Robert G. Ingersoll At Cincinnati, June, 1876
MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:
Massachusetts may be satisfied with the loyalty of Benjamin H. Bristow; so am I; but if any man nominated by the convention cannot carry the State of Massachusetts I am not satisfied with the loyalty of that State. If the nominee of this convention cannot carry the grand old Commonwealth of Massachusetts by 75,000 majority I would advise them to sell our Faneuil Hall as a Democratic headquarters. I would advise them to take from Bunker Hill that old monument of glory.
The Republicans of the United States demand as their leader in that great contest of 1876 a man of intelligence, a man of integrity, a man of well-known and approved political opinions. They demand a reformer after as well as before the election. They demand a politician in the highest, broadest and best sense--a man of superb moral courage. They demand a man acquainted with public affairs, with the wants of the people; with not only the requirements of the hour, but with the demands of the future. (Applause.)
They demand a man broad enough to comprehend the relations of this government to the other nations of the earth. They demand a man well versed in the powers, duties, and prerogatives of each and every department of this government. They demand a man who will sacredly preserve the financial honor of the United States; one who knows enough to know that the national debt must be paid through the prosperity of this people; one who knows enough to know that all the financial theories in the world cannot redeem a single dollar; one who knows enough to know that all the money must be made, not by law, but by labor; one who knows enough to know that the people of the United States have the industry to make the money, and the honor to pay it over just as fast as they make it. (Applause.)
The Republicans of the United States demand a man who knows that prosperity and resumption, when they come, must come together; that when they come, they will come, hand in hand, through the golden harvest fields; hand in hand by the whirling spindles and turning wheels; hand in hand past the open furnace doors; hand in hand by the chimneys filled with eager fire, greeted and grasped by the countless sons of toil.
This money has to be dug out of the earth. You cannot make it by passing resolutions in a political convention. (Applause.)
The Republicans of the United States want a man who knows that this government should protect every citizen, at home and abroad; who knows that any government that will not defend its defenders and protect its protectors is a disgrace to the map of the world. They demand a man who believes in the eternal separation and divorcement of church and school. They demand a man whose political reputation is as spotless as a star; but they do not demand that their candidate shall have a certificate of moral character signed by a Confederate Congress. The man who has in full, heaped and rounded measure, all these splendid qualifications is the present grand and gallant leader of the Republican party--James G. Blaine.
Our country, crowned with the vast and marvelous achievements of its first century, asks for a man worthy of the past, and prophetic of her future; asks for a man who has the audacity of genius; asks for a man who is the grandest combination of heart, conscience and brain beneath her flag--such a man is James G. Blaine. (Applause.)
For the Republican host, led by this intrepid man, there can be no defeat.
This is a grand year--a year filled with recollections of the Revolution; filled with the proud and tender memories of the past; with the sacred legends of liberty -- a year in which the sons of freedom will drink from the fountains of enthusiasm; a year in which the people call for a man who has preserved in Congress what our soldiers won upon the battlefield; a year in which they call for the man who has torn from the throat of treason the tongue of slander--for the man who has snatched the mask of Democracy from the hideous face of rebellion; for the man who, like an intellectual athlete, has stood in the arena of debate and challenged all comers, and who is still a total stranger to defeat. (Applause.)
Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blaine marched down the halls of the American Congress and threw his shining lance full and fair against the brazen forehead of the defamers of his country and the maligners of his honor. For the Republican party to desert this gallant leader now is as though an army should desert their general upon the fields of battle. (Applause.)
James G. Blaine is now and has been for years the bearer of the sacred standard of the Republican party. I call it sacred, because no human being can stand beneath its folds without becoming and without remaining free.
Gentlemen of this convention, in the name of the great Republic, the only Republic that ever existed upon this earth; in the name of all her defenders all of all her supporters; in the name of all her soldiers living; in the name of all her soldiers dead upon the field of battle, and in the name of those who perished in the skeleton clutch of famine at Andersonville and Libby, whose sufferings he so vividly remembers, Illinois--Illinois nominates for the next President of this country that prince of parliamentarians, that leader of leaders--James G. Blaine.
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