standing on a mountain height, traces the victorious footsteps of our party in the past, and, carrying in his heart the memory of its glorious deeds, looks forward prepared to meet the dangers to come. We want one who will act in no spirit of unkindness toward those we lately met in battle. The Republican party offers to our brethren of the South the olive-branch of peace, and invites them to renewed brotherhood on this supreme condition, that it shall be admitted forever, that in the war for the Union we were right and they were wrong. On that supreme condition we meet them as brethren, and ask them to share with us the blessings and honors of this great republic.

Now, gentlemen, not to weary you, I am about to present a name for your consideration, the name of one who was the comrade, associate, and friend of nearly all the noble dead, whose faces look down upon us from these walls to-night;1 a man who began his career of public service twenty-five years ago, who courageously confronted the slave power in the days of peril on the plains of Kansas, when first began to fall the red drops of that bloody shower which finally swelled into the deluge of gore in the late rebellion. He bravely stood by young Kansas, and, returning to his seat in the national Legislature, his pathway through all the subsequent years has been marked by labors worthily performed in every department of legislation.

His

You ask for his monument. I point you to twenty-five years of national statutes. Not one great, beneficent law has been placed on our statute-books without his intelligent and powerful aid. He aided in formulating the laws to raise the great armies and navies which carried us through the war. His hand was seen in the workmanship of those statutes that restored and brought back "the unity and married calm of States." hand was in all that great legislation that created the war currency, and in the still greater work that redeemed the promises of the government and made the currency equal to gold. When at last he passed from the halls of legislation into a high executive office, he displayed that experience, intelligence, firmness, and poise of character, which have carried us through a stormy period of three years, with one half the public press crying "Crucify him!" and a hostile Congress seeking to prevent success. In all this he remained unmoved until victory crowned

1 Referring to portraits of Lincoln, Sumner, Wade, Chandler, and others, hanging in the hall.

him. The great fiscal affairs of the nation, and the vast business interests of the country, he guarded and preserved while executing the law of resumption, and effected its object without a jar, and against the false prophecies of one half of the press and of all the Democratic party. He has shown himself able to meet with calmness the great emergencies of the government. For twenty-five years he has trodden the perilous heights of public duty, and against all the shafts of malice has borne his breast unharmed. He has stood in the blaze of "that fierce light that beats against the throne"; but its fiercest ray has found no flaw in his armor, no stain upon his shield. I do not present him as a better Republican or a better man than thousands of others that we honor; but I present him for your deliberate and favorable consideration. I nominate John Sherman, of Ohio.

LETTER ACCEPTING THE NOMINATION

FOR THE PRESIDENCY.

DE

MENTOR, OHIO, July 12, 1880.

EAR SIR,- On the evening of the 8th of June last I had the honor to receive from you, in the presence of the committee of which you were chairman, the official announcement that the Republican National Convention at Chicago had that day nominated me as their candidate for President of the United States. I accept the nomination with gratitude for the confidence it implies, and with a deep sense of the responsibilities it imposes. I cordially endorse the principles set forth in the platform adopted by the Convention. On nearly all the subjects of which it treats, my opinions are on record among the published proceedings of Congress. I venture, however, to make special mention of some of the principal topics which are likely to become subjects of discussion.

Without reviewing the controversies which have been settled during the last twenty years, and with no purpose or wish to revive the passions of the late war, it should be said that, while Republicans fully recognize and will strenuously defend all the rights retained by the people, and all the rights reserved to the States, they reject the pernicious doctrine of State supremacy which so long crippled the functions of the national government, and at one time brought the Union very near to destruction. They insist that the United States is a nation, with ample power of self-preservation; that its Constitution, and the laws. made in pursuance thereof, are the supreme law of the land; that the right of the nation to determine the method by which its own legislature shall be created cannot be surrendered without abdicating one of the fundamental powers of government; that the national laws relating to the election of Representatives in Congress shall neither be violated nor evaded; that

every elector shall be permitted freely and without intimidation. to cast his lawful ballot at such election, and have it honestly counted, and that the potency of his vote shall not be destroyed by the fraudulent vote of any other person.

The best thoughts and energies of our people should be directed to those great questions of national well-being in which all have a common interest. Such efforts will soonest restore perfect peace to those who were lately in arms against each other, for justice and good-will will outlast passion. But it is certain that the wounds of the war cannot be completely healed, and the spirit of brotherhood cannot fully pervade the whole country, until every citizen, rich or poor, white or black, is secure in the free and equal enjoyment of every civil and political right guaranteed by the Constitution and the laws. Wherever the enjoyment of these rights is not assured, discontent will prevail, immigration will cease, and the social and industrial forces will continue to be disturbed by the migration of laborers and the consequent diminution of prosperity. The national government should exercise all its constitutional authority to put an end to these evils; for all the people and all the States are members of one body, and no member can suffer without injury to all. The most serious evils which now afflict the South arise from the fact that there is not such freedom and toleration of political opinion and action that the minority party can exercise an effective and wholesome restraint upon the party in power. Without such restraint party rule becomes tyrannical and corrupt. The prosperity which is made possible in the South by its great advantage of soil and climate will never be realized until every voter can freely and safely support any party he pleases.

Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained. Its interests are intrusted to the States, and to the voluntary action of the people. Whatever help the nation can justly afford should be generously given to aid the States in supporting common schools; but it would be unjust to our people, and dangerous to our institutions, to apply any portion of the revenues of the nation, or of the States, to the support of sectarian schools. The separation of the Church and the State in everything relating to taxation should be absolute.

On the subject of national finances, my views have been so frequently and fully expressed that little is needed in the way of additional statement. The public debt is now so well secured, and the rate of annual interest has been so reduced by refunding, that rigid economy in expenditures, and the faithful application of our surplus revenues to the payment of the principal of the debt, will gradually, but certainly, free the people from its burdens, and close with honor the financial chapter of the war. At the same time, the government can provide for all its ordinary expenditures, and discharge its sacred obligations to the soldiers of the Union, and to the widows and orphans of those who fell in its defence. The resumption of specie payments, which the Republican party so courageously and successfully accomplished, has removed from the field of controversy many questions that long and seriously disturbed the credit of the government and the business of the country. Our paper currency is now as national as the flag, and resumption has not only made it everywhere equal to coin, but has brought into use our store of gold and silver. The circulating medium is more abundant than ever before, and we need only to maintain the equality of all our dollars to insure to labor and capital a measure of value from the use of which no one can suffer loss. The great prosperity which the country is now enjoying should not be endangered by any violent changes or doubtful financial experiments.

In reference to our customs laws a policy should be pursued which will bring revenues to the treasury, and will enable the labor and capital employed in our great industries to compete fairly in our own markets with the labor and capital of foreign producers. We legislate for the people of the United States, and not for the whole world; and it is our glory that the American laborer is more intelligent and better paid than his foreign competitor. Our country cannot be independent unless its people, with their abundant natural resources, possess the requisite skill at any time to clothe, arm, and equip themselves for war, and in time of peace to produce all the necessary implements of labor. It was the manifest intention of the founders of the government to provide for the common defence, not by standing armies alone, but by raising among the people a greater army of artisans, whose intelligence and skill should powerfully contribute to the safety and glory of the nation.