come before the convention, going on to illustrate by reference to the choice of members of the Legislature, showing that the minority in any town or ward, where by resort to this system they could insure the election of one or more representatives, would be led, almost invariably, to nominate the very ablest men they could put in the field, and the result would be that the majority would be practically driven to take a similar course; and thus the general standing of the House would be vastly improved. The resolution failed to pass, however, a yea and nay vote, demanded by Mr. Bingham, showing 95 yeas to 215 nays. It may be noted that party lines had nothing to do with the division, some of the strongest Republicans voting in the affirmative and many prominent Democrats in the negative.

This convention submitted thirteen amendments, in all, to the people, to be voted upon at the next March election, of which all but two were ratified by the requisite two-thirds vote, and those two-striking the word "Protestant" from the Bill of Rights, and prohibiting removals from office for political reasons -barely failed. The most important ones adopted were those increasing the membership of the Senate from twelve to twentyfour, reducing that of the House by establishing a population basis of representation with a requirement of 600 inhabitants for a single representative and 1200 additional for each additional representative, making elections biennial instead of annual and legislative sessions the same, changing the time of the election from March to November, and abolishing the religious test as a qualification for office.

ADDRESSES.

[In the following pages are presented various public addresses, memorial tributes, etc., prepared and delivered by Mr. Bingham at different times and occasions. during the last thirty years of his life.]

THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR AND THE INEVITABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE GENERAL DISFRANCHISEMENT OF THE SOUTHERN WHITES AND THE INDISCRIMINATE AND PREMATURE ENFRANCHISEMENT OF THE SOUTHERN BLACKS.

ADDRESS AT CONCORD, N. H., AS PRESIDENT OF THE DEMOCRATIC STATE CONVENTION, JANUARY 5, 1870.

Gentlemen of the Convention:

I thank you for this mark of your confidence, although I undertake with much hesitation to preside over your deliberations upon the present occasion.

We are here today as the representatives of the Democratic party-a party as old as the Nation-a party which administered the government for more than half a century, and during all that time guarded well the Constitution, secured to the people the full and perfect enjoyment of civil liberty, and gave to the country a greater progress and a larger material prosperity than what has fallen, in any age of the world, to the lot of any other country under Heaven. We are here to renew our vows of allegiance to Democratic principles, and to put in nomination candidates to be supported in the approaching state election. We are here to appeal once more to the people-to ask them to look at the sad and sorrowful condition of the country under Radical rule, and to contrast the same with the former happy condition of the country when its government was administered by a law-abiding, constitution-loving, patriotic party.

Under Radical rule the land has been scourged with a Civil

War at a cost of blood and treasure without parallel in the history of the world; under Radical rule we have been plunged in a sea of debt which is shoreless, and of depth unfathomable. A huge moneyed power has been created, compared to which the old United States Bank, that perished beneath the iron heel of Andrew Jackson, was an insignificant affair. A most unjust, unequal and iniquitous system of taxation has been imposed on the people, whereby the rich are growing richer and the poor poorer. The capitalists are feasting and fattening and gloating over their fast accumulating hoards, while the laboring masses are being pinched harder and harder every day.

One pillar after another of the Constitution is being battered down; states are abolished, put under military rule, reconstructed and then abolished again; courts are suspended, ignored, defied, summarily ousted from their jurisdictions. A Radical, usurping, omnipotent Congress has seized all the powers of the government, and tyrannizes with absolute sway over states and over the people. For the purpose of so degrading the masses of the people that they will tolerate Radical slavery, they have been put either on equality with or beneath the Negro-an inferior race who do not possess the seeds of progress, and who are barbarous by nature. Because the Radical can control the negro, and make him carry ballots as his old master made him carry spades, he can be relied upon to vote the Radical ticket; therefore he is loyal and must be enfranchised. But because the white cannot be relied upon to vote the Radical ticket, therefore he is disloyal and must be disfranchised. To perpetuate Radical supremacy, the ignorant, savage negro is made the political master of the educated, civilized white man. To perpetuate Radical supremacy, the heathenism and cannibalism of Africa are exalted above the Christianity and civilization of Europe and America.

If

We are told by Radical philosophers, I believe, that the negro is inferior because he never had a chance to be otherwise. you would know what the negro is, what his capabilities are as a governing power, what he would do if he had a chance, you must go to the shores of Guinea, and into the interior of Africa, where the negro has had all the chances there are-where he

has held undisputed sway since the world began. There you will find the negro today what he always has been, what he always will be when left to himself, an unmitigated savage, living like the gorilla, the monkey and the wild animals by which he is surrounded, upon the spontaneous productions of the soil. The only thing that remains to be done to complete the overthrow of the republic and to inaugurate an imperial, consolidated government is to secure the ratification by the people of what has been done, and the completion of what is now well nigh finished.

The steady front presented by the Democratic party has retarded the work of overthrowing our free instituions, and to them is the nation indebted for having a foothold left whereby the people now, if they will, may reëstablish the Constitution and regain their lost liberty. The questions between the political parties are narrowing down so that he who runs may read. The questions are upon the ratification of the works of Radicalism. Shall they be endorsed and free government abolished? Or shall they be repudiated?

These Radicals talk about peace they mean no such thing; they know that peace to this country - real, genuine peace is death to them. This Radical party was born of the very causes that produced the late rebellion; was nursed and grew fat upon the war, and has since kept itself in existence by tearing open the bloody gashes made by the war. There can be no peace, no restored prosperity, no union, no safety for our liberties or security for our dearest rights, so long as Radicalism rules the nation.

We look to the next presidential election for the consummation of our relief. In the meantime we must be getting ready for the momentous struggle. New Hampshire can do something. She must and will do something. Her glorious past political history rises from out our memory before our eyes and reproaches us with the alarming political degeneracy of these days. The shades of New Hampshire's illustrious dead are continually beckoning us forward in the path of duty. Long enough already have we suffered the land of Stark, of Woodbury, of Atherton and of the Pierces to be dominated over by that party which stole the

power in the first place by seducing men in the night time into dark places, and there filling them with false alarms, and then binding them by oaths to work in secrecy and darkness, and which has maintained possession of the power so won by outrages upon the Constitution, by bribery, by force, by fraud upon the ballot-box, and by wholesale corruption generally. The cup of Radical iniquity is full to the brim. It must be the case, as surely as there is a just God in Heaven, that the day of retribution draweth nigh-that the day of national emancipation from the thraldom of Radical slavery is at hand. It is only necessary that the great Democratic party should keep its heart, should hold on to its principles, its integrity and its pluck, that it should never say die.

Gentlemen, let us never give up the ship. Let us cling to the Democratic party as the sole remaining guardian of the Constituion of our beloved country-as the only hope whereby civil liberty can be restored to these oppressed and suffering states.

RESTORATION FOR THE SOUTH: AND RECONCILIATION BETWEEN THE

AMNESTY AND
PEACE

SECTIONS.1

AN ADDRESS ON TAKING THE CHAIR AS PRESIDENT OF THE DEMOCRATIC STATE CONVENTION, AT CONCORD, SEPTEMBER 11, 1872. Gentlemen of the Convention :

Once more we are met face to face by the responsibility of choosing a president of the United States. This election occurs under circumstances more than ordinarily critical. What is now done necessarily must make a permanent impression on the future of this government, and give a lasting shape to its policy.

The ideas and principles that have been molten in the red hot crucible of revolution, are now taking the form into which they are about to harden and thereafterwards endure. And now, when the transmission process to which our political institutions have been subjected is well nigh completed, it is of the utmost

1 This address was printed in a broadside and published as a campaign document.