Elizabeth Cady Stanton SPEECHES & WRITINGS FILE Speech: "Presidents and Parties" [1872] Written and delivered summer & fall of 1872, for use in the Grant- Greeley campaign. In a letter of Nov. 5, 1872 Mrs. Stanton says "I would rather see Beel?ebub Pres?dent tha? Greeley" [*182a*] .1. Presidents & Parties On the first Tuesday of November we shall again witness the sublime spectacle of 7,000,000 of people going up to the polls to choose through their representatives a chief Magistrate & to decide on the policy of the government [*182*] 2 But it is of vital moment, whether the deep interest the American people feel, in each returning Presidential campaign, shall now, be wisely directed, to some of the great national questions, looming on the political horizon. [*183*] It matters little, what man we elect, or what party triumphs unless both are based on principle, unless some new measures are inaugurated, for the protection of the masses, against the oppressions of Monopolists in the world of work, against the wholesale bribery & corruption of our Executive, Legislative & Judicial departments With advancing intelligence, the people are gradually awaking to the truth that they are more interested in the discovery & triumph of the scientific principles of government, over the formulas of the past, than in the success of worn out parties, & politicians, [*184*] We have arrived at one of those epochs in history, felt the world over, when the people put forth their hands for new powers, & all governments must undergo fundamental changes. While Sir Charles Dilke, is showing the people of England, that a royal family is a very expensive piece 145 of machinary, & hinting with a House of Commons in good working order that Kings & Queens are a useless encumberance. Charles Summer proposes measures to limit the power of the President, & Wendell Phillips prophesies the abolition in due time of that public functionary altogether Thus the thoughts that are moving the minds of the people, take form 4 & shape in the mouths of their leaders. But between this consummation of equality, & the political point we occupy to day there is still a long distance & much educational work is needed. In reviewing the political situation women are often as much puzzled with the belligerent aspects 187 of a canvass as was a certain Englishman who came to this country [in the] in the midst of a Presidential campaign He read the Journals on both sides faithfully to learn the issues of the canvass, but the more he read the more bewildered he grew; at last in conversation one day with an American gentlemen, he said will 188 you excuse me sir if I ask you one plain question? Why is it that the American people nominate such knaves for the highest offices Judging from your Journals your candidates for the Presidency, your leading Senators, & Congressmen must have violated every Command in the decalogue. Emerson says "men are what their mothers make them" [*189*] hence it is so humiliating for the women of the country to believe that all their sires, & sons are selfish ambitious, time serving knaves & hypocrites, that I shall not hurt the feelings of the Grant women or the Greeley women, if there are any of the latter, by considering the bills of impeachment made out [*190*] against the administration, nor the accusations against the opposition knowing that all this is the political powder of every canvass, that will kill no one: that all our best men are not to be now sacrificed on the altar of our country; that this is no Kilkenny cat warfare, but [*191*] that after the great battle the victorious Grant men will all come forth with shining faces, & help to wipe the dust from the arms of the conquered, & with kind words heal the wounds of their disappointment. We have no better proof that all this political pummeling & scarifying is mere surface work [*192*] than the loving union we now see between life long political enemies; between such men as Horace Greeley & Horatio Seymour, in the Tammany coalition Mid this harsh criticism, clatter, & confusion of tongues, the raking up & down of character & antecedents the general disintegration of parties it seems as if chaos had come again [But as to the cultivated ear the fine] harmonies in music are perceived through all the discords, so to the true philosopher the good effects of these national upheavings are apparent The unmaking of our leaders once in four years will at least have the effect of educating the people, into the duty of self government, into the necessity of watching their 134 rulers A brief view of American politics showing the dissolution & organization of parties at regular intervals, with new issues & new names, proves a law in this, as in all other departments of human action, above the contro[u]l of cliques caucases & conventions, a law as fixed 195 as that governing the solar system No chemical unions more complete than that of a people united by a principle of action, & no dissolution more natural. than the crumbling away of a great party when its object is achieved. Those who have watched the successive epochs of our political history see that we have again arrived 196 at one of those crisis in government, when all seem disposed to halt, when the 196a leaders having finished one battle, dread another At such times divisions are endless, candidates for the Presidency are multiplied, & the discussions invariably turn on personalities History is ever repeating itself. What is now passing again before our eyes, has occurred again & again in our brief life as a nation. In 1824, the last year of Monroe's administration, there was as now a political chaos which foreshadowed the reorganization of parties. The old issues that had divided the Republicans & Federalists were then settled & having no principles to discuss they quarrelled about Presidents. Four candidates were run. Adams, Jackson, Crawford & Clay & the old parties of Adams & (new page) Jefferson were broken up. Four years after there was a reorganization of parties under the names of Democrats & Whigs. The great Chiefs of Democracy were Jackson Van Buren, Benton & the erratic John. C. Calhoun. The leaders of the Whigs were Clay, Webster, Adams & William H. Seward. These parties with certain vital principles of action existed a little over a quarter of a century. Again in their disintegration in ,56. there was a multiplication of Presidents. The candidates were Buchanan, Fremont , Filmore In 60. when the republican party took an advance step party lines were again broken, & four candidates ran For the Presidency, Lincoln, Douglass, Breckenridge, or Bell. And now we have had at least six national conventions or nominations. Republican, Liberal, Democratic, Labor Reform, Temperance, or Louisville Bolters, with six is more candidates in the field, some floundering in deep waters, some standing, some running, but all destined to be swallowed up by the citizen soldier Ulysses S. Grant. The great questions that divided these parties were Federal powers and states rights. The acquisition of territory, the United States Bank, the annexation of Texas, and the non extension of abolition of slavery. It was on the (new page) question of slavery that the Republican party which now exists was organized in 1854. It began by merely resisting the extension of slavery and the aggressions of the slave owner, but the struggle continued until they struck at the life of slavery itself. The republican party took an advance step in the election of Lincoln and the war of the Union The great body of the people in the free and border states, now determined to destroy slavery in order to preserve the republic. Four years of terrible conflict resulted in the triumph of liberty and the downfall of slavery. A struggle of four more years incorporated the 13th 14th & 15th amendments into the constitution by which the colored population of this country have acquired all rights civil & political. We have crossed the threshold of a new era. Independent men cannot be kept within old party lines which are rapidly disappearing, nor be compelled to quarrel over controversies which are irrevocably [*211*] settled Those who think alike on the current issues of their times will act together; when the issues disappear & new questions come to the front, the old parties will break up & new political organizations will be formed This is an irrevocable law of [*212*] progress Before the action of the Cincinnatti convention there was a general feeling that the Democratic party was dead & buried: that the [*213*] republican part in the complete settlement of the slavery question had fulfilled its mission: & that the nation had again reached one of those points in political history when another general reorganization of parties was inevitable. The soul of that movement was a simultaneous demand in all parts of the country, not only for the [*214*] reform of transient abuses, but for some radical steps in progress for some action, on some one of the great questions of Finance, Free [*215*]Trade, Land Monopoly, Woman's suffrage civil service, revenue, Labor But the leaders with the shallow cry "anything to beat Grant," moved by no divine impulse; held up no banner round which to rally : uttered no watchword of inspiration; reform 217 made no declaration of new principles marked out no new line of policy but with significant reservation sent the hungry multitude away empty as they came, with a skeleton platform of platitudes, & a crochety candidate that surprised everybody whom neither party under any circumstances could heartily 218 support. In spite of enthusiasm and numbers, Cincinnatti, captured by a few New York politicians failed to realize the grand opportunity of the hour. Had one vital principle been incorporated in the platform, with a candidate representing it Cincinnatti would have responded in some measure 220 to the demands of the hour, & secured that success for the liberal movement, for want of which it now languishes & dies. Those who now propose to organize the party of the future, have four more years, to lay the foundations broad & deep on principles, for the popular verdict will undoubtedly be given at this time in favor : of the continued life of the Republican party! The Liberal movement loses rather than gains power by the sober second thought of the people. No coalition of hetrogeneous elements, however numerous, can be held together by personal ambition or antagonism. There must be something more inspiring, than the common [*223*] hate of one man, when it is proposed to supplant by another equally hated by the mass of his supporters. When such men as [*224*] Sumner, Lyman Trumbull, Carl Shurtz, Gratz, Brown, repudiated the Republican party, it was supposed they were to lead the people upward [*225*] & onward, to some higher point of political ethics, than yet attained under the Republican dynasty, But [*226*] after the Philadelphia convention, after a careful comparison of the two platforms the superiority at all points of the Republican over the self styled Liberal forced the conviction on many unwilling minds that the defection [*227*] of a few leaders, was not so much a matter of stern principle, as personal disappointment! Again the meagerness of the Liberal following also proves that [that] they have no broad principles no clarion call to rouse the masses when in a similar disintegration of parties in 56. Many democratic [*228*] leaders disgusted with the narrow conservatism of their party joined the Whigs in a Republican organization [*229*] their following was so large, enthusiastic as to insure the success of the new party of progress And why! because they had [?] principles to advocate: a new blow to strike for freedom: in the emancipation of a race or the preservation of the same. We people are not to be caught with chaff. The old party cries of corruption, waste, favoritism, reform, are well enough to teach the people us the necessity of something their our rulers at all times, but such abuses exist occur so uniformly under all dynasties 231 that we all understand, that no change of administration can remedy them, nothing short of a 232 regeneration of the race can make all ulers thoroughly honest patriotic, magnanism, for the simple reason that they are no better than the mass of the people whom they represent and from whose 233 ranks they come. The Liberal movement as North Carolina, Vermont & Maine show Pennsylvania Ohio and Indiana show is an army of officers, no soldiers, the rank & file wanting, mastered to no purpose, to fight no enemy, to explore no country. They come out of the Republican Party or at once fall behind it, as if grown tired with the forced marches of the last twelve years, they now desire rest & repose. Just the party for the democratz to join who hate war, reform, agitation, & yet they seem to have but little interest in its success. [*236*] Look at New York Mr Greeley's own state [*237*] where if the Democracy are really in earnest, they should for the effect in other states show their faith their works. Yet what have they done? Where is Judge Church? Gov Leymans the foremost democrat in the union, who has been accustomed to take an active part in our political [*238*] [*.C.*] [*Top*] campaigns has made one brief speech in an obscure town, simply to supply the place of an absent friend, months after Mr Greeley's nomination. On that occasion he said he could not be expected to feel a personal interest in the election of Mr Greeley; they had been [*239*] [*.D.*] [*Top*] opposed to each other for many years, had no relations now, & should have none in the future. And this is called supporting Horace Greeley. Gov Hoffman another distinguished democrat in New York who is an admirable speaker & lives to shine in the platform, what is he doing [*in*] [*240*] D.2 to make good his proud D1/2 challenge uttered at the Baltimore convention in the hearing of the whole nation You remember in response to a boast from [Mirrmri?], he said New York would give Horace Greeley a larger majority than [Mirrmri?] would give him votes He has not opened his lifes in the E State of New York during the canvass? At the great Greeley ratification meeting in the Metropolis, he did not choose to put himself on record, even by the cheap expedient of sending a letter of regret for his absence [I believe he is in has been in ? he went to Pennsylvania your state trying to help Mr Buckalew 242 F [E2] However he went to Penn to help Mr Buckalew into the seat the people of Penn. reserved of Gen Hartrant. This was good for Len Buckalew but methinks if Mr Greeley in his recent agricultural tour through the coal fields of that state had caught a glimpse of the fugitive Hoffman he might have said to him in the G language of Jack Falstaff, to Prince Hal "call you that backing of your friends" " a plaque upon such backing" and what becomes of Gov Hoffman's boast if Mr Greeley's prophesy be true. In a speech in Penn. before the late elections, he said that the action of Penn. Ind. & Ohio would decide his New York majority H Well then thrice great states have spoken & [I hope] New York will prove in November that Mr Greeley is a true prophet [in that each let every man & woman see to it] Wise ones say that the 35 electoral votes of New York will be cast for Grant & Wilson & the Republican party 245 I The leading Democrats of our state are fair examples of the indifference they feel everywhere, for the success of their old & bitter antagonist the editor of the N.Y. Tribune I found it so in Pennsylvania where I spent the last week before her election. Such men as Hiester Clymer. Senator Buckalew 246 J Jeremiah S. Black, & the gallant Gen Hancock. where none of them enthusiastic in the support of Mr Greeley. And now the state committees tell us in plain words that they owe the defeat of the Liberal party in Penn. & Ohio to the treachery of the Democracy. 247 K It is a fair deduction from admitted facts that [the] large bodies of the most eminent democrats in the northern states are either luke warm towards Mr Greeley or intend secretly to repudiate him at the polls in November, after having used him to secure the election of democratic 248 L Governors, Congressmen, & Legislatures in every possible contingency. If the Liberals trust to the Democracy for [their] success their defeat is certain in November. see page 49. 249 49 is certain for thus far they have manifested no interest in the canvass. If they trust to any large following of disaffected Republicans, their prospects are equally hopeless, for the vote thus far in state elections, shows that the republican majorities remain intact There never has been a stronger 250 50 party in this country than the Republican party is to day, & deservedly so far its record is a grand one & so long as it continues to broaden its platform & liberalize its action it will continue in power. The Democratic party with a few brief interregnums [has] ruled this country near sixty years 251 51 But in its early days it was the party of progress, & reform, the party that extended the right of suffrage, abolished imprisonment for debt & property qualifications for office, & liberalized the naturalization laws, but the moment it grew conservative & refused to carry its grand principles of liberty & equality 252 52 for all men to their logical results & united with southern aristocrats to maintain the system of slavery its sun went down to rise no more forever. The Republican party was in respect to its principles & policies the successor, & substitute for the the old Jeffersonian party claimed 253 53 by the democrats, as their ancestors. Like that it became the radical & progressive organization of its era while on the other hand the so called Democratic party since the days of Jackson had ceased to be either radical or progressive, had become timid & time serving, was averse to new ideas, was always looking backward. 254 54 instead of forward, till taking to it the name of conservative, it has latterly wandered mournfully among the tombs of its forefathers crying & cutting itself with the grave stones of dead issues The changed position of the two parties was illustrated by Mr Lincoln in his characteristic quaint way 255 55 While he was President he was invited to a meeting to celebrate the birthday of Jefferson. Unable to attend he sent a letter, wherein he stated that the attitude of the two existing parties when viewed in the light of the past political history of the country reminded him of the situation of two men, "out in Illinois" 56 who at the end of a long pugilistic contest, found that each combatant had fought himself out of his own coat into the coat of his antagonist. This is true to the letter, for to dismiss the figure & the story the Republicans of to day stand where the Democrats did in their earlier & better days when they were bold, liberal, progressive 257 57 while the Democrats of our time have fallen back to the ground occupied by the ancient Federalists & like them are cowardly conservative reactionary. And to make their last state worse than their first the Democrats of 1872 in a spasm of dispair have committed the exquisitely absurd blunder of 258 58 of placing themselves under the lead of a Presidential candidate who never held any principles in common with old fashioned democrats, or new fashioned democrats, but has been the life long opponent of the creed & measures, of Jefferson, Jackson, of Polk & Buchanan. In view of 259 59 all this the feeling of reverence for party ancestry is as absurd as that of the aristocrat who prides himself on his grandfather, the son of [the] a tallow chandler, or scorns the poor tutor whose grandfather was the son of a Lord with vast [?] It is not because I am a 56 60 stickler. for party loyalty that I condemn the Tammany coalition. but because it is a forced union of incongruous factions, based on motives of policy No love or principle binds the parties together & if by any blunder the American people should declare the bans of approval in November 61 they would cry loudly for divorce before the New Year dawned upon us. The Liberal movement as at present organized will prove an utter failure for two reasons already stated 1st It is inspired by no grand & lofty principle . 62 . 2nd It's presidential candidate is not an appropriate leader. How trivial appears the talk of nepotism, civil service reform, compared with the great questions of the non-extension & overthrow of slavery, & the preservation of the union, which shook the two hemispheres a few years ago. 63. Is it because there are no other great questions looming up in the political horizon, that the Liberals in their Journals & speeches are forced to dwell on republican frauds. on Gen Grants family affairs, his cottage by the sea, bull pups, & cigars. As to Mr. Greeley he joined .64. the battle against slavery after it had passed the stage of ridicule, & had killed the Whig party. Then he fought -- well to the end, so well that he seems to have exhausted all the reformatory material there was in him. In truth, there is only a given quantity of the reformatory element in each .65. person, & Mr. Greeley I think used his all up in Gen Grant's election. The New York Sun must have seen this when its editor, after having Mr. Greeley's name at the head of its columns as a Presidential candidate for twelve months, unfortunately took it down not long before the call was made for the Cincinnatti convention .66. This is the conclusion of "The Sun's" two column funeral oration over the Chappaqua sage when it drew his remains out of the fight. In reviewing Mr. Greeley's career. & the hard contests in prospect Mr. Dana said. "In view of these facts we do not think Dr. Greeley out to be counted upon to lead .67. in the National Reform movement x x the cause of reform demands a bolder spirit & a different policy in its leader. If the Republic is to be saved from corruption & robbery the work must be done by sharper remedies & more heroic treatment, & we say it with regret. The National reformers must rally around some other presidential 68 candidate than Horace Greeley Thus spoke the N.Y. Sun. accepting this as correct then it is not the Republican party that has [fulfilled] completed its mission, but rather Mr Greeley his. "The Golden age" another Journal now supporting Mr Greeley said 69 only one year ago in closing up a sharp controversy with him on the woman movement "No public man in America has done or undone so much good to his country as Horace Greeley. & his present daily, bitter & incessant hostility toward the movement for woman's enfranchisement 70. bids fair to make a total distruction of one of the greatest reputations which any American ever built up is pulled down with his own hands." This is a sample of the moderately expressed opinions of these now supporting Mr Greeley. No nominee ever before occupied 71 so anomolus a position at the head of a coalition of such incongruous factions! What can be hoped of a moment whose candidate is unable to kindle one genuine glow of enthusiasm in the hearts of his followers! 72 Objections answered. On of the main objections of the Greeley Democrats to the Republicans is that while the former are trying "to clasp hands across the bloody chasm" the latter are aiming to keep alive the animosities of the war. In a famous speech at Liverpool 40 years ago, Lord 73 Brougham declared war to be the greatest curse of the human race & the greatest crime, because its excusable name invokes every other crime. Surely no man would stand guiltless at the bar of history, or the bar of God, for plunging his country into a calamitous civil war, like ours, or keeping it 74 there one moment longer than was necessary to secure a lasting peace. Let me ask them what were the most potent of all influences that encouraged the South to go into the rebellion, & take up arms against the government. I answer the Democracy of the North & the Editor of the Tribune. 75 In the early winter of 1860 — the Northern Democrats speaking through their Journals, their orators,, President Buchanan's annual message to Congress said to the southern states If you see fit to secede from the Union there is no provision in the Constitution which authorizes your coercion with submission. 76 In the first month of the same gloomy winter, Horace Greely fresh from a triumphant contest for the election of Lincoln, spake through his great Journal to the same southern states saying in substance, "If you choose to withdraw from the Union, go in peace"! In a word history records that Northern Democrats 77 lured the South to the brink of the awful chasm & the Editor of the Tribune bade them plunge in. As to the objection that by urging the re election of Gen Grant the Republicans are aiming to perpetuate the animosities of the war, it seems to me that the triumph of the Repub. party is the only way to secure & maintain the best results 78 the peace. The bones of our kindred who fell in defence of Law & Order, Union & Liberty mingle with soil of every state from the Potomac to the Rio Grande & by all that is sacred in their memory suffering & death. let us see 79 that the triumphs of the war & peace alike be required there, by protecting the maintainable rights of man. Surely the considerate men of the South cannot risk to place themselves again under the guidance of the Davises, the Vances, & the Hunters, & be once more led by them to ruin. They must prefer .80. The firm rule of the present administration which brings them law & order. And as to those [?] special grievances of which southern Democrats complain the K[l]u-Klux laws, the election enforcement act negro supremacy and even the carpet bag governments, — they cannot forget that these measures owe .81. their existence a thousand times more to Mr Greeley's pen than Gen Grants sword & that to this hour, they are the favored measures, of Greeley's chief defender, & Grants chief defamer, Charles Sumner. .82. Again I do not share the fears I hear so constantly expressed, that if Gen. Grant is elected we shall be governed by a military despotism, as that if Horace Greeley is elected we shall have slavery reestablished, a financial panic, the women all turned out of the departments .83. at Washington, &c $c. for our Presidents have no such power for evil. Those who have watched our political tendencies see that the power of this nation is gradually centering in the House of Representatives just as in England in the House of Commons, the natural result of a more general diffusion .84. of knowledge, of our system of free schools, which in time will secure universal education. Our school house, not the army or navy is the chief arm of power to protect our free institutions Every well informed conscientious teacher, is of more value to this nation than a dozen Major Generals .85. In the old world on every hill top you behold the palace homes of Lords, nobles, & Kings, with boundless parks & gardens, while the masses are crowded no one knows where, as if for the few only, the sun shone & the earth smiled with rich harvests, but .86. here from Maine to California the stateliest palace you see on the highest point in every village is the school house, filled with the children of the laborer as well as the legislator looking down on the humble dwellings of Presidents, Senators Judges & Congressmen symbols .87. everywhere of the liberty & equality of the people. To day the laborer in the marts of trade is discussing the principles of government. To day woman at the fireside is talking of Finance Free Trade, Land Monopoly & civil service reform & the children 88 are learning the catechism of political economy; hence our Britnell's in another generation will not talk of [?] payment nor our Gredley's of Protection. Have no fears, now that the school master is abroad; of military despotism, for science & industry in the workshops 89 of nature are to day forging the sceptres that must [?] rule the world. Neither have I any fears as to the exercise of Federal power in the protection of the rights of citizens in the several states, We are citizens one & all first- of the United States & claim 90 & claim the protection of the national flag for out natural rights in every latitude & longitude, on sea & land. Local authorities may regulate the exercise of these rights, the may settle all questions of property, but the maintainable personal rights 91 of citizenship should be declared by the Constitution interpreted by the Supreme Court, protected by Congress, and enforced by the arm of the Executive. It is nonsense to talk of state rights when fundamental questions of 92 personal liberties are at stake. I feel much on this point because the women of the country are to day asking of Congress the same protection under United States law now guaranteed to the freedmen of the south, I should far rather have my rights as a citizen 93 defined by Congress & the Supreme Court than by state authority for in the one case my Judges & Jurors are the best minds in the country in the other case they are ignorant prejudiced riff raff of towns counties districts. When 94 black men & all women are everywhere as well protected in their personal rights as white men, their political status as citizens full recognized it will be time enough to trouble ourselves about the rights of states, Take care of individuals & the states will take care of themselves. [unreadable] citizens of Arkansas, who are aligned to be disfranchised, and the errant candidate always cites this assumed fact as an instance of the state of things to which his election would put a stop. His continual reference to this one matter in his speeches is, in our opinion, a piece of petty trickery to which a Presidential candidate cannot resort without loss of dignity and character. It is not in any sense an "instance" of anything, because it is an isolated fact, without another like it in the whole Union. Mr. GREELEY has frequently employed it as an illustration, but it illustrates nothing except the distinguished orator's unfairness, and his urgent need of what is called political capital. It is true that a certain portion of the citizens of Arkansas have not yet regained the privilege of suffrage forfeited by their rebellious acts. But that privilege is withheld from them, not by the Constitution of the United States, nor by any act of Congress, nor by the will of President GRANT, but by the Constitution of the State. Mr. GREELEY might as well say that the disfranchisement of State Prison convicts in New-York, or of men who cannot read in Massachusetts, or of men who have not paid their poll-tax in other States, is an instance of the "Policy of Hate" on the part of the Republicans. All these instance of disfranchisement, like that in Arkansas, tell heavily against Mr. GREELEY'S new party, but the National Government has no more to do with one than with the others. It is true, also, that there is a difference of opinion as to the scope of the disfranchising clause in the Arkansas Constitution, and Mr. GREELEY seems to promise that he will decide that difference in favor of the Democrats if he is elected. But by what authority, and how ? We have had the doctrine of "local self- government" dinned into our ears for five months now, as the one tangible principle of the new coalition. According to Mr. GREELEY, it is to be construed very much as the farmer in the fable construed the law of meum et tuum in the celebrated case of the ox and the bull. If a State constitution, which, we take it, is as respectable an embodiment of local self-government as can be found, leaves a State in the hands of Republicans, we must elect Mr. GREELEY to construe it so as to take the State out of their hands. If the same doctrine leaves a State in the hands of the Kuklux, as in Georgia, we must elect Mr. GREELEY to prevent any Federal interference. [*295a*] This charmingly elastic theory is nicely adapted to a man of Mr. GREELEY'S changeable notions, but it hardly commends itself to the sober common sense of the people of this country in pursuit of a stable and intelligible principle of government. But, we shall be told, the party that construes the Arkansas Constitution against the original secessionists whom it disfranchises, is sustained by Federal patronage. If that changed hands the other party would come into power, and this construction would be reversed. That may be so, or it may not. The voters who we asked to believe it, will be very likely to ask : "What if it is the case ? Suppose in one State the Federal 'patronage.'" as Mr. GREELEY likes to call it, "keeps a party in power opposed to withdrawing rebel disabilities ; are we then, to change the National Administration to turn that party out of power in Arkansas ? We know that no other instance exists. We know the Republican Party, in-trusted with the National Government, have restored the privileges of the lately rebellious classes with marvelous magnanimity, and quite as fast as the sentiment or interest of the country demanded. What men hold the Federal offices in Arkansas is not a matter of supreme importance to us, and we shall not readily count the countless ills, with which Greeleyism threatens in order to get those offices given to Arkansas Democrats." Since the October elections, Mr. GREELEY seems to feel that this is the tone in which the people receive his absurd and insincere rhodomontade about the twenty thousand Arkansas secessionists. His last allusion to them, in one of his Baltimore speeches, was accompanied by the cheerful statement that if the country was not yet ready for his ideas, he "could wait." We are glad he can. He will certainly have to wait. [*295b*] Meantime, he can profitably devote some of his leisure to the study of the folly of trying to mislead the people on great issues by the perversion of insignificant and irrelevant facts. 95 The Republican Party has had a long life, & glorious record, & now I ask it to perpetuate its life, & complete its record, by carrying out its grand principles of "equal rights to all" to their logical results, & thus secure to the women of the nation their rights of citizenship. It would read well on the page [*257*] 96 of history, that the same party that with its right hand struck the chains from four million slaves, stretched forth in its left hand, in the same period and enfranchised 15,000,000 [of] women of the republic When the Republican Party at Philadelphia adopted the 14th plank in their platform, pledging the rights of women [a] "respectful [*256*] .97. consideration," they foreshadowed the next great political issue. This plank, upheld by the letters of the nominees, & the recent action of [the] Republicans [party at the] at [the] a state convention in Massachusetts is sufficiently signified, to rouse the enthusiasm of the women, of the country for the success of the party, that has been [*298*] .98. first, to inscribe woman on its banner. And I am here to night to urge the women of [Monroe] Chataque Co. to use all their influence for the triumph of the party the that proposes still further progress. Remember Republicans [this is the party that] gave personal freedom to two million women on southern plantations [*299*] .99. Republican [Legislators] have modified the laws for women in many States. They have appointed [them to many offices] hundreds of women [are [to] post offices] as [Notary Publics] Notaries & postmistresses all over the country A Republican Gov. has defended & maintained woman suffrage in Wyoming, Republican committees at Washington have listened [have] [*299*] 100 respectfully to our memorials three years in succession & carefully reported thereon. Benjamin F. Butlers able minority report, showing woman to be a citizen, possessed under the Federal Constitution of all the rights of citizenship, is a triumphant argument in favor of enfranchisement, that those opposed to the idea, would find it difficult to answer [*300*] .101. Gen Grant has gilded his administration with many acts of justice & generosity towards women North & South, and Henry Wilson has been one of the most faithful & outspoken friends of our cause, oftimes speaking on a platform, & presiding in our conventions. Let us then manifest our gratitude, [*302*] .102. by a candid support of the party that has taken initiative step [on this] on this question. Though not permitted to vote yet we can do much to influence an election. Woman's power is great in raising enthusiasm for any cause; at the social board, at the fireside, singing the songs of freedom, in patriotic conversation with neighbours, [*303*] .103. by [their] her presence in political meetings by appeals in our journals, by public speeches, everywhere; by pen & tongue as taste, or genius may dictate. As women suffer equally with men all the evils of bad government, they have equal interest in maintaining republican institutions, & inspiring a progressive liberal policy. [*304*] ,104' Let no woman avoid national questions, because on the one hand she thinks them beyond her comprehension, as on the other unworthy her consideration We have heard so much talk of "the "muddy pool of politics" that we have lost sight of the dignity & grandeur of the experiment [*305*] .105. we are to day making of self-government & the power of the ballot that sceptre of royalty in the hand of every American citizen by which all social religions & political questions may be rightly adjusted. Let it be [an, our?] work women of the republic to lift politics .106. into the higher atmosphere of morals & religion & help to educate the world with the true science of government Transcribed and reviewed by volunteers participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.