De Alexander

How can you blame the South for hesitating when you hesitate?

If, as you pretend, you wish the blacks of this State to have the ballot, why do you not give it to them?

If you shrink from giving the ballot to a few thousand negroes at home, it was asked, why do you insist that it should be conferred on millions in the South?

Its membership included many men of the highest capacity, whose debates, characterised by good temper and forensic ability, showed an intelligent knowledge of the needs of the State.

Republicans offered no defence except that their party, having had the courage to investigate and expose the frauds and the methods of the peculators, could be trusted to continue the reform.

Indeed, without cunning or reason, the plunderers, embracing all who made or paid canal accounts, declared bids informal that contracts at increased prices might be given to members of a ring who divided their ill-gotten gains.

The controversy grows out of the fact that men do not believe our legal tenders ever will be as good as gold.

Build that up; make your paper as good as gold, and this question cannot come up.

Do not the columns of the press teem with statements of official plunder and frauds in every quarter of our land, while public virtue rots under this wasteful expenditure of the public fund?

The reports of the Secretary of the Treasury show that we could swiftly wipe out our debt if our income was not diverted to partisan purposes.

It is not the bondholder, it is the office holder who sucks the blood of the people.

Extreme Democrats, taught that the debt was corruptly incurred, resented the suggestion of its payment in gold.

Democratic politicians accepted this policy the more readily, too, because of the attractive cry--"the same currency for the bondholder and the ploughboy.

Upon these plain, simple issues Conservatives and Radicals stood united.

It affirmed impartial suffrage, protested against maladministration and corruption in State affairs, supported Congress in its policy of reconstruction, and rebuked all tampering with the financial obligations of the Union.

There was probably not a Republican in the State capable of forming an opinion who did not know that from the moment Conkling became a senator the division of the party into two stout factions was merely a question of time.

He outlined a policy for which, he contended, his party in the Empire State ought to stand.

Although a stiff Radical he had no reason to feel bitter toward men who happened to differ with him on governmental policies.

He had a habit of speaking his own mind, and instead of confining his thoughts to the committee room, or whispering them in the ears of a few alleged leaders, it was his custom to take the public into his confidence.

If chosen, it will be by the men of character, and if beaten this will be my consolation.

I have resolutely put down my foot that no friend of mine, even without my knowledge, shall pay a cent, upon any pretext nor in any strait, come what will.

He voted to confiscate the property of rebels, he stood with Stevens for disfranchising all persons who voluntarily adhered to the late insurrection until July 4, 1870, and he would agree to no plan that operated to disfranchise the…

Time had vindicated his reasons for demanding a bankrupt law, and his voice, raised for economy in the public expense, had made him of special service during the war.

Yet his votes followed those of Senator Fessenden, and his voice, if not strong in debate, expressed the wisdom and judgment of a safe counsellor.

People liked his nerve, believed in his honesty, confided in his judgment, and revelled in the retorts that leaped to his lips.