Presidential election, 1872.: Proceedings of the National union Republican convention held at Philadelphia, June 5 and 6, 1872 .../ Reported by Francis H. Smith, Official reporter.

PHILADELP'-IIIA 1872.
abide by the requirements of our own State constitutions; we reverence the Constitution of the United States; but beyond constitutions, above constitutions, below constitutions, all around constitutions, stands this great American people, filled with
commnon sense, deep, profound, unfathomable, and that American people will make
and unmake constitutions. [Tremendous and long-continued applause.]
At the conclusion of the address there were loud calls for Governor
JOSEPH R. HAWLEY, of Connecticut, who went upon the platform and
said:
Alr. harirmnan and Gentlemen of the Convention: I assure you that while I am
gratified by this call, I am very greatly embarrassed also, for I desire to call for the
report of the Committee on Permanent Organization. There may be other opportunities during the session of this Convention when I may desire to say a few words.
It is not the time now for cool and deliberate argument. Will you, then, permit me
now to call for the report of the Committee on Permanent Organization?
The Chairman stated he hal just been informed that the committee is
not ready to report.
M,Ir. 21. D.' BoRuecK,.of California. OY-r. President: The delegates of California
have heard with delight the distinguished speakers who have addressed us so eloquently in favor of the colored race and those delegates who represent them here in
this Convention. California would like to hear a representative of that race speak
for himself. [Great applause.]
There were continued calls for Grey, (colored delegate from Arkansas,)
who was greeted with cheers upon taking the stand. He said:
SPEECH OF MR. WILLIAM H. GREY, OF ARKANSAS.
Gentlemen of the Convention: For the first time, perhaps, in the history of the
American people, there stands before you in a National Convention assembled, a representative of that oppressed race that has lived among you for two hundred and
fifty years, lifted by the magnanimity of this great nation, by the power of God and
the laws of war, from the degradation of slavery to the proud position of American
citizenship. [Great applause.] Words fail me, upon this occasion, to thank you
for this evidence of the grandest progress in civilization, when a people of such
magnitude, the grandest and greatest nation upon the face of the earth, not only
in the recognition of the merits and of the glory of the war which her noble sons
waged so successfully, have, in convention assembled, been willing to listen not only
to the greatest of her orators, but to the humblest citizens of this great Republic.
[Applause.]
I scarcely know where to begin upon an occasion like the present. If I raise the
curtain of the past, then I open the doors of the sarcophagus from which we have but
just emerged. If I should go back to the primnary history of my race in this country,
I would open up, perhaps, to discussion things and circumstances that would make
us, blush, and the blood in our cheeks to tingle in view of the evidences of the shameful and horiible condition-such in its degradation as the American people have never
thought of-from which we have just escaped.
But this is scarcely necessary. We are ready to say in the words of the Good
Book, "let the dead past bury its dead." While we remember these errors, while
we remember all these degradations, there is no vengeance, thank God, found in
our hearts. No revengeful feelings, no desire of retaliation. But God has given
us a heart to thank the American people for the position in which we stand to-day,
and we are willing, as I said before, to "let the dead past bury its dead," and to go
on in our progress and fit ourselves to become what we have been made by law,
American citizens in deed and in fact. [Applause.] It is the wonder of the world,
the miracle of the nineteenth century, that in this tremendous struggle which rocked
this great country from centre to circumference, that amid the debris of two hundred
and fifty years, a living people were found by this great nation and lifted from degradation, as it were, by the strong arm of power, and at once, without preparation and
without forethought, placed upon the broad plane of American citizenship. If we
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