POLITICAL ISSUES OF 1868.

SPEECH DELIVERED AT ORWELL, OHIO,

AUGUST 28, 1868.

ELLOW-CITIZENS, — This vast audience reminds me of

FELL

years ago, and which was addressed by Governor Tod1 and myself. I remember at that time the Governor said that it was probably one of the last campaigns in which he would find it necessary to stay away from the old Democratic party; that he had joined the Union party only for the purpose of putting down the Rebellion and restoring the Union; that he trusted by the time another year had passed the great work would be accomplished, and that the Democratic party would renew the discussion of other questions and other issues on which the entire party could agree. But four years have passed by, and you still find the Governor battling for the same great cause, and manfully advocating the same great doctrines, - still pleading and laboring for the success of the Union party. Governor Tod now makes another prophecy, that he will yet be permitted to die in the bosom of the old party. But, fellowcitizens, there are two objections to this prophecy. In the first place, I am sure that the people of Ohio object to his dying altogether; but if that event cannot be prevented, then, in the second place, so long as the Democratic party maintains its present character and position before the country, I am sure all good men will object to his dying in its bosom, if die he must. He represents one wing of the great Democratic party of former days, the wing whose leader was Stephen A. Douglass, that great statesman who, in the crisis of 1861, declared that, in view

1 Hon. David Tod, Governor of Ohio from 1862 to 1864, who had just addressed the Republican mass meeting at Orwell.

of the Rebellion then beginning, there could be but two parties in this country, patriots and traitors. The Governor joined the Union party, not for three years only, but for the war. The war in which he enlisted is not yet ended. We are to-day fighting the same battles, and endeavoring to maintain the same doctrines and principles which were in issue four years ago.

I had supposed, fellow-citizens, that in the campaign of this fall the Democratic party would permit the dead past to bury its dead; that we should be permitted to look forward, and not backward; that they would find their issues in the great questions of the day, not of the past, but of the present and the future. I had supposed Democrats remembered that there had been a war; that the Rebellion had been crushed; that slavery had been abolished; but it seems from their speeches and their papers that they do not remember these things.

In conducting the present campaign, it will not be profitable to discuss those questions upon which the Democratic party are divided; the only legitimate discussion on our part will be on those questions where they are united, and where they antagonize us.

The party do not agree on any financial doctrine. They are not all free-traders, neither are they all tariff men. Some Democrats are in favor of the national banks, and others are in favor of totally abolishing these banks. Those who follow the lead of Mr. Pendleton are in favor of paying the bonds in greenbacks, and those who follow Horatio Seymour denounce the greenback theory of Pendleton as fraudulent and wicked. Some of the leaders are in favor of resuming specie payments; other leaders oppose this, and insist upon another deluge of greenbacks. If it is said that Mr. Pendleton secured the platform adopted by the New York Convention, it must be admitted that those utterly opposed to his doctrines secured the nomination. I therefore affirm here to-day that the Democratic party are not a unit on any leading financial question.

They were not even united in their choice of a Presidential candidate. Seventeen different candidates disputed the honor of the nomination. Many days and many ballots were required to make the selection of a standard-bearer; and when the choice was finally made, it was received very coldly in many parts of the country. The party were far from being satisfied with Mr. Seymour. But, fellow-citizens, there was one man

and one measure on which the Democratic party were united. That man was Francis P. Blair, and that measure was the prominent doctrine contained in Blair's letter. To that letter. I desire to call your attention.

General Blair addressed his letter nominally to Colonel Brodhead, but really to the great Democratic Convention at New York; not as a private citizen, but as an aspirant for the VicePresidency of the United States, and with the boldness characteristic of the man. He told that convention that questions of finance, whether of taxation, currency, greenbacks, or bonds, were mere trifles in comparison with the one great question of the hour. That question, he affirmed, was the question of the reconstruction of the Southern States. That issue he placed in the foreground, declaring that it overshadows all other issues. of the campaign. His declaration on this subject was not general, but specific and pointed. He not only declared that all the reconstruction acts of Congress are null and void, but he announced the purpose of the Democratic party to overturn them. That I may do him no injustice, I quote from his letter. Notice his remarkable language:

"There is but one way to restore the government and the Constitution; and that is for the President elect to declare these acts null and void, compel the army to undo its usurpation at the South, disperse the carpet-bag State governments, allow the white people to reorganize their own governments and elect Senators and Representatives. The House of Representatives will contain a majority of Democrats from the North, and they will admit the Representatives elected by the white people of the South; and, with the co-operation of the President, it will not be difficult to compel the Senate to submit once more to the obligations of the Constitution."

"1

Compel the army to undo the work of Congress in the Southern States! When did the Democratic party ever compel the army to do anything in the war? Three quarters of a million of Democratic rebels in our front attempted to compel the army, but signally failed. Thousands of Democrats behind us undertook to compel our army to withdraw, and give up the war, but their compulsion did not succeed. In 1864 they declared the war a failure, and demanded the withdrawal of the troops from the South. But Democrats neither in the front nor in the rear were ever able to compel the army to do anything, and it is too 1 McPherson's History of Reconstruction, p. 381.

late in the day now for Frank Blair, or any other Democrat, to undertake to compel the army to undo the work accomplished by Congress in the way of reconstruction.

But lest I be charged with quoting only the utterance of a single man, lest any one say this is only the doctrine of Frank Blair, and not of the Democratic party, I will say that, on this declaration, he received the nomination for Vice-President, and received it by acclamation. It took a long time to get a candidate for President, but Blair was chosen on the first ballot, and unanimously, because of this clause in his letter. He was chosen to represent the spirit of that letter. When the party came to the construction of their platform of principles, Wade Hampton, of South Carolina, a general of the Rebel army, told the Committee on Resolutions that the South asked one thing, that the principles set forth in Blair's letter should be made the principles of the party; and the Committee on Resolutions reported the declaration which stands in the platform as the utterance of the whole Democratic party, that the Reconstruction Acts, so called, of Congress, are usurpations, unconstitutional, and revolutionary. So, then, the issue is made up. The doctrine of Frank Blair and Wade Hampton has become the doctrine of the great Democratic party. On that issue General Blair declares that the battle is to be fought; that that issue overshadows and overrides all other questions; that by the side of it all others are mere trifles. Let me here say to the Democracy, the Republican party accept your challenge; we are ready to meet you on your own chosen ground, and fight the battle of this campaign.

I need not review all the reconstruction measures; many of the questions are already settled; but I will briefly state, first, the grounds on which both Democrats and Republicans agree, and then the grounds of difference between them.

All parties agree that, when the Rebellion collapsed, in 1865, the whole Confederate establishment fell into ruins; that all the governments of the eleven Rebel States were utterly destroyed, and that there was no officer left, from governor to constable, whom the national government could or did recognize. All power in all these States had been based upon the Confederate government, and when that exploded all governments fell together. To prove this I need only quote Andrew Johnson, afterwards the leader of the Democratic party. He declared,

in 1865, that all civil government in the Rebel States was overturned and destroyed. On this question, then, both parties agree. There is no issue here.

But, further, both parties agree that, after the disappearance of State governments in the South, it became the duty of the United States to guarantee to those States lately in rebellion a republican form of government. This was acknowledged to be in accordance with the Constitution. By the wisdom and forethought of our fathers this important provision had been inserted in the Constitution, and here had at last arisen a case for the exercise of the power.

Thus far no difference of opinion had arisen between the two parties. But at this point a very curious question arose. It was this: "Who is the United States?" While this question was before the country, a humble individual from Tennessee stepped forward and said, "Gentlemen, I am the United States; I will do the work." Congress at the time was not in session, and could not contest the pretensions of this gentleman who claimed to be the United States, Mr. Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee. So he went to work to construct republican governments for the Rebel States. He first picked out certain men whom he appointed governors, putting one in each State. These governors fixed up their State Constitutions, but with the solitary exception of Tennessee they were never submitted to the people at all. When Congress met, Mr. Johnson came to the door with a whole armful of documents, and said: "Gentlemen of Congress, here are some States I have been making; I want you to take them in. I have also," he said, "elected eighty men as representatives of these States, whom I want you to admit as members of your houses." We looked at Johnson, then at the representatives, and then at the litter of States he brought us. We looked at the workman, and then at his work, and said, " Mr. Johnson, in the first place, you are not the United States; and in the second place, if you were, you have made a wretched botch of your work." Congress looked at the eighty representatives who were asking to come in, and they saw that, with three or four exceptions, every man among them had blood on his hands. With those exceptions, every man had either been a leader in the Rebel army, or had assisted in originating the Rebellion and in carrying it on. We were asked by the Democratic party and by Johnson to admit these unwashed,