and pledges could not be
trusted; that it was consistency which has belonged to every
party in turn. We will put the issue of this election upon
the record of the year's administration. He has shown an
utter want of understanding of the true theory of the Constitution.
This is illustrated in his removal of Warden Earle. He told
his friends at the prison that he made the removal because
Earle would not obey his orders. He had no more right to
give an order to Earle than to you or me. The Governor and
the Council have the right to prescribe rules for the government
of the prison--not the Governor. The Board of Prison Commissioners
have the right to give directions to the Warden, but not the
Governor. His telling Earle to obey his orders on pain of
dismissal was as flagrant a violation of law and of the fundamental
principles of the Constitution, as it was an injustice to
as brave an officer, as honest a man as ever tied a sash around
his waist. He traduced the Commonwealth in his vile Tewksbury
speech. I believe every charge he made broke down on his
own evidence or was thoroughly refuted. But if the thing
were decent to do, it might be done decently. Those of you
who have delighted to listen to the classic eloquence of Everett,
to the lofty speech of Sumner, to the noble appeals of Andrew,
aye, to the sincere and manly utterances of Robinson, take
that speech and read it. He insulted womanhood in the person
of a defenceless girl. He insulted purity by a speech so
gross that the principal Democratic paper in Boston declares
it unfit for circulation, and demands that it be suppressed.
He insulted every colored man in the State, when, in an unguarded
moment, speaking from his very soul, he called out: 'Give
me the skin that came off the nigger.' He insulted the citizen
soldiers of Massachusetts when he declared that they needed
but a word from him to clean out the State House. He insulted
the common school system of Massachusetts when he said that
if his witness were a person of immoral character, the school
system was responsible. He insulted the whole Commonwealth
in trying to cast upon the foul imputation that she was inhuman
and indifferent to her poor and unfortunate, and intimated
that the tanning of human skins was a recognized Massachusetts
industry. Another insult is the menace of fraud that comes
from Boston. The law requires the appointment of election
officers, to be chosen equally from the