainly dis
tinctly, unqualifedly wrong. 1t has been wrong,
and it is wrong now, and | fear it VIII continue
TO be wrong.
The Republican party, made up as it has been
of men who came out of other organizations be-
cause they were convinced that the party of
freedom and humanity was the party of the
country, has at all times, in every struggle, in
peace ana in war; been on the side of the
country, the side of liberty, the side of Justice,
the side of humanity, the side of progressive
Christian civilization There has not been
moment during these forty years, whether Gar
ris0n Anti-Slayery men, Lberty-Party men, Free
Soilers, or Republicans starting from only a
dozen men and growing up to the three and "a
half millions who will vote in November next
| say that there has not been moment in all
those years when the champions of human rights
have not occupied position that the Christian
men and women who belong to it or sympathize
with it could not take it into their closets, and,
on their bended knees invoke the blessing of
God upon it. | do not know that there are not
some men so forgetful of the position of the
Democratic party that they might ask the bless
ing upon it of that Being who bids us remember
those in bonds But | cannot imagine how a
man who has spoken for, apologized for, voted
for, or fought for slavery, privilege and caste
the side the Democratic party has taken-l do
not see how such man would dare ask the
blessing of God upon the violation of the doc
trines of the New Testament, that teach us to
tONe our nelIQOOr.
have briefly referred to this history to show
where the Democratic party has stood and now
stands, and where the Republican party has
stood and now stands The Democratic party,
unmindful of its record of forty years, is asking
the toiling men OF New Hampshire TO give it
their confidence and their support. | should
quite soon think that the Democratic party
would 20 TO South Carolina and ask the men
whom we Republicans have made free-the men
from whose limbs we have smitten the fetters
the men into whose souls We have breathed the
spirit of manhood; the men whom We lifted up
and put upon their feet; made them citizens of
the United States; secured to them civil and
political rights, and made them our equals and
our peers-I should quite as soon have supposed
the Democratic party would go to South Caro-
lima and ask the votes of those men, whom we
converted from things into human beings with
human rights, as that it would ask the votes of
the toiling men who stand on the hills of New
Hampshire. They will tell US that these men
were black men, | have only to say this, that
the man who would make black man slave
would make a white man slave if he had the
power to do it.