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Fidelity to that policy in matters of
finance and taxation which, by paying the
five-twenty bonds in legal-tender notes,
«}ll lift from the shoulders of labor the
burthens which oppress it; and by equali
0f taxation will make it to reap the just
rewards of patient and cheerful industry.
" \xoveroor Seymour and General Blair
have each explicitly declared that they
cordially approved those principles. [Ap
plause.] ~
Our candidates realize all we expect in
riU re, patriotic, able, cultivated Christian
statesmen. I have known Governor Sey
mour well. I knew him throughout the
trying scenes of the war. I have closely
watched for many years his course, and his
opinions; and I tell you in all sincerity
this night, that he is the first statesman in
\merica [cheers], and that we can commit
to him more safely than to any other man
the destiny of our Government in these
troublesome times. Self-possessed, cool,
calm, sagacious, moderate, tolerant--he
will unite deliberation in council with vig
or inaction. And seeking nothing but
the enforcement of the Constitution, he
will bring us back to union and peace and
happiness under the shadow of its wings.
[ Applause. ]
INDICATIONS OF TIIE CAMPAIGN.
[ am glad you came here in such numbers
to-night. lam glad to see this immense
crowd— this great outpouring of the peo
ple. lam glad to recognize so many of
our political opponents among your fa
miliar faces. The spirit which animates
them fills my heart with hope. It is not
the enthusiasm made to order by the cla
queurs of politics, nor yet the zeal en
gendered by party discipline. It is a spirit
of thoughtful and anxious inquiry—of
boding fear. It shows that the public
calamity weighs heavy upon the public
mind. It shows that the management of
public affairs excites their apprehensions.
It shows a sea I say a conviction
—that the great powers of Government
have fallen into unworthy or unable hands,
and are being wielded now rather for the
advancement of a party than for the good
of the country. [Applause.]
My friends, I desire to reason with you
to-night. I will not speak to you in any
partisan sense. We stand in exactly the
same position. We are fellow-countrymen
-fellow-patriots. We have the same
lives to live, the same blessings to win, the
same dangers to avoid. We have thesame
interests, the same hopes, the same fears.
We have the same country to love, the
same institutions to preserve, the same
liberty to enjoy. We ought to be —we are
alike honest in our motives—thoughtful
in our investigations, and sincere in our
convictions. [Applause.]
I believe in the principles of the Demo
cratic party. I desire you to embrade
them. I believe they will maintain our
liberty and perpetuate our Government.
You have been, perhaps, for a long time
members of the Republican party. You
have given to it your love, your confidence,
your votes t your money, your exertions.
You have installed it in absolute power.
It has had uncontrolled sway. Has it
answered your expectations ? Has it sat
isfied your demands? [Voice, “No,”
“No.”]
Answer this question not tome. An
swer it to your conscience, and to your
God. [Applause.]
QUESTIONS AT ISSUE.
The two great questions into which poli
ties are now divided are, restoration of the
Union and the management of finance and
taxation.
Has the policy of the Republican party
satisfied your demands on either ?
Voices— “No, no.”
RETROSPECTION.
Let me recall to you the retrospect of a
few years. We were told that the object
of the war was to enforce the Constitution
and to maintain the Union. Mr. Lincoln
fold us so in his inaugural address. Mr.
Seward told us so in his dispatches to
foreign ministers, and in his invitations to
Senators and members to return and oc
cupy their seats they had left. Congress
[old us so in its resolutions and laws.
Lvery recruiting officer who desired to
be Colonel of anew regiment —every can
didate who desired to hold office—told us
so * It was this inspiring thought of
devotion to the Constitution and the Union
—the old Constitution which Washington
and franklin and Madison made, the old
inion which was the bond of peace for
seventy years—which brought volunteers
to our ranks, and collected that mighty
host under whose tread the very continent
seemed to shake.
This was continued till the very end of
the war. When Mr. Lincoln met the
southern Commissioners at Fortress Mon
roe, in the spring of 1865, he expressly de
clared to them that he only required that
they should lay down their arms, rec
ognize the abolition of slavery, and return
thf L Union ; that no other condition
m i be demanded. We were told that
mega* force impaired the relations of the
J 5 rates to each other; that the force must
be removed, and the relations would of
themselves be restored.
Ihe war was brought to a close. John
stou surrendered to Sherman. The last
toau laid down his arms. The last arm
was given up. The State Governments
were then in full operation and vigor;
they had remained unchanged; they per
formed all the functions of government in
the preservation of civil society. Some of
the office-holders had fled; some had been
some were liable to indictment; but
the *orms of governments were there, and
the State Constitutions were as binding as
they ever had been. General Sherman
carried out to their legal conclusion the
principles upon which the war was com
menced. He conquered armies, he sub
dued hostile forces. He cut with his
sword the knot which tied the States of
the Confederacy together, and having re
established their relations to the Union,
he said to his prisoners, “Go to your homes
in peace.”
This was .Union—this was peace—this
was enforcing the Constitution—this was
maintaining the Union—this was execut
ing Federal law, while it maintained the
rights and powers and dignities of the
States unimpaired. This was a fitting'
conclusion of the war. It asserted Sher
man’s ability as a statesman to be equal to
his vigor as a soldier. The terms of that
pacification will remain for all time, the
monument of his wisdom, and foresight,
and moderation. Its rejection has been
the source of many troubles.
But the President of the United States,
and the party which elected him were not
satisfied. They annulled its terms. They
insisted upon the appointment of Provis
ional Governors; that the ordinances of
secession should be repealed; that slavery
should be abolished; that the Confederate
debt should be utterly repudiated, and
promised that then the States should be
restored to their position in the Union. —
A 1 was done. The States were recognized
to have sufficient vital power to assent to
an amendment of the Federal Constitution,
and to bind their people for all time. Con
gress . and the President quarreled, and
when Congress met in 1865, he had not
the power, and Congress had not the dis
position, to recognize the restoration of the
Union. A change had come over their
party schemes —visions of power and a
revolutionized Government had flitted be
fore their eyes. [Applause.]
Six months elapsed and the fourteenth
amendment to the Constitution was pro
posed. You are familiar with its pro
visions. Citizenship in the States was to
depend upon the will of the Federal Gov
ernment, not of the States; the rule of
representation was to be changed so as to
reward the admission of negroes to the
elective franchise, and to punish their ex
clusion. The ban of proscription in the
States was to be put upon all who had aid
ed in the rebellion, and to question the
validity of the public debt —in the manner
I shall do to-night—was to be treated as a
crime. If this were adopted by a vote of
the Southern States—these States which
now they tell you had committed suicide
six years before —they half promised their
senators and representatives should be ad'
mitted to Congress.
Six months again elapsed, and another
change had some over them. The Radi
cals'had triumphed. The Reconstruction
acts were passed. Their State govern
ments, which had been so often invited to
perform the highest acts, were abolished.
Military despotisms were set up in their
stead.’ The maintenance of order—the
protection of life, liberty and property—
the establishments of new Governments
founded on different principles—were com
mitted to the charge of a military officer
backed by the short, sharp process of
martial law and drum-head court-martial.
LCheers.]
WHAT IS NOW PROPOSED.
Eighteen months elapse. A Pres
idential election approaches. All the large
Northern States show great uneasiness.
Many openly pronounce their defection.
The Radicals are alarmed—they fear de
feat. They must make up from the reor
ganized States at the South whatever they
may lose at the North. They pass a law
regulating the electoral colleges—deter
mining what votes shall and what shall not
be counted in the election. They declare
that none of the old States are States—
that no electoral votes shall be counted ex
cept from States which have been reor
ganized since the spring of 1867 —which
have adopted new constitutions—which
have adopted negro suffrage—and which
have been admitted to representation by
this Congress.
Do you understand the meaning of those
provisions ? The State of Alabama, two
months ago, rejected absolutely the Con
stitution which was submitted to a vote of
her people ; yet that same rejected Con
stitution is put in force by Federal arms
and she is admitted to representation be
cause it is believed that by its stringent
oaths so many whites will be disfranchised
that her electoral vote will be carried for
the Radicals.. [Bah, and cheers.]
Mississippi also rejected the Constitu
tion submitted to her people, but as the
oaths of that Constitution are not so strin
gent, and the whites may give a Demo
cratic majority, she is denied representa-*
tion, and her electoral votes are not to be
counted.
Virginia is supposed to have white
population enough to adopt or reject her
Constitution, and then in either event to
give the electoral vote to the Demooratic
candidate, and her name is immediately
stricken from the list.
Texas has not been sufficiently humilia
ted, and for her anew military organiza
tion is to be created, as you have read in
to-day’s papers.
A voice—“Wbat do you think about the
State of Ohio?”
Well, she is a pretty good State, and I
think can take care of herself. [Cheers, j The
fourteenth amendment has been declared,
within two days, to be adopted—Ohio and
New Jersey before their votes were count
ed, before the other States had ratified,
by solemn act of their Legislatures, with
drew their assent to this amendment. The
ablest Constitutional lawyers assert they
Lad the right to do so. No man will
affirm the question is without doubt, not
withstanding the amendment is declared
to be adopted by the votes ,of these two
States—and it is already hinted that
Maryland and Kentucky will be, by mere
brute force, excluded from the vote for
President, on the pretext that their repre
sentation has not been made to conform to
the new rule established by that amend
ment.
The Radicals understand this. They
pass laws and organize States and provide
for electoral votes and impeach the Presi
dent, but in the meantime they distribute
arms to the negroes of the South; they
bind to them the army and the navy by
holding access to the paths of promotion,
and they present as their candidate for
votes that man in whose hand they have
put the powers of the President and the
absolute power over the reorganization of
the Southern States.
If they cannot elect by fraud, is there no
reason to fear they may usurp by force ?
A decisive overwhelming defeat at the
polls will avert this danger and save to us
peace, at the same time that it saves to us
liberty. [Applause.]
THE FINANCIAL QUE§TION.
And have you been better satisfied with
the management of the finances and taxa»
tion?
The whole scope of the financial policy
of the Republican party is to compel the
payment of the public debt in coin, and so
to reduce the currency as that the coin will
be most difficult to get, and most valuable
to possess. Its whole taxation policy is to
subordinate labor to capital, and " the
agricultural labor of the West to the man
ufactures of the East.
There are outstanding to-day about sev
enteen hundred millions of dollars in five
twenty bonds. They are payable in legal
tender notes. The law says so; the bond
says so ; Thaddeus Stevens, Chairman of
the Committee of Ways and Means, said
so; Senator Sherman says so; Senator
Morton says so; General Schenck says so ;
the Funding Bill of the Senate says so ;
the Funding Bill of the House says so, for
both propose to pay in legal-tender the
bonds which are.not surrendered for long
bonds at a less interest; the Democratic
Conventions in Ohio and Indiana, and Illi
nois and Pennsylvania, and every other
Western State say so; the National Con
vention which sat at New York by a unani
mous vote said so.
Yet the Republican party in the face of
this concurrent testimony that these
bonds shall be paid in gold ; and thus at
present rates adds seven hundred millions
to the public debt.
I know the Republican Convention gave
out an uncertain sound, but their speakers
and newspapers have interpreted it and
given it a meaning. The Gazette and the
Commercial , differing as they sometimes
do on other points, to the distress of the
faithful and the scandal of the family,
agree to this, that the Republican party
means payment of the five-twenties in gold,
and the Democratic party means payment
in greenbacks. I agree with both of them.
That is just what they mean.
The Gazette says it is silly to talk of dis
charging one promise to pay with another
promise to pay. Not at all, if that was
the contract. And it was the contract here.
The Government said we will issue legal
tender notes; we will put them in circula
tion; we will take them for taxes; we will
require everybody to take them for debts;
we can buy with them everything we need;
we will need a great many; we will offer
large inducements to get them: we will is
sue our bonds bearing six per cent interest
in gold; we will sell them at par in legal
tender; we will give them at least five
years to run—twenty years if our neces
sity requires—as long as they do run they
shall pay six per cent interest in gold.
Greenbacks depreciated largely. Gold
stood at 150, 200, 300.
The capitalists said we will buy these
bonds at fifty cents on the dollar. They
will pay us twelve per cent interest in gold.
Thev are free from taxation. They will
not be redeemed, at least, for five years.
That will give sixty per cent of the whole
amount in five years. They will not be
redeemed until the war is over, then
greenbacks will be more valuable. If gold
stands at 140 per cent when we are paid,
we will be very well content. So the cap
italist took fifty dollars in gold, and with it
bought a hundred dollar bond. He re
ceived six dollars a year interest. He held
it five years, and has received thirty dol
lars in gold. It’ he is paid one hundred
dollars in greenbacks to-day, he can re
place his original investment of fifty dol
lars with seventy-one dollars in gold.—
Twelve per cent interest in gold ana an in
crease of the capital nearly fifty per cent.
Is that very hard on the bondholder, or a
very silly bargain, as the Gazette seems to
think ?
But the Republican party says that these
bonds shall not be paid in greenbacks, and
that they shall not be paid at all for forty
years. Reduce the interest and extend
the time ! No, gentlemen, that is not the
true policy. Pay the debt and stop the in
terest entirely. Suppose you reduce the
interest to four per cent., and extend the
principal for forty years. If your debt
should be $2,500,000,000, you would pay
one hundred millions a year. At the end
of forty years you would have nearly
double your debt, and yet have the whole
of the principal yet to be discharged in
gold. Forty years. How many of you
will live that long ? How many of your
children will have died before that time ?
And yet these hundred millions a year
will be drained remorselessly through all
that time from the labor of the country.
Forty years ! Gentlemen, that will make
it a permanent institution. Then it will
never be paid. Then it will be fixed on
us forever; and like the public debt of
England or France will forever eat out
the substance of the people for interest,
and prove the most fruitful source of cor
ruption and tyranny. [Appiause.] And
labor which must pay this, brethren, is to
be deprived of half its occupation, or of
half its wages, by the Republican system
of contracting the currency. Why are
our streets empty ? Why have our public
and private improvements been curtailed?
Why have rents fallen, failures taken
place, and why among laborers, especially,
this cry of hard times, and[difficulty in sup
porting their families ? Simply because
our friends insist on curtailing the cur
rency, and thus knocking down all prices.
In this way the gold interest is made more
and more valuable.
Gentlemen, are you satisfied with this
policy? [Voices, “No ! no !”[
TAXATION.
Taxes have been diminished! Have
they indeed ? What taxes ? Taxes on
the manufactures of New England— taxes
on whiskey. That may relieve the New
Englander of his burdens, and the whiskey
ring of their profits. How much does it
relieve you ? Do you get tea, or coffee, or
meat, or bread, or clothes cheaper than
you did before ? I met, last year, a Re
publican, who said: “vVhat do these
poor fellows care about that ? They pay
no taxes.” Ah !my friend, they pay all
the taxes. Labor alone creates wealth.
In the price of their tea and their coffee
they pay the tariff duties ; in the price of
their clothing they pay the tax on cotton,
the tax of the manufacturer, the income
tax of the merchant, and the license of the
retail dealer. In their rents they pay the
land tax of the owner. So you do care
about it. [Cheers.]
Do you believe there is purity in the ad
ministration ? Do you believe a fair
amount is collected ; and if collected, that
a fair amount reaches the Treasury ? If
not, who is responsible? You have a Re
publican Congress to make laws, a Repub
lican Senate to confirm appeintments, a
Republican Secretary of the Treasury, a
Republican Commissioner of Internal
Revenue, Republican officials every
where.
The taxation, State and Federal,
amounts to about $800,000,000 a year,
nearly six per cent, of the whole amount
of all the real and personal property in the
United States ! llow long will any people
bear this before they will resort to the last
remedy of repudiation ?
Gentlemen, I will not press this subject
further to-night. Are you satisfied with
the way the money, thus collected lor
taxes, has been expended ?
We have an enormous public debt. Are
you willing that it shall be increased and
perpetuated? [Voices, “No, no.”] We
pay an enormous rate of interest Are
you willing that it shall, year by year, eat
out your substance ? We expend annually
enormous sums for standing armies, Freed
men’s Bureau, military governments.
Shall this be continued? [Voices, “No,
no.”]
The Democratic party points you to its
payment of the war debt of 1812, and of
the Mexican war, and it promises to pay
this debt. It points you to the low taxes
and tariffs of the past, and it promises to
reduce your taxation. It points you to the
SBO,OpO,(X>J spent by Mr. Buchanan, and
promises Honesty, and retrenchment and
economy.
Will you not come to it and aid it, my
friend ? Break the tie of prejudice or as
sociation that binds you- Be brave enough
to act upon your convictions. The Demo
cratic party belongs to no man nor set of
men. It is the party of the people. It is
the party of progress, of liberty, of hu
manity. [Applause.] It is just to capital,
but it is the friend and protector of labor.
It is the party of a simple, plain, inexpen
sive Government. It is the party of the
Constitution. All who assent to its prin
ciples are welcome to its fellowship. It
requires no probation, but invites all alike
to its folds. Aid it, my friends. Give it
power. It has shown that it knows how to
use it. Confide to it the Government. It
has shown that it cannot betray the trust.
Do this, and you will regain the Union,
peace, prosperity and fraternal concord
which we once enjoyed. [Great and con
tinued cheers. [
THE CALLING OF A GENERAL COUN
CIL AT ROME.
Bull of tlw Holy Father , with all the
Accustomed Formalities,Ordering the
Council.
The following is a careless English
translation of this document:
Pius, Bisnor, Servant of the Ser
vants of God for future memory:
The only Begotten Son of the Eternal
Father, out of Hie great love which He
bore unto us, descended from his celes
tial throne in order to redeem, in the
fulness of time, the whole human race
from the yoke of sin and from bondage to
Satan and the darkness of error, into
which, by the fault of their first parents,
they had long since miserably fallen.
And He, not declining from the paternal
glory, was born of the immaculate and
most holy Virgin Mary, and manifested
his doctrine and the rule of life brought
from Heaven, attesting it with so many
excellent works, and giving Himself up, as
an offering for us, and as a victim to God
in the odor of sanctity. And, having
vanquished death, He, before ascending
into Heaven, to sit upon the right hand of
the Father, sent His Apostles into this
world to preach the Gospel to every crea
ture, and gave to them the power of
ruling the Church, purchased by His own
blood, and thus constituted what is the
column and firmament of truth, and en
riched by celestial treasures, shows the
certain path of salvation and the light of
true doctrine to all people. In order,
then, that the government of the Church
should be ever maintained in a right and
well ordered course, and that the whole
Chiistian wot Id should uphold one faith,
doctrine, charity, and comniunion, He
promised His aid unto the end of time,
and chose Peter, whom he had declared
to be Prince of the Apostles, His vicar on
earth, and head, foundation and centre of
the Church, so that, invested with His
rank and honor, and, with amplitude of
chief and full authority, power, and juris
diction, he should feed the sheep and the
lambs, confirm the brethren, rule the
Universal Church, and be the gatekeeper
of Heaven, and arbiter to bind and to
loose—the effect of his judgments remain
ing unaltered in Heaven. (S. Leo, Serin
11.)
And that the unity and integrity of
the Church and her government might
remain perpetually immutable, therefore
the Roman Pontiffs, successors of St.
Peter, sitting in this same Roman chair
of Peter, inherit and possess, in full vigor,
the very same supreme authority, juris
diction, and primacy of Peter over the
whole Church.
Hence, the Roman Pontiffs, using their
pastoral care and authority over the
whole flock of the Lord, divinely entrust
ed to them by Christ Himself, in the per
son ot the blessed Peter, have spared no
fatigue in making every possible pre
vision, in order that, from the rising to
the setting sun, all people and all nations
should have knowledge of the evangelical
doctrine, and, by walking in the way of
truth and justice, attain eternal life.
It is known to all with what unweary
ing care the Roman Pontiffs have sought
to preserve the deposit of the faith, the
discipline of the clergy, and their holy
and learned teachings, and the sanctity
and dignity of matrimony, and to pro
mote and extend the education of the
youth of both sexes, to foster the religion
and piety of the people, and virtuous
manners, to defend justice, and to assure
tranquility, order, prosperity, and rights
of civil society. Nor have the Pontiffs
omitted, when they have deemed it useful,
especially in times of great perturbation
and calamity, for our most holy religion
and civil society, to convoke General
Councils, to the ends that by consulting
with all the Bishops of the Catholic world,
whom the Holy Ghost has appointed to
rule the Lord’s Church, they might, by
their united strength, providentially and
wisely ordain all those things that would
chiefly serve to define the dogmas of the
faith, dispel errors already propagated,
or that are thenceforward to be propagat
ed, frustrate and elucidato doctrine, up
hold and reform ecclesiastical disci
pline, and correct the corrupt manners of
people. It is already known and manifest
to all how horrible a tempest now agitates
the Church, and what grievous evils afflict
society. The Catholic Church, her salu
tary doctrine, her venerated power, and
the supreme authority of this Apostolic
See, are opposed and set at naught by the
bitter enemies of God and man. All
sacred things are contemned, and eccle
siastical property is plundered, Bishops
and honored men attached to the Divine
Ministry, and men distinguished for their
Catholic sentiments, are troubled in every
way, and religious families suppressed.
Impious books of every kind, pestilent
journals, and multitudinous and most per
nicious sects are spread abroad on all
sides. The education of the unhappy
young is nearly everywhere withdrawn
lrom the clergy, and, what is worse, is, in
many places, confined to masters of impiety
and error.
Thus, to our poignant grief, and that
of all good men, and with mischief to
souls that can never be sufficiently de
plored, impiety and corruption of manners
have everywhere propagated themselves,
and there prevails an unbridled license
and a contagion of depraved opinions of
all kinds, and of all vices and immorali
ties, and so great a violation of divine
and human laws, that not only our most
holy religion, but human society, also, is
thereby miserably disturbed and afflicted.
In the heavy accumulation of calamities
whereby our heart is thus oppressed, the
supreme pastoral charge confided to us
requires that we should ever increasingly
exert our strength to repair the ruin °of
the Church, to heal the souls of the Lord’s
flock, and to repel the assaults and fatal
attempts, of those who strive to uproot
from their foundations, if that were pos
sible, both the Church and civil society.
And truly, by the help of God, from the
commencement of our Pontificate, we,
conscious of our solemn obligation, have
never ceased to raise our voice in our
consistoral allocutions and Apostolic let
ters,‘-and to defend consistently, by every
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