Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/126

116 down a party creed that meant something. A Democratic platform in order to be satisfactory, must mean nothing and everything, as the Cincinnati platform did. [Cheers.] But they will try again to repress the irrepressible conflict which rages in their own ranks, and as the day for doing so they have with great propriety chosen the 18th of June, the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo. [Applause.] What the result of that Convention will be, whether one of the contesting factions will carry the day, or whether they will succeed in uniting them, by conceding to one the platform and to the other the candidates, thus cheating each other in attempting to cheat the people, is to me a matter of supreme indifference. The Democrats undoubtedly thought they had done a very smart thing in adjourning their Convention without nominating a candidate, so as to deprive us of the supposed advantage of knowing what antagonist we shall have to deal with. Without being aware of it, they have indeed done a great thing for us; for they have obliged us to rely for success upon the positive strength of our own cause, instead of the accidental weakness of an opposing candidate. [Enthusiastic cheers.] And in this noble and manly attitude we stand before them, the only united National party in the land.

While the Union-savers did not dare to lay down a common party creed, while the Democrats, with unscrupulous duplicity, attempt to commit a new fraud upon the people, the Republican party has with manly fearlessness proclaimed its principles and nominated a candidate who fairly and honestly represents them. We have undertaken to defeat our opponents, not by concession and subterfuge, but by boldly and unequivocally re-asserting the principles in which we believe. We have undertaken to disarm the prejudices that are against us, not by pandering to them, but by opposing to them the language