to secure the amplest protection to every man's life, property and rights. I repeat, how much easier would it be to solve such problems, how much easier to avert the dangers to our republican institutions they bring with them, if but for a short period that partisan spirit could be dispelled which blinds our eyes against the truth and cripples our patriotic impulse to do what is right and just and wise.
It is, indeed, time that this should end. Let the uprising of independent thought which we now behold, at last, break through that strange and dangerous infatuation. Let the American people once more remember that it is the duty of every citizen first to be a patriot before being a partisan. Then we shall cease to stumble from blunder into blunder, and that enlightened statesmanship will not fail to appear, which by courageous action will scatter the clouds now hanging with threatening gloom over the Republic.
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I ask your pardon for having dwelt so long upon this subject, but I consider it one of the most important questions of the day. I am informed that the position I have taken with regard to it has not had the approval of many of my constituents. I ask them only to believe that I have been acting upon convictions which are very sincere and very strong; so sincere and so strong indeed that I should continue to hold them did I stand with them quite alone. I have been asked by political and personal friends, for my own sake, either to abstain entirely from expressing my opinions on the financial question in this campaign, or at least to compromise a little by declaring myself, for instance, for specie payments in an indefinite future, but for some expansion at present. I cannot do that. It is
- ↑ About one-third of this speech was devoted to a discussion of National finances, more fully treated in other speeches published in these volumes.
