MASSACHUSETTS. 



531 



date for Governor of those holding disaffected 

 views. His answer was that if a considerable 

 number of voters, say 20,000, would request 

 him in writing to do so, he would become 

 a candidate without regard to any conven- 

 tion. In consequence, the following document 

 was printed and presented by General Butler's 

 friends to the voters in every city and town in 

 the State : 



To GENERAL BENJAMIN" F. BUTLEE Dear Sir : 

 We, the undersigned, legal voters of the , feel- 

 ing the necessity of a more economical administra- 

 tion of our State government as well as of our na- 

 tional affairs, and believing you would, if elected 

 Governor of our State, use your experience, influ- 

 ence, and skill in public affairs to relieve the peo- 

 ple's burdens, and with your great energy bring 

 about a more equal and efficient administration of 

 the laws of this Commonwealth, would most respect- 

 fully ask the privilege of using your name as an 

 independent candidate for the office of Chief Magis 

 trate of our State. 



In less than two weeks the names of more 

 than double the number of voters specified had 

 been obtained and presented to General But- 

 ler. On August 29th he issued an address in 

 which he consented to become a candidate for 

 the office of Governor, and stated the objects 

 for which he should contend. An extract from 

 the address will suffice to show the basis on 

 which the movement rests : 



To Ike 51,874 Voters of Massachusetts who have asked 

 me to be a Candidate for the Office of Governor: 

 I was told when I came home in June that some 

 men wished to choose me Governor. I asked, " Are 

 they few?" They said, "No." I then said to all 

 men who spoke of the fact that if a large class of 

 men wished to vote for me, and would write their 

 names to that wish, to point out that still more men 

 would so vote, I would say yes. My friends caused 

 a note in print, to which I write this, to be sent into 

 the towns and wards of the State, and shown to 

 men, that they might put their names to it if they 

 chose. My friends asked how large must the sum of 

 names be; I said 20,000 at least, for that will be 

 more men than ever met in caucus to choose a man 

 to run in the State, and I think that sum will show 

 the fact that there will be three votes in the box for 

 each man who signs. And as these names are to 

 teach me what 1 ought to do, and what the men of 

 the State want, take care that no man signs who has 

 not a right to vote. There now comes the vast sum 

 of names of men to whom I write this to thank them 

 for their trust and faith in me. What they have 

 dons is more to me and mine than all else that ever 

 has been or ever can be done, and is worth more 

 than all I have won or can win from all the thought 

 and labor of a life of sixty years, the last years of 

 \vhich shall be used to do their work. 



I take the trust with all its cares, and will devote 

 all of intelligence, of labor, forethought and energy 

 which in me" lies, and use all the power which they 

 and those who think with them may give me to 

 '* relieve the PEOPLE'S BURDENS and bring about a 

 more equal and efficient administration of the laws 

 of this Commonwealth," which they wish. 



As the names of these whom I think I have now 

 the full right to call my friends came to me for my 

 guidance alone, I see no cause to print them, espe- 

 cially as many of those quite as worthy and valued 

 by me as any of them depend upon their daily toil 

 for their daily bread ; and as I am told that while 

 these names were being signed to this call, in some 

 cases, men were threatened with discharge from em- 



ployment if they signed it, and in a few cases men 

 who chose to circulate it to bo signed by others, in 

 the time which was their own, were wrongfully dis- 

 charged from employment for so doing, I do not 

 choose that their exhibition of confidence in and 

 friendship for mo shall give opportunity to a very 

 few foolish and cruel men to coerce the judgment, 

 or to deprive, by inflicting starvation upon his wife 

 and children, any laboring man of the free exercise 

 of his constitutional right to vote as he pleases, and 

 for whom he pleases. If the bulldozing of colored 

 voters in the South by the planters is to be trans- 

 planted here upon the soil of Massachusetts, and 

 applied to our workingmen, then indeed is there 

 an urgent need here for a change in the laws and 

 government of the good old State, to relieve " the 

 people's burdens." I trust if, in any instance, this 

 crime shall be attempted hereafter during the com- 

 ing canvass and election, the name of the misguided 

 person who shall do it, with the facts, may be re- 

 ported to me ; for, whether elected or not, I do not 

 believe I shall be without the means of furnishing 

 redress for so great a wrong, especially as a statute 

 of the United States makes it a highly penal of- 

 fense. In so doing I am sure I shall be sustained by 

 the just judgment of every right-minded man in the 

 Commonwealth. 



As we have no organization or platform of party 

 principles 7 either State or national, it may not be 

 inappropriate to set forth the principles which will 

 guide my political measures, as well as the conduct 

 of all governmental functions which may be intrust- 

 ed to me: 



EQUAL BIGHTS, EQUAL DUTIES, EQUAL POWERS, EQUAL 

 BURDENS, EQUAL PRIVILEGES, and EQUAL PROTECTION 

 by the laws TO EVERY MAN EVERYWHERE under the 

 Government, State or national. 



If there are any principles of true republicanism 

 or true democracy, as applied to government, not 

 covered by this enunciation, then I have yet to bo 

 instructed. They are of universal application, and 

 should be by no means "glittering generalities" in 

 their effect upon the laws and the execution of them. 



Of most of them, it is but just to the fair fame of 

 the Commonwealth to say there has rarely been at- 

 tempted, and never been permitted, open violation. 

 Such a law would be so abhorrent to the just sense 

 of right and fair play that has always characterized 

 our people as to cause, as it has done, instant change. 

 Our Bill of Rights enacts them, and by far the greater 

 part of the laws on our statute-books' are framed 

 with the full intent and wish on the part of the 

 Legislature to sustain them. In a still greater de- 

 gree, when any statute has been brought to the judi- 

 cial attention of our courts, the endeavor has, as a 

 rule, been also to sustain them. I feel a pride in 

 saying this, from an intimate experience of more 

 than thirty years with judicial action. 



But the cunning and greed of self-interest of men, 

 ever active and far-seeing, are always seeking so to 

 evade, manipulate, or break laws, whereby covertly 

 to obtain special advantages to themselves over their 

 less active and more honest fellow men. Long con- 

 tinuance in power of any party, however pure, gives 

 to such men, who always attach themselves to it, the 

 requisite knowledge and opportunity to fasten them- 

 selves like blood-suckers upon the public purse, and 

 once there they form a league or "ring" to keep 

 their hold and control offices, and to do this give to 

 others of their kind the means whereby they may 

 escape a just shai'e of the public burdens and obtain 

 more than an equal division of the fruits of indus- 

 try. 



The only use of parties, in a constitutional gov- 

 ernment, is that one party may watch the other, and 

 expose its abuses in government, and procure a 

 change in the administration of the government and 

 in the making of the laws, which change is always 

 healthful. In ordinary times those changes are so 

 frequent as in themselves to become the check and 



