Speech #530056717

There were embarrassments atportion of his speech this morning which was directed toward tending the condition of both races. It would have been the wise the condition of the colored race in this country interested me and the just policy at that time on the part of the whole country very much. for it may be my fault or it may be my misfortune not to have abanuoned the right of the blacks. but to have enthat so many years of my life were spent in political controver- couraged amicable relations between the two races and permitted sies involving the condition of that race that perhaps it has them. as the result of experience. to work outtheir own salvataken control of me to an extent that even I may not be aware tion. if I may use that term in this connection. to gradually harof. monize their interests. without any attempt at compulsion or I recollect the history of the beginning of the Republican force. except that necessary compulsion or that necessary force party. It was a party of accidental creation. not of premedita- which every government possesses and ought to employ to protion. it was not the work of politicians. nor of great leaders. it tect its citizens. was created by the spontaneous movement of the people of the The Senator from New Hampshire the other day spoke of the Northern States. in which some people of the South participated. enormous naturalizations in New York. by which. he said. the Its purposes were limited to a very important. but narrow field. Democrats gained power. The Republican party. if it claims to Its purpose was. in the first place. to resist the reopening of the have emancipated the blacks and given them the right of sufslavery agitation. That induced thousands of men who had be- frage. by an act of naturalization. which has no parallel in the longed to the Democratic partyI speak now of Illinois particu- history of politics. suddenly converted more than a half million larlymen who desired to preserve the peace of the country and negroes into Republican recruits. and continually employed the be rid of the dingerous strife which the reopening of the slavery agencies which would hinder them from the free investigation controversy suggested. to join it. Its purpose was further de- of public questions and continually appealed to their prejudices veloped as its asntults became more distinct to resist the exten- and kept them in adherence to the Republican party. sion of slavery. Later its purpose was to preserve the.