ived. In opening I said my purpose was to demonstrate
that what the Republican party professed in Ohio as to national
questions was the same that it professed in Virginia, and that the
practical application of the principles of the Republican party
would be of vast benefit to the State of Virginia, while Democratic
success would tend more and more to harden the times and prevent
the industrial development of Virginia.

"Not only your newspaper," I said, "but the distinguished gentleman
who is the Democratic candidate for Governor of the State of
Virginia, has said to you that I was waving the bloody shirt while
he was contending under the Union flag. If he meant, by waving
the bloody shirt, that I sought, in any way, to renew the animosities
of the war, then he was greatly mistaken, for in the speech to
which he refers, and in every speech I made in Ohio, I constantly
said that the war was over and the animosities of the war should
be buried out of sight; that I would not hold any Confederate
soldier responsible for what he did during the war, and that all
I wished was to maintain and preserve the acknowledged results of
the war. Among these, I claim, is the right of every voter to cast
one honest vote and have it counted; that every citizen, rich or
poor, native or naturalized, white or black, should have equal
civil and political rights, and that every man of lawful age should
be allowed to exercise his right to vote, without distinction of
race or color or previous condition. I charge, among other things,
that these constitutional rights and privileges have been disregarded
by the Democratic party, especially in the southern states."

The speech was largely historical in its character and evidently
rather beyond the comprehension of the body of my audience. The
scene and the surroundings made a vivid impression on my mind.
Here, I felt, were two antagonistic races widely differing in every
respect, the old relations of master and slave broken, with new
conditions undeveloped, the master impoverished and the slave free
without the knowledge to direct him, and with a belief that liberty
meant license, and freedom idleness. William McKinley, then a
Member of the House of Representatives, and Green B. Raum then
spoke, Mr. McKinley confining his speech mainly to a simple exposition
of the tariff question, which his audience could easily understand.

The next day, at the invitation of John S. Wise, then the Republ