The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume IX Part 18

What is General Hanc.o.c.k for, besides the presidency? How does he stand upon the great questions affecting American prosperity? He told us the other day that the tariff is a local question. The tariff affects every man and woman, live they in hut, hovel or palace; it affects every man that has a back to be covered or a stomach to be filled, and yet he says it is a local question. So is death. He also told us that he heard that question discussed once, in Pennsylvania. He must have been eavesdropping. And he tells us that his doctrine of the tariff will continue as long as Nature lasts. Then Senator Randolph wrote him a letter. I do not know whether Senator Randolph answered it or not; but that answer was worse than the first interview; and I understand now that another letter is going through a period of incubation at Governor's Island, upon the great subject of the tariff. It won't do!

They say one thing they are sure of, he is opposed to paying Southern pensions and Southern claims. He says that a man that fought against this Government has no right to a pension. Good! I say a man that fought against this Government has no right to office. If a man cannot earn a pension by tearing our flag out of the sky, he cannot earn power. [A Voice--"How about Longstreet?"] Longstreet has repented of what he did.

Longstreet admits that he was wrong. And there was no braver officer in the Southern Confederacy. Every man of the South who will say, "I made a mistake"--I do not want him to say that he knew he was wrong--all I ask him to say is that he now thinks he was wrong; and every man of the South to-day who says he was wrong, and who says from this day forward, henceforth and forever, he is for this being a Nation.

I will take him by the hand. But while he is attempting to do at the ballot-box what he failed to accomplish upon the field of battle, I am against him; while he uses a Northern general to bait a Southern trap, I won't bite. I will forgive men when they deserve to be forgiven; but while they insist that they were right, while they insist that State Sovereignty is the proper doctrine, I am opposed to their climbing into power.

Hanc.o.c.k says that he will not pay these claims; he agrees to veto a bill that his party may pa.s.s; he agrees in advance that he will defeat a party that he expects will elect him; he, in effect, says to the people, "You can not trust that party, but you can trust me." He says, "Look at them; I admit they are a hungry lot; I admit that they haven't had a bite in twenty years; I admit that an ordinary famine is satiety compared to the hunger they feel. But between that vast appet.i.te known as the Democratic party, and the public treasury, I will throw the shield of my veto." No man has a right to say in advance what he will veto, any more than a judge has a right to say in advance how he will decide a case. The veto power is a distinction with which the Const.i.tution has clothed the Executive, and no President has a right to say that he will veto until he has heard both sides of the question. But he agrees in advance.

I would rather trust a party than a man. Death may veto Hanc.o.c.k, and Death has not been a successful politician in the United States.

Tyler, Fillmore, Andy Johnson--I do not wish Death to elect any more Presidents; and if he does, and if Hanc.o.c.k is elected, William H.

English becomes President of the United States. No, no, no! All I need to say about him is simply to p.r.o.nounce his name; that is all. You do not want him. Whether the many stories that have been told about him are true or not I do not know, and I will not give currency to a solitary word against the reputation of an American citizen unless I know it to be true. What I have against him is what he has done in public life.

When Charles Sumner, that great and splendid publicist--Charles Sumner, the philanthropist, one who spoke to the conscience of his time and to the history of the future--when he stood up in the United States Senate and made a great and glorious plea for human liberty, there crept into the Senate a villain and struck him down as though he had been a wild beast. That man was a member of Congress, and when a resolution was introduced in the House, to expel that man, William H. English voted "No." All the stories in the world could not add to the infamy of that public act. That is enough for me, and whatever his private life may be, let it be that of an angel, never, never, never would I vote for a man that would defend the a.s.sa.s.sin of free speech. General Hanc.o.c.k, they tell me, is a statesman; that what little time he has had to spare from war he has given to the tariff, and what little time he could spare from the tariff he has given to the Const.i.tution of his country; showing under what circ.u.mstances a Major-General can put at defiance the Congress of the United States. It won't do!

But while I am upon that subject it may be well for me to state that he never will be President of the United States. Now, I say that a man who in time of peace prefers peace, and prefers the avocations of peace; a man who in the time of peace would rather look at the corn in the air of June, rather listen to the hum of bees, rather sit by his door with his wife and children; the man who in time of peace loves peace, and yet when the blast of war blows in his ears, shoulders a musket and goes to the field of war to defend his country, and when the war is over goes home and again pursues the avocations of peace--that man is just as good, to say the least of it, as a man who in a time of profound peace makes up his mind that he would like to make his living killing other folks. To say the least of it, he is as good.

The Republicans have named as their standard bearers James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur. James A. Garfield was a volunteer soldier, and he took away from the field of Chickamauga as much glory as any one man could carry. He is not only a soldier--7-he is a statesman. He has studied and discussed all the great questions that affect the prosperity and well-being of the American people. His opinions are well known, and I say to you tonight that there is not in this Nation, there is not in this Republic a man with greater brain and greater heart than James A.

Garfield. I know him and I like him. I know him as well as any other public man, and I like him. The Democratic party say that he is not honest. I have been reading some Democratic papers to-day, and you would say that every one of their editors had a private sewer of his own into which has been emptied for a hundred years the slops of h.e.l.l. They tell me that James A. Garfield is not honest. Are you a Democrat? Your party tried to steal nearly half of this country. Your party stole the armament of a nation. Your party was willing to live upon the unpaid labor of four millions of people. You have no right to the floor for the purpose of making a motion of honesty. James A. Garfield has been at the head of the most important committees of Congress; he is a member of the most important one of the whole House. He has no peer in the Congress of the United States. And you know it. He is the leader of the House.

With one wave of his hand he can take millions from the pocket of one industry and put it into the pocket of another; with a motion of his hand he could have made himself a man of wealth, but he is to-night a poor man. I know him and I like him. He is as genial as May and he is as generous as Autumn. And the men for whom he has done unnumbered favors, the men whom he had pity enough not to destroy with an argument, the men who, with his great generosity, he has allowed, intellectually, to live, are now throwing filth at the reputation of that great and splendid man.

Several ladies and gentlemen were pa.s.sing a muddy place around which were gathered ragged and wretched urchins. And these little wretches began to throw mud at them; and one gentleman said, "If you don't stop I will throw it back at you." And a little fellow said, "You can't do it without dirtying your hands, and it doesn't hurt us anyway."

I never was more profoundly happy than on the night of that 12th day of October when I found that between an honest and a kingly man and his maligners, two great States had thrown their shining shields. When Ohio said, "Garfield is my greatest son, and there never has been raised in the cabins of Ohio a grander man"--and when Indiana held up her hands and said, "Allow me to indorse that verdict," I was profoundly happy, because that said to me, "Garfield will carry every Northern State;"

that said to me, "The Solid South will be confronted by a great and splendid North."

I know Garfield--I like him. Some people have said, "How is it that you support Garfield, when he was a minister?" "How is it that you support Garfield when he is a Christian?" I will tell you. There are two reasons. The first is I am not a bigot; and secondly, James A. Garfield is not a bigot. He believes in giving to every other human being every right he claims for himself. He believes in freedom of speech and freedom of thought; untrammeled conscience and upright manhood. He believes in an absolute divorce between church and state. He believes that every religion should rest upon its morality, upon its reason, upon its persuasion, upon its goodness, upon its charity, and that love should never appeal to the sword of civil power. He disagrees with me in many things; but in the one thing, that the air is free for all, we do agree. I want to do equal and exact justice everywhere.

I want the world of thought to be without a chain, without a wall, and I wish to say to you, [turning toward Mr. Beecher and directly addressing him] that I thank you for what you have said to-night, and to congratulate the people of this city and country that you have intellectual horizon enough, intellectual sky enough to take the hand of a man, howsoever much he may disagree in some things with you, on the grand platform and broad principle of citizenship. James A. Garfield, believing with me as he does, disagreeing with me as he does, is perfectly satisfactory to me. I know him, and I like him.

Men are to-day blackening his reputation, who are not fit to blacken his shoes. He is a man of brain. Since his nomination he must have made forty or fifty speeches, and every one has been full of manhood and genius. He has not said a word that has not strengthened him with the American people. He is the first candidate who has been free to express himself and who has never made a mistake. I will tell you why he does not make a mistake; because he spoke from the inside out. Because he was guided by the glittering Northern Star of principle. Lie after lie has been told about him. Slander after slander has been hatched and put in the air, with its little short wings, to fly its day, and the last lie is a forgery.

I saw to-day the fac-simile of a letter that they pretend he wrote upon the Chinese question. I know his writing; I know his signature; I am well acquainted with his writing. I know handwriting, and I tell you to-night, that letter and that signature are forgeries. A forgery for the benefit of the Pacific States; a forgery for the purpose of convincing the American workingman that Garfield is without heart. I tell you, my fellow-citizens, that cannot take from him a vote. But Ohio pierced their centre and Indiana rolled up both flanks and the rebel line cannot re-form with a forgery for a standard. They are gone!

Now, some people say to me, "How long are you going to preach the doctrine of hate?" I never did preach it. In many States of this Union it is a crime to be a Republican. I am going to preach my doctrine until every American citizen is permitted to express his opinion and vote as he may desire in every State of this Union. I am going to preach my doctrine until this is a civilized country. That is all.

I will treat the gentlemen of the South precisely as we do the gentlemen of the North. I want to treat every section of the country precisely as we do ours-. I want to improve their rivers and their harbors; I want to fill their land with commerce; I want them to prosper; I want them to build schoolhouses; I want them to open the lands to immigration to all people who desire to settle upon their soil. I want to be friends with them; I want to let the past be buried forever; I want to let bygones be bygones, but only upon the basis that we are now in favor of absolute liberty and eternal justice. I am not willing to bury nationality or free speech in the grave for the purpose of being friends. Let us stand by our colors; let the old Republican party that has made this a Nation--the old Republican party that has saved the financial honor of this country--let that party stand by its colors.

Let that party say, "Free speech forever!" Let that party say, "An honest ballot forever!" Let that party say, "Honest money forever! the Nation and the flag forever!" And let that party stand by the great men carrying her banner, James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur. I would rather trust a party than a man. If General Garfield dies, the Republican party lives; if General Garfield dies, General Arthur will take his place--a brave, honest, and intelligent gentleman, upon whom every Republican can rely. And if he dies, the Republican party lives, and as long as the Republican party does not die, the great Republic will live. As long as the Republican party lives, this will be the asylum of the world. Let me tell you, Mr. Irishman, this is the only country on the earth where Irishmen have had enough to eat. Let me tell you, Mr. German, that you have more liberty here than you had in the Fatherland. Let me tell you, all men, that this is the land of humanity.

Oh! I love the old Republic, bounded by the seas, walled by the wide air, domed by heaven's blue, and lit with the eternal stars. I love the Republic; I love it because I love liberty. Liberty is my religion, and at its altar I worship, and will worship.

ADDRESS TO THE 86TH ILLINOIS REGIMENT.

* This is only a fragment of a speech made by Col. Ingersoll at Peoria, 111., in 1866, to the 86th Illinois Regiment, at their anniversary meeting.

PEORIA, ILLS.

1865.

THE history of the past four years seems to me like a terrible dream.

It seems almost impossible that the events that have now pa.s.sed into history ever happened. That hundreds of thousands of men, born and reared under one flag, with the same history, the same future, and, in truth, the same interests, should have met upon the terrible field of death, and for four long years should have fought with a bitterness and determination never excelled; that they should have filled our land with orphans and widows, and made our country hollow with graves, is indeed wonderful; but that the people of the South should have thus fought--thus attempted to destroy and overthrow the Government founded by the heroes of the Revolution--merely for the sake of perpetuating the infamous inst.i.tution of slavery, is wonderful almost beyond belief.

Strange that people should be found in this, the nineteenth century, to fight against freedom and to die for slavery! It is most wonderful that the terrible war ceased as suddenly as it did, and that the soldiers of the Republic, the moment that the angel of peace spread her white wings over our country, dropped from their hands the instruments of war and eagerly went back to the plough, the shop and the office, and are to-day, with the same determination that characterized them in battle, engaged in effacing every vestige of the desolation and destruction of war. But the progress we have made as a people is if possible still more astonishing. We pretended to be the lovers of freedom, yet we defended slavery. We quoted the Declaration of Independence and voted for the compromise of 1850.

From servility and slavishness we have marched to heroism. We were tyrants. We are liberators. We were slave-catchers. We are now the chivalrous breakers of chains.

From slavery, over a b.l.o.o.d.y and terrible path, we have marched to freedom. Hirelings of oppression, we have become the champions of justice--the defenders of the right--the pillar upon which rests the hope of the world. To whom are we indebted for this wonderful change?

Most of all to you, the soldiers of the great Republic. We thank you that the hands of time were not turned back a thousand years--that the Dark Ages did not again come upon the world--that Prometheus was not again chained--that the river of progress was not stopped or stayed--that the dear blood shed during all the past was not rendered vain--that the sublime faith of all the grand and good did not become a bitter dream, but a reality more glorious than ever entered into the imagination of the rapt heroes of the past. Soldiers of the Eighty-sixth Illinois, we thank you, and through you all the defenders of the Republic, living and dead. We thank you that the deluge of blood has subsided, that the ark of our national safety is at rest, that the dove has returned with the olive branch of peace, and that the dark clouds of war are in the far distance, covered with the beautiful bow.

In the name of humanity, in the name of progress, in the name of freedom, in the name of America, in the name of the oppressed of the whole world, we thank you again and again. We thank you, that in the darkest hour you never despaired of the Republic, that you were not dismayed, that through disaster and defeat, through cruelty and famine, through the serried ranks of the enemy, in spite of false friends, you marched resolutely, unflinchingly and bravely forward. Forward through shot and sh.e.l.l! Forward through fire and sword! Forward past the corpses of your brave comrades, buried in shallow graves by the hurried hands of heroes! Forward past the scattered bones of starved captives! Forward through the glittering bayonet lines, and past the brazen throats of the guns! Forward through the din and roar and smoke and h.e.l.l of war! Onward through blood and fire to the shining, glittering mount of perfect and complete victory, and from the top your august hands unfurled to the winds the old banner of the stars, and it waves in triumph now, and shall forever, from the St. Lawrence to the Rio Grande, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific!

We thank you that our waving fields of golden wheat and rustling corn are not trodden down beneath the b.l.o.o.d.y feet of invasion--that our homes are not ashes--that our hearthstones are not desolate--that our towns and cities still stand, that our temples and inst.i.tutions of learning are secure, that prosperity covers us as with a mantle, and, more than all, we thank you that the Republic still lives; that law and order reign supreme; that the Const.i.tution is still sacred; that a republican government has ceased to be only an experiment, and has become a certainty for all time; that we have by your heroism established the sublime and shining truth that a government by the people, for the people, can and will stand until governments cease among men; that you have given the lie to the impudent and infamous prophecy of tyranny, and that you have firmly established the Republic upon the great ideas of National Unity and Human Liberty.

We thank you for our commerce on the high seas, upon our lakes and beautiful rivers, for the credit of our nation, for the value of our money, and for the grand position that we now occupy among the nations of the earth. We thank you for every State redeemed, for every star brought back to glitter again upon the old flag, and we thank you for the grand future that you have opened for us and for our children through all the ages yet to come; and, not only for us and our children, but for mankind.

Thanks to your efforts our country is still an asylum for the oppressed of the Old World; the arms of our charity are still open, we still beckon them across the sea, and they come in mult.i.tudes,'leaving home, the graves of their sires, and the dear memories of the heart, and with their wives and little ones come to this, the only free land upon which the sun shines--and with their countless hands of labor add to the wealth, the permanence and the glory of our country. And let them come from the land of Luther, of Hampden and Emmett. Whoever is for freedom and the sacred rights of man is a true American, and as such, we welcome them all. We thank you to-day in the name of four millions of people, whose shackles you have so n.o.bly and generously broken, and who, from the condition of beasts of burden, have by your efforts become men. We thank you in the name of this poor and hitherto despised and insulted race, and say that their emanc.i.p.ation was, and is, the crowning glory of this most terrible war. Peace without liberty could have been only a b.l.o.o.d.y delusion and a snare. Freedom is peace; Slavery is war.

We must act justly and honorably with these emanc.i.p.ated men, knowing that the eyes of the civilized world are upon us. We must do what is best for both races. We must not be controlled merely by party.

If the Government is founded upon principle, it will stand against the shock of revolution and foreign war as long as liberty is sacred, the rights of man respected, and honor dwells in the hearts of men.

We thank you for the lesson that has been taught the Old World by your patriotism and valor; believing that when the people shall have learned that sublime and divine lesson, thrones will become kingless, kings crownless, royalty an epitaph, the purple of power the shroud of death, the chains of tyranny will fall from the bodies of men, the shackles of superst.i.tion from the souls of the people, the spirit of persecution will fly from the earth, and the banner of Universal Freedom, with the words "Civil and Religious Liberty for the World" written upon every fold, blazing from every star, will float over every land and sea under the whole heavens.

We thank you for the glorious past, for the still more glorious future, and will continue to thank you while our hearts are warm with life. We will gather around you in the hour of your death and soothe your last moments with our grat.i.tude. We will follow you tearfully to the narrow house of the dead, and over your sacred remains erect the whitest and purest marble. The hands of love will adorn your last abode, and the chisel will record that beneath rests the sacred dust of the Heroic Saviors of the Great Republic. Such ground will be holy, and future generations will draw inspiration from your tombs, courage from your heroic examples, patience and fort.i.tude from your sufferings, and strength eternal from your success.

I cannot stop without speaking of the heroic dead. It seems to me as though their spirits ought to hover over you to-day--that they might join with us in giving thanks for the great victory,--that their faces might grow radiant to think that their blood was not shed in vain,--that the living are worthy to reap the benefits of their sacrifices, their sufferings and death, and it almost seems as if their sightless eyes are suffused with tears. Then we think of the dear mothers waiting for their sons, of the devoted wives waiting for their husbands, of the orphans asking for fathers whose returning footsteps they can never hear; that while they can say "my country," they cannot say "my son," "my husband,"

or "my father."

My heart goes out to all the slain, to those heroic corpses sleeping far away from home and kindred in unknown and lonely graves, to those poor pieces of dear, bleeding earth that won for me the blessings I enjoy to-day.

Shall I recount their sufferings? They were starved day by day with a systematic and calculating cruelty never equaled by the most savage tribes. They were confined in dens as though they had been beasts, and then they slowly faded and wasted from life. Some were released from their sufferings by blessed insanity, until their parched and fevered lips, their hollow and glittering eyes, were forever closed by the angel of death. And thus they died, with the voices of loved ones in their ears; the faces of the dear absent hovering over them; around them their dying comrades, and the fiendish slaves of slavery.

And what shall I say more of the regiment before me? It is enough that you were a part of the great army that accomplished so much for America and mankind.

It is but just, however, to say that you were at the b.l.o.o.d.y field of Perryville, that you stood with Thomas at Chickamauga and kept at bay the rebel host, that you marched to the relief of Knoxville through bitter cold, hunger and privations, and had the honor of relieving that heroic garrison.

It is but just to say that you were with Sherman in his wonderful march through the heart of the Confederacy; that you were in the terrible charge at Kenesaw Mountain, and held your ground for days within a few steps of the rebel fortifications; that you were at Atlanta and took part in the terrible conflict before that city and marched victoriously through her streets; that you were at Savannah; that you had the honor of being present when Johnson surrendered, and his ragged rebel horde laid down their arms; that from there you marched to Washington and beneath the shadow of the glorious dome of our Capitol, that lifts from the earth as though jealous of the stars, received the grandest national ovation recorded in the annals of the world.

DECORATION DAY ORATION.

* At the Memorial Celebration of the Grand Army of the Republic last evening the Academy of Music was filled to overflowing, within a few minutes after the opening of the doors.