“Don’t Pitch Your Tent Among the Dead.” PRESIDENT GARFIELD'S Address io Young Men,-at Cleveland, October 11, 1879, Now, I tell you, young man, don’t vote the Republican ticket, just because your father votes it. Don’t vote the Democratic ticket even if he does * vote it. But let me give you just this one word of advice as you are about to pitch your tent in one of the great political canrps. Your life is full and buoyant with hope now, and I beg you when you pitch your tent, pitch it among the living and not among the dead. If you are at all inclined to pitch it . among the Democratic people and with that party, let me go with you for a moment, while we survey the ground where I hope you will not shortly lie. It is a sad place, young man, for you to put your young life into. It is to me far more like a graveyard than a camp for the living. Look at it I It is billowed all over with graves of dead issues, of buried opinions, of exploded theories, of disgraced doctrines. You cannot live in comfort in such a place. Why, look here I Here is a little double mound. I look down on it and I read, “ Sacred to the memory of Squatter Sovereignty and the Dred Scott decision,” A million and a half Democrats voted for these, but they have been dead fifteen years—died by the hand of Abraham Lincoln, and here they lie. Young man, that is not the place for you. But look a little further. Here is another mound—black tomb—and above it there towers to the sky a monument of four million pairs of human fetters, taken from the arms of slaves, and I read on its grim face this: “ Sacred to the memory of Human Slavery.” For forty years of its infamous life the Democratic party taught that it was divine, God’s institution. They defended it, they stood around it at its grave as mourners. But here it lies, dead by the hand of Abraham Lincoln. Dead by the power of the Republican party. Dead by the justice of Almighty God. Don’t camp there, young man. But here is another—a little brimstone tomb—and I read across its yellow face in lurid, bloody lines these words: “ Sacred to the memory of fctate Sovereignty and Secession. ” Twelve millions of Democrats mustered around it to keep it alive ; but here it lies shot to death by the million guns~U7 — the Republic. Here it lies, its shrine burnt to ashes under the blazing rafters of the burning Confederacy. It is dead! I would not have you stay in there a minute, even in this balmy night air, to look at such a place. But just before I leave it I discover a new made grave, a little mound—short. The grass has hardly sprouted over it, and all around I see torn pieces of paper with the word? •fiat ’ on them, and look down in curiosity, wondering what the little grave is, and I read on it: ‘ Sacred to the memory of the Rag Baby, nursed in the brain of all fanaticism of the world, rocked by Thomas Ewing, George H. Pendleton, Samuel Carey, and a few others thoroughout the land.’ But it died on the 1st of January, 1879, and the $140,000,000 of gold that God made, and not fiat-power, lie upon the little carcass to keep it down forever. “ Oh, young man, come out of that ! That is no place to put your young life. Come out, and come over to this camp of liberty, of order, of law, of justice, of freedom,' of all that is glorious under these night stars. “Is there any death here in our camp? Yes, yes ! Three hundred and fifty thousand soldiers, the noblest band that ever trod the earth, died to make this camp a camp pf glory and of liberty forever I"
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM4ODY=