Читать книгу Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, Twenty-third President of the United States - Benjamin Harrison - Страница 20

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Two thousand visitors from Edgar and Coles counties, Illinois, paid their respects to the Republican nominee this day.

The excursion was under the auspices of the John A. Logan Club of Paris, Charles P. Fitch, President. There were many farmers in the delegation, also eighty-two veterans of the campaign of 1840, and the watchwords of the day were "Old Tippecanoe and young Tippecanoe." The reception took place at University Park, notable from this time forward for many similar events. Prominent among the visitors were Geo. F. Howard, Capt. F. M. Rude, J. W. Howell, E. R. Lodge, Capt. J. C. Bessier, M. Hackett, James Stewart, and Mayor J. M. Bell of Paris; C. G. Peck and J. H. Clark of Mattoon; and Hon. John W. Custor of Benton. State Senator George E. Bacon delivered the congratulatory address. General Harrison replied:

Senator Bacon and my Illinois Friends—Some of my home friends have been concerned lest I should be worn out by the frequent coming of these delegations. I am satisfied from what I see before me to-day that the rest of Illinois is here [laughter], and the concern of my friends will no longer be excited by the coming of Illinois delegations. [A voice, "We are all here!"] That you should leave the pursuits of your daily life—the farm, the office, and the shop—to make this journey gives me the most satisfactory evidence that your hearts are enlisted in this campaign. I am glad to welcome here to-day the John A. Logan Club of Paris. You have chosen a name that you will not need to drop, whatever mutations may come in politics, so long as there shall be a party devoted to the flag and to the Constitution, and pledged to preserve the memories of the great deeds of those who died that the Constitution might be preserved and the flag honored. [Applause.] General Logan was indeed, as your spokesman has said, "the typical volunteer soldier." With him loyalty was not a sentiment; it was a passion that possessed his whole nature.

When the civil war broke out no one did more than he to solidify the North in defence of the Government. He it was who said that all parties and all platforms must be subordinated to the defence of the Government against unprovoked assault. [A voice, "That's just what he said!"] In the war with Mexico, as a member of the First Illinois Regiment, and afterwards as the commander of the Thirty-first Illinois in the civil war, he gave a conspicuous example of what an untrained citizen could do in the time of public peril. In the early fight at Donelson he, with the First Illinois Brigade, successfully resisted the desperate assaults that were made upon his line; twice wounded, he yet refused to leave the field. The courage of that gallant brigade called forth from a Massachusetts poet the familiar lines:

"Thy proudest mother's eyelids fill,

As dares her gallant boy,

And Plymouth Rock and Bunker Hill

Yearn to thee, Illinois."

[Applause.] He commanded successively brigades, divisions, corps and armies, and fought them with unvarying success. I greet these veterans of the campaign of 1840. You recall the pioneer days, the log cabin days of the West, the days when muddy highways were the only avenues of travel and commerce. You have seen a marvellous development. The State of your adoption has become a mighty commonwealth; you have seen it crossed and recrossed by railroads, bringing all your farms into easy communication with distant markets; you have seen the schoolhouse and church brought into every neighborhood; you have seen this country rocked in the cradle of war; you have seen it emerge from that dreadful trial and enter upon an era of prosperity that seems to surpass all that had gone before.

To these young men who will, for the first time this year, take part as citizens in determining a presidential election, I suggest that you have become members of a party of precious memories. There has been nothing in the history of the Republican party, nothing in the platform of principles that it has proclaimed, that is not calculated to stir the high impulses of your young hearts. The Republican party has walked upon high paths. It has set before it ever the maintenance of the Union, the honor of its flag, and the prosperity of our people. It has been an American party [great cheering] in that it has set American interests always to the front.

My friends of the colored organization, I greet you as Republicans to-day. I recall the time when you were disfranchised; when your race were slaves; when the doors of our institutions of learning were closed against you, and even admittance to many of our Northern States was denied you. You have read the story of your disfranchisement, of the restoration to you of the common rights of men. Read it again; read the story of the bitter and bigoted opposition that every statute and constitutional amendment framed for your benefit encountered. What party befriended you when you needed friends? What party has stood always as an obstruction to the development and enlargement of your rights as citizens? When you have studied these questions well you will be able to determine not only where your gratitude is due, but where the hopes of your race lie. [Cheers.]