date if they could get him nominated, and demand that I and my friends should do so also; but the moment they found themselves in the minority, they bolted and formed secret or open alliances with the opposition. [That is true.] I think that I and my friends have a right to complain of such unfairness. If the convention which nominated me had selected any other Union man, you all know that I would have given him my earnest support, as would also my friends. In addition to this, the editor of a professed Union paper in our city, declared to his readers a few weeks ago that "I was not the candidate of the Union party for this District." Now, gentlemen, you know who nominated me. I know, as you do, that every man who was a member of that large and respectable convention was a true Union man. You know also that there was no other Union Congressional convention held in this District; that that convention nominated our District candidate for presidential elector, and selected the two delegates who represented the Republican Union men of this District in the Baltimore convention which renominated Abraham Lincoln, and yet this statement is unblushingly published. This same paper charged me two years ago, and again this fall, with being a disunionist, and classed me with such men as George H. Pendleton. I ask any man before me if I have ever given a vote in Congress or out of it, or written or spoken a single word, which would induce him to suspect that I was an enemy of the government, or in sympathy with the political opinions of George H. Pendleton. The man who could, with the unanimous action of the regular Republican Union Congressional convention for this District before him, and with my congressional record within his reach, publish such declarations, would hesitate at no statement to accomplish his purposes. I appeal to the Union men of this District, and to my congressional and public record, to answer and condemn this slanderer. [Applause.] And I here take leave of this subject. In the midst of the general thanksgiving and rejoicing which surrounds us, and which fills the hearts of all true Union men everywhere, let us forget the acts and forgive the real or fancied wrongs done us, by any who have aided us in electing Abraham Lincoln. I want to forgive and forget the unjust things which have been said of me by some who are now Union men and are laboring with me to save the republic. [Applause.] I have only referred to these matters to set myself right before the loyal men of the District, and especially with my personal friends. [Applause.] I am ready, willing and anxious to forgive any Union man who has wronged me, and to ask the forgiveness of any man whom in the excitement of a political contest I may unintentionally have wronged. I have never intentionally wronged any man. I have never purposely planted a thorn in any man's pathway, or knowingly said an unjust word of a political or personal opponent. [Applause.] You, and the people of this Congressional District, have heard me on the stump every year for ten years, and yet amid the excitement incident to the personal conflicts through which I have gone, no man has ever heard me traduce the character of an opponent or slander any man, nor have I ever said a single word of a personal or political rival, that I would not have said of him, had he been present. [Applause.] As I would that others should do unto me, even so I would do unto them. [Applause.] A GREAT WORK YET BEFORE US. There is Fellow-citizens, a great work is yet before us. ample scope for the exercise of all our faculties. A generous rivalry in support of the government and in maintaining its armies, presents a field broad enough for the ambition of all. Let us try to forget and forgive the errors of the past, and remember only that our bleeding country demands the united efforts of all her true sons. [Applause.] We all want peace. Every home which this war has made desolate and draped in mourning, is crying for peace. The wives and the mothers of a million men are to-day praying for peace; not the peace asked for by the coward and the traitor, but the peace which comes through victory; the only peace which can be honorable and enduring. We cannot have such a peace while we are divided. [Applause.] Oh, my countrymen, let me, I beseech you, as you love your country, and have glorious hopes for its future, subordinate all personalities and all party strife to the higher, holier and sublimer aspirations of patriotism and love of justice. If we do not stand together we shall fall. If we are united we shall be invincible. Then "One more sublime endeavor, And behold the dawn of peace; Of slavery shall be slain, And Freedom's STAINED and TRAMPLED flower Shall blossom WHITE again." [The honorable gentleman concluded his eloquent speech amidst the enthusiastic applause of the audience.] DEAR SIR: In looking over the pamphlets and papers which you sent us, we are disappointed not to find the text of the 13th amendment, and the first draft of the bill for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, as originally proposed in Congress by you. James G. Blaine, in his "Twenty Years of Congress," states that you introduced the first proposition for the entire abolition of slavery in this country by amending the Constitution, but does not give the text. We desire an exact copy of the original of both these bills, if we can get them, so that we may point out wherein Letter from Bishop Benjamin W. Arnett, D. D., Wilberforce, O. On the next half dozen pages will be found a condensed history of greater importance to the negro, and to the human race, than can elsewhere be found in any book we have ever read. The story as presented is all the more fascinating because of the direct and simple manner in which it is told. But for our letter, making a special request for this history, it probably would never have been written. In answering our letter on this page, and the letter of inquiry on page 359, we have learned that the first reconstruction bill reported to the House was prepared by Mr. Ashley, and the bill for the Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia, and also that the first proposition made in Congress for amending the Constitution, prohibiting slavery in the United States, was introduced by him. The public records show that no man in our history made a grander, or more successful battle, than did Mr. Ashley, for the liberation and practical uplifting of the negro. B. W. ARNETT, the amendment which is now a part of the national Constitution, differs in the text, as we understand it does, from the proposition as you originally made it. We know that the law for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, as it finally passed, was radically different from your original bill. I have the honor to be, Very respectfully yours, for God and the race, Benjamin MArnett Chairman. TOLEDO, OHIO, DECEMBER 22, 1892. MY DEAR SIR: The text of the original bill introduced by me in Congress, for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, was as follows: "Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled: "That from and after the passage of this act, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist in the District of Columbia; and thereafter it shall not be lawful for any person in said District to own or to hold a human being as a slave." On my motion this short but comprehensive bill was referred to the District of Columbia Committee, of which I was a member, and of which Roscoe Conkling, of New York, was chairman. The exitement and unpleasantness which the introduction of this simple bill caused in the District of Columbia Committee, amuses me now, but at that time the opposition was offensive enough, and the conduct of some of the proslavery members, fanatical almost to madness. Evidently, my purpose could not be misunderstood. I did not propose to recognize the right of man to property in man. |