make the world ashamed of them.

There is another question to which the Republican party has committed itself, and on the line of which it has accomplished, as I believe, much for the prosperity of this country. I believe the Republican party is pledged and ought to be pledged to the doctrine of the protection of American industries and American labor. I believe that in so far as our native inventive genius—which seems to have no limit—our productive forces can supply the American market, we ought to keep it for ourselves. And yet this new captain on the bridge seems to congratulate himself on the fact that the voyage is still prosperous notwithstanding the change of commanders; who seems to forget that the reason that the voyage is still prosperous is because the course of the ship was marked out before he went on the bridge and the rudder tied down. He has attempted to take a new direction since he has been in command, with a view of changing the sailing course of the old craft, but it has seemed to me that he has made the mistake of mistaking the flashlight of some British lighthouse for the light of day. I do not intend here to-night in this presence to discuss this tariff question in any detail. I only want to say that in the passage of what is now so flippantly called the war tariff, to raise revenue to carry on the war out of the protective duties which were then levied, there has come to this country a prosperity and development which would have been impossible without it, and that reversal of this policy now, at the suggestion of Mr. Cleveland, according to the line of the blind statesman from Texas, would be to stay and interrupt this march of prosperity on which we have entered. I am one of those uninstructed political economists that have an impression that some things may be too cheap; that I cannot find myself in full sympathy with this demand for cheaper coats, which seems to me necessarily to involve a cheaper man and woman under the coat. I believe it is true to-day that we have many things in this country that are too cheap, because whenever it is proved that the man or woman who produces any article cannot get a decent living out of it, then it is too cheap.

But I have not intended to discuss in detail any of these questions with which we have grappled, upon which we have proclaimed a policy, or which we must meet in the near future. I am only here to-night briefly to sketch to you the magnificent career of this party to which we give our allegiance—a union of the States, restored, cemented, regenerated; a Constitution cleansed of its compromises with slavery and brought into harmony with the immortal Declaration; a race emancipated, given citizenship and the ballot; a national credit preserved and elevated until it stands unequalled among the nations of the world; a currency more prized than the coin for which it may be exchanged; a story of prosperity more marvellous than was ever written by the historian before. This is in brief outline the magnificent way in which the Republican party has wrought. It stands to-day for a pure, equal, honest ballot the country over. It stands to-day without prejudice or malice, the well-wisher of every State in this Union; disposed to fill all the streams of the South with prosperity, and demanding only that the terms of the surrender at Appomattox shall be complied with. When that magnificent act of clemency was witnessed, when those sublime and gracious words were uttered by General Grant at Appomattox, the country applauded. We said to those misguided men: "Go home"—in the language of the parole—"and you shall be unmolested while you obey the laws in force at the place where you reside." We ask nothing more, but we cannot quietly submit to the fact, while it is true everywhere in the United States that the man who fought for years against his country is allowed the full, free, unrestricted exercise of his new citizenship, when it shall not also be true everywhere that every man who followed Lincoln in his political views, and every soldier who fought to uphold the flag, shall in the same full, ample manner be secured in his political rights.

This disfranchisement question is hardly a Southern question in all strictness. It has gone into Dakota, and the intelligent and loyal population of that Territory is deprived, was at the last election, and will be again, of any participation in the decision of national questions solely because the prevailing sentiment of Dakota is Republican. Not only that, but this disregard of purity and honesty in our elections invaded Ohio in an attempt to seize the United States Senate by cheating John Sherman, that gallant statesman, out of his seat in the Senate. And it came here to Illinois, in an attempt also to defeat that man whom I loved so much, John A. Logan, out of his seat in the United States Senate. And it has come into our own State (Indiana) by tally-sheet frauds, committed by individuals, it is true, but justified and defended by the Democratic party of the State in an attempt to cheat us all out of our fair election majorities. It was and is a question that lies over every other question, for every other question must be submitted to this tribunal for decision, and if the tribunal is corrupted, why shall we debate questions at all? Who can doubt whether, in defeat or victorious, in the future as in the past, taking high ground upon all these questions, the same stirring cause that assembled our party in the beginning will yet be found drawing like a great magnet the young and intelligent moral elements of our country into the Republican organization? Defeated once, we are ready for this campaign which is impending, and I believe that the great party of 1860 is gathering together for the coming election with a force and a zeal and a resolution that will inevitably carry it, under that standard-bearer who may be chosen here in June, to victory in November.