The ballot is the king, the emperor, the ruler of America; it is the only rightful sovereign of the Republic; and whoever refuses to count an honest vote, or whoever casts a dishonest vote, is a traitor to the great principle upon which our Government is founded. The man poisons, or endeavors to poison, the springs of authority, the fountains of justice, of rightful dominion and power; and until every citizen can cast his vote everywhere in this land and have that vote counted, we are not a republican people, we are not a civilized nation. The Republican party will not have finished its mission until this country is civilized. That is its business. It was born of a protest against barbarism. The Republican party was the organized conscience of the United States. It had the courage to stand by what it believed to be right. There is something better even than success in this world; or in other words, there is only one kind of success, and that is to be for the right. Then whatever happens, you have succeeded. Now, comes the next question. The Republican party not only wants to protect every citizen in his liberty, in his right to vote, but it wants to have that vote counted. And what else? The next thing in this platform is protection for American labor. I am going to tell you in a very brief way why I am in favor of protection. First, I want this Republic substantially independent of the rest of the world. You must remember that while people are civilized--some of them--so that when they have a quarrel they leave it to the courts to decide, nations still occupy the position of savages toward each other. There is no national court to decide a question, consequently the question is decided by the nations themselves, and you know what selfishness and greed and power and the ideas of false glory will do and have done. So that this Nation is not safe one moment from war. I want the Republic so that it can live although at war with all the world. We have every kind of climate that is worth having. Our country embraces the marriage of the pine and palm; we have all there is of worth; it is the finest soil in the world and the most ingenious people that ever contrived to make the forces of nature do their work. I want this Nation substantially independent, so that if every port were blockaded we would be covered with prosperity as with a mantle. Then, too, the Nation that cannot take care of itself in war is always at a disadvantage in peace. That is one reason. Let me give you the next.