Year: 1872




sometimes angry controversies OF the last forty
wears. is essentially noteworthy. That many OF
Won originally preferred that the Liberal Re
publicans should present another candidate for
President and would moro readily have united
with us in the support of Adams or TrumbuD
Davis or Brown, Is well known. / owe my
adoption OF Baltimore wholly to the fact that
I had already been nominated at Cincinnati, and
that concentration of forces upon any new ticket
had been proved impracticable. Gratifed as i am
at vour concurrence in the Cincinnati nominations,
certain as am that you would not have thus con-
Cured had you not deemed me upright and capable,
find nothing in the circumstance calculated to IN
fame vanity or nourish self-concet.


But that your Convention saw fit in adopting the
Cincinnati ticket, to reafirm the Cincinnati Plat
FORM is to of the profoundest satisfaction.
That body was constrained to take this important
step by no party necessity real or supposed III might
have accepted the candidates of the Liberal Repub
licans upon grounds entirely its own, OF u might
have presented them las the first Wing National
Convention did Harrison and Tyler without adopt
ing any platform whatever. That it chose to plant
itself deliberately, by a vote nearly unanimous
upon the fullest and clearest enunciatlon OF prnc
pies which are at once incontestably Repubhcan
and empbatically Democratic, gives trustworthy as
surance that new and more auspicious era Is daWn
ing upon our long distracted country.


Some of the best years and best efforts OF my lie
were devoted to struggle against Chattel Slavery


struggle none the less earnest or arduous because
respeot for constitutional obligations constrained
me TO act for the most part the defensive-in re-
sstance to the diffusion rather than iii direct efforts
for the extinction Of Human Bondage. Throughout
most of those years, my vision was uncheered,
my exertions were rarely animated, by even





SO much as a hope that i should live to see my
country peopled by freemen alone. The afhrmance
by your Convention of the Cincinnati Platform is
most conclusive proof that not merely is Slavery
abolished but that its spirit is extnctthat despite
the protests of respectable but isolated few there
remains among us no party and no formidable inter-
est hch regrets the overthrow or desires the rees-
tablshment of Human Bondage whether in letter
OF in spirit i am thereby justified in my hope and
trust that the first century of American lndepend-
ence will not close before the grand elemental
truths on which it's rightfulness based by JEFF
fersOn and the Continental Congress of '76 will no
longer be regarded as "glittering generaties" but
will have become the universally accepted and
honored foundations of our political fabric.


demand the prompt application of those prin-
ciples to our existing condition. Having done what
l could for the complete emancipation of Blacks,
now insist on the full enfTanchisement of all my
White countrymen. Let none say that the ban has
Just been removed from all but few hundred
elderly gentlemen to whom eligibility to office can
be of little consequence. My view contemplates
not the hundreds prescribed bit the millions who
are denied the right to te !ued and represented by
the men of their unfettered choice Prescription
were absurd if these did not wish to elect the very
men whom they are forbidden to choose


have 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 intelligence, capacity, and moral worth.
But, while they do many things well, and some ad-
mirably there is thing which am sure they can
not wisely or safely undertake. and that is the selec
ton for States remote from and unlike their own,
of the persons by whom those States shall be repre-
sented in Congress. If they could do this to good
purpose then republican institutions were unfit, and
arstocracy the only true political system.


Yet what have We recently Witnessed Zebulon
B. Vance, the unquestoned choice of a large ma
iority Of the present Legislature of North Carolina
a majority backed by majority of the people who
voted at its elecOn-refused the seat in the Federal
Senate to which he fairly chosen, and the Legs
lature thus constrained TO choose another in his
stead or leave the State unrepTesented for years.
The votes of New England thus deprived North
Carolina of the Senator of her choice and compelled
her to send another in his stead-another who, in our
late contest was, like Vance, rebel and fighting
rebel, but who had not served in Congress before
the war as Vance had, though the latter remained
faithful to the Union till after the close of his term
protest against the disfranchisement of a State
presumptively, of number of States-On grounds
so narrow and technical as this. The fact that the
same Senate which refused Vance his seat proceeded
to remove his disabilities after that seat had been
filed by another, only serves to place in stronger
light the indignty to North Carolina and the arbi
trary, capricous tyranny which dictated it, thank
you gentlemen that my name is to be conspicuously
associated with yours in a determined effort TO
render Amnesty complete and universal in spirit as
well as in letter. Even defeat in such would
leave no sting while triumph would rank with those
victories which no blood reddens and which evoke
no tears but those of gratitude and JOY.


Gentlemen, your platform, which is also mine,
assures me that Democracy is not hencefOrth to
stand for one thing and Republicansm for another,
but that those terms TO mean III politics, they
always have meant in the dictionary substantially
one and the same thing-namely Equal Rights, re-
gardless Of creed, or cline, or color hail this as
genuine New Departure from outworn feuds and
meaningless contentious in the direction of Progress
and Reform Whether shall be found worthy to
bear the standard of the great Liberal movement
which the American People have inaugurated is to
be determined not by words but by deeds. With
me if steadily advance, over me if | falter its
grand array moves to achieve for our country her
| glorious, benefcent destiny.


remain, gentlemen, yours,


HORACE GREELEY.
| To the Hon. JAMES r. DoOLITTLE, Chairman OF the
Convention, and Messrs. F. W. SYKES, JOHN c. MAC
CABR, and others, Committee.


Conotor Schurz's maSterly sDpech at ST
Louis will be ready, on Thursday, in quarter