This tide is now rising at the feet of President Cleveland and his administration, and, as I have said, it remains to be seen if it will be wisely taken at the flood. Depend upon it, if the Democratic party does not avail itself of the colored man’s support the Republican party certainly will. That party is still the colored man’s party, and it will be all the more likely to consider the claims of the colored man, in view of its late defeat, and the causes by which that defeat was brought about. Twelve hundred more colored votes in the State of New York would have saved that party from defeat. Unless the ballot is protected better than heretofore the Augusta speech of the Hon. James G. Blaine, delivered after the election, will be the keynote of the Republican campaign four years hence. There is only one way to prevent the success of the Republican party if that issue is permitted to be raised. The Northern people were sound for free soil; sound for free speech; sound for the Union; sound for reconstruction in other days, and they will be sound for justice and liberty and a free ballot to the newly enfranchised citizens when that issue shall be fairly presented as a living issue between the two contending parties. The great mistake made by the leaders of the Republican party during the late canvass was the failure to recognize the facts now stated, and their refusal to act upon them. They had become tired of the old issues and wanted new ones. They made their appeal to the pocket of the nation, and not to the heart of the nation. They attended to the mint, anise, and cummin of politics, but omitted the weightier matters of the law--judgment, mercy, and faith. They were loud for the protection of things, but silent for the protection of men. These things they ought to have done, and not left the other undone. The idea that righteousness exalteth a nation, and that sin is a reproach to any people, was, for a time, lost sight of. The all-engrossing thought of the campaign was a judicious, discriminating protective tariff. The great thing was protection to the wool of Ohio; to the iron of Pennsylvania, and to American manufactures generally. Little was said, thought, or felt about national integrity, the importance of maintaining good faith with the freedmen or the Indian, or the protection of the constitutional rights of American citizens, except where such rights were in no danger.