election contest. It seeks to bring
the north and south again into conditions of harmony and fraternity,
and, by a frank appeal to the generous impulses and patriotic
feeling of all classes of people in the south, to secure, not only
peace among themselves, but the equal protection of the laws to
all, and security in the enjoyment of political and civil rights.

"No doubt the result in Louisiana caused some disappointment to
many Republicans throughout the United States, who deeply sympathized
with their Republican brethren in that state. In that feeling I
did, and do, share, and yet I feel and know that every step taken
by President Hayes was right, in strict accordance with his
constitutional duty, and from the highest motives of patriotism.
Some are foolish enough to talk of his abandoning the colored people
and their constitutional rights. President Hayes, from his early
manhood, has been an anti-slavery man; his life was imperiled on
many battlefields in the great cause of liberty, he sympathizes
more and will do more for the equal rights of the colored people
than those who falsely accuse him, and I believe this day, that
the policy he has adopted will do more to secure the full practical
enforcement of those rights than the employment of an army tenfold
greater than the army of the United States."

In this speech I stated the action I proposed to take to secure
the resumption of specie payments. The plan was executed in all
its parts by me, and my remarks may, in one sense, be said to be
a history of resumption. Continuing I said:

"And now, fellow-citizens, this brings me to the question upon
which there is so much diversity of opinion, so many strange
delusions, and that is the question of specie payments. What do
we mean by this phrase? Is it, that we are to have no paper money
in circulation? If so, I am as much opposed to it as any of you.
Is it that we are to retire our greenback circulation? If so, I
am opposed to it and have often so said. What I mean by specie
payments is simply that paper money ought to be made equal to coin,
so that when you receive it, it will buy as much beef, corn or
clothing as coin.

"Now the importance of this cannot be overestimated. A depreciated
paper money cheats and robs every man who receives it, of a portion
of the reward of his labor or production, and, in all times, it
has been treated by statesmen as one of the greatest evils that
can befall a people.