Seven long years of war--fighting for what? For the principle that all men were created equal--a truth that nobody ever disputed except a scoundrel; nobody in the entire history of this world. No man ever denied that truth who was not a rascal, and at heart a thief; never, never, and never will. What else were they fighting for? Simply that in America every man should have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Nobody ever denied that except a villain; never, never. It has been denied by kings--they were thieves. It has been denied by statesmen--they were liars. It has been denied by priests, by clergymen, by cardinals, by bishops and by popes--they were hypocrites. What else were they fighting for? For the idea that all political power is vested in the great body of the people. They make all the money; do all the work. They plow the land; cut down the forests; they produce everything that is produced. Then who shall say what shall be done with what is produced except the producer?
The soldiers of the Republic finished what the soldiers of the Revolution commenced. They relighted the torch that fell from their august hands and filled the world again with light.
The soldiers went home to their waiting wives, to their glad children, and to the girls they loved--they went back to the fields, the shops and mines. They had not been demoralized. They had been ennobled. They were as honest in peace as they had been brave in war. Mocking at poverty, laughing at reverses, they made a friend of toil. They said: "We saved the nation's life, and what is life without honor?" They worked and wrought with all of labor's sons, that every pledge the nation gave should be redeemed. And their great leader, having put a shining hand of friendship--a girdle of clasped and happy hands--around the globe, comes home and finds that every promise made in war has now the ring and gleam of gold.
We say in this country manhood is worth more than gold. We say in this country that without liberty the Nation is not worth preserving. I appeal to every laboring man, and I ask him, "Is there another country on this globe where you can have your equal rights with others?" Now, then, in every country, no matter how good it is, and no matter how bad it is--in every country there is something worth preserving, and there is something that ought to be destroyed. Now recollect that every voter is in his own right a king; every voter in this country wears a crown; every voter in this country has in his hands the scepter of authority; and every voter, poor and rich, wears the purple of authority alike. Recollect it; and the man that will sell his vote is the man that abdicates the American throne.