Year: 1872

-@%@1 SAAy Az 4SNSs


GENTLESfEE-Upon mature delibera,
ton 1t. scenes fit that should give tc
your letter Of the 10th inst. some further
and fuller response than the hasty unpre


medltated words In which I scknowl.
edged and accepted your nomination a
our meeting on the 18th. That youl
Convention saw flt TO accord It's highest
honor to one who had been prominently
opposed to your party in earnest
and sometimes In angry controver,
sizes of the last forty years, and essential.
ly noteworthy that many of you origi.
nally preferred that the Liberal Rep1b.
licans should present another candidate
for President, and would more readily
have united with US in the support OF
Adams, or Trumbull, Dawes, or Brown


1t is well known I owe my adoption al
Baltimore wholly to the fact that
had already been nominated at Cincinnati
and that the concentration OF forces upon
any Democratic ticket had become i'm.
practicable. Gratif1ed as l am at your
concurrence in the Cincinnati Conven.
tion, l believe that you would not thus
have concurred had you not deemed me
upright and capable. I find nothing in
this circumstance calculated to inhame
vanity or nourish selE-conceit. But that
your Convention saw fit in adopting the
Cincinnati ticket to reaff1rm the Cincin.
natl platform, Is to me a source of the
profoundest satisfaction. That body was
constrained to take this important step
by no party necessity, real or supposed.
It might have accepted the candidates oil
the Liberal Republicans upon grounds
entirely its own, or might have presented
them as the first Wing National Conven,
ton did Harrison and Tyler, without
adopting any platform whatever. That
1t choose 10 plant.-itsell deliberately by q
vote nearly unanimous, upon the fullest
and clearest enunciation of the PRINCIPLES
which are at once incontestably Republi.
can and emphaically seem to give trust.
worthy assurance that a new and more
'suspicious era is dawning upon our long
distracted country. Some of the best
years and best efforts of my life


were devoted to q struggle against
chattel slavery, struggle none the
less earnest or arduous because
respect for constitutional obligations
constrained me to act for the most
part on the defensive, or resistance to the
diffusion rather than in direct efforts
for the extinction of human bondage.
Throughout most ot those years my vision
was uncheered, and my exertions were
rarely animated by even 80 much as q
hope that l should live to see my country
peopled by freemen. Alone the affirm.
ance by your convention Of the Cincinnati
platform Is most conclusive proof thai
not only is slavery abolished, but that Ii
spirit Is extinct, that despite the protests
Of 4 respectable but isolated few, there
remains among Us no party and no for


midable interest which regrets the over


throw or desires the re-establishment oil
human bondage whether In letter or spir.
it l am thereby iustiged in my hope
and trust that the first century of Amer


rican Independence will not close before
the grand elemental truths in which its
rightulness was based by Jefferson aud
the Continental Congress OF 70 will no
longer be regarded as generalities but will


have become the universally accepted
and honored foundation OF our politicaI
fabric, and demand the prompt applica


ton Of those principles to our existing
condition. Having done what could fol
the complete emancipation Of the blacks


l now insist on full enfranchisemeni
Of all my white countrymen. Let men
say that the bar has been removed from
all but q few hundred gentlemen, tc
whom eligibility 10 Office can be OF little
consequence. My view contemplated moi
the hundreds but the millions who are
denied the right to be ruled and repre-,
sented, and by men Of their untetteret
choice. Prescription were absurd /


they do not wish TO elect The
very men who they are forbidden
to choose. I have profound regard fol
the people Of that New England wherein
l was born, and In whose common schools


l was taught. l rank no other people
above them in intelligence, capacity sni
moral worth; but while they do man,
things well, some admirably, there Is on
thing which I am sure that they canno
wisely and safely do, and that Is The sc
lection torseats remote from and unlik


their own, Of the persons by whom thos,
States shall be represented in Congress
Il they could do this to q good purpose
then Republican institutions are unit ant
arstocricy the only lone political system


Yet what have we recently witnessed


Zebulon B. Vance, the unquestioneC
choice Of large majority Of the presen
Legislature Of North Carolina, q majoriti
backed bya majority Of the people VIII


voted at It's election, Is refused the sea
in the Federal Senate to which he wa
fairly chosen. The Legislature was thu
constrained to choose another In his steat
or leave the State unrepresented for


lyear. The votes OF New England thu