Year: 1879

Gen. James A. Garfield delivered the
following telling speech to the vast con-
course of people who recently met at
Madison, Wis, to celebrate the birthday
of the republican party:


M1'. Chairman and FelIo0 Citizens.
l have but two thoughts in my mind,
and therefore I will not be long in get
| ting at you; and the first in that the orr
gin Of the republican party is very i'm
| pOrtant as matter of history. We heard


it said to day that it was from twenty-five
years ago. In one very important sense
! twas; but in another excessively i'm
| portant historical sense the republican
party was revived. 1t was, indeed, res
| toration of the earliest party of this gov
ernment. The grand inspiration of that
instrument gave life to party, and sub
sequently gave name to party which
| for nearly quarter of a century was
known as the Progressive Republican
party of the United States. 1t was the
| party of Jefferson; it was the party of
the fathers that made the government;
that created the constitution, that started
into its long career of life this new re-
public; and it was ! party that has as
distinctive a doctrine as we have had
since our most recent origin of 1854.
The first


PROGRESSIVE REPUBLICAN PARTY
had for its central idea the doctrine of the
declaration of independence, the equality
of all men before the law. They hated
slavery and loved liberty, and they made
in point of their wo~k just as far as they
could towards realizing the meaning of
the doctrine of the declaration
hope to destroy slavery in their day, hut
they hoped to limit, to restrict it, to mar
row its field and to enlarge the boundary
of liberty as far and fast as the vested
rights and the vested wrongs of slave
holders would let them. They did abol-
ish the slave trade on the high seas; they
did declare the slave trader was pirate
to be known and punished as such every
where that our commerce or our ships of
war could reach him, and not only so as
lovers of the rights Of men and the
equality of all men before the law; while
they knew they could not make men
equal in talents, they did declare that
they would make education free and give
every one a free chance to do all God
had enabled him to do by the talents
given him in his creation. That old re-
publican party, therefore, dedicated all
of her territories in all portions of the
west to the freedom of schools forever.
They did more; they knew that all men
were not equal in wealth, but they would
do all in their power to give each man a
free chance in


THE RACE FOR WEALTH,


and tn at old republican party abolished
Imprisonment for debt in every state in
which they had control. They did more
than that. The old republican party ex-
empted from execution the necessaries of
all house-holders in the state where they
had control. They did more. That old
republican party abolished slavery in
some elhgt states of the union, before
they went out Of power. They did more.
They made suffrage universal, without
distinction of race, in almost every one of
the old northern states, except, perhaps,
the single state of New York, and that
old republican party that died in the
days of the younger Adams administra-
tion covered itself and covered the first
quarter of the present century with glory
in the interests of liberty, in the interests
of justice, in the interests of the rights
of laborers, in the interests of all those
rights that are necessary to the intelli-
gence, the prosperity, the freedom and
the honor of a great people.


But there were conversations in those
days, and every one of these measures
was opposed by the conservatives to the
utmost of their power. The attempt to
stop the slave trade was


DECLARED TO BE UNGODLY,


Gov o,,t off ha ,,oor II tbapc nf frioa
from coming to this country to hear the
gospel preached. The abolition of i'm
prisonment for debt was assailed as a
strike against the rights of property and
of creditors, and the abolition of the old
system that took every last thing from
the poor man in execution was also
struck at and condemned for the same
reason. Year by year the malcontents,
the conservatives, the resisters of pro-
gress of republicanism, gained, until at
last they allied themselves with the slave
power and that alliance was too strong
for the early republican party, and it
broke in pieces, and the regular demo-
cracy, into which all the better elements
of that early day had degenerated, be-
came the ruling power of this govern
ment. That democratic party had many
noble impulses in its earlier day. 1t had
some good doctrines, but at last, uncon-
sciously to itself, imperishably, as the
years went on, it bowed lower and lower
and descended deeper and deeper, till it
became the bound slave of the slave
power on this continent, and it was only
when, 25 years ago, it had gone so far as
to violate the old ordinance of 1887, to
break down the compromise of 1920: to
prostitute to base services of slavery the
freedom of all our western territOries-it
was only when, at last, freedom of
speech, freedom of thought, freedom of
where, freedom in congress, freedom at
the ballot box-all freedom that was
worth having by free man, was gone,
denied, and the aristocratic mob spirit
of slavery rode over the necks of free
men everywhere-it was only then, in
the extremity of that degradation and
the depth of that oppression, that all
over this country--not in Wisconsin
alone, but in Michigan, Ohio, a belt of
states to the ocean-all over the free
| north, men


SPRUNG TO THEIR FEET,


and restored the republican party Of 20
years ago. Applause. So, therefore, |
say the work that was done here in 1854
was the revival of the noblest party that
ever existed on this continent, and the
chapter of its work, dropped when it
perished with the Adams, was revived by
the new republican party of 1854.
We have been told by our democratic