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LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS 437

out of the power of the leaders of the Democratic party and the leaders of the
Mugwump party to say that they see no difference between the position of
the Republican party, in respect to the class I represent, and that of the
Democratic Party. I have a great respect for a certain quality for which the
Democratic party is distinguished. That quality is fidelity to its friends, its
faithfulness to those whom it has acknowledged as its masters during the last
forty years. It was faithful to the slave holding class during the existence of
slavery. It was faithful to them before the war. It gave them all the encour-
agement that it possibly could without drawing its own neck into the halter.
It was also faithful during the period of reconstruction and it has been faith-
ful ever since. It is to-day, faithful to the solid South. I hope and believe that
the great Republican party will prove itself equally faithful to its friends,
those friends with black faces who during the war were eyes to your blind,
shelter to your shelterless when flying from the lines of the enemy. They are
as faithful to-day as when the great Republic was in the extremest need;
when its fate seemed to tremble in the balance; when the crowned heads of
the Old World were gloating owr our ruin, saying, 'Aha, aha! the great
Republican bubble is about to burst.' When your army was melting away
before the tire and pestilence of rebellion; when your star spangled banner
trailed in the dust or, heavy with blood, drooped at the mast head, you called
upon the negro. Yes, Abraham Lincoln called upon the negro to reach forth
with his iron arm and catch with his steel fingers your faltering flag, and he
came, he came full two hundred thousand strong. Let us in the platform we
are now about to promulgate remember the brave black men, and let us
remember that these brave black men are now stripped of their constitutional
right to vote. Let this remembrance be embodied in the standard bearer
whom you will present to the country. Leave these men no longer compelled
to wade to the ballot box through blood, but extend over them the protecting
arm of this Government and make their pathway to the ballot box as straight
and as smooth and as safe as that of any other class of citizens. Be not
deterred from this duty by the cry of the bloody shirt. Let that shirt be waved
as long as there shall be a drop of innocent blood upon it. A government that
can give liberty in its constitution ought to have the power in its administra-
tion to protect and defend that liberty. I will not further take up your time. I
have spoken for millions and my thought is now before you."

As soon as the Presidential campaign was fairly opened and a request
was made for speakers to go before the people and support by the living
voice the nominations and principles of the Republican Party, though some-