Year: 1872

y
to use the language of friend Horace, you will
find most OF them in the bosom of the Demo-
cratic party. While abuses undoubtedly arose
in the execution of the Reconstruction meas
ures, yet the Republican party and General
Grant may proudly claim that each and and all
of them were wise measures adopted with
much consideration and ON the whole admirably
executed As for the Ku-Klux law, one of the
latest of these measures, it was framed to meet
the most atroclous crimes against population
of millions of poor, ignorant and innocent men
and women-the atrocity of the Ku-Klux sur
passed the barbarity of h-n, and should have
been and were met by Republican Congress
and by Gen. Grant with an unfinching d9ter-
mination to suppress them at all hazards. How
wisely how firmly it was done, is matter of
history.


So, fellow-citizens with our foreign policy.
/ do not claim for General Grants Administra-
ton any peculiar merit for its foreign policy,
for this policy is that of the whole country, and
not of party. Our only dispute has been with
England on account of the long deferred Aia-
bana claims and the only criticism we have
met is that we presented our claims too
strongly. The arbitrators have so decide d /;
but these claims will forever stand, and the
facts that gave rise to them will forever
stand, as an historic record of the most
ungenerous conduct that was ever dealt out
by one nation to another, aggravated many
fold by our kinship, our affinities of lal.-
guage and religion and of our immense com
merce, greater than that between any two
nations in the world. We will get no money
from England for consequential damages, but
we have the satisfaction that by Republican
policy her aid to the Rebels did not destroy
our nation, but that now, by natural causes,
we have already passed her in population, and
soon will in wealth and in all the elements
which constitute a State.


Some complaint made by General Schurz
and Mr.. Sumner at the sale blythe United States
of arms during the German and French war,
but this matter was most thoroughly lnvestiga
ted, and it was fully established that what was
done was not done by General Grant, but was
done by the Secretary OF War, under a specific
power given by Congress. And that this sale
of those arms was not only in accordance with
our own law, but of international law, and that
when the attention of Bismarck called to
rthe pending sales, he made no objections and
never found the slightest fault with our Govern
ment. 1t was a political cry got up to excite
our German fellow-citizens against Grant.


And so with all the investigations aimed at Gen.
Grant. They are the common weapons of Amer
lean politics. They thundered in the tones of
Sumner carefully studied and long drawn out !;
they flashed in the invective of Schulz; they
dropped from the pen of Trumbull. thou
sand orators and thousand papers joined in
the cry. The Democratic leaders, seeing a
chance for success, dropped their principles and
Joined in the hunt for Grant but then he is SIM
pie, discreet, patriotic, manly, honest-the same
soldier who commanded our armies at Fort
Donelson, at Vicksburg, in the Wilderness, at
Petersburg-the modest hero, the generous foe,
once elected by the people when the Republican
party needed his aid-secure in the confidence
of the people. Though he is no politician, he
does not know how to humor great men, to play
them of against each other, to smooth, with
honied words or ambiguous phrases. This is
the man whom these defeated and disappointed
partisans would hunt to his grave. 1t is for
the people to say whether they will succeed
The Republican masses adhere to General
Grant. They nominated him. He has the
same hold upon them that Lincoln had. They
know that General Grant is not perfect. They
know that he appointed hall dozen of his
relatives to office. They know that before he
was President he accepted the grateful offerings
of wealthy people in New York and Phila6el-
phia, and they applauded both the givers and
the taker. They know General Grant-both
his virtues and his faults, his services and his
feelings They are generous; they are free from
the angry strifes OF political life. When they
weigh him and his accusers together they will
find he is worth them all. do not appeal to
you for him, but l do appeal to you to vote for
him, because it is for your interest to do SO; it
is for the interest of the whole country that you
do SO; it is for the honor of the country that he
be elected, which in future ages could not
prehend how 1t was possible that the American
people should for moment hesitate in confer


ring the highest civic honor between Horace
Greeley and General Grant


At the close of the speech three rousing
cheers were given for Senator Sherman.


/ The Chairman then introduced to the meet
ing Colonel j. W. Forney, of Philadelphia,


whose reputation was well known all over the
land. Col Forney was heartily received, and
entertained his audience for half an hour III
eloquent language, OF which the following is d
| cOndensad summary