, or wealth or title. They fought to secure to
themselves and their posterity the blessings of a strong national
government; the preservation of the Union--a Union not of states,
but of the people of the United States; not a confederate government,
but a national government. The preservation of the Union was the
central idea of the war. The Confederate soldier fought for what
he was led to think was the right of a state to secede from the
Union at its pleasure. The Union soldiers triumphed. The Confederate
soldiers were compelled to an unconditional surrender.

"Fellow-citizens, the line drawn between the two parties is now as
distinct as it was during the war, but we occupy a different field
of battle.

"Then we fought for the preservation of the Union, and, as a means
to that end, for the abolition of slavery. Now the Union is saved
and slavery is abolished, we fight for the equal political rights
of all men, and the faithful observance of the constitutional
amendments. We are for the exercise of national authority, for
the preservation of rights conferred by the constitution, and upon
this broad issue we invite co-operation from the south as well as
the north.

"Upon this issue we intend to make our appeal to the honest and
honorable people of the southern states. We think they are bound
in honor to faithfully observe the conditions of peace granted to
them by General Grant and prescribed by the constitutional amendments.
If they do this we will have peace, union and fraternity. Without
it we will have agitation, contests and complaints. Upon this
issue I will go before the people of the south, and, turning my
back upon all the animosities of the war, appeal only to their
sense of honor and justice."

I contrasted the policy and tendencies of the two parties on the
question of protection to American industry, on good money redeemable
in coin, on frauds in elections, on our pension laws, and on all
the political questions of the day. I stated and approved the
policy of the Republican party on the temperance question. I closed
with an exhortation to support Governor Foraker and the Republican
ticket and to elect a legislature that would place Ohio where she
had usually stood, in the fore front of Republican states, for the
Union, for liberty and justice to all, without respect of race,
nativity and creed.

This speech was denounced by the Democratic press as "bitterly
partisan;" and so it was and so