Year: 1877

oAOoNNhOlf VI AhNhNhot was ShOoIh bfiA-
porary Chairman and made quite a
lengthy speech reviewing the action of
the late Democratic Convention and eulo-
gizing the President and the Republican
party. Hon. William Leonard was ap.
pointed temporary Secretary. Commit
tees on Credentials, Permanent Organi-
zation, and Resolutions were appointed
and a recess was taken.


Upon reassembling the Committee on
Credentials reported that the delegations
we're full with no contest except in the
First District, which was settled. The
Committee on Permanent Organization
reported that Gen. James A. Garfield had
been selected as permanent Chairman and
William Leonard, Secretary. The report
was adopted. While waiting for Gen.
Garfield, who was a member of the Com
mittee on Resolutions, Hons. Charles
Foster and Stanley Matthews were called
for by She convention and delivered brief
speeches, after which a second adjourn
ment was taken.


Gen. Garfield upon the reassembling of
the convention spoke as follows, upon
assuming the duties of Chairman:


1t will be, probably, fifteen minutes before
your Committee on Resolutions will be ready
to report, and take the intervening minutes
to thank you for the honor you have con-
ferred upon me in calling me to preside over
the deliberations of this great convention.


Let me say that nothing is more marked in
the differences between the great political
parties than this: that the Republican party
represents, in its conventions, its best
thoughts, and the best thoughts, as l believe,
of the nation. 1t is popularity of our po-
f,,- hoxr
been governed by the most violent elements
of their party. The violent reactionary ele-
ments OF the Democrats have commended
their policy and dictated their opinions for
many years in the past. In the days of Sc
cession the most violent of that party led
and dragooned behind them all the better
elements and brought their party into line
after its worst thoughts 1t was so in the
days of reconstruction; it has been so ever
since, and it was markedly so one week ago
to-day, when the Democratic party, repre-
senting the State of Ohio, met at time
when great and new peril threatened our
people-a peril peculiar and alarming in its
character; peril that paralyzed the great in
dustries of the nation, by stopping all labor
everywhere in its processes. And that con-
ventiOn, instead of speaking one brave word
in favor of law and order, and the rights of
labor, and the rights of the people under the
law, commenced by ignoring in the most
cowardly manner the great danger, and dared
to insinuate that all the evils that have fallen
on this country had fallen upon it because of
the Republican party.


They dared to talk of the pauperism of la
bor as the cause of the great strike. They
talk of the pauperism of labor, who for fifty
mortal years have done all in their power to
put one-fifth of the laborers of America un-
der chains, and buy them, sell them, whip
them, scourge them at the will of capitalists,
policy that degraded labor everywhere.
And then, after prating about the pauperiza-
ton of labor, in the same breath they de-
mand a repeal of all laws that the Republic
an party have enacted to protect labor in
this country by giving to our laborers a fair
chance to compete in the markets of the
world with the labor of the Old World. l
notice that as an instance of the worst and
most violent element of the Democratic par
ty, guiding its counsels and molding its
policy, and they have done more. In the
same platform, only a week ago to-day, they
undertook to shake The solid foundations of
our public peace by poisoning, if they could,
the very fountain of our political power, by
asserting that our Chief Magistrate, the man
of our choice, was fraudulently inaugurated;
and attempted to throw a cloud of doubt
upon his title to be President of tie United
States. With what grace do they say that!
They who sought by every means that all the
werst elements of American society could
produce to carry their man in power, and
when they saw they were going to fail they
sought, by the use of money in a distant
State to buy Presidential electOr, and thus
purchase for gold the highest office in the
gift of the Republic. Failing in that, they
sought to prevent the counting OF the
electoral vote in accordance with the Con-
stitutiOn and laws of the Republic, and
threatened civil war if the count should pro-
ceed in an orderly manner.


In order to prevent that war a special tri-
bunal was provided to determine the great
questions of constitutional law that arose on
that subject, and, although as honorable men
they were bound to stand by the result of
that tribunal, when that result was an
nounced the most violent element of the
party determined, finding the result of that
tribunal would be unfavorable to them, that
no President should be inaugurated; that
chaos should come in place of order, and
violence and anarchy in this centennial year
OF our history. And L take this occasion to
say here that immortal honor is due to the
forty men who fought in arms against us,
rebels as they were once, who broke from the
solid ranks of the Northern Democratic lead
ers and said that faith should be kept and
that the count should be completed and the
President should be inaugurated, whether it
was the man of their choice or not.


take this occasion to say in the heart OF
this old Abolition Reserve that no true Ameri-
can will ever forget the honor due to those
Southern men who helped thus to save the
country against their Northern Democratic
leaders. Now, gentlemen, over against this
rule of the worst, the old Republican party
again steps to the front to take its place in
the line of great action. II comes before the
country with twenty one years of honorable
history behind it; it comes before the coun-
try with tradition and achievements of which
it is proud; proud that it dared 20 face re
bellion and war, and that it dared to go TO
the bottom and to pluck out by the roots the
guilty cause of rebellion and war; and to say
that all men should be free; proud that it
dared TO build up and reorganize the Repub-
lie on the basis Of equal rights, civil and po-
litical, to all men, without regard to race or
color-proud of all these achievements.
Ready to have done its duty in the days of
war, now equally ready to do its duty in the
days Of peace. | am glad to say that the Re-
publican party is not a party that is guided
by the wake behind its craft, but it prefers to
stand on the bow of its ship and guide its
course by the great interests Of the nation as
they arise. Because we once led in war; be-
cause we learned military methods and pur-
sued them cOurageOusly, we do not need al
ways to be in arms and pursue military
methods.


The Republican party is able, when it
comes where the roads fork and sees the way
the new interests of the nation require it, TO
see that the time ought TO come when all the
military methods of war are to be folded like





the fight and to enter upon the processes of
peace; and those processes are TO remit all
the States, North and South, TO the equal
right of self-government. We hold the
equal rights of citizens before the law; we
equally hold the rights of the States before
the Constitution and the laws; and when we
admit those States TO their own self-govern-
ment, however badly they may behave in
their local concerns, we do not any the less
hold to all the great sanctions or principles
that were adopted when we made the amend
ments to the Constitution We do not pro-
pose TO lay down any one of them, nor to in
wade the right of any State.


Now, desire tOAsay with no reserve that
am glad that our own chosen Chief of the
Nation, out OF our own State, from among
us, has had the courage to see the epoch in
which be lives and dared TO do what he be-
lieved the interests of the nation require.
You must not expect OF him-because he is
human-that every act OF his will accord
with all your opinions or mine. do not
ask that of any President; nor do say IL In
advance nor afterward for any man that has


ever lived; but l do say that his heart beats
in its old place, Republican, with the love
of his country In his heart; and 1t is our
duty to see that he is fairly, Independently
and earnestly suDDOrted in the struggle he