(The speaker requested not to be interrupted again.) [Great applause.] I am no demagogue. Supposing you fail to meet the President in his policy, what will be the result? The convention has done its duty. It remains for you to elect men to the next legislature who will secure to the freedman his right. There are large republican majorities in the United States Congress. The northern press, denouncing the President's policy, are assuming that Congress has the right to dictate to you who shall be your rulers. The result of the large majorities will be to give the right of suffrage to every man in the State, and the negroes will elect officers to govern you. The President and the conservative element of the north are determined that the negro shall be placed where nature places him, in spite of the fanatics. We can only make free labor profitable by giving the negro justice and a right at the courts. It is hard to accept the fact that our slaves stand as freedmen, and that we have no more right to direct them. It is hard to realize, but let us look at it as it is, and act accordingly. Your country is laid desolate, your farms have been ravished and impoverished by the war. Vicksburg, the city of hills, everywhere bears marks of war. The Mississippi valley is desolate. You have been deprived of your property in the negro, your houses burned and destroyed. We can meet the President and the conservative element of the north by a simple act of legislation, and it becomes us as a country-loving people to look well to the candidates for the legislature. If they fail to take the necessary step, the result will be that the Freedmen's Bureau and bayonets will remain with us until they do. Although somewhat ignorant of the proceeding of the federal Congress, if elected I shall try to promote the especial interests of this State. I shall urge that the United States government owe it as a duty to the State of Mississippi to repair her levees; her people are so impoverished by the war that they cannot stand the taxation necessary to rebuild them. I believe it to be the duty of the general government to appropriate money to assist the people to improve their railroads, rivers, and assist in like new enterprises. Another important question, that of labor, I believe can only be settled by legislation. I believe it to be for the interests of the people of the south to have the vagrant freedmen removed, as they are the cause of continued strife and tumult.