Year: 1872

further and fuller response than the


hasty, unprecedented words in which


| acknowledged and accepted your


nomination Of the 18th. That your


convention saw fit to accord its high


est honor to one who had been promi-


nentIy and pointedly opposed to your


party in the earnest and sometimes


angry controversies Of the last 40


years, is essentially noteworthy. That


many Of YOU originally preferred that


the liberal republicans should present


another candidate for president, and
, would have more readily united with


us in the support Of Adams and Trum-


bull, Davis, or Brown, is well known.
owe my adoption at Baltimore Who'll
| ly to the fact that | had already been


nominated at Cincinnati, and that


concentration Of forces upon any new


ticket had been proved impracticable.


Gratificd as | am at your concurrence


in the Cincinnati nominations. certain


as am that you would not have thus


concumed had You not deemed me up


right and capable, | find nothing in
the circumstances calculated to in


flame my vanity or nOurish my self


conceit, but that your convention saw


fit in adopting the Cincinnati ticket,


to re-ailrm the Cincinnati platform.


That body was constrained to take
this important step by no party ne
cessity, real or supposed. 1t might


have accepted the candidate of the
liberal republicans upon grounds en-
tircly its own, or it might have pre-


scnted them as the first national con-


vcntion did Harrison and Tyler. with


out adopting any platform whatever.


That it chose to plant itself deliber-


ately, by a vote nearly unanimous,


upon the fullest and clearest cnuncia-


ton Of principles which are, at once,


soundly republican and emphatically
democratic, gives trustworthy assur-
ance that new and more prosperous
era is dawning upon our long distract
ed country.


Some Of the best Years and best eff
forts Of my life were devoted to a
struggle against chattel slavery, a.
struggle none the less earnest or ar
duouS because respect for conStitu-
tional obligations constrained me to
act. for the most part, on the detens-
i've, in resistance to the diffusion. rath- |
er than indirect efforts for the eXtinc-
ton Of human bondage. Throughout
the most Of those years. my vision
was unchecred, my eXertions were
rarel ly animated by even 50 much as Il
hope that should live to see my
country peOpled by tlcemen alone.
The ailirmance, by your convention,
Of the Cincinnati platform is 4 most
conclusive proof that not merely is |
slavery abolished, but that its spirit
is extinct, that, despite the protests
Of respectable but isolated few
there remains among us no party, and |
no formidable interest, which requires
the overthrow or re-eStabIishment of
human bondage, whether in letter or
in spirit. | am thereby justified in my
hope and trust that the first century
Of American independence will not
close before the grand elemental
truths ON which its rightfulness was
based by Jefferson and the continental
Congress Of '7G, will no longer be re-
garded as glittering gcneralitics,'
but will have become the universally
accepted and honored foundation Of
our political fabric.


| demand the prompt application Of
these principles to our existing condi-
ton. Having done what | could for
the complete emancipation Of the
blacks, | now insist on a full eniran-
chisemcnt of all my white country
men. Let them not say the law has
Just been removed from all but few
hundred elderly gentlemen, to whom
to office can be Of little
My view contemplatcS,
not the hundreds prescribed, but the
who are denied the right to
be ruled and represented by men of
their mfettcred choice. Prescription
were absurd, if those did not wish to
elect the very men whom they are for
hidden to choose. | have a profound
regard for the people of that New
England wherein was born, in whose
common schools was taught. | rank
no other people above them in intelli-
gence, capacity and moral worth, but,
while they do many things well, and
some things admirably, there is one
thing which | am sure they cannot
wisely or safely undertake, and that
senator of her choice and compelled
her to send another who in our late
contest was, like GOV. Vance. a rebel,
and a fighting rebel, but who had not
served in Congress before the war, as
Vance had, though the latter remained
faithful to the Union till the close of
his term. protest against the dis
reimbursement Of a state, presumptive-
ly, of u number Of states on ground,
so narrow and technical as this. That
the same Senate which refused Gov.
Vance his seat proceeded to remove
his disabilities after that seat had
been filled by another, only serves to
place in a stronger light the indignity
to North Carolina and the arbitrary,
tyranny which dictated it.
| thank you, gentlemen, that my name
is to be conspicuously associated with
yours in determined effort to render