stitution of the United States. Under that provision, then, when it shall have been declared to have been adopted, the colored people of the whole country become voters; they become clothed with political rights, as they have been before by Congressional action, as far as Congress could do it, clothed with civil rights. It is a question for you to consider very carefully what attitude you men of the South shall occupy toward the colored population. There is a deliberate purpose on the part of the adventurers from the North-a class of men who are described as "Carpet-Baggers" [laughter]—to appropriate the entire colored vote of the South to their cause; and what is their cause? It is not your cause; it is not the colored man's cause [assent]; it is the cause of plunder [cheers]. And the question presents itself in this form: Are you, men of the South, willing that these adventurers shall appropriate that large vote-in some of the Southern States a majority of the entire vote? Are you willing that this vote shall be appropriated for such a purpose? [A voice: "Not if we can help it." Laughter and applause.] How can we help it? Simply enough. It is a question simply of personal influence between you, men of the South, "to the manner born," and those who have settled here, on the one side, and these hap-hazard adventurers of the North on the other side. That is the way the question stands. New relations have come to exist between you and the colored people of the South. How will you place yourselves in regard to these new relations? They have not been of your seeking, and they may, perhaps, not have been sought by the Negro; but he is a voter in Louisiana, as he will be in Indiana, if the Fifteenth Amendment is declared adopted; and it is not worth your while, nor is it worth my while, to go back on the fixed fact. The traveler in the mountain pass is not wise, when he overtakes the storm, to be casting his eyes back upon the plain which he has left. It is his business

to consider the dangers which menace him at the time, and to save himself from the threatened peril. How can you do it? These new relations are upon you. How are you to conduct yourselves toward the colored people? They were your friends. There were social relations between you—the relations of master and servant. They had your confidence and you had theirs. Is it possible that the stranger can now come in and make these ancient servants of yours his servants and your enemies? [Applause.] There is no occasion, in these new relations which are forced upon you, that you should entertain sentiments. of dislike to the Negro because of it. It is not of his seeking; he did not produce this change of relations. The altered condition of things has been forced on the country and on you, not by the colored man, but by ambitious politicians, North and South, who wish to make capital out of it. [That's so," and cheers.] I hope to see Southern men taking this weapon, which is placed in their hands, and using it for their country's good. [Applause.] You have no cause to entertain prejudice against the colored people. ["We don't do it!"] When your young men were far off in the field, and even your aged men— many of them were absent during the four years of the war-you left these colored men at your homes, where they stood sentinels at your doors, and your wives and your children were safe under their protection. They labored and cultivated your lands, and raised those products which supported the armies in the fields. And now is it possible that the foreigner--I speak not of the foreigner as a man of another country, but men foreign to your interests, men of other sections of the country--is it possible that they shall come in and make these colored men hate you, and destroy you? Your interests are the interests of the colored men.

A few colored men may be brought around the lobbies of the Legislature; they may be temporarily invested

with a few offices; but you go to work and persuade the colored men that their interests are claimed by just laws alone, and that these apparent benefits which are conferred on a few of their number do not go to make up the benefits of the great body of them. Give them to understand that the offices which are conferred on the colored men here and the colored men there work a positive injustice to the people at large. Let them understand that with regard to their civil rights you are willing to give them just laws. The Negro, of his own motion, is not going to ask for social equality or social rights. It is the Northern adventurer only who is trying to agitate that question, to make it a ground work of ill feeling between you and the colored man. In 1867 Senator Wilson, addressing an audience in this square, declared this true doctrine, that no law in any land could open any man's parlor to him, and no law could open his parlor to any other man. The social rights, the social position of a man, depend upon himself. They are not regulated by law, and the man that insists that there will be social relations between the whites and the blacks inconsistent with the proper relations of those two races, is a friend to neither. He is the enemy of both races. [Applause.] In my judgment the colored people will be satisfied if you assure them that you will give them just laws, fairly administered. Do this, and then the outside adventurer can not turn their votes against you. Let the colored man understand that the legislation of your State is being carried on to make a few men rich at the expense of the great body of the people. Appeal to the colored man to stand by you in your fight for honesty, for justice, for integrity, and for equal laws; and that appeal will reach his heart as readily as it reaches the heart of the great body of the white people. I don't want you to consider what I have said as the expression of a man who is well

informed on the subject. I have never been brought into close contact with colored men to any considerable extent. I don't know much of their habits; I don't know much of the influence brought to bear upon them; but I do believe that the men who have known them from childhood up the men who have been their friends in times past—may, by a proper course, restore that influence in themselves which will enable them to secure the colored vote for the good of your State and for the good of the country. Let the consolidated sentiment of the men of Louisiana he brought to bear upon the Legislature and for the right. You ask nothing that is wrong; you ask that you may be taxed only for the public good, and that the corrupt tide of special legislation shall be stopped. We have much to accomplish. What is it we intend? That this Union shall be perpetual; that it shall rest on the Constitution; and that all the rights, privileges and prerogatives of the State shall be maintained forever under that Government; and that the National Union, thus supported by States clothed with all their rights, will be the temple in which freemen shall worship forever together. [Cheers.]

What do we wish to accomplish? Nothing that is wrong-everything that is right. We wish to establish in the United States equal laws and just taxation. These we must have. This plunder of the State and national treasuries is becoming universal. There must be a return to a spirit of honesty in the public service, both national and State. There is a power greater than that of law. Daniel Webster, in one of his beautiful orations, when the question was agitating the heart of the world what treatment Russia would extend to Kossuth, and whether Russia would demand the return of that patriot when he was under the protection of Turkey, said there was a power mightier than the earthquake, more terrible

than the rumbling of the storm-the judgment of mankind. [Cheers.]

Let us, North and South, unite now for the purpose of maintaining the institutions of our country in the spirit in which they were established by the great men who founded this Government.

I thank you for the attention you have given me. I thank you for this welcome. It is my first visit to the Southern country. I thought that I knew some of your institutions. I thought I would come and see if I was mistaken. I am satisfied that the course which I felt it was my duty to take in regard to the question of Reconstruction was right. I thought it was right at the time. Now I doubt it not. I know I was right. [Cheers.] I have seen you face to face; I have heard your gentlemen talk on this subject; I know how you feel. The past is the past for you; the future is coming, with its weighty interests and responsibilities. Let us rise to meet the future. Let us welcome it, and let us be sure that "Liberty for all and oppression for none" is the watchward of that future. [Loud cheers.]

VII. THE ISSUES OF SEVENTY-FOUR.

SPEECH OPENING THE DEMOCRATIC STATE CAMPAIGN.

The Wigwam, Indianapolis, September 14, 1874.

The fortunes of the Republican party had become so desperate at the late adjournment of Congress, that it was found necessary to appeal to the people in a Congressional address, to stand by the leaders. The address was signed by thirty-nine members, constituting the Congressional committee. General John Coburn, of this State, was one of the thirty-nine. They ask to be continued in power,