majority in both houses, trampling under its feet all the pledges it made, and by which it obtained its lease of power, I saw that party trample the Constitution under its feet. I saw them pass military reconstruction acts by which ten States in this Union and ten millions of people were robbed of every civil right of liberty and property, and I saw them subjected to the absolute unqualified domination of military dictators in time of peace. You remember with what despotic and unrelenting power it undertook to depose the President and put in his place a man who would be more pliable to execute the behests of this despotic power at Washington. You know, too, how they persecuted those Senators who preferred to obey their oaths rather than obey the behests of this party. You saw, gentlemen, that same party by telegraphic decrees entering with the regular army State legislatures and organizing them against the law of the people. [Applause.] But I will not dwell on these things. I have said this only for the purpose of making one further remark- that is, that if any man in this country supposes that because this party lately at Cincinnati, instead of putting forward its great recognized leaders, have put forward Mr. Hayes, of Ohio, and Mr. Wheeler, of New York, who are very respectable gentlemen in the States where they live, but are not much known elsewhere,- that this party has changed its spirit, its genius, its ambitions, its despotic centralizing tendencies, he is utterly mistaken. That party which could crush Trumbull and Schurz and Henderson, and even Sumner when he would not obey its behests, will take Hayes and Wheeler in its hands like things of wax. They cannot resist nor refuse to obey what that party shall decree. Therefore the responsibility rests upon you, gentlemen, and upon me, in our action here, to put forward such a platform and such candidates that we can wrest this Government from the hands of despotism and centralization and extravagance and corruption, such as makes the heart sick-corruption such as is our shame abroad and our disgrace and humiliation at home. I say, gentlemen, if we would do it, we must act here wisely, not in the heat of passion. We must look beyond this chamber, and all the heat and excitement of the present hour; we must look beyond the excited crowds at the Lindell, the Southern, and other hotels in this city. We must look to the great field where the battle is to be fought and lost or won. As I said in the beginning, gentlemen, I have been laboring hard to keep myself cool, both inside and out, in order that if I have any judgment to give, any opinion to express, or any advice to offer upon this great and important question, it may come as the opinion and advice and suggestion of a brain that is cool and a breast that is excited with nothing but love for the Union and love for the country. [Cheers.] Gentlemen, let me say, in my brief period in public affairs, - and not so very brief, either, for this is the tenth presidential canvass in which I have taken and am to take an active part [Applause],-I have learned- and learned what I did not know in the beginning- that when conventions assemble in great numbers, and the friends of candidates are excited, they believe for the moment, when the result is announced, that the victory is already won. I have sadly found myself mistaken when we came to the field of battle. Four times, fellow-citizens, four times have I attended a convention since the close of the war conventions which had the same purpose and spirit which we now have-I mean to restore the Union of the States upon the platform of fraternity, liberty, and equality to all the States and to all the citizens of the States, to restore that Union, not only the Union which we established by our conquering, but to establish that Union in our heart of hearts [Applause], away down deep in all the affections and interests and aspirations of the whole people, North and South, black and white. Well do I remember the first at Philadelphia in 1866. I recognize here many familiar faces which met me there on that great occasion. They came together at Philadelphia ten years ago, from all the States of the Union. It was the first reunion after the Civil War. They came to shake hands together literally over the "bloody chasm," and when their united thanks went up to Almighty God that the war was over, that peace had come, that no more sons and fathers and brothers were to go down to battle and to death, that sweet peace had come, and come to stay [Cheers], there was a joy in that convention unutterable. Ten thousand men and women - strong men-in that convention, filled with an exultation which words could not express, gave way to every demonstration of joy. They wept, they embraced, and then, recovering themselves, they cheered and shouted— such cheers and shouts as go up from conquering armies when great fields are won. [Cheers.] But, fellow-citizens, though the object with which we met, the ideas to which we gave utterance, the platform we adopted, and all that was done to restore the former- and let me say to you in a single word, we failed in my opinion because at the city of New York we did not properly organize the forces for the victory. [Applause.] So badly was the Democratic party beaten in 1868 that in 1872, as if by unanimous consent, they gave out their word to the Liberal Repubcans, such Senators as Trumbull, Schurz, and others, that if they would take the lead, if they would lay down a platform consistent with the constitutional views entertained by the great Democratic party and put candidates upon it, that party pledged its honor that, when assembled in convention, it would indorse and sustain them and aid them in the contest. You remember how well that pledge was kept, and I say to the Liberal Republicans, if there are any within the sound of my voice, or if anything that I say here shall reach them elsewhere-I say to the Liberal Republicans, and to all the Liberal Republicans, that they have been placed under a debt and obligation of gratitude to the Democratic party [Cheers] that they ought never to forget, and which they can never so well repay as by uniting with the Democratic party now in the coming contest. [Cheers.] THE EARL OF DORSET (1591-1652) HE age of Shakespeare, Bacon, and Raleigh, of Cromwell, history-the most remarkable in the history of England, and, excepting only the revolutionary periods of France and America, the most significant in modern times. It has not yet been explained scientifically, and it may not be for another century to come. But when it is explained, such speeches as that made by the Earl of Dorset against Prynne will be understood as indexes of the times and arguments of the future. In the eloquence of his denunciation of Prynne, in his biting sarcasm, in the delicacy of the irony with which he works his way towards his climax-a climax in which, as one of the lords of the Star Chamber, he announced his vote in favor of branding Prynne in the forehead, cropping his ears, and slitting his nose, Dorset stood for everything which sent Charles I. to the block, as Prynne, for the time being at least, represented fully all the forces of reaction against the æstheticism and tyrannical spirit of the court. There is no question of the corruption against which Prynne protested in his 'Histrio-Mastix, or a Scourge for Stage-Players,' but the corruption of the stage was only an incident of that general loss of moral sense among the governing classes which in its reactions forced Puritanism among those who, while they were making intellectual and moral progress, were as yet but at the beginning of both. Dorset stands for the highest culture of the court. He was one of the literary Sackvilles, æsthetes who were shocked by the vulgarity and bad taste of such Puritans as Prynne. Cromwell himself from their standpoint was a mere vulgarian, and Dorset would undoubtedly have voted to pillory him and slit his nose had he stood in Prynne's place. But it was only a few years until reaction against all that Dorset stood for had produced Milton and Cromwell. It is always so in history for those who having taken the coat demand the cloak also. Had not Prynne's ears been cropped in the pillory, there might never have been a Milton or a Cromwell. Yet it is said that Milton's contempt for Prynne was as great as that of Dorset, and that he sneered at him for the marks of his martyrdom. IN FAVOR OF SLITTING PRYNNE'S NOSE (Delivered in the Star Chamber in February 1634, against William Prynne, for Writing and Publishing Histrio-Mastix, or a Scourge for StagePlayers') UCH Swarms of murmurers as this day disclose themselves SU are they not fearful symptoms of this sick and diseased time? Ought we not rather with more justice and fear apprehend those heavy judgments which this minor prophet Prynne hath denounced against this land for tolerating different things, to fall upon us for suffering them, like those mutineers against Moses and Aaron, as not fit to breathe? My lords, it is high time to make a lustration to purge the air. And will justice ever bring a more fit oblation than this Achan? Adam, in the beginning, put names on creatures correspondent to their natures. The title he hath given this book is "Histrio-Mastix," or, rather, as Mr. Secretary Cook observed, "Anthropo-mastix"; but that comes not home; it deserves a far higher title- "Damnation,” in plain English, of prince, prelacy, peers, and people. Never did Pope in Cathedra, assisted with the spirit of infallibility, more positively and more peremptorily condemn heretics and heresy than this doth mankind. Lest any partial auditor may think me transported with passion, to judge of the base liveries he bestoweth upon court and courtiers, I shall do that which a judge ought to do, viz., assist the prisoner at the bar. Give me leave to remember what Mr. Attorney let fall the other day.-I will take hold of it for the gentleman's advantage,— that this gentleman had no mission; if he had had a mission it would have qualified the offense. Our blessed Savior, when he conversed in this world, chose Apostles whom he sent after him into the world, saying: "Ite, prædicate," to show the way of salvation to mankind. Faith, hope, and charity were the steps of this Jacob's ladder to ascend heaven by. The devil, who hates every man upon earth, played the divine, cited books, wrought miracles; and he will have his disciples, too, as he had his confessors and martyrs. My lords, this contempt, disloyalty, and despair are the ropes. which this emissary lets down to his great master's kingdom for a general service. My lords, as the tenor of their commission. was different, so are their ways. These holy men advanced their |