ry. Isn't that right? If you want that to go into
your constitution, vote for the amendment. It disfranchises every
man who, being liable to the draft, when the country needed them at
the front--when the soldiers doing their duty at the front were
anxiously looking for their aid--it disfranchises every man who, at
such time, ran away to escape the draft. Isn't that right? In the
next place, it disfranchises every man who deserted his comrades at
the front, and ran away to vote the peace party ticket at the rear.
Isn't that right? It disfranchises him whether he voted that ticket
or not, I may observe. If you want these provisions in your State
constitution, vote for the amendment. In the next place, it gives
the right of suffrage to all the negroes of Ohio. Mark the phrase:
I have not said impartial suffrage or manhood suffrage. I wish to
be understood. It gives the suffrage to the negroes of Ohio upon
the same terms that it is given to white men. The reason I am in
favor of that is because it is right.

Let me have the ears of my Democratic friends on that question a
moment. If Democracy has any meaning now that is good--any
favorable meaning--it is that Democracy is a government of the
people, by the people, and for the people. It is a government in
which every man who has to obey the laws has a part in making the
laws, unless disqualified by crime. Then the proposition I am for
is a Democratic proposition. Again, it is according to the
principles upon which good men have always desired to see our
institutions placed, namely, that all men are entitled to equal
rights before the law. They are not equal in any other respect.
Nobody claims that they are. But we propose to give to each man the
same rights which you want for yourself. It is, in short, obeying
the rule of the Great Teacher: "Do unto others as ye would that
others should do unto you." Abraham Lincoln said: "No man is good
enough to govern another without that other man's consent." Is not
that true? Good as you think you are, are you good enough
absolutely to govern another man without that other man's consent?
If you really think so, just change shoes with that other man, and
see if you are willing to be governed yourself, without your
consent, by somebody else. The declaration of indepe