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genius of this government shall be reversed, and whether the civil shall be made subordinate

to the military power. * * *

It is this question, and it is none other, that I insist shall be kept before this House. We are declaring that the ballot shall be free. We are denying that it is either constitutional, legal, just, fair, or decent, to subject the sovereign to the surveillance of the soldier.

Now, upon that issue the gentleman from Ohio and his associates tell us that they stand committed. I answer so do we.

We are willing to discuss it, and for my part I shall oppose any limitation being put upon this debate. If we cannot stand upon an issue so broad, so constitutional, so catholic, so fair, so free as this, then tell me in Heaven's name where are there battlements strong enough for us to get behind? Let it go to the country that one party asserts that the manacles shall fall from the limbs of the citizen, and that the army shall not hold its mailed hand at the throat of the sovereign, and that the other party refuses to release the throttling grasp, and declares that it will block the wheels of government and bring it to starvation.

I am willing, and those with whom I stand

are willing, to accept this issue, and we go further, we tender it. We are the ones to make the issue and we are ready for you to accept it. Planting ourselves upon this broad ground, we welcome controversy. We seek no quarrel with you, but for the first time in eighteen years past the Democracy is back in power in both branches of this Legislature, and she proposes to signalize her return to power, she proposes to celebrate her recovery of her long-lost heritage, by tearing off these degrading badges of servitude and destroying the machinery. of a corrupt and partisan legislation.

We do not intend to stop until we have stricken the last vestige of your war measures from the statute-book, which, like these, were born of the passions incident to civil strife, and looked to the abridgment of the liberty of the citizen.

We demand an untrammelled election; no supervising of the ballot by the army. Free, absolutely free right to the citizen in the deposit of his ballot as a condition-precedent to the passage of your bills.

***

Standing upon such grounds, we intend to deny to the President of this republic the right to exercise such constitutional power. We do

not mean to pitch this contest upon ground of objection to him who happens, if not by the grace of God yet by the run of luck, to be administering that office. I tell you here that if from that canvas [pointing to the picture of Washington] the first President of this republic should step down and resume those powers that the grateful people of an infant republic conferred on him as their first Chief Magistrate,-if he were here, fired by that patriotic ardor that moved him in the earlier and better days of this republic, to him we would never consent to yield such dangerous and unwarranted powers, to rest the liberties of the citizen upon any one man's discretion, nor would he receive it.

It was not for the earlier but for the later Executives of this government to grasp and seek to retain such questionable prerogatives. You cannot have it. The issue is made-it is made upon principle, not upon policy. It cannot be abandoned; it will not be surrendered. Standing upon such ground, clothed in such a panoply, resting this case upon the broadest principles of eternal justice, we are content to appeal to the people in this land. There is no tribunal to which we are not willing to carry this case of contest; and we are willing to allow Him who

rules the destinies of men to judge between us and give the victory to the right.

I do not mean to issue a threat. Unlike the gentleman from Ohio I disclaim any authority to threaten. But I do mean to say that it is my deliberate conviction that there is not to be found in this majority a single man who will ever consent to abandon one jot or tittle of the faith that is in him. He cannot surrender if he would. I beg you to believe he will not be coerced by threats nor intimidated by parade of power. He must stand upon his conviction, and there we will all stand. He who dallies is a dastard, and he who doubts is damned.

ATTICUS G. HAYGOOD,

OF GEORGIA.

(BORN 1839.)

THANKSGIVING SERMON, THE NEW SOUTH; EMORY COLLEGE, OXFORD, GA., NOVEMBER 25, 1880.

I MAY possibly, but I trust not, speak of some things that you may not relish, and advance some views that you may not approve. If so, I only ask a fair and reasonable reflection upon them. If you should condemn them, I have left me at least the satisfaction of being quite sure that I am right, and that, if you live long enough, you will agree with me. And first, we of the South have great reason to be thankful to God that we are in all respects so well off; and that, too, so soon after so great a war, so complete an overturning of our institutions, so entire an overthrow of our industries, so absolute a defeat of our most cherished plans. Recall briefly the last twenty years. Think of what we were in 1860 and in 1865. Then look

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