e is equally bound when the State is
right. It is hardly reasonable to say that a man is only bound to
follow his State when his State is wrong; yet this was really the
position of Senator Thurman.

I saw the other day that some gentlemen in this city had given as
a reason for thinking that Thurman would strengthen the ticket,
that he had always been right on the financial question. Now, as
a matter of fact, he was always wrong. When it was necessary for
the Government to issue greenbacks, he was a hard money man--he
believed in the mint drops--and if that policy had been carried
out, the Rebellion could not have been suppressed. After the
suppression of the Rebellion, and when hundreds and hundreds of
millions of greenbacks were afloat, and the Republican party proposed
to redeem them in gold, and to go back--as it always intended to
do--to hard money--to a gold and silver basis--then Senator Thurman,
holding aloft the red bandanna, repudiated hard money, opposed
resumption, and came out for rag currency as being the best. Let
him change his ideas--put those first that he had last--and you
might say that he was right on the currency question; but when the
country needed the greenback he was opposed to it, and when the
country was able to redeem the greenback, he was opposed to it.

It gives me pleasure to say that I regard Senator Thurman as a man
of ability, and I have no doubt that he was coaxed into his last
financial position by the Democratic party, by the necessities of
Ohio, and by the force and direction of the political wind. No
matter how much respectability he adds to the ticket, I do not
believe that he will give any great strength. In the first place,
he is an old man. He has substantially finished his career. Young
men cannot attach themselves to him, because he has no future.
His following is not an army of the young and ambitious--it is
rather a funeral procession. Yet, notwithstanding this fact, he
will furnish most of the enthusiasm for this campaign--and that
will be done with his handkerchief. The Democratic banner is
Thurman's red bandanna. I do not believe that it will be possible
for the Democracy to carry Ohio by reason of Thurman's nomination,
and I think the failure to nominate Gray or some good man from that
State, will lose Indiana. So, while I have nothing to say against
Senator Thurman, nothing against his integrity or his ability,
still, under the circumstances, I do not t