Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1883-09-07
A REPUBLICAN SPEECH
by the Hon. George Hoadly,
Tie Democratic Candidate for Governor
Red-Hot and Righteous.
One OF the Efforts That Gave Hoadly the
Reputation of Being Smart Man.

august IA, 1865 Judge Geo. Hoadly ana Hon.
BENZ. Eggleston were tho speakers. Previous
TO the organization of the meeting, and be-
tween speeches, the Seventeenth Ward Grant
Glee Club entertained the audience hand
sornely with some spirited music. Seven
voices, under the leadership of s. G. Sheppard,
and accompanied by the music of q cabinet or
gan, rendered "Grant'a the Man." 1.-THE Sol
diers Chief" 1.-THE Flag OF the Free and
other songs, in q hearty manner. Judge
Hoadly was received with cordial cheering,and
said:
LADIES AND GnHTLEMrN-As listened to the
sweet music Of the glee club, and heard the
name Of that noble young hero, Ellsworth, re-
peated my mind was carried back to the days
before the war, when he came here TO Cincin-
natl with his Zouave company, from Chicago,
and showed before our eyes the rapdity of the
drill he had taught that company And when
We looked upon the werlike exercises through
which they went, as q miniature or semblance
OF something which would be of no earthly use
except as exercises to train the muscles and
strengthen the arms of the men who bore the
muskets, how little we thought, when ELS
worth came here to show us what might be
done with an exact system OF warlike exercises,
that that which he was then practicing, as it
seemed to us, as a pasti1ne, would in the course
OF few short months become the sternest of
realities, and that the blood which mantled the
cheeks OF that young hero would be poured
out, one OF the earliest offerings, on Virginia
which he died. To-day hear his name with
no common feeling for my. friends, we are
trying the question:, not by the bullet but
by the ballot whether he. died in
vain. To-day we are q solemn tribunal sitting
in judgment on the question whether the
soil upon which Ellsworths body fell and
with which his blood comminged iras soil TO be
uon from us Jg rebel'ionby arts, not arms, after
cry, and upon our decision in November will
depend the question whether that young man,
and the hundreds and thousands of young
men that afterward gave up their lives for the
Union, died in vain or not in vain; whether
the cause for which they died shall succeed or
fail and whether that decision shall be final,
and whether the men shall be sustained who
led the armies of our country in suppressing
the rebellion. My friends, let us so back for
brief review of the historical events which
have preceded the times in which we are
engaged. In the fall Of 1860,
doubt if there was anybody at the North that
dreamed of the times upon which we were
entering we were marrying and giving in
marriage; we were building and laboring; we
were devising schemes of profitable advance
ment in the cause of our common country
and of individual enterprise. We expected 10
vote, we had the right to vote and we knew
that IL was our constitutional right, il the cam
didate for whom we voted received the ma
jority OF the suiirages of American citi-
1ens he should be installed as President of
children Of free labor, accustomed to gov
ern themselves, there was not hall hundred
of men--in the whole North among Democrats
Americans or epublicans-disoyal to the
country. There was not half hundred in the
whole North who did not feel willing to ac-
cuiesce in whatever might be the result of
that election, whether Breckinridge Douglas
or Lincoln was elected Abraham Lincoln
was elected, and we know the result. While
the free sons of the North, accustomed from
youth to govern themselves, taught as their
first lessons that men could not govern
others till they governed themselves
acQuesced readily; the sons of the South,
brought up to govern others and not them
selves, inaugurated the rebellion, and for the
purpose of establishing an empire whose cor
nerstone was slavery, they burst into wild re-
6ellion against the best Government on earth.
Their Vice President, the man to whom they
gave the second Office in their Confederacy at
the beginning Of the crisis, in speaking of the
svents that were about to pass, designated it as
rebellion in the interests of slavery against
the best Government on earth.
The armed rebellion came to an end, and on
the 9th of April, 1865, Just six days before
Abraham Lincoln was to die by the hand of
an assassin Lee delivered his sword to Grant,
and the war of the rebellion was over. We
thought we had peace. For five years we had
contended in arms Three hundred thousand
lives had been laid down upon the battlefield
q debt of more than two billions of dollars had
been incurred for the purpose of repressing
the rebellion; hundreds OF thousands of men
lived, broken in health men maimcd men
crushed, men blind, men starved; that is the
history of the rebellion; and then and there,
on the 9th of April, under that anple tree as
we fondly hoped, the armed rebellion ended
and, as we supposed, the rebellion of arts, de-
vices, artifces and intrigues persisted. We
fondly hoped that when rebels burst into arms.
that when rebels who had the majority in the
Senate of the United States, in the fall of 1860,
deserted the field of politics and went into the
field, having chosen TO resort to the God OF
battles, we fondly hoped that with that result
rebels would be satisfied. But We were mis-
taken.
Before that apple tree on the Appomattox
River began to bear the green fruit Of the later
spring certainly before the apples ripened on
that tree, as soon as Lincoln is laid under the
these apples began to turn--before these men
fully determined that whot they had lost in arms
they could gain By arts. And noly after more than
three years Of ,var Of diplomacy Of politics, we
are engaged IN war Just as fatal just as doubtful
and more difficult bA far than he war which .e
fought in arms. Our Young men are not
sent forth to Southern fields to die
in battle by the three hundred thousand,
but but the young an. and -, ola men that go to
tuition they have the right to live anywhere in
this country, and, wherever living, to express
any honest opinion they please, these men are
first stigmatized as carpet-baggers, next de-
nounced as scalawags, and finally shot down
the influence of the rebel party prevails, wher.
ever rebellion, unchecked, has its course, nc
Northern man, and no loyal man, is safe
in his life, and no colored man is safe in his
liberty. Have described this thing too strong
ly? Go with me to my own home on Walnut
Hills, On the day that Abraham Lincoln was
last elected, stood at the polls, and there
saw good man, as honest. true and faithful q
man as Hamilton County ever had, spending
the entire day with his horse and buggy in
bringing voters to the polls laboring with all
his might for what he deemed the good cause
OF the suppression OF the rebellion and the
safety of the country, When the war ended
that man went TO Arkansas, intending to bring
his family there as soon os he could, and last
spring, in the middle of the night, while i'm his
room writing, he was shot down by the Ku
Alux-kan through the window, and his dead
body now lies in the cemetery of Walnut
Hills. refer TO John w. Veal, whom many
Township and nsk that delegate TO the Chicago
Convention of 1854, Squire G. w. Martin
what he thinks of the Rebe
Democracy Of Alabama. After the war ended
that good man (dilfer as much as / may from
him in politics. that honorable gentleman
vent to Alabama, and what sort OF reception
did he get? Ask him. He met reception o.
hostile and averted faces, and OF lawsuits; suct
reception that, finally, he turned his bacl
on Alabama, onvinced--convinced against hi
will-that in Hamilton County better than II
Alabama, even for one who had been sup
porter OF Mcclellan and Pendle
States prevailed il, eli its security. Ny friends
refer to these instances of gentlemen l hay,
known--one 6f whom, Ithank God, Is still Irving
for he had Tho good iuck 10 Ieape-to show tina
this rebellion still prevails, and / will go oI
and try to explain how it is that 1t prevails
and how earnestly itisendeayoring to succeed
al .la y