ou do know
it, you are inexcusable not to designate the man and prove the fact. If
you do not know it, you are inexcusable to assert it, and especially
to persist in the assertion after you have tried and failed to make the
proof. You need not be told that persisting in a charge which one does
not know to be true is simply malicious slander. Some of you admit that no
Republican designedly aided or encouraged the Harper's Ferry affair, but
still insist that our doctrines and declarations necessarily lead to such
results. We do not believe it. We know we hold to no doctrines, and make
no declarations, which were not held to and made by our fathers who framed
the Government 'under which we live, and we cannot see how declarations
that were patriotic when they made them are villainous when we make them.
You never dealt fairly by us in relation to that affair--and I will say
frankly that I know of nothing in your character that should lead us to
suppose that you would. You had just been soundly thrashed in elections
in several States, and others were soon to come. You rejoiced at the
occasion, and only were troubled that there were not three times as many
killed in the affair. You were in evident glee; there was no sorrow for
the killed nor for the peace of Virginia disturbed; you were rejoicing
that by charging Republicans with this thing you might get an advantage of
us in New York, and the other States. You pulled that string as tightly as
you could, but your very generous and worthy expectations were not quite
fulfilled. Each Republican knew that the charge was a slander as to
himself at least, and was not inclined by it to cast his vote in your
favor. It was mere bushwhacking, because you had nothing else to do. You
are still on that track, and I say, go on! If you think you can slander
a woman into loving you or a man into voting for you, try it till you are
satisfied!

Another specimen of this bushwhacking, that "shoe strike." Now be it
understood that I do not pretend to know all about the matter. I am merely
going to speculate a little about some of its phases. And at the outset, I
am glad to see that a system of labor prevails in New England under which
laborers can strike when they want to, where they are not obliged to
work under all circumstances, and are not tied down and obliged to labor
whether you pay them or not! I like the system which lets a man quit when
he wants to, and wish it might prevail everywhere.