The Republican party can not continue to live by reason of its splendid achievements in the past, nor the Democratic party expect to be returned to power upon its glittering promises of reform in the future. The former party has but to present men representative of its principles; the latter must discover both its principles and its men. In former days, when party ties were firmer, when the immediate pressure of impending national calamity hedged us about and compelled party fidelity, the platform carried along the man, whomsoever he might be. Party ties are looser now, and no platform is buoyant enough to float an unworthy candidate. The necessity for the continuance of the administrative policy of the Republican party, while not so apparent in immediate results, is as commanding respecting future consequences as at any time in its history. We are told that it has accomplished its mission, and, therefore, has no longer claim to live. Well, if it has, and the time for its dissolution has come, it can die triumphantly, like the apostle of old, exclaiming. "I have fought a good fight; I have kept the faith." It has fulfilled many missions. It fulfilled the mission of its birth in neutralizing the disastrous effects of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, in saving freedom to the great territories of the North-west, and in bringing California into the sisterhood of States undefiled by slavery and adorned like a bride in the glitter of her golden promise. It fulfilled the mission of its youth in accepting the "irrepressible conflict," and it was a mission worth living for to have saved a nationality like ours; to have freed 4,000,000 slaves and raised them to the dignity of American citizenship, and to have reconstructed the federal Constitution so as to place the liberties of the citizen and the credit of the nation upon foundations strong enough to endure anything except the imbecility of a Democratic administration." On motion of David Atwood, of Wisconsin, Irving M. Bean, of that State, and H. H. Bingham, of Pennsylvania, were elected temporary secretaries, and on motion of W. A. Howard, of Michigan, Gen. E. W. Hincks, of Wisconsin, was chosen sergeant-at-arms. The usual committees were then appointed as follows: STATES. CREDENTIALS. RULES AND RESOLUTIONS. PERMANENT ORGANIZATION. Arkansas.O. P. Snyder. R. A. Dawson. C. C. Waters. M. W.Benjamin Ed. C. Cowles. W. H. Wheeler. While these committees were out, J. A. Mason, of New York, offered a resolution favoring universal suffrage without regard to sex; Geo. Wm. Curtis presented an address of the Republican Reform Club of New York; Abram J. Dittenhæfer offered the resolutions of the German Republican Convention of New York, and speeches were made by John A. Logan, of Illinois, J. R. Hawley, of Connecticut, Henry Highland Garnett, of New York, W. A. Howard, of Michigan and Frederick Douglass, of Washington. The report o the committee on permanent organization was as follows: President-Edward McPherson, of Pennsylvania. ASSISTANT SECRETARIES. H. M. Cooper L. J. Critchfield R. C. McCormick The proceedings of the second day began with some remarks by Mrs. Sarah J. Spencer, on equal suffrage. She pleaded eloquently to have the Republican party adopt equal suffrage as a part of its creed, and presented a memorial of similar import from Susan B. Anthony, in behalf of the National Woman's Suffrage Association. The report of the committee on rules was then adopted, which was the same as that given in the proceedings of the convention of 1872. When the report of the committee on resolutions came up for adoption, an animated discussion arose over the eleventh section, relating to the free immigration of Chinese. The clause was opposed as un-American and contrary to the Declaration of Independence, by E. L. Pierce, of Massachusetts, and Geo. Wm. Curtis, of New York; and was championed by S. B. Axtell, of New Mexico, John P. Jones, of Nevada, and James B. Belford, of Colorado. The convention refused to strike it out by the following vote: It being now in order to present candidates for the Presidency, the roll of States was called. Oliver P. Morton, of Indiana, was nominated by R. W. Thompson, of that State, and seconded by P. B. S. Pinchback, of Louisiana. Benjamin H. Bristow, of Kentucky, was presented by John M. Harlan, of that State, and seconded by Luke P. Poland, of Vermont, Geo. Wm. Curtis, of New York and Richard H. Dana, of Massachusetts. James G. Blaine, of Maine, was nominated by Robert G. Ingersoll, of Illinois, and seconded by Henry M. Turner (colored) of Georgia, and Wm. P. Frye, of Maine. Roscoe Conkling, of New York, was brought forward by Stewart L. Woodford, of that State. Rutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio, was nominated by Ed. F. Noyes, and seconded by B. F. Wade, of the same State, Augustus St. Gem, of Missouri, and J. W. Davis, of West Virginia. John F. Hartranft, of Pennsylvania, was presented by Linn Bartholomew, of that State. The three remarkable speeches were those in favor of Mr. Blaine. That of Ingersoll is still famous; that of Turner (colored) was conspicuous for its rhetorical finish and that of Frye for startling force. The condition of the Republican party was more factional than it had ever been. Disappointed politicians, from which no party is ever free, wanted one candidate, the "Reformers" another, and the anti-Grant men another; while the masses were largely for Blaine. Under such circumstances, the balloting for a candidate began on Friday morning June, 16, and resulted: 1 Mr. Ingersoll closed thus: Our country, crowned by the vast and marvelous achievements of its first century, asks for a man worthy of her past and prophetic of her future; asks for a man who has the audacity of genius; asks for a man who has the grandest combination of heart, conscience and brain the world ever saw. That man is James G. Blaine. For the Republican hosts, led by this intrepid man there can be no such thing as defeat. This is a grand year.--a year filled with the recollections of the Revolution; filled with proud and tender memories of the sacred past: filled with the legends of liberty; a year in which the sons of freedom will drink from the fountain of enthusiasm; a year in which the people call for the man who has preserved in Congress what their soldiers won upon the field; a year in which they call for the man who has torn from the throat of treason the tongue of slander; the man who has snatched the mask of Democracy from the hideous face of the Rebellion; the man who, like the intellectual athlete, hath stood in the arena of debate challenging all comers, and who up to the present moment is a total stranger to defeat. 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 every traitor to his country and every maligner of his fair reputation. For the Republican party to desert that gallant man now is as though an army should desert their general upon the field of battle. 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 stard beneath its folds without becoming and without remaining free. Gentlemen of the Convention: In the name of the great Republic, the only Republic that ever existed upon the face of the earth; in the name of all her defenders and of all her supporters; in the name of all her soldiers living; in the name of all her soldiers that died upon the field of battle; and in the name of those that 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. 20 |