seven or eight hundred millions of dollars more than they are now? Forty years to run and no taxes to pay on these bonds; and at the end of forty years your children would pay the debt in gold! If you only had Mr. Johnson impeached and Ben Wade in, what a good thing it would have been for the country! [Laughter.]

By the way, that impeachment was a nice thing. They lacked only one vote to carry it. There were seven Senators belonging to the Republican party-at least respectable in point of intelligence-who said they would not vote for impeachment, and all over the land the cry was that they were bribed. Everybody in the Republican party said that. That was about one-sixth of the Senate. Nearly every sixth man, you said, was bribed. If I were a member I swear I would leave a party so easily bribed. (Laughter.] There were about twelve of us Democrats that sat there day by day while they were trying to carry impeachment, and they lacked only one vote of putting Wade in as President; and then they would have control of thousands of important offices, and hundreds of millions of money. But with all their offices and all their money they could not buy the vote of one single Democrat. [Cheers.] I am satisfied that Mr. Johnson stayed in, and I want the people in October to express themselves so unmistakably that the thunder tones shall roll around and shake the National Capitol until the deaf ear of Congress shall hear you demanding the taxation of the bonds and the payment of the bonds in greenbacks, as the law provides. *

*

*

My competitor says if Mr. Seymour is elected the Senate will be against him, and that there will be this constant strife about the offices. The Senate of the United States and the Executive have been at variance for the last three years. If the President should nominate ever so good a man-ever so well qualified to fill an officethe Radicals would not allow him to be confirmed unless

he were of their political faith. The interests of the public service did not control them, but the interests of their party has controlled them. I suppose three or four hundred soldiers, many of them wounded in battle, have been rejected by the Senate, although they were qualified simply because they were not giving their support to the Radical party. I remember one instance-young Gunter, of Bloomington, who was rejected for postmaster, although he went into the army as a Democrat and lost a leg in the service. Simply because he wouldn't change, they rejected him, as honest a young man as there is in the country. My competitor wants you to elect a man who would be in harmony with the Senate. I want a President who will make the Constitution the polar star of his Administration, and go back to the beaten paths in which our fathers trod; and then we will bring a Congress there to support him.

Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, in a letter, said that everybody knew this Reconstruction was outside of the Constitution; and yet my competitor spoke a quarter of an hour about the Democratic Convention declaring it to be unconstitutional. If within the Constitution, it was clearly against what Mr. Stevens said. Of course it is outside of the Constitution. In the McArdle case, before the Supreme Court-Congress took that case away, when it was pending in that court. They passed a bill preventing the Supreme Court from deciding upon the case; and yet a majority of that court was composed of men appointed by Mr. Lincoln himself. I believe there is a majority of his appointees on the Supreme Bench. Five out of the eight were appointed by Mr. Lincoln, and yet they would not let the Supreme Court, made up of Republicans, pass upon the question whether the Southern laws were constitutional or not! And when the Court had its decision ready to pronounce in the McArdle case, they passed a law that the Court should not act in that class of cases. Now, I

say it is left to the President to decide what laws are unconstitutional. If they won't allow what the Constitution and the fathers have provided, then the Executive officer should do as Andrew Jackson did in regard to the Bank of the United States. He said he had as much right to decide as the Supreme Court.

My competitor has said that at the October election only one Democrat will be elected to Congress from this State. [A voice, "That's so."] Its cheap work for him or that gentleman that knows nothing about it out there. [Laughter.] Its cheap for either of them or myself to brag about the result of the election in advance. I can say what I please. It is guess work. My competitor will find it to the contrary, I think, to the extent of five or six. I think he has missed his guess in relation to six. But that has nothing to do with this debate. I am not here to brag before you. If it is the judgment of the people of the State that my competitor, a gentleman worthy in all individual and personal relations,—if it is the judgment of the people of the State of Indiana that he shall be their Governor, no man will bow with more grace and less reluctance than myself. It will give me no concern. Allow me to assure you, my happiness does not depend upon being elected to office. But I believe the sentiments inscribed upon the Democratic and Conservative banner in 1868 are the true sentiments of the great body of the people, and I believe they will promote your prosperity and happiness.

I know it is an easy thing to excite a feeling of bitterness, hatred and dislike, and my competitor has easy work to refer back to the scenes of war and address those who have lost brothers and sons and fathers and appeal to you to hate the South. Still, it is not the dictates of statesmanship or of our religion. The dictates of religion are to heal wounds, restore harmony, and bring about reconciliation.

The most beautiful lesson taught in the New Testament is that brought out in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. That prodigal son left the best home in the world, and said he would seek his fortune in a distant land; but when there, hunger came; misfortune befel him; and he returned to that home. His father, seeing him a great way off, if animated by the spirit of Radicalism, would say: "That boy left the best home in the world and expects to come back again. I'll teach him a lesson. He must come with repentance; with many conditions never before imposed on him. He must come with humility. But he can't come and occupy the same place he once did." O, it was not so! That father opened his arms and received him to his breast, and ordered a feast spread in honor of that son; for he said, "The lost is found, the dead is alive." And once more love and prosperity and happiness came to that household. But there was a Radical in that household. [Laughter.] That other brother said he didn't want him to come back.

Now, my notion is that the soldiers accomplished all that the war was waged for. The question for you men to decide is, whether Congressional policy shall defeat that which the soldiers accomplished. The military power of the South was broken down; and the question now comes up, what shall be the political policy that shall maintain this Union and preserve the Constitution? The soldiers know what they fought for. It was for the maintenance of the Constitution and the Union; and if there is a soldier here that fought for Negro equality, Negro supremacy, or to establish Negro government in the South, he has learned it since the war closed. One day after the battle of Bull Run, Congress declared that the war was for the purpose of preserving the Union and maintaining the Constitution, with all the rights, dignities and immunities of the States unimpaired; and that resolution stands unrepealed to-day. The vote of the soldier

this year is frightful to the gentlemen who have gone so far to defeat the very purposes and results of the war by postponing and preventing the restoration of harmony.

I will close by thanking you for your attention. For ten days more we will discuss these questions together before the people; and as they decide in October, so will I be content. I believe the banner upon which is written EQUALITY OF TAXATION, AND AN EQUAL LIABILITY TO SUPPORT THE GOVERNMENT IN ALL ITS BURDENS, and the great principles inscribed upon the Democratic banner, will triumph in October and November. And should I be elected Governor, I will try to make, for a return to a confiding people, a faithful discharge of the duties of the position; and I am sure I will find the office in an excellent condition, having to succeed so excellent a gentleman. [Laughter.] Our discussion can not be otherwise than agreeable to the gentleman and myself. I expect it will go down to the bottom of the questions in the I am glad of this opportunity to meet him before the people of the several districts in this discussion.

canvass.

VI. RACE RELATIONS IN THE SOUTH.

FROM A SPEECH AT NEW ORLEANS,

February 12, 1870.

You will allow me to speak of one other question, which is somewhat local and peculiar to yourselves—a question with which we of the State of Indiana shall have to deal, but not to the extent to which you have to deal with it. In one way or other the Radicals of Washington intend to have it a fixed fact that the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution has been adopted. Right or wrong, they intend it shall be declared adopted as a part of the Con