Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1880-06-17
Mr.. Beecher on Political Matters.

Mr.. Beecher addressed the Garfield and
Arthur ratification meeting at Brooklyn on
Monday evening The following is por-
ton of his remarks:
What is the history of the past! Two parties
are standing before the American people to-
day saying, each of them, Let me control
this Government The American people
are to examine their credentials, and to ask,
whence did YOU come? What is your char
acter? What have been the incidents Ct your
career?" That is what the American people
propose to do. propose to help them. lap
plause.
Mr.. Beecher sketched rapidly the early ca
reer of the republican and democratic parties
from their inception. and the good service
each performed at the time when such ser
vice was first needed, and continued:
As look back upon the ca
reer Of the old democratic party, l see that
under God it achieved very great benefits for
the nation, and that we owe to it blessed
memory. [Applause and laughter. But by
and by, when the slave power had grown so
that it became distinct political centre, when
it began to be the dominant influence in ma
tional politics. the Wing party and the demo-
cratic party We'd with each other to see which
would lie --LATEST, which would crawl further
est, which would take most slime for the
sake of the slave power, and undoubtedly the
democratic party conquered. Great laugh
ter Both were poisoned, and the Wing party
to death. Laughter. They could not stand
it. They died. The democratic party, bore
up, and. to certain extent, survives. Laugh
ter Now, from the time that the slavery
question entered actively into the polit-
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party has been first, middle, and last in ac-
tive cooperation with the endeavor to repress
the liberty of laboring men, if they had an
African complexion. l, who know what mob
bling means, remember perfectly well how
averse they were to any agitation on
this subject 1t was the worst hercsy to
speak for liberty in the church. 1t was
the worst mark of mans position in the
commercial world to speak on the subject OF
the rights of slavery. The democratic party
had no compassion as party on the slave.
nor upon those that advocated his emancipa-
ton.
COMPARING PARTY RECORDS.
When the conflicts came on which led to
the formation of the republican party, born,
as it was, out of liberty, born for the sake of
free speech, born to resist the action of the
Southern power, they found their antagonists
organized on the other side; and when the
war was threatened and the election of Lin
coin (applause) gave the occasion for it,
where was the democratic party after that
canvass between the election and the iuaugu-
ration of Lincoln? What was its attitude ?
Was it the democratic party that met with
manly front the threats of disunion, or was it
not from out of their midst the South drew
comfort. counsel, and encouragement? When
the war broke out. when the banner fell from
the flagstaff of Sumter, the bandage fell
from the eyes of million democrats in the
North. (Applause.) They broke at once
the bonds of party allegiance. Their noble
men by scores and hundreds. their leaders
and their voting men by thousands and tens
of thousands, and their fighting men, focked
about the old star spangled banner and went
into the war. (Applause.) But in all this
time the democratic party-the organization
itself-stood aloof, stood lukewarm at the
very best let me say, doing as little as it was
possible to do, thwarting as much as it was
possible TO thwart the power of those that
were in the ascendency. Through the long
struggle Of reconstruction. the democratic
party has not helped, but has hindered, and
the reconstruction of this Union after its
great war and disruption has been wholly the
work of the republican party, not the demo-
cratic party. (Applause.) For a whols
Congress it has now had the government in
its power, comparatively speaking. Will
any one be pleased to tell me what single
measure it has proposed or rendered success
full? What single step has it taken to con-
solidate, to help? Did it lead us back to
specie payments? Did it change the fraudu-
lent votes of State after State? Did it build
high the barriers around about the ballot box?
- t1xn,,.
republicans are charged with unparalleled
| effrontery in having tricked our President
Mr.. Hayes, into the Presidential chair
There can be no more question than that
there is God in heaven that if the South had
been permitted the freedom Of the ballot
there never would have been a chance to
doubt whether our President was elected
Great applause.)
After the illustriOus career which the re-
publican party has run-the party of liberty
Of discussion. the party that dared confront
the brazen face of slavery in the days of its
greatest power-the people are now asked to
give the democratic party, with its character
and its history, the reins Of government. and
to deny them to the republican party. APP
plause. / am told or others are. that the
republican party is trading on its past char
acter and on its past deeds. Well, what has
public services except his character? 1t is
said the times have changed. 1t is said the
democratic party is not what it was in those
old days. How do we know? Where is the
evidence. How can it show us what it is
except by going back to its record, and say
there has been nothing in its career since the
days Of the war which should engender con-
fidence in it. ask our great population of
foreigners here which party will probably be
most in sympathy with the poor laboring man,
the party that shed blood Unreasonable to set
the African laborer free, or the party that un.
dertook to tread him down in the ground and
keep the shackles on him. [Applause. In
regard to the financial question. Both par
ties have been down on their knees in the
dirt to the greanbackers; but the party itself
by its organization has been in favor of real
money, for the doctrine of the currency is
nothing but the simple question whether
property shall have proper represention.
Here is party that says you can make prop
erty by printing presses; and here Is another
party that says you cannot make property ex-
cept by skill, by intelligence. The republi-
can party has been. in its organized form and
whole procedure, in favor of sound financial
views. Has it been equally true of the
democratic party? And are they as safe to
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