The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1872-07-26
THE CHAMPION OF PEACE.
HORACE GREELEY TO THE NATIONAL
DEMOCRACY.
He Accepts the Nomination upon a Plat
form ssIncontestably Republican and
EmPhatically Democrattc.''

The following is Mr.. Greeley's letter, accept
ing the Baltimore nomination, In reply to the
letter of the committee appointed to notify
him thereof:
NEW YORK, July lS.
Gentlemen mature dellberation 1t
seems fit that should give 10 your letter Of
the 10Th instant some further and fuller re-
sponse than the hasty, unpremeditated words
in which acknowledged and accepted your
nomination at our meeting on the 18th Instant.
That your convention saw tt to accord it's
highest honor to one who had been proml.
nently and polntedly opposed to your party
In the earnest and sometimes angry contro-
versles OF the last forty years is essentially
noteworthy. That many of you would
have preferred that the Liberal Re-
publlcans should present another candidate
for President and would more rapidly have
united with US IN the support of Adams or
Trumbull, Davis or Brown, Is we'll known.
owe my adoption at Baltimore wholly TO the
fact that had already been nominated at
Cincinnati, an. that concentration of forces
upon any new man had been proved imprac-
ticable.
Gratlfed as am at your concurrence In the
Cincinnati nomination, and certain as am
that you would not have thus concurred had
you not deemed me upright and capable,
found nothing In the circumstance calculated
to iuflame vanity or nourIsh self conceit. But
that your convention saw ht to reaf1rm the
Cincinnati platform s. to me source OF the
profoundest satisfaction. That body was con-
strained to take this step by no party necessi-
ty, real or supposed. 1t might have accepted
the candidates of the Liberal Republicans
upon grounds entirely Its own, or It might
have presented them as the first Wing con-
vention did Harrison and Tyler, without
adopting any platform whatever.
That 1t chose to plant Itself deliberately, by
vote nearly unanimous, upon the fullest and
clearest enuucIatlon of principles which are at
once incontestably Republican and emphall-
cally Democratic, gives trustworthy assurance
that new and more auspiclous era Is dawn
ing upon our long distracted country. Some
of the best years and best efforts of my life
were devoted to struggle against chattel
slavery, q struggle none the less earnest and
arduous because respect for constitutional OBJ
jections constrained me TO act for the most
part on the defensive 10 resistance to the
diffusion, rather than in direct efforts for the
extinction of human bondage.
Throughout most of these years my vision
was uncheered, my eXertlons were rarely anil.
mated by even 80 much as q hope that /
should live to see my country peoped by free
men alone. The aGirmance by your conven.
ton of The Cincinnati platform is a most con-
elusive proof that not merely is e!avery
abolished, but that s., spirit Is extinct; that
despite the protests of respectable, but
isolated, few, there remains among us no
party and no formidable interest which regrets
the overthrow or desires the re-establishment
Of human bondage, whether In letter OF In
spirit am thereby justified In my hope and
trust that the first century of American inde-
pendence will not close before the grand ele-
mental truths on which Its rlghttnlness was
based by Jefferson and the Continental Con.
gress OF Its will no longer be regarded as
glittering generalities, but will have become
the universally accepted and honored founda-
tions of our political fabric. demand the
prompt application of those principles TO our
existing condition.
Having done what could for the complete
emancipation of the blacks, 1 now insist on
the full enfranchisement or all my white
couutrymen. Let none say that the ban has
Just been removed from all but few hundred
elderly gentlemen, 10 whom eligibility 10
Office can be of little consequence. My view
contemplates not the hundreds pro.
scribed, 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 10
choose.
have profound regard for the people of
that part of New England wherein was born,
In whose common schools 1 was taught. I
rank no people above them In Intelligence,
capacity and moral worth; but while they do
many things well, and some admirably, there
is one thing they cannot safely or wisely un-
dertake, aud that is the selection for States
remote from and unlike their own, of the per-
SONS by whom these States shall be represent
ed in Congress. If they could do this to good
purpose, then republican institutions are unfit
aad aristocracy the only true political system.
Yet, what have we recently witnessed? 2. B.
Vance, the unQuestloned choice of large ma
jority Of the present Legislature OF North Car
olina, majority backed by majority OF the
people who voted at Its election, refused the
seat in the Federal Senate to which he was
chosen, and the Legislature thus constrained
to choose another in his place or leave the
State unrepresented for years.
The votes of New England thus deprived
North Carolina of the senator OF her choice,
and compelled her to send another in her
stead-another who in our late contest was,
like Vance, a rebel, and a fighting rebel, but