The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1872-08-07

your obedient servant, |
). r. DooL1TTLE,
Chairman OF Convention at Baltimore,
July 10, 1872, and members the
Committee Of Notification
ltR. GREELEY'S ACCEPTANCE
New York, July Is, 1872.
Gentlemen-Upon mature delibera-
ton it seems fit that / should give to
your letter OF the 10th instant some
further and fuller response than the
hasty, unprecedented words in which
/ acknowledged and accepted your NOM
ination at your meeting on the 18th.
That your convention saw fit to accord
it's highest honor to one who has been
prominently, pointedly opposed TO your
party in the earnest and angry contro-
versies of the last forty years, and that
many Of you originally preferred 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, well know. j owe
my adoption at Baltimore wholly to
the fact that l had already been nomi-
mated at Cincinnati, and that cOncen-
tratiOn upon any new ticket had been
proved impraeticable. Gratified as I
am at your concurrence in the Cincin-
natl nominations, certain as ] am that
you would not have thus cOncurred had
you not deemed me upright and capable,
! find nothing il the circumstance cal
culated to intiame vanity Or nourish
self-conceit.
But that, your convention saw fiji in
adopting the Cincinnati ticket to reatlirm
the Cincinnati platform, is to me a
source of the profoundest satisfaction.
That body was constrained to take this
important step by nc party necessity,
real or supposed. it might have &C
cepted the candidates Of the Liberal
Republicans upon grounds entirely its
own, or it might have presented them
as the tirsU Wing National Convention
did Harrison and Tyler, without adopt
ing any platform whatever.
! That it chose to plant Itself lelibers
ately by a vote nearly unanimous upon
the fullest and clearest enunciation Of
principles, which are at once incontest~
ably Republican and emphatically De-
mocratic, gives trustworthy assurance
that new and more suspicious era is
oawning upon our long distracted coun-
try, Some Of the best years and best
efforts of my life were devoted to a
struggle against chatte. slavery a
struggle none the less earnest and ar
duous because respect for Constitutional
obligations constrained me to act, for
the most part, On the defensive in resis-
lance 10 the diffusion rather than indi-
rect efforts for the extinction Of human
bondage. Throughout most of these
years my vision was uncheered; my ex'
ertions were rarely animated by even
so much as a hope that should live tc
see my country peopied with freemel
alone.
The affirmance by your Convention Of
the Cincinnati platform is most con
elusive proof that not merely is slavery
abolished, but that its spirit is extinct
that despite the protests Of a respect.
able but isolated, there remains among
lis no party and no formidable Interests
which regrets the overthrow or desires
the establishment of human bondage
whether in letter or in spirit. am
therefore justified in my hope and trust
that the first century of American indie.
peudence will not close before the CRANE
elemental; truth On which its rightful'
ness was based by Jefferson and the
Continental Congress Of rs, will nc
longer be regarded as glittering gener
alities, but, will have become the uni
versally accepted and honored founda
tior Of our political fabric.
! demand the prompt application o.
those principles to our existing cot1di
tons Having done what I could fol
the complete emancipation Of the blacks
/ now insist on the full enfranchisemen
of all my white cOlntrymen. Let none
say the bar has just been removed from
all but few hundred elderly gentlemen
to whom eligibility to Office can be O
!, no more consequence. My view con
templates not the hundred prescribed
but the millions who are denied TIT
right to be ruled and represented by
: men Of their unfetterad choice. Pros
cription were absurd if these did no
wish to elect the very men who they
are forbidden to choose. / have pro
found regard for the people Of tina
New England wherein | was born: il
whose common schools ] was taught;
rank no other people above them in in
telHgence, capacity and moral worth
but while they do many things well
and some admirably, there Is one thin:
t which | am sure they cannot wisely o
I safely do, and that is the selection TO
States remote from and unlike thei
own, OF the persons by whom thos
States shall be represented in Congress
= If they could do this to any good pur
, pose, then republican institutions wer
unfit and aristoeracy the only good pc
litical system yet what have we recent
: ly witnessed? Zebulon b Vance, TIL
. uneuestioned choice of a large majorit,
= of the present Legislature Of Nortl
Carolina, a majority backed by major
ity of the people who voted at its cleo
ton, refused his seat in the Fedora
Senate to which he was fairly chosen
aud the Legislature thus constrained t
choose another in his stead or leave tn
State unrepresented for years, Tn
votes of New England thus deprived
, North Carolina of the Senator of he
choice, and compelled her to send an
other in his stead; another who in OIL
late contest was, like Vance, rebel ant
fighting rebel, but who had not served
, in Congress before the war as Vance
had, though the latter remained faithful
to the Union till after the close Of hi
term.
protest against the disfranchisemen
of a State, of number of States, Oh
grounds so narrow and technical a.
this. The fact that the same Senate
which refused Vance his seat proceeded
to remove his disabilities after that sea
had been filed bv an,thcr, 1nlv sersc;