Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-08-13

you are not willing to treat the election Of
1880 as if it had never taken place There
must be an end of sectiOnalism in this
country, as there is an end Of smallpox,
and to naturalize sectionalism is like in
cooperating pestilence into your daily life.
How is sectionalism to be ended? The
South well knows that We of the North
would not elect any candidate they might
proffer-such man rs jefferson Davis. or
Alexander H. Stevens, Or Robert E.
Lee, if he were living. Here they
are honestly sensible Of tho mis-
take they made in the rebellion. And so,
when Louisiana joined hands with Yer
mont at Cincinnati, OIL the 23d Of June,
1880, and presented Winfield S. Hancock
as peace Offering to the North, and as a
love-offering to the whole nation, Dough-
erty, of Pennsylvania, gloriiied, and Daniel,
of Virginia, accepted the pledge. What
better could they have done? They took
the union soldier, who only seventeen years
before, to speak of no other fields on which
he fought, and to make no invidiOus com
PARSONS, overthrow them. One would
think such a concession would satisfy even
the patriot, John Cessna. chairman of the
Republican state committee, who remained
SO long in the Democratic party opposing
the sentiment which gave peace to the coun-
try, and now stands out the fierce adversary
of Winfield S. Hancock. who conquered the
Confederates at Gettysburg in 1868. But
men like Mr.. Cessna, now hold the purse
strings of the nation and the mulicipali
ties, reject Hancock because he is 4 Demo-
crat. Boil down everything that is said
against Hancock, and take up in detail
every accusation, and all that remains is
He is Democrat. remember while l
was in Washington from 1858 to 1861, to
1865, this objection was not so fashionable
as it is now. When Democrat came i'll
with = Pennsylvania regiment VIC were AS
glad to see him as if he had brought a
mine of gold. When Stephen a. Doug
las, in April of 1861, met me on Penn
sylvania avenue, after l had declared
against the Democratic party, because Of
its sympathy with the South, in reply to
my question: "Where are you in this
fight p he said II am with you. There
is but one side to take, the side of the
country" 1 felt as ii he had brought his
whole party into the great cause. And
when remembering the fact that every sue
cessful soldier, without exception, was
born in the Democratic party, and still re-
tains that lingering love for the party
which all men retain for the home in which
they were reared, is it strange that the
hearts of the masses were Democrats, or
whether they were Republicans, are proud
that such soldier should have been put
forward for president.
There are some powerful considerations
in connection with this branch of the sub
ject. Think Of it. 2,6O0,O 600 men fought
for the old flag between 1861 and 1865.
Two million six hundred thousand l am
not standing here tonight. ghoul-like, to
grind euvenOmed teeth into the sacred
dust of those who died among these my
riads of soldiers. To find out which was
a Democrat and which Republican No,
my friends. But at least l may say for
the dead, as feel proud may say for the
living, whatever politicians may say, both
the silent audience that have joined the
great majority and those waiting for their
turn to be called into the shadOwy army
beyond the grave, that all would recOil
with horror and scOrn from this attempt
to degrade aud dishOnor brave soldier
because he preferred to remain with the
party in which he was born.
Let me put Il case to you. General
Hancock was almost fatally wounded OH
the Sd of July, 1868, just as the tide of
battle had been turned. l stood, few
days ago, in the Emmettsburg road, below
that terrible stone wall over which the
fiery columns of Longstreet and Pickett
were hurled in the cffectual effort to fight
through that hell of fire, and iron, and
lead. and smoke, poured into them from
the Union batteries, and l saw where
Hancock and his staff had passed just be-
fore tho unparalleled assault and repulse
The whole picture grew into life before
me. Rothermcl has painted it Oh his can
vas, and you have seen it. l could almost
hear the shrieks OF the wounded. the shouts
of the living, the clash of arms. the
whistling bullets. recalled the two days
previous, when my old Lancaster school
fellow, John Fulton Reynolds, fell mortal
ly wounded, and thought, as think now,
as poor Hancock was borne to the La
Pierre house in Philadelphia, and thence
to his fathers home in Norristown, family
and friends wondering whether that grape
shot had not finished him, whether at that
mOment-if our people had thought of
politics, as the ring Republicans do to-day
If Hancock had been put forward for
any Office in your gift, the fact that he had
been born \ Democrat would have been
the Delaware on the east and the Ohio
the north and the Susquchanna on the
south. It would have required al extraor-
dinary detective to find q man, woman or
child in Philadelphia who was not ready to
bless the very name of Hancock. Graft
tude is as Lord Chatham said when he
called confidence plant of slow growth.
Gratitude is to my mind a plant OF rapid
death in the party bosom. And l think
that other English satirist who said that
gratitude is a sense of favors to como,
better typifies the modern statesman
whose prerOgativc it is to forget those who
serve their country, and to forgive those
who plunder it.
If the election for the presidency in No
vem Der next could be conducted without
the omnipresence Of office, if the men paid
out of the public treasury to do the work
of the government were not regular
pretorian guard, there would be no more
chance of a decent vote for General Gar
field in November next than there would
for Mr.. Weaver, the gentleman who has
been named rs the Greenback candidate
for that high Office. But rs it is, this
official army, blind and deaf to reason,
driven by men who receive almost
royal remuneration for doing nothing, is
an influence that would be entirely rest
less, if in this world of a republic
there were not other agencies before
which the hired dependencies of the gov.
ernment must quail and fall. The argu-
ment I have attempted to address to you
tonight, nv fcllOW-cOuntrymen. would