cared for as paupers in the county poor-house, or shall the great nation they served and saved care for them as soldiers? I prefer the latter. I want the generations coming on to know that it is safe to abandon civil pursuits, throw wealth behind you and yourself into the bloody conflict for the nation's life; that republics are grateful, and that its soldiers will be taken care of."

At a reception at Indianapolis, December 5, 1887, to the Irish patriots, Hons. Esmonde and O'Connor, Senator Harrison was called for, and rising, said: "The hour is already so late that I will detain the audience but a mo

ment. I am glad to have the opportunity to hear the distinguished guests of the evening; men who in the British Parliament stand for home rule in Ireland. They have given me much fuller information than I had before of the oppressive character of the coercion acts. I was glad also to learn that the Irish people have shown such a steady and self-contained adherence to their rights, and such steadfastness in the assertion of them by lawful methods. We know that Irishmen have many a time in the struggle of their native land, and in our fight in America for constitutional government, thrown themselves upon the

bayonet of the enemies of liberty with reckless courage. It is gratifying to know that they can also make a quiet but unyielding resistance to oppression by parliamentary methods. I would rather be William O'Brien in Tullamore jail, a martyr to free speech, than the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in Dublin Castle."

At Indianapolis, on December 20, 1887, he addressed his fellow townsmen : "I suspect I am a poor political economist. But when I hear men talking, now, like ex-Senator McDonald, of the great benefit that is to come to our people when Democrats revise the tariff, especially in the shape of a cheap coat, I fail to find myself completely in sympathy with him. I think I saw the other day, in one of the Indianapolis papers, a good overcoat advertised for $1.87, and it must be a pretty mean man that wants to get one for a dollar. The simple fact is, gentlemen, many things are made and sold now too cheap; for I hold it to be true that whenever the market price is so low that the man or the woman who makes an article cannot get a fair living out of the making of it, it is too low. As Fred Grant said, 'A surplus is easier to handle than a deficit; but I do not deny that in connection with this surplus of about one hundred millions a year there is danger; there are dangers of profligacy of expenditure, and others, that require us to address ourselves promptly and intelligently to the question of a reduction of our revenue. I have said before, as your resolutions say, I would like to have that work done by Republicans, because I would like to have it done with reference to some great questions connected with the use of revenue about which I cannot trust my Democratic friends. I would like to have our coast defenses made secure; I would like to have our navy made respectable, so that an American naval officer, as he trod the deck of the ship bearing the starry banner at its head in any port throughout the world, and looked about upon her equipment and ornament, might feel that she was a match for the proudest ship that walked the sea under any other flag. I would like to feel that no third-rate power, aye, no first-rate power, could sail into our defenseless harbors and lay our great cities under tribute. I would like to feel that the just claim of the survivors of the Union army of the war were made secure and safe."

XI.

Speech at Detroit, February 22, 1888-Banquet of the Michigan Club-Significance of the FlagPrinciples of our Government-What is expected of the South-The Colored Republican Vote in the South-Suffrage always a Momentous Question-Crimes against the Ballot.

T the third annual banquet of the Michigan Club, of Detroit, Feb. 22, 1888, General Harrison delivered one of his most important. speeches :

"Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Michigan Club: Thesentiment which has been assigned me to-night-Washington, the Republican; a free and equal ballot the only guarantee of the nation's security and perpetuity '-is one that was supported with a boldness of utterance, with a defiance that was unexcelled by any leader, by Zachariah Chandler always and everywhere. As Republicans we are fortunate, as has been suggested, in the fact that there is nothing in the history of our party, nothing in the principles that we advocate, to make it impossible for us to gather and to celebrate the birthday of any American who honored or defended his country. We could even unite with our Democratic friends in celebrating the birthday of St. Jackson, because we enter into fellowship with him when we read his story of how by proclamation he put down nullification in South Carolina. We could meet with them to celebrate the birthday of Thomas Jefferson; because there is no note in the immortal Declaration or in the Constitution of our country that is out of harmony with Republicanism. But our Democratic friends are under limitation. They have a short calendar of saints, and they must omit from the history of those whose names are on their calendar the best achievements of their lives. I do not know what the party is preserved for. Its history reminds me of the bowlder in the stream of progress, impeding and resisting its onward flow and moving only by the force that it resists.

"I want to read a very brief extract from a most notable paper-one that was to-day in the Senate at Washington read from the desk by its presiding officer-the Farewell Address of Washington'; and while it is true that I cannot quote or find in the writings of Washington anything specifically referring to ballot-box fraud, to tissue ballots, to intimidation, to forged tally sheets, for the reason that these things had not come in his day to disturb the administration of the government, yet in the comprehensiveness of the words he uttered, like the comprehensive declarations of the Holy Book, we may find admonition and guidance, and even with reference to a condition of things that his pure mind could have never contemplated. Washington said: "Liberty is indeed little less than a name where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of factions, to confine each member of society within the limits prescribed by the law, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of persons and property.' If I had read that to a Democratic meeting they would have suspected that it was an extract from some Republican' speech. My countrymen, this government is that which I love to think of as my country; for not acres, or railroads, or farm products, or bulk meats, or Wall Street, or all combined, are the country that I love. It is the institution, the form of government, the frame of civil society, for which that flag stands, and which we love to-day. It is what Mr. Lincoln so tersely, yet so felicitously, described as a government of the people, by the people, and for the people; a government of the people, because they instituted it-the Constitution reads, We, the people, have ordained; by the people, because it is in all its departments administered by them; for the people, because it states as its object of supreme attainment the happiness, security and peace of the people that dwell under it.

"The bottom principle-sometimes it is called a corner-stone, sometimes the foundation of our structure of government-is the principle of control by the majority. It is more than the corner-stone or foundation. This structure is a monolith, one from foundation to apex, and that monolith stands for and is this principle of government by majorities, legally ascertained by constitutional methods. Everything else about our government is appendage, it is ornamentation. This is the monolithic column that was reared by Washington and his associates. For this the War of the Revolution was fought, for this and its more perfect security the Constitution was formed; for this the War of the Rebellion was fought; and when this principle perishes the structure which Washington and his compatriots reared is dishonored in the dust. The equality of the ballot

demands that our apportionments in the States for legislative and congressional purposes shall be so adjusted that there shall be equality in the influence and the power of every elector, so that it shall not be true anywhere that one man counts two or one and a half and some other man counts only one half.

Not

"But some one says that is fundamental. All men accept this truth. quite. My countrymen, we are confronted by this condition of things in America to-day; a government by the majority, expressed by an equal and a free ballot, is not only threatened, but it has been overturned. Why is it to-day that we

have legislation threatening the industries of this country? Why is it that the paralyzing shadow of free trade falls upon the manufactures and upon the homes of our laboring classes? It is because the laboring vote in the Southern States is suppressed. There would be no question about the security of these principles so long established by law, so eloquently set forth by my friend from Connecticut, but for the fact that the workingmen of the South have been deprived of their influence in choosing representatives at Washington.

"But some timid soul is alarmed at the suggestion. He says we are en