Year: 1872

anu tuelT WTOuSS, tWO years DclOIO uc Cdlle lItt
the Presidency tried to devise plan by which
the Indians should receive what the Government
appropriated for them. When he came into
power he invited the Christian denominations o.
the country to select some good men whom hs
could send out to see that the Indians were moi
cheated and they selected men like George H
Stuart; like Friend Lang, in Maine; like Friend
Hoag, of Iowa; like William E. Dodge, of New
York and like Edward s. Tobey, of Massa-
chusetts some of the noblest, best and purest
men who tread the earth. These noble men
have worked these three years to save these poor
Indians from being wronged. The Indian policy
/ of General Grant, were there nothing else, is
enough to immortalize any Administrations that
ever existed in the country, from the foundation
of the country. Applause. 1t has more OF
justice in it, more of humanity, more of the
spirit of the divine Master than can be found
in any other deed of the Government, except the
emancipation of the slaves 1t stands by the
side of that grand act among the great achieve
ments of the nation. 1t will be acknowledged
hereafter, it will go into history, and men will
applaud it, when many of the men who are as
sailing the present Administration sleep in for
gotten graves.


This Administration came into power with the
pledge to maintain the faith and honor of the
country, then weakly or wickedly assailed
During these last thirty five months there has
been paid $2S7,000,000, saving nearly eighteen
million dollars year in interest This money
has been mostly saved on the one hand, by an
honest collection of the revenues, for we col
lected the first fifteen months of General Grants
administration, S67000,000 more than was col
lected under the same laws in the last fifteen
months of Johnson's administration and on the
other hand, by a reduction of the expenses of
the Government. From these two sources we
have paid this S2S7,000,O00. Throughout the
financial world it is matter of wonder and
amazement that the financial policy of the
United States should be so successful. We
elected General Grant pledged to maintain the
faith of the nation to make our debt sacred
and what is the result? Why, the 500, 900, 900
of currency is worth to-day $40, 900, 900 (twen-
ty per cent more than it was three years ago
The laboring man who has earned two dollars
to-day has received forty cents, in real gold
value, more than he would have received three
years ago this day There has been added
twenty per cent. to every dollar the laboring men
of this country have earned this day these many
months and it has been added because of the
signal fidelity and ability with which that pledge
has been kept to maintain the faith of the
nation, honestly collect the revenues, reduce
expenses, and extinguish the national debt as
fast as we could.


We have a class of men who always look
ing behind them. They have never been salts
fed. They have taken their position on the
great issues of the last forty years and been
wrong every time. They linger behind their
age All their predictions have failed They
are the instruments of defeats and failures
Still these men continue to believe that all the
craftsmanship of the country is gone. They
once looked up at the slave masters of the South
who were their masters, too, when they stood on
the heads of their negroes. They looked pretty
tall then A great convulsion came and it
shook them from their high position and they
look quite as small now as other people. But
our Democratic friends do not see it; the old
illusion still haunts them. To hear these men
talk you would suppose General Grant vastly
inferior to such great magnificent statesman as
Polk, Pierce, and Buchanan. Who is General
Grant-this man so denounced? When the war
opened he earning few hundred dollars a
year, tanning leather in Galena. He offered his
services to the nation and they were not ac-
cepted. He went down to Springfield and served
there for some weeks, helping to enroll and
organize the regiments they were raising in Hi
nois. Finally, they gave him regiment. He
had not money enough to buy sword with
| which to fight the battles of his country,
horse to ride You did not know anything about





had heard of him. He had served in the Mexi-
can war when young man, fresh from West
Point, and won two brevets for gallant conduct,
but nobody knew anything of this humble man.
He took his regiment and marched away. He
never asked anything of the Government; he
never disobeyed an order he never made any
complaint He went straight forward and did
his duty, quiet, silent, modest man.


About the first thing we heard of him was that
he took about twenty-five thousand men up the
Tennessee river, moved on the enemy's works.
attacked an army of twenty thousand rebels, and
captured fifteen thousand of them. You next
heard of him coming ON the field of Shiloh when
it was nearly lost, and when asked if he had pre-
pared for a retreat he said that one boat would
take all that would retreat. He defeated the
rebel army that had been nearly victorious. Then
he went down the Mississippi river, passed Vicks
burg, made movement into the country, attack
ed the rebel armies, captured Vicksburg and
then you find him at Chattanooga to restore
lost battle You have heard of the magnificent
victory he won on Mission ridge and Lookout
mountain


He was then brought to Washington, and took
command of the armies of the country, led the
army of the Potomac through the Wilderness
fighting every day in the month of May, 1884
He placed his army before Richmond and when
the hour came moved upon the doomed city,
and received the surrender of the rebel army at
Appomattox Nineteen battles behind him, and
all victories He did not march his army to
make parade through the rebel capital. but
started off alone with his carpet-bag in his hand
for Washington, to stop the raising of troops and
the manufacture of munitions to make prepara-
tions to disband the army and save expense, and
to save what we regarded, and what we all re
garded as very important thing, general bank
ruptcy in the country.


We Republicans turned to this man when
Andrew johnson failed u.s. and asked him to be
President He did not seek the Presidency; he
felt and said that his place at the head of the
Army was the post for him. We made him Pre-
sident and it was his strength and commanding
influence that carried the fourteenth amendment.
That some potent influence carried the fifteenth
amendment, and gave the black men the right to
vote in all the States. When a wall of distress
came up from the South, when poor black men
prayed for protection from the murderous blows
of the midnight assassins of the Ku Klux dens,
Congress hesitated, faltered, divided. Then it
was that he came forth with the brief message
that rallied our scattered ranks like a battle
order Clothed with authority he has striven to
protect the weak against the cruelties of the
strong. Many hundred members of the Ku Klux
bar hoo, TOD haa