The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1880-09-23
A TELLING SPEECH.
Delivered by the Hon. C. s. May. OF
Michigan, at Michigan City, Ind.---
The Issues of the Campaign Dis
cussed i'm a Mastery Manner.

Mr.. May first spoke of the great Importance
Of the impending campaign, and then passed t.
a brief consideration of the claims on the
country put forth by the Republican party.
The day had passed, he thought, when the rec
ord of the Republican party during the war
could be urged as the only necessary support
of these claims. The party had changed. 1t
was no longer the party of Lincoln, Chase and |
Seward, and the issues on which it had success
fully fought had died with those leaders. The
only real issue between the parties, he con- |
tinued, is one of administration, as to which |
one win best administer the Government /; and |
the great question is, what now is hest ?-not |
what was best ffteenor twenty years ago. Itis
high time that this most pernicious and absurd
idea, that parties can escape the consequences
of present iniquity by past good conduct, or
forfeit, when right to-day, the public confidence
for the wrong their predecessors did in another
generation, should be secuted and banished
from our politics.; This voting parties up or
down on their 90 records is vast piece of pub
he nonsense. The Questions of sta tesmanship
of government, are intensly practical things,
and not matters of mere sentiment. I am not
here to defend the Democratic party in the days
OF jackson or Buchanan, nor to assail the Re
publican party in the days of Lincoln and Sum-
ner. But am here to show that the hero of
Gettysburg is a good and safe man to be elected
this year to the Presidency, and that the Re
publican party and their nominee, in this year
of grace, are unworthy of tho confidence Of
the American people. They are to-day on trial
for high crimes and misdemeanors, and do not
propose to allow them to escape conviction on
plea of previous good character. Good charac-
ter is only allowed to be shown in the courts in
doubtful cases. It goes for nothing where the
facts are clear. The facts are clear in this case
they are notoriously clear. 1t is not case of
circumstantiM evidence at ALI The Republican
,of
and manifold opublic corrdptions- -corruptions
| proved, cor1upions confessed, and it must not
be attempted to sneak out of court by showing
| what it did in the war. 1t is what it has done
| since the war that now concerns the American
| people. ~ i7l's set tl slsf-5
| What now is best ? Let me answer that ques-
| ton by saying that the great and pressing po-
litical need Of this country to-day is a complete
and radical change of administrator
change which shall clear out every department
| of this Government, from high to low, and
| give us a great national publication. F
| The real mission of the Republican party was
accomplished ten years ago, and since that
/ time it has simply been holding on to the Offices
by good luck and successful fraud. ask is it
not best that there should be another change.
that incompetent and dishonest officials should
| be got rid of, that the books should be exam
j ined, and the corrupt rings broken up? The
coruptions of the Republican party in these
| recent years are not matter of deduction or
4
| notoriety. They have been proved over and
over again before Congressional investigating
| committees they have been confessed by some
| OF the chiefest perpetrators and culprits they
| have been acknowledged by all candid and fair
| minded men in the organization. And these
1 frauds and corrupions have not been small and
| petty ones mere pecadilloes of some obscure
official here and there, but startling and gigan-
| tic ones, and in the highest places-perjurers
| and bribe-takers in Congress, thieves and rob-
| bers in the Cabinet. Our country has been
scandalized and dlsgraced by some of these
| corruptions in the eyes of the whole civilized
| world, and republican institutions themselves
| made the jeer and scoff of mocking ar1stocrats
and disbelievers in our form of Government
across the water.
| Now, fellow-citizens, why should we not have
a change of administration? 1t is time of
peace; there are no great material interests to
suffer the Democratic party have confessed
ly good candidate-why Is this not good time
to change?
Masses of fair-Ininded men in the Republican
I party, who recognize the force of all this, who
realize that their party has grown corrupt and
dishonest, would be inclined to agree that the
time has come to make change, if they were
not deceived and deluded by the idea that this
cannot safely be done on account of past trans
actions and party "records"-an idea vigorous
ly propagated and wholly relied upon by the
leaders and organs in this canvass, because they
well know that if the issue is made to turn upon
the vital questions of to-day, their party, bur-
dened down to the waters edge with its frauds
and corruptions, must go under. So they raise
| the "record" cry, and the war-cry again, and
talk long and loud about what happened fifteen
or twenty years ago,
FeIlow-citizens, want this Republican party
to come out into the open field of to-day and
| fight the battle like men of sense and courage,
3 on their own merits, if they have any, and not
on the virtues of their fathers and grandfathers
virtues which they have strangely if not i'm
| r1iOuslv npOlpcfad IN innifqtn n11tu md
show, if You can, that your party is clean and
pure that Garfield is better man than Han
cock, and that,we do not need any change.
No, fellow-citizens, they do not propose to
fight the battle in this way, but instead they
begin just twenty years back, and say that the
Democratic party is responsible for the rebel
lion, and that they put the rebellion down.
/ This assertion is the very beginning of their
argument this year, the broad proposition upon
which their argument rests. When we ask for
change i'll the Government we are met on the
| threshold by this assertion, which is everywhere
thrust in our faces as reason why we should
| not have one. COO i-ih stt n
Now, have two conclusive answers to this
| Republican stock argument of the campaign
First, it is not germane to the question, in par
| liamentary phrase it is not relative and ma
terial to the issue, in legal phrase. For, even
if true, it does not prove that it would not be
better for the country to elect Gen. Hancoci
and make change in the offices this year. But
in the second place, it is not true in fact. The
Democratic party, as party, did not rebe
| against the Government, and the Republican
party did not put down therebellion. '' "
Let me show you that I am correct in this
The seoessionists Of the South rebelled agains
the Democratic party and put up candidate
, in opposition to it in 1860, year before the,
went into open rebellion against the Govern
ment.
Theyrefused to support Douglas at Charleston
} broke up the convention, and withdrew, an
aft ro,-1 BOD
ridge. After they had gone, the Nationa
, Democratic Convention reassembled at Balti
more and nominated stephen A. Douglas,
loyal man and patriot, and supported him
g | as party, for President that year. When MI
4 Lincoln was elected, it was the men who ha
left the Democratic party and voted for Brecl
:, inridge that went into rebellion, and Mr. Lir
q coin and the new Republican Administrative
s had in their first fearful trial no more weIcom
and powerful support than that rendered b
stephen A. Douglas, the defeated candidate G
the National Democratic party. Now tell m,
: by what mean, partisan logic can it be mad
out that the Democratic party should be hel
responsible for men who had left it and fougl
g it to the death, and how did it bring on a r,
: bellion by voting for great Northern state
man and patriot, who stood like q brother b
Mr.. Lincoln's side in the supreme crisis of I'll
Government? No, this reckless and wholesa
charge against the Democratic party Will M
= stand. It is a false charge, and respec
I able Republicans should be ashamed to NAL
use of it.
q There is one view in which Democrats BOSS
y bly, contributed to bring on the war, which
comparison is not altogether complimentary
W the Republican party. At Charleston, as "
have seen, they resisted and refused to con
+ promise with the slave power, and went bray
n ly to certain defeat under Douglas rather tha
- submit to Southern dictation. After Mr.. nj
u coins election, the Republican party in Co
). gress voted to abandon their non-slavery exte
sion principle the vital plank in their patforn
and compromise with the South if thereby II
10 war could be averted. They were the ones,
y this instance. that knuckled to the South.
I And equally false and even more mendac;o,
u Is it to assert that the Republican party n,
down the rebellion. No party put down Fl