Excerpt from The Political Retrospect: And Our Resolve and Duty, Speech
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Fellow Citizens: - If, on the 7th of November, 1876, the electors on the Radical tickets had received a clear majority of the ballots actually cast in a sufficient number of States to give their Presidential candidate a preponderance in the Electoral College vote, even though he lacked a million votes of a popular majority, the acquiescence of the Democratic party in his election would have been perfect and complete. If, in addition to such sufficient, constitutionally-decreed result, the Radical candidate for the office of Chief Executive had received a majority over all competitors of 160,000 votes, a plurality of 250,000 ballots, and a million majority of the white suffrages of the nation, any Democrat or any person claiming to be a Democrat who would have publicly questioned the decisiveness of the victory for the opposite party would have been the object of almost universal ridicule and contempt. The testimony of the political events of this country during the past eight years is conclusive on this assurance; and the language and conduct of the Democratic party during the recent campaign is overwhelming in confirmation of this statement.
Among the engraved results of our Republic's history, on which introductory and eloquent and patriotic congratulation was placed in the Democratic platform, adopted at St. Louis, stands the proclamation - Acquiescence in the will of the majority. Alas! the records of our Republic no longer give uninterrupted emphasis to so fundamental and comfortable a doctrine.
All the time during the campaign of the centennial year, everywhere, with exceptions so infrequent as to be made subjects of prominent comment more on that account than for any other reason, the Presidential candidate of the Radical managers was treated by the Democratic speakers and newspapers with great respect. The claim for the excellence of his personal character stoutly set forth by his next of friends in political expectation,'were speedily accepted and recited by nearly every Democratic orator and journalist, without public qualification, if not without private dispute or misgivings; and in numerous instances, it can now be said, legitimate opportunities to criticise his obscure and insignificant public record were charitably ignored or unimproved. It is proper to declare, that a forbearance which amounted to magnanimous courtesy towards Rutherford B. Hayes, characterised the action of the Democratic representatives before the people during that exciting period. Nor is there any proper deduction from the credit for chivalrous abstinence on this subject on the part of the popular advocates for the Democracy - wherein a loyal mind for submission to a justly ascertained majority may be recognized - because we all felt that, in a sense more profound than ever before experienced, we were contending against an organization, without special reference to any one opposing aspirant for office; because it is true we did not believe that the personal qualities and personal disposition and habits and intentions, all combined, of the Radical nominee for the Presidency had much to do in a discriminating consideration of the profit and loss to the nation in the failure or success of the struggle. We felt, it is true, that we were battling, not so much against a man who had been named for the Presidency at the Cincinnati Convention, as against the continued domination in national affairs of a cabal of infamous wretches, who, after lighting successfully against each other's Presidential aspirations, conspired to put a neutral creature at the head of their party ticket. Independent of outside or fringing reasons that might have justified our notable care in refraining from reviews of whatever was or could be called the political record of Rutherford B. Hayes - and one-tenth of the man we admitted him to be would . Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге The Political Retrospect (Charles A. Summer)