The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 09 (of 12): Dresden Edition—PoliticalIngersoll, Robert Green
History
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 09 (of 12): Dresden Edition—Political
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
I felt that it was necessary to arouse the North. I felt that it was
necessary to tell again the story of the Rebellion, from Bull Run to
Appomattox. I felt that it was necessary to describe what the Southern
people were doing with Union men, and with colored men; and I felt it
necessary so to describe it that the people of the North could hear the
whips, and could hear the drops of blood as they fell upon the withered
leaves. I did all I could to arouse the people of the North. I did all I
could to prevent the Democratic party from getting into power. The first
morning after the election, the Democracy had a banquet of joy, but
all through the feast they saw sitting at the head of the table the
dim outline of the skeleton of defeat. And, when the tide turned,
Republicans rejoiced with a face ready at any moment to express the
profoundest grief. Then came despatches and rumors, and estimated
majorities, and vague talk about Returning Boards, and intimidating
voters, and stuffed ballot boxes, and fraudulent returns, and bribed
clerks, and injunctions, and contempts of courts, and telegrams in
cipher, and outrages, and octoroon balls in which reverend Senators
were whirled in love's voluptuous waltz. Everybody discussed the
qualifications of Electors and the value of Governors' certificates, and
how to get behind returns, and how to buy an Elector, and who had the
right to count; and persons expecting offices of trust, honor and profit
began to threaten war and extermination, calls were made for a hundred
thousand men, and there were no end of meetings, and resolutions and
denunciations, and the downfall of the country was prophesied; and yet,
notwithstanding all this, the name of the person who really was elected
remained unknown. The last scene of this strange, eventful history, so
far as the election by the people was concerned, was Cronin. I see him
now as he leaves the land "where rolls the Oregon and hears no sound
save his own dashings." Cronin, the last surviving veteran of the grand
army of "honesty and reform." Cronin, a quorum of one. Cronin, who
elected the two others by a plurality of his own vote.
I see him now, armed with Hoadley's opinion and Grover's certificate,
trudging wearily and drearily over the wide and wasted saleratus deserts
of the West, with a little card marked "S. J. T. i5 G. P."
Then came the great question of who shall count the electoral vote. The
Vice-President being a Republican, it was generally contended, at least
by me, that he had a right to count that vote. My doctrine was, if the
Vice-President would count the vote right, he had the right to count it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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