Robert Green Ingersoll, Chicago Speech, 1876, Tilden vs Hayes (not PC, may offend)

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: -- Democrats and Republicans have a common interest in the United States. We have a common interest in the preservation of good order. We have a common interest in the preservation of a common country. And I appeal to all, Democrats and Republicans, to endeavor to make a conscientious choice; to endeavor to select as President and Vice-President of the United States the men and the parties, which, in your judgment, will best preserve this nation, and preserve all that is dear to us either as Republicans or Democrats.

The Democratic party comes before you and asks that you will give this Government into its hands; and you have a right to investigate as to the reputation and character of the Democratic organization. The Democratic party says, "Let bygones be bygones." I never knew a man who did a decent action that wanted it forgotten. I never knew a man who did some great and shining act of self-sacrifice and heroic devotion who did not wish that act remembered. Not only so, but he expected his loving children would chisel the remembrance of it upon the marble that marked his last resting place. But wherever a man does an infamous thing; whenever a man commits some crime; whenever a man does that which mantles the cheeks of his children with shame; he is the man that says, "Let bygones be bygones." The Democratic party admits that it has a record, but it says that any man that will look into it, any man that will tell it, is not a gentleman. I do not know whether, according to the Democratic standard, I am a gentleman or not; but I do say that in a certain sense I am one of the historians of the Democratic party.

McIdiot is one of those who wants to "forget". To "let bygones be bygones". He'd rather reach across the aisle than give a hand up to a fellow Republican.

"Every man is entitled to liberty,"

Except, in McCain's view, those owning small or cheap pistols. Those wishing to sell those same arms at a gun show as a private transaction. Those wishing to give money to a political party or to speak their minds before an election. Those desiring that all immigrants who come here do so through the legal process. Those who wanted President Bush's tax cuts made permanent. Etc...

Yes, Obama is worse. This does not make McCain more palatable to conservatives who have been spit on time and again by Capt. McQueeg.

The more things change, the more they stay the same...

All persons desiring to vote the Democratic ticket are registered without personal application, and certificates are furnished them either before or on the day of election without even the formality of an oath as to eligibility. Registration the fountain-source of election, curtails Republican suffrage by the expense and inconvenience it entails upon persons not living at the county-seat, by refusal through willful neglect to register Republicans, and by fraud of the supervisor in making false entries; it adds to the Democratic vote through his fraud in unlawfully adding to the names on the registration-books those of all persons who are expected to vote the Democratic ticket.
If fortunate enough to obtain a certificate and he is in the low country or the Seventh Congressional District, which strikes nearly every republican centre, the Republican goes to the polls, if he can find them, early in the morning, as he is more or less acquainted with the delays there, especially if, there is a promise of a large Republican vote. The hour for the opening of the polls comes and goes, and neither managers nor boxes make their appearance. The crowd grows larger and soon there are four or five hundred Republicans. Anxious inquiries are made for the managers. It is learned later that, of the managers, Colonel Jones has gone to town, Mr. Brown has gone hunting, and Mr. Smith says he does not intend to serve, as there is no pay in it. Four or five hundred Republicans are disfranchised by the neglect of the managers, and not even the letter or spirit of the law is violated by the poll not being opened.
At a neighboring poll another scene is enacted. The polls are open, the boxes shown, the voters deposit their ballots, there is general levity, and everything appears to be fair. There are three hundred Republican voters; the Democracy have secured forty or fifty votes, and the polls close. The votes are counted; there are two or three hundred more ballots than names on the poll-list; instead of fifty Democratic ballots there are three hundred and fifty. The ballots are of regulation size, nobody has had access to the boxes but the managers, and the opening is too small for the introduction of any quantity of ballots without detection. Who put them in the box? The managers. The law for legalizing fraud is invoked. It requires the managers to draw ballots from the box until the number in the box tallies with the total number of votes cast. The box is shaken, for there is nothing for the Democracy to lose, being a case of “tail I win, head you lose”; ...
I desire to state in the most positive and emphatic manner that the number of negroes in South Carolina who have voted the Democratic ticket from compulsion of other causes from 1867 to the present time would not exceed five hundred. The entire white vote of the State (census of 1880) is only 86,900, while the total colored vote is 118,889, and yet at no election held in the State, except the election of 1876, when the gigantic steal was perpetrated by the Democrats, has the Democratic vote ever exceeded 70,000. At any election in South Carolina when the votes shall be counted as cast, it will be found that the negroes of the south are as true and as loyal to the principles of Republicanism as they were to the flag of this great country when treason sought to blot it out.

ELECTION METHODS IN THE SOUTH BY THE HON. ROBERT SMALLS, FORMERLY REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM SOUTH CAROLINA
http://facweb.furman.edu/~benson/docs/smalls.htm

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