The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1877-10-01
POLITICAL.
THE CONkLTNG CONVENTION,
senator COnkling's speech in the ROcEes-
ter Convention.
In Y 2nn

IN. Y. SUM-
This is not an Administration convention
nor an ant-Administratio convention. We
are not representatives of an Administration
nor of an anti-Administration party. We are
Republicans. We represent q great party
That party has a battle to fight in every
county, district and town, and our duty Is to
Republicans and their candidates in every To-
cality and school district in the. State. Ad-
mfnistrations do not make parties. Parties
make administrations, go before admlnlstra-
tions, and live after them. The people make
parties. The people made the Republican
party, and the people have upheld it in a
career of usefulness and achievement, such as
no other party in history can boast. One OF
pletei mission. Ii it be true to itself and
equal to that mission it will stand
in grandeur and in power when the
pique and pretensons and rivalries Of to day
are remembered with pity or forgotten
utterly. Let the Republican party be but
true to it's principles and it cannot then be
false to any man.
This is State convention. It's business is
to nominate candidates for State offices, and
to declare the principles on which these can
didates stand and act If they are chosen. Its
business is not to hinder but to help, by the
wisdom and harmony of its action, every can
didaIa, not only in the State at large but on
in towns, and In all localities throughout the
State. The National Administration is not a
candidate or in question here. Who has
right to say that it wishes to influence our
proceedings or to disturb our harmony? If
any man has authority to speak for it, and to
bring its views or wishes here he knows 1t;
and when we know him we shall know whose
delegate or representative he. is. will not
our duties and calculated to foment dis
cord among those of the same household of
faith. repel the idea that the National Ad
mil ief tnf nT, cnnptinnS
proceeding. He who volunteers for such a
purpose may be found wanting in the discre-
tion of friendship, If not in its sincerity also.
It has been said that other State conventions
have sometimes expressed opinions about ma
tional affairs, including specific acts of ma
tional officials. They have frequently done
50, no doubt. County and town conventions
have done the same thing. National conven-
about State concerns and even about the af-
fairs of cities. Nobody can deny the right of
each convention TOY decide for itself what it
shall say and what it will not say. Every
has SO decided for itself, and did
any one ever before hear this right or pro-
prfety challenged? Many State conventions
particular topics prominent at the time
Many State conventions have omitted to re-
fer even to State officers whose action had
been widely discussed. Silence In regard to
action of convention has not been only com
mon but usual in cases OF divided opinion
and In cases of untimely attempts to
make issue and obtain committalS touching
affairs not far enough advanced to afford
ground for ultimate and safe Judgment. Io
speak plainly, there are special reasons just
now inviting the convention to adhere calmly
wisdom. All Republicans in this State have
been summoned with somewhat of
menacing and truculent dictation to declare
this and declare that, and broad hints
dare even to remain silent. The President Of
France has just attempted to degrade and
punish Frenchman for uttering his senti-
ments. Perhaps he has succeeded. But
for holding their peace. Not yet. Exotic
despotism, revised and improved, will not
grow in American soil, and American air. It
will perish. 1t would be trodden out If it did
newspapers and elsewhere are cracking the
whip over Republicans now and playing
schoolmaster to the Republican party and it's
conscience and convictions? Some of them
are TIE milliners, the ditettdnh and carpet
knights of politics; men whose efforts have
been expended in denouncing and ridiculing
and accusing honest men, who in storm and
sunshine, In war and peace, have, chung to
the Republican flag. and defended it against
those who tried to trail and trample it
in the dust. Some of them are men
who when they could work themselves into
conventions, have attempted to bellttle ana
befoul Republican administrations and to
parade their own thin veneering of purity.
Some of them are men who, by insisting that
ii is corrupt and bad for men in Office to take
part In politics, are striving. now to prove that
the Republican party has been unclean and
vicious all its life, and that the last campaign
was venal and wrong and fraudulent, not in
!, some of the States, but in all OF the States,
North and South; for it is no secret that in
all the States office holders, in committees, in
organizations and everywhere, did all that
men could fairly do to uphold the candi-
dates of our party, and that they were, en-
couraged and urged to do so. Some OF these
WORTHLESS masquerade as reformers. Their
vocation and ministry is to lament the sins
y rancid, fiat self-righteousness. They are
wolves in sleeps clothing. Their real object is
office and plumber When DR.. johnson defined
patriotism as the last resource OF scoun-
veIoped capabilities and uses, OF the word
ssreform." Some of them sat but yesterday
in Democratic conventions. Some have
sought nominations at the hands OF Demo,
Of neophytes and the bitterness Of apostates,
have done more than self-respecting Demo
Gratis would do to villify end slander their
government and their G5untrynen Grant,
and a who stood by %Rpft If eafess bteT
truthless aspersios.s of these men. And now,
sss,,gard in the battles of the past,
le16 I'm ward to the feast. They forget
nrrxruDne aot built up by department,
kElNEh hazines OF by gush.
said of certain Democrats
Having ,purekats that thew wanted by
WILL Of officiousness to keep
D'Arcy's Well lnaC ota'e as snail as
HAdends as large as possible
eo,,er Of corsl .ry-fledged dictators are not
hereby inform thekh" nH,nnr Of " fenao ,,,nn
lie in general that, finer to be heard in. some.
they will present to, noise than the flocks and
fashionable styles upon thousand hills. A
ware aver offared Uses has been set up in the
the United States L o ~ - ntond u,ii' ~
moderate and reasoi dogmas but II is for the
establishment in thiy what it's Judgment in
------------e and WISE An important