become lawyers,
doctors, soldiers and heroes as the white man had.

"When they became as advanced as the whites around them there would
be no trouble about their franchises. Now they were free men and
they should become freeholders. After they had got education they
should accumulate property."

On the next morning I left Nashville for Cincinnati, where I arrived
on the evening of the 25th of March and took lodgings at the Gibson
House. I was to speak at Turner Hall on the next evening, under
the auspices of the Lincoln and Blaine clubs. It was a busy day
with me in receiving calls and in visiting the chamber of commerce
and the two clubs where speeches were made and hand shaking done.
Still, I knew what I was to say at the meeting, and the composition
of the audience I was to address. The hall is large, with good
acoustic qualities, and in it I had spoken frequently. It is situated
in the midst of a dense population of workingmen, and was so crowded
that night in every part that many of the audience were compelled
to stand in the aisles and around the walls. On entering I mentally
contrasted my hearers with those at Faneuil Hall and Nashville.
Here was a sober, attentive and friendly body of workingmen, who
came to hear and weigh what was said, not in the hurry of Boston
or with the criticism of political opponents as in Nashville, but
with an earnest desire to learn and to do what was best for the
great body of workingmen, of whom they were a part. I was introduced
in a kindly way by ex-Governor Noyes. After a brief reference to
my trip to Florida and Cuba, I described the country lying southwest
of the Alleghany mountains, about two hundred miles wide, extending
from Detroit to Mobile, destined to be the great workshop of the
United States, where coal and iron could be easily mined, where
food was abundant and cheap, and in a climate best fitted for the
development of the human race. In this region, workingmen, whether
farmers, mechanics or laborers, would always possess political
power as the controlling majority of the voters. I claimed that
the Republican party was the natural home of workingmen, that its
policy, as developed for thirty years, had advanced our industrial
interests and diversified the employments of the people. This led
to a review of our political policy, the homestead law, the abolition
of slavery, good money always redeemable in coin, the development
of manufactures and the diver