Page:Official Proceedings of the National Democratic Convention Held in Baltimore, July 9, 1872.pdf/6

6 I am aware that the very great honor conferred on me by this body is due to personal merit of my own, but is a token of respect to the State from which I come, and a recognition of other circumstances possibly adventitious. I am perhaps the oldest member of this body, and a life of eighty years spent in the Democratic-Republican party constitutes me a senior member. (Applause.) I remember freshly every Presidential contest from the first election of Jefferson to the present time, and I can say with truth that I remember none which involved higher questions of personal liberty, local self government, honest administration, and constitutional freedom, than the present, or one which demanded of our party and our people a calmer or more earnest recourse to prudential principles. (Applause.) It strikes me as the duty of this hour and of this body to wrest the Government from the hands of the present despotic and corrupt holders, and to place it in honest hands; to restore to the citizen everywhere the proud consciousness of personal right, and to all the States perfect integrity of local self-government. (Applause.) This, with the recognition of the supremacy of the civil constitution and the law, will, in my judgment, discharge all our present duty. (Applause.)

The Rev., D. D., of the Methodist Episcopal church, was then introduced, and opened the proceedings with prayer, as follows:

Prayer.

Almighty God, Maker of all things, Redeemer, Preserver, and Judge of all men, we come before Thee with hearts full of gratitude for the mercies which have been lavished on us in the past and at present, and with hope and confidence in Thee for the future. We thank Thee for all Thy mercies shown to our revolutionary fathers. In the darkest days of their colonial history Thou didst guide them, as with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, and didst enable them, under Thy guidance, to achieve success in the first war for independence; and when the peace had come Thou didst favor them with wisdom and patriotism to lay broad and deep the foundations of the great government which has been preserved by Thy providence to be a blessing to them and their posterity. We look to Thee to-day for the guidance of this body, called together from the mountains of Vermont and from the savannas of the South, from the West and from the East - called together in council to devise ways and means to meet the energencyemergency [sic] that is now upon the country; and we pray God to give to this Convention that wisdom which is profitable to direct. Oh that Thy blessing may come down upon our whole country, united through East and West, North and South, as a common brotherhood; that the time may speedily come when there shall be no North, no South, no East, no West known in this broad land; but when the American people shall become free, prosperous and happy. We pray for Thy blessing upon all who are in the General and in the State Governments, and we pray God that the civil and religious liber