Show THE NATIONS DAY bright and clear rose alie sun on the second november morning 1880 and ere its last lingering ra s will faded away in the western horizon the american people will have chosen its rulers for the next four years this is A spectacle unique in its nature and unsurpassed ir its dimensions with the natural increase of population and all the excitement of parti sn zeal it is to be supposed that today at least half a million more voters have exercised their elective franchise than there went to the polls in 1876 now if we rightly consider it it h a giand iose conception nine million free men weighing in their own hands the destinies of their country on one short day for four long year where on the wide footstool of the almighty will a similar spectacle be witnessed where will a whole nation be seen arraying itself ia two camps and still peaceful and if we take the expanse of the country in consideration if we survey the broad lands stretching from the alores of one ocean to the chait from the confines of arc tic regions into the genial sun of tle il tropics whose heart could being swelled by somo exalted feeling by the realization of something bet fsr nobler grander the average sentiments of the day with all it menial care and sordid solicitudes solicit udes in thi feeling in the recognition that the will of the whole people ir itself there ino need for an apprehension that tie verdict ol 01 thia grandest grand jury will be repealed or annulled by ohp paty that fouled to beaure the major ity of ballots vox cox ati the peoples voice goda voice this ancient adage bo of truth in a republic if there be any in it when these lines are read alie destiny of two great national parties the greatest political associations existing in any human community will virtually be still we not yet know it will reign unalloyed for a day or two and hope and fear will alternately sway millions true there are those omniscient soothsayers those self constituted augurs who lake it on themselves to have read lie book of fate and have o skipped a page or two ahead of everybody else their predictions may be verified and they tike the glory to their sagacity political judgment or any other intellectual excuse but let their prophecies be unfulfilled and they will know how to roll the fault on to the nation to fortune to anybody and anything else than their mole eyed shortsightedness we have all bad our minds badt up either which way we would vote or which way we would like ij i j vote if we bad a chance the republican is perfectly self assured in the belief in the saving potency of his political creed and no less confide ico animates the democrat when he asserts the correctness of his principles unfortunately abera are many but too many who are incapable of forming a judgment for themselves of deciding between the contending parties they and their number is legion follow blindly the leadership of any one who happens first to lay hands on them they help to swell the vole by mere numerical force while the american ballot box should be the repository of american intelligence this ia a drawback to our republican institutions which time alone can re more or remedy but there is mill enough intelligence and ness left in ibis nation to justify the defeated party in cheerfully acknowledging and latif ing the result of the election the party whose can didace and are declined by the sovereign majority of the american Ama rican people will acquiesce in the victory of the other man and the other principles considering them the next beet to be obtained it is this feeling which justifies the eais of republican institutions monarchies may be torn up by internals convulsions but republican commonwealths thrive mid progress only by the natural developments of their natural resources the people s will is sovereign tharo is no adix al and no recourse to higher instances with this proud conscious ness the american citizen to the billot box to deposit hi vote knowing that it is a unit an equal unit in the whole aggregate of a na tion not only a cipher placed behind somebody alses figure and where there anre nine million who say that alie country in not a living wholesome whole iome organism dea tined to coeval with time now llewell lle will bob angersoll believe in the of henry ward beechert Bee chera prayer or will II 11 W renounce his creed and submit to the prominence aih w infidel friend |