And I want you to think one moment, just one moment: What was this country when the first Republican President was elected? Under the law then, every Northern man was a bloodhound, pledged to catch human beings, who, led by the light of the Northern Star, were escaping to free soil. Remember that. And remember, too, that when our first President was elected we found a treasury empty, the United States without credit, the great Republic unable to borrow money from day to day to pay its current expenses. Remember that. Think of the glory and grandeur of the Republican party that took the country with an empty exchequer, and then think of what the Democratic party says to-day of the pain and anguish it has suffered administering the Government with a surplus! We must remember what the Republican party has done--what it has accomplished for nationality, for liberty, for education and for the civilization of our race. We must remember its courage in war, its honesty in peace. Civil war tests to a certain degree the strength, the stability and the patriotism of a country. After the war comes a greater strain. It is a great thing to die for a cause, but it is a greater thing to live for it. We must remember that the Republican party not only put down a rebellion, not only created a debt of thousands and thousands of millions, but that it had the industry and the intelligence to pay that debt, and to give to the United States the best financial standing of any nation. When this great party came together in Chicago what was the first thing the convention did? What was the first idea in its mind? It was to honor the memory of the greatest and grandest men the Republic has produced. The first name that trembled upon the lips of the convention was that of Abraham Lincoln--Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest and grandest men who ever lived, and, in my judgment, the greatest man that ever sat in the presidential chair. And why the greatest? Because the kindest, because he had more mercy and love in his heart than were in the heart of any other President. And so the convention paid its tribute to the great soldier, to the man who led, in company with others, the great army of freedom to victory, until the old flag floated over every inch of American soil and every foot of that territory was dedicated to the eternal freedom of mankind.