Univ.of in. Library 
 
 •S3 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 7 URBANA 
 
 Wo. 27. 
 
 THE NATIONAL PLATFORMS 
 
 Of 1 THE 
 
 FROM 
 
 18S6 TO 1880 INCLUSIVE. 
 
 REPUBLICAN—1856. 
 
 A- 
 
 This convention of delegates assembled in pursuance of a call addressed to 
 the people of the United States, without regard to past political differences or 
 divisions, who are opposed to the repeal of the Missouri compromise, to the 
 policy of the present Administration, to the extension of slavery into free 
 territory, in favor of admitting Kansas as a free State, of restoring the action 
 of the'Federal Government to the principles of Washington and Jefferson, and 
 who. purpose to unite in presenting candidates for the offices of President and 
 Vice-President, do resolve as follows: 
 
 1. That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration 
 of Independence and embodied in the Federal Constitution is essential to the 
 preservation of our republican institutions, and that the Federal Constitution, 
 the rights of the States, and the union of the States, shall be preserved; that, 
 with our republican fathers, we hold it to be a self-evident truth that all men 
 are endowed with the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap¬ 
 piness, and that the primary object and ulterior design of our Federal Government 
 were to secure these rights to all persons within its exclusive jurisdiction; that, 
 as our republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national 
 territory, ordained that no person should be deprived of life, liberty, or prop¬ 
 erty without due process of law, it becomes our duty to maintain this provision 
 of the Constitution against all attempts to violate it for the purpose of estab¬ 
 lishing slavery in the United States by positive legislation prohibiting its ex¬ 
 istence or extension therein; that we deny the authority of Congress, of a Ter¬ 
 ritorial Legislature, of any individual or association of individuals, to give 
 legal existence to slavery in any Territory of the United States while the pres¬ 
 ent Constitution shall be maintained. 
 
 2. That the Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign power over the 
 Territories of the United States for their government, and that in the exercise 
 of this power it is both the right and the duty of Congress to prohibit in the 
 Territories those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and slavery. 
 
 3. That, while the Constitution of the United States was ordained and es¬ 
 tablished by the people ‘ ‘ in order to form a more perfect union, establish j ustice, 
 insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the 
 general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty,” and contains ample pro¬ 
 vision for the protection of life, liberty, and property of every citizen, the dear¬ 
 est constitutional rights of the people of Kansas have been fraudulently and 
 
 
2 
 
 violently taken from them; tlieir territory has been invaded by an armed force ; 
 spurious and pretended legislative, judicial, and executive officers have been 
 set over them, by whose usurped authority, sustained by the military power of 
 the Government, tyrannical and unconstitutional laws have been enacted and 
 enforced; the right of the people to keep and bear arms has been infringed; 
 test-oaths of an extraordinary and entangling nature have been imposed as a 
 condition of exercising the right of suffrage and holding office; the right of an 
 accused person to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury has been de¬ 
 nied ; the right of the people to. be secure in their persons, houses, pajiers, and 
 effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, has been violated; they 
 have been deprived of life, liberty, and property without due process of law; 
 that the freedom of speech and of the press has been abridged; the right ta 
 choose their representatives has been made of no effect; murders, robberies* 
 and arsons have been instigated and encouraged, and the offenders have been 
 allowed to go unpunished; that all these things have been done with the knowl¬ 
 edge, sanction, and procurement of the present Administration, and that for 
 this high crime against the Constitution, the Union, and humanity, we arraign 
 the Administration, the President, his advisers, agents, supporters, apologists* 
 and accessories either before or after the fact, before the country and before 
 the world; and that it is our fixed purpose to bring the actual perpetrators of 
 these atrocious outrages and their accomplices to a sure and condign punish¬ 
 ment hereafter. 
 
 4. That Kansas should be immediately admitted as a. State of the Union* 
 with her present free constitution, as at once the most effectual way of secur¬ 
 ing to her citizens the enjoyment of the rights and privileges to which they are 
 entitled, and of ending the civil strife now raging in her territory. 
 
 5. The highwayman’s plea that “might makes right,” embodied in the Os- 
 tend circular, was in every respect unworthy of American diplomacy, and 
 would bring shame and dishonor upon any Government or people that gave it 
 their sanction. 
 
 6. That*a railroad to the Pacific ocean by the most central and practicable 
 route is imperatively demanded by the interests of the whole country, and that 
 the Federal Government ought to render immediate and efficient aid in its con¬ 
 struction ; and, as an auxiliary thereto, to the immediate construction of an 
 emigrant route on the line of the railroad. 
 
 7. That appropriations by Congress for the improvement of rivers and 
 harbors of a national character, required for the accommodation and security 
 of our existing commerce, are authorized by the Constitution and justified by 
 the obligation of Government to protect the lives and property of its citizens. 
 
 8. That we invite the affiliation and co-operation of freemen of all parties* 
 however differing from us in other respects, m support of the principles herein 
 declared; and, believing that the spirit of our institutions, as well as the Con¬ 
 stitution of our country, guarantees liberty of conscience and equality of rights 
 among citizens, we oppose all legislation impairing their security. 
 
 DEMOCRATIC—1856. 
 
 Resolved, ^fhat the American Democracy place their trust in the intelligence, 
 the patriotism, and the discriminating justice of the American people. 
 
 II. Resolved, That we regard this as a distinctive feature of our political 
 creed, which we are proud to maintain before the world as the great moral el¬ 
 ement in a form of government springing from and upheld by the popular will; 
 and we contrast it with the creed and practice of Federalism, under whatever 
 name or form, which seeks to palsy the will of the constituent, and which con¬ 
 ceives no imposture too monstrous for the popular credulity. 
 
 III. Resolved, therefore, That, entertaining these views, the Democratic 
 party of this Union, through their delegates assembled in a general convention 
 
 
3 
 
 of the States, coming together in a spirit of concord, of devotion to the doc* 
 trines and faith of a free representative government, and appealing to their 
 fellow-citizens for the rectitude of their intentions, renew and re-assert before, 
 the American people the declarations of principles avowed by them when, on 
 former occasions, in general convention, they presented their candidates foy 
 the popular suffrage: 
 
 1. That the Federal Government is one of limited powers, derived solely 
 from the Constitution, and the grants of power made therein ought to be 
 strictly construed by all the departments and agents of the Government; and 
 that it is inexpedient and dangerous to exercise doubtful constitutional powers, 
 
 2. That the Constitution does not confer upon the General Government the 
 power to commence and carry on a general system of internal improvements, 
 
 3. That the Constitution does not confer authority upon the Federal Gov¬ 
 ernment, directly or indirectly, to assume the debts of the several States, con-, 
 tracted for local internal improvements or other State purposes; nor would 
 such assumption be just and expedient. 
 
 4. That justice and sound policy forbid the Federal Government to foster 
 one branch of industry to the detriment of any other, or to cherish the inter* 
 ests of one portion to the injury of another portion of our common country $ 
 that every citizen, and every section of the country, lias a right to demand and 
 insist upon an equality of rights and privileges, and to complete and ample pro? 
 tection of persons and property from domestic violence .or foreign aggression* 
 
 5. That it is the duty of every branch of the Government to enforce and 
 practice the most rigid economy in conducting our public alfairs, and that no- 
 more revenue ought to be raised than is required to defray the necessary ex^- 
 penses of the Government, and for the gradual but certain extinction of the 
 public debt. 
 
 6. That Congress has no power to charter a national bank; that we believe 
 such an institution one of deadly hostility to the best interests of the country, 
 dangerous to our republican institutions and the liberties of the people, and 
 calculated to place the business of the country within the control of a concen¬ 
 trated money power, and above the laws and the will of the people; and that 
 the results of Democratic legislation, in this and all other financial measures 
 upon which issues have been made between the two political parties of the 
 country, have demonstrated to candid and practical men of all parties their 
 soundness,*safety, and utility, in all business pursuits. 
 
 7. That the separation of the moneys of the Government from banking insti¬ 
 tutions is indispensable for the safety of the funds of the Government and the 
 rights of the people. 
 
 8. That the liberal principles embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration of 
 Independence, and sanctioned in the Constitution, which makes ours the land 
 of liberty and the asylum of the oppressed of every nation, have ever been car¬ 
 dinal principles in the Democratic faith; and every attempt to abridge the 
 present privilege of becoming citizens and the owners of soil among us ought 
 to be resisted with the same spirit which swept the alien and sedition laws 
 from our statute-books. 
 
 9. That Congress has no power under the Constitution to interfere with or 
 control the domestic institutions of the several States, and that such States are 
 the sole and proper judges of everything appertaining to their own affairs, not 
 prohibited by the Constitution; that all efforts of the abolitionists or others, 
 made to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take in¬ 
 cipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming 
 and dangerous consequences; and that all such efforts have an inevitable ten¬ 
 dency to diminish the happiness of the people and endanger the stability and 
 permanency of the Union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend of 
 our political institutions. 
 
 IV. Besolvecl , That the foregoing proposition covers, and was intended to 
 embrace, the whole subject of slavery agitation in Congress; and, therefore, 
 the Democratic party of the Union, standing upon this national platform, willj 
 abide by and adhere to a faithful execution of the acts known as the corny 
 
4 
 
 promise measures settled by the last Congress, “ the act for reclaiming fugi¬ 
 tives from service or labor ’’ included; which act, being designed to carry out 
 an express provision of the Constitution, cannot, with fidelity thereto, be re¬ 
 pealed or so changed as to destroy or impair its efficiency. 
 
 V. Resolved, That the Democratic party will resist all attempts at renew¬ 
 ing, in Congress or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question, under what¬ 
 ever shape or color the attempt may be made. 
 
 VI. Resolved, That the proceeds of the public lands ought to be sacredly 
 applied to the national objects specified in the Constitution; and that we are 
 opposed to any law for the distribution of such proceeds among the States, as 
 alike inexpedient in policy and repugnant to the Constitution. 
 
 VII. Resolved, That we are decidedly opposed to taking from the President 
 the qualified veto power, by which he is enabled, under restrictions and re¬ 
 sponsibilities amply sufficient to guard the public interest, to suspend the pass¬ 
 age of a bill whose merits cannot secure the approval of two-thirds of the Sen¬ 
 ate and House of Representatives, until the judgment of the people can be ob¬ 
 tained thereon, and which has saved the American people from the corrupt 
 and tyrannical domination of the Bank of the United States, and from a cor¬ 
 rupting system of general internal improvements. 
 
 VIII. Resolved, That the Democratic party will faithfully abide by and up¬ 
 hold the principles laid down in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798 
 and in the report of Mr. Madison to the Vii ginia Legislature in 1799; that it 
 adopts those principles as constituting one of the main foundations of its polit¬ 
 ical creed, and is resolved to carry them out in their obvious meaning and im¬ 
 port. 
 
 And whereas, since the foregoing declaration was uniformly adopted by our 
 predecessors in National conventions an adverse political and religious test lias 
 been secretly organized by a party claiming to be exilusively American, it is 
 proper that the American Democracy should clearly deiiue its relations thereto, 
 and declare its determined opposition to all secret political societies, by what¬ 
 ever name they may be called : 
 
 Resolved, That the foundation of this Union of States having been laid in, 
 and its prosperity, expansion, and pre-eminent example in free go cernment built 
 upon entire freedom in matters of religious concernment, and no respect of per¬ 
 son in regard to rank or place of birth, no party can justly be deemed National, 
 constitutional, or in accordance with American principles, which bases its ex¬ 
 clusive organization upon religious opinions and accidental birth-place. And 
 hence a political crusade in the nineteenth century, and in the United States of 
 America, against Catholic and foreign-born, is neither justified by the past 
 history or future prospects of the country, nor in unison with the spirit of tol¬ 
 eration and enlarged freedom which peculiarly distinguishes the American sys¬ 
 tem of popular government. 
 
 And that we may more distinctly meet the issue on which a sectional party, 
 subsisting exclusively on slavery agitation, now relies to test the fidelty of the 
 people, North and South, to the Constitution and the Union: 
 
 1. Resolved, That claiming fellowship with, and desiring the co-operation 
 of all who regard the preservation of the Union under the Constitution as the 
 paramount issue, and repudiating all sectional parties and platforms concern¬ 
 ing domestic slavery, which seek to embroil the States and incite to treason and 
 armed resistance to law of the Territories, and whose avowed purpose, if con¬ 
 summated, must end in civil war and disunion, the American Democracy rec¬ 
 ognize and adopt the principles contained in the organic laws establishing the 
 Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, as embodying the only sound and safe so¬ 
 lution of the “ slavery question ” upon which the great National idea of the 
 people of this whole country can repose in its determined conservatism of the 
 Union— NON-INTERFERENCE BY CONGRESS WITH SLAVERY IN STATE AND TER¬ 
 RITORY, or in the District of Columbia. 
 
 2. That this was the basis of the compromises of 1850, confirmed by both 
 the Democratic and Whig parties in National conventions, ratified by the peo¬ 
 ple in the election of 1852, and rightly applied to the organization of Territories 
 in 1854. 
 
5 
 
 8. That by the uniform application of this democratic principle to the or- 
 
 S anization of Territories, ana to the admission of new States, with or without 
 omestic slavery, as they may elect, the equal rights of all the States will be 
 preserved intact, the original compacts of the Constitution maintainea invio¬ 
 late, and the perpetuity and expansion of this Union insured to its utmost ca¬ 
 pacity of embracing, in peace and harmony, every future American State that 
 may be constituted or annexed with a Kepublican form of Government. 
 
 Besolved, That we recognize the right of the people in all the Teritories, 
 including Kansas and Nebraska, acting through the legally and fairly-expressed 
 will of a majority of actual residents, anti wherever the number of their inhab¬ 
 itants justifies it, to form a constitution, with or without domestic slavery, and 
 be admitted into the Union upon terms of perfect equality with the other 
 States. 
 
 Besolved, finally, That in the view of the condition of popular institutions 
 in the Old World (and the dangerous tendencies of sectional agitation, com¬ 
 bined with the attempt to enforce civil and religious disabilities against the 
 rights of acquiring and enjoying citizenship in our own land,) a high and sacred 
 duty is devolved with increased responsibility upon the Democratic party of 
 this country, as the party of the Union, to uphold and maintain the rights of 
 every State, and thereby the Upion of the States; and to sustain and advance 
 among us constitutional liberty, by continuing to to resist all monopolies and 
 exclusive legislation for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many, and 
 by a vigilant and constant adherence to those principles and compromises of 
 the Constitution, which are broad enough and strong enough to embrace and 
 uphold the Union as it was, the Union as it is, and the Union as it shall be, in 
 the full expansion of the energies and capacity of this great and progressive 
 people. • 
 
 1. Besolved, That there are questions connected with the foreign policy of 
 this country, which are inferior to no domestic question whatever. The time 
 has come for the people of the United States to declare themselves in favor of 
 free seas and progressive free trade throughout the world, by solemn manifes¬ 
 tations, to place their moral influence at the side of their successful example. 
 [Adopted—yeas 230, nays 29.] 
 
 2. Besolved, That our geographical and political position with reference to 
 the other States of this continent, no less than the interest of our commerce and 
 the development of our growing power, requires that we should hold as sacred 
 the principles involved in the Monroe doctrine; their bearing and import 
 admit of no misconstruction; they should be applied with unbending rigidity. 
 [Adopted—yeas 2.39, nays 21.] 
 
 3. Besolved, That the great highway which nature as well as the assent of 
 the States most immediately interested in its maintenance has marked out for 
 a free communication between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, constitutes one 
 of the most important achievements realized by the spirit of modern times and 
 the unconquerable energy of our people. That result should be secured by a 
 timely and efficient exertion of the control which we have the right to claim 
 over it, and no power on earth should be suffered to impede or clog its progress 
 by any interference with the relations it may suit our policy to establish be¬ 
 tween our Government and the governments of the States within whose do¬ 
 minions it lies. We can, under no circumstance, surrender our preponderance 
 in the adjustment of all questions arising out of it. [Adopted—yeas 180, nays 
 56.] 
 
 an interest, the people of the 
 orts which are being made by 
 
 4. Besolved, That, in view of so commandin 
 
 United States cannot but sympathize with the e: __ o _J 
 
 the people of Central America to regenerate that portion of the°continent 
 which covers the passage across the interoceanic isthmus. [Adopted—yeas 221, 
 nays 38.] 
 
 5. Besolved, That the Democratic party will expect of the next Adminis¬ 
 tration that every proper effort be made to insure our ascendency in the Gulf 
 of Mexico, and to maintain a permanent protection to the great outlets through 
 which are emptied into its waters the products raised out of the soil and the 
 
6 
 
 comodities created by the industry of the people of our western valleys and 
 of the Union at large. [Adopted—yeas 229, nays 33.] 
 
 The following resolution, reported from the committee on resolutions, was 
 laid on the table—yeas 154, nays 120: 
 
 Resolved, That the Democratic party recognizes the great importance, in a 
 political and commercial point of view, of a safe and speedy communication 
 by military and postal roads, through our own territory, between the Atlantic 
 and Pacific coasts of this Union, and that it is the duty of the Federal Gov¬ 
 ernment to exercise promptly all its constitutional power for the attainment of 
 that object. On tabling, the vote was^ 
 
 Yeas —Maine 1, New Hampshii’e 4, Massachusetts 17, Rhode Island 4, Connecticut 6, New 
 Jersey 7, Pennsylvania 27, Delaware 3, Virginia 15, North Carolina 10, South Carolina 8, Georgia 
 6, Alabama 9. Mississippi 7, Ohio 16, Kentucky 8, Tennessee 3, Florida 3—154. 
 
 Nays— Maine 7, New Hampshire 1, Vermont 5, Massachusetts 12, Maryland 6, Georgia 4, 
 Louisiana 6, Ohio G, Kentucky 4, Tennessee 9, Indiana 13, Illinois 11, Missouri 9, Arkansas 4, 
 Michigan 6, Texas 4, Iowa 4, Wisconsin 5, California 4—120. 
 
 The second day thereafter the rules were suspended—yeas 208, nays 88— 
 and this resolution was adopted—yeas 205, nays 87: 
 
 Resolved, That Democratic party recognizes the great importance, in a po¬ 
 litical and commercial point of view, of a safe, and speedy communication 
 through our own territory between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the Union, 
 and it is the duty of the Federal Government to exercise all its constitutional 
 power to the attainment of that object, thereby binding the Union of these 
 States in indissoluble bonds, and opening to the rich commerce of Asia an 
 overland transit from the Pacific to the Mississippi river, and the great lakes of 
 the North. 
 
 REPUBLICAN—1860. 
 
 Resolved, That we, the delegated representatives of the Republican elect¬ 
 ors of the United States, in convention assembled, in discharge of the duty we 
 owe to our constituents and our country, unite in the following declarations : 
 
 1. That the history of the Nation, during the last four years, has fully es¬ 
 tablished the propriety and necessity of the organization and perpetuation of 
 the Republican party, and that the causes which called it into existence are 
 permanent in their nature, and now, more than ever before, demand its peace¬ 
 ful and constitutional triumph. 
 
 2. That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration 
 of Independence and embodied in the Federal Constitution, “ That all men are 
 created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable 
 rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that 
 to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their 
 just powers from the consent of the governed,” is essential to the preservation 
 of our republican institutions; and that the Federal Constitution, the rights 
 of the States, and the Union of the States, must and shall be preserved. 
 
 3. That to the Union of the States this Nation owes its unprecedented in¬ 
 crease in population, its surprising development of material resources, its 
 rapid augmentation of wealth, its happiness at home, and its honor abroad; 
 and we hold in abhorrence all schemes for disunion, come from whatever source 
 they may; and we congratulate the country that no Republican member of 
 Congress has uttered or countenanced the threats of disunion so often made by 
 Democratic members, without rebuke and with applause from their political 
 associates; and we denounce those threats of disunion, in case of a popular 
 overthrow of their ascendency, as denying the vital principles of a free gov¬ 
 ernment, and as an avowal of contemplated treason, which it is the imperative 
 duty of an indignant people sternly to rebuke and forever silence. 
 
7 
 
 4. That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially 
 the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions ac¬ 
 cording to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power 
 on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depends; and 
 we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or 
 Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes. 
 
 5. That the present Democratic Administration has far exceeded our worst 
 apprehensions, in its measureless subserviency to the exactions of a sectional 
 interest, as especially evinced in its desperate exertions to force the infamous 
 Lecompton constitution upon the protesting people of Kansas; in construing 
 the personal relations between master and servant to involve an unqualified 
 property in persons; in its attempted enforcement everywhere, on land and 
 sea, through the intervention of Congress and of the Federal courts of the ex¬ 
 treme pretensions of a purely local interest;' and in its general and unvarying 
 -abuse of the power intrusted to it by a confiding people. 
 
 6. That the people justly view with alarm the reckless extravagance which 
 pervades every department of the Federal Government; that a return to rigid 
 economy and accountability is indispensable to arrest the systematic plunder 
 of the public treasury by favored partisans, while the recent startling develop¬ 
 ments of frauds and corruptions at the Federal metropolis show that an en¬ 
 tire change of administration is imperatively demanded. 
 
 7. That the new dogma, that the Constitution, of its own force, carries 
 slavery into any or all of the Territories of the United States, is a dangerous 
 political heresy, at variance with the explicit provisions of that instrument 
 itself, with contemporaneous exposition, and with legislative and judicial pre¬ 
 cedent ; is revolutionary in its tendency, and subversive of the peace and har¬ 
 mony of the country. 
 
 8. That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is 
 that of freedom; that as our republican fathers, when they had abolished 
 slavery in all our national territory, ordained that “no person should be de¬ 
 prived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law,” it becomes our 
 duty, by legislation, whenever such legislation is necessary, to maintain this 
 provision of the Constitution against all attempts to violate it; and we deny 
 the authority of Congress, of a Territorial Legislature, or of any individuals, to 
 give legal existence to slavery in any Territory of the United States. 
 
 9. That we brand the recent reopening of the African slave-trade, under 
 the cover of our national flag, aided by perversions of judicial power, as a 
 crime against humanity and a burning shame to our country and age; and we 
 call upon Congress to take prompt and efficient measures for the total and final 
 suppression of that execrable traffic. 
 
 10. That in the recent vetoes, by theit Federal governors, of the acts of the 
 Legislatures of Kansas and Nebraska, prohibiting slavery in those Territories, 
 we find a practical illustration of the boasted Democratic principle of non¬ 
 intervention and popular sovereignty, embodied in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, 
 and a demonstration of the deception and fraud involved therein. 
 
 11. That Kansas should of right be immediately admitted as a State under 
 the constitution recently formed and adopted by her people and accepted by 
 the House of Representatives. 
 
 12. That, while providing revenue for the support of the General Govern¬ 
 ment by duties upon imports, sound policy requires such an adjustment of these 
 imposts as to encourage the development of the industrial interests of the 
 whole country ; and we commend that policy of national exchanges which se¬ 
 cures to the workingmen liberal wages, to agriculture remunerative prices, to 
 mechanics and manufacturers an adequate reward for their skill, labor, and 
 enterprise, and to the Nation commercial prosperity and independence. 
 
 13. That we protest against any sale or alienation to others of the public 
 lands held by actual settlers, and against any view of the free homestead policy 
 which regards the settlers as paupers or suppliants for public bounty; and we 
 demand the passage by Congress of the complete and satisfactory homestead 
 measure which has already passed the House. 
 
8 
 
 14. That the Republican party is opposed to any change in our naturaliza¬ 
 tion laws, or any State legislation by which the rights of citizenship hitherto 
 accorded to immigrants from foreign lands shall be abridged or impaired; and 
 in favor of giving a full and efficient protection to the rights of all classes of 
 citizens, whether native or naturalized, both at home and abroad. 
 
 15. That appropriations by Congress for river and harbor improvements 
 of a national character, required for the accommodation and security of an 
 existing commerce, are authorized by the Constitution and justified by the ob¬ 
 ligation of Government to protect the lives and property or its citizens. 
 
 16. That a railroad to the Pacific ocean is imperatively demanded by the 
 interests of the whole country; that the Federal Government ought to render 
 immediate and efficient aid in its construction; and that, as preliminary thereto, 
 a daily overland mail should be promptly established. 
 
 17. Finally, having thus set forth our distinctive principles and views, we 
 invite the co-operation of all citizens, however differing on other questions, 
 who substantially agree with us in their affirmance and support. 
 
 DEMOCRATIC (DOUGLAS)—1860. 
 
 1 . Eesolved, That we, the Democracy of the Union, in convention assembled, 
 hereby declare our affirmance of the resolutions unanimously adopted and de¬ 
 clared as a platform of principles by the Democratic convention in Cincinnati, 
 in the year 1856, believing that Democratic principles are unchangeable in 
 their nature, when applied to the same subject-matters, and we recommend, as 
 the only further resolutions, the following: 
 
 2. Eesolved, That it is the duty of the United States to afford ample and 
 complete protection to all its citizens, whether at home or abroad, and whether 
 native or foreign. 
 
 3. Eesolved, That one of the necessities of the age, in a military, com¬ 
 mercial, and postal point of view, is speedy communication between the Atlan¬ 
 tic and Pacific States; and the Democratic party pledge such constitutional 
 Government aid as will insure the construction of a railroad to the Pacific 
 coast at the earliest practicable period. 
 
 4. Eesolved, That the Democratic party are in favor of the acquisition of 
 the Island of Cuba, on such terms as shall be honorable to ourselves and just 
 to Spain. 
 
 5. Eesolved, That the enactments of State Legislatures to defeat the 
 faithful execution of the fugitive-slave law are hostile in character, subversive 
 of the Constitution, and revolutionary in their effect. 
 
 6. Eesolved, That it is in accordance with the true interpretation of the 
 Cincinnati platform that, during the existence of the Territorial governments, 
 the measure of restriction, whatever it may be, imposed by the Federal Con¬ 
 stitution on the power of the Territorial Legislature over the subject of the do¬ 
 mestic relations, as the same has been, or shall hereafter be, finally determined 
 by the Supreme Court of the United States, should be respected by all good 
 citizens, and enforced with promptness and fidelity by every branch of the 
 General Government. 
 
 DEMOCRATIC (BRECKINRIDGE)-1860. 
 
 Eesolved, That the platform adopted by the Democratic party at Cincin¬ 
 nati be affirmed, with the following explanatory resolutions: 
 
 1. That the government of a Territory organized by an act of Congress is 
 provisional and temporary, and during its existence all citizens of the United 
 States have an equal right to settle with their property in the Territory, with- 
 
9 
 
 out their rights, either of person or property, being destroyed or impaired by 
 Congressional or Territorial legislation. 
 
 2. That it is the duty of the Federal Government, in all its departments, to 
 protect, when necessary, the rights of persons and property in the Territories, 
 and wherever else its constitutional authority extends. 
 
 3. That when the settlers in a Territory, having an adequate population, 
 form a State Constitution, the right of sovereignty commences, and, being con¬ 
 summated by admission into the Union, they stand on an equal footing with 
 the people of other States; and the State thus organized ought to be ad¬ 
 mitted into the Federal Union, whether its constitution prohibits or recog¬ 
 nizes the institution of slavery. 
 
 4. That the Democratic party are in favor of the acquisition of the Island 
 of Cuba, on such terms as shall be honorable to ourselves and just to Spain, at 
 the earliest practicable moment. 
 
 5. That the enactments of the State Legislatures to defeat the faithful ex¬ 
 ecution of the fugitive-slave law are hostile in character, subversive of the 
 Constitution, and revolutionary in their effect. 
 
 6. That the Democracy of the United States recognize it as the imperative 
 duty of this Government to protect the naturalized citizen in all his rights, 
 whether at home or in foreign lands, to the same extent as its native-born citi¬ 
 zens. 
 
 Whereas one of the greatest necessities of the age, in a political, com¬ 
 mercial, postal, and military point of view, is a speedy communication between 
 the Pacific and Atlantic coasts; therefore, be it 
 
 Resolved, That the National Democratic party do hereby pledge themselves 
 to use every means in their power to secure the passage of some bill, to the ex¬ 
 tent of the constitutional authority of Congress, for the construction of a Pa¬ 
 cific railroad from the Mississippi river to the Pacific ocean, at the earliest 
 practicable moment. 
 
 REPUBLICAN—1864. 
 
 Resolved, That it is the highest duty of every American citizen to maintain 
 against all their enemies the integrity of the Union and the paramount author¬ 
 ity of the Constitution and laws of the United States; and that, laying aside 
 all differences of political opinions, we pledge ourselves as Union men, animated 
 by a common sentiment, and aiming at a common object, to do everything in 
 our power to aid the Government, in quelling by force of arms the rebellion 
 now raging against its authority, and in bringing to the punishment due to 
 their crimes the rebels and traitors arrayed against it. 
 
 2. That we approve the determination of the Government of the United 
 States not to compromise with rebels, or to offer them any terms of peace, ex¬ 
 cept such as may be based upon an unconditional surrender of their hostility 
 and a return to their just allegiance to the Constitution and laws of-the United 
 States; and that we call upon the Government to maintain this position and to 
 prosecute the war with the utmost possible vigor to the complete suppression 
 of the rebellion, in full reliance upon the self-sacrificing patriotism, the heroic 
 valor, and the undying devotion of the American people to the country and its 
 free institutions. 
 
 3. That as slavery was the cause, and now constitutes the strength of 
 this rebellion, and as it must be always and everywhere hostile to the 
 principles of republican government, justice and the national safety de¬ 
 mand its utter and complete extirpation from the soil of the Republic; and 
 that while we uphold and maintain the acts and proclamations by which the 
 Government, in its own defense, has aimed a death-blow at this gigantic evil, 
 we are in favor furthermore of such an amendment to the Constitution, to be 
 made by the people in conformity with its provisions, as shall terminate and 
 
10 
 
 forever prohibit the existence of slavery within the limits of the jurisdiction 
 of the United States. 
 
 4. That the thanks of the American people are due to the soldiers and sail¬ 
 ors of the Army and Navy, who have periled their lives in defense of the 
 country and in vindication of the honor of its flag; that the Nation owes to 
 them some permanent recognition of their patriotism, and their valor, and 
 ample and permanent provision for those of their survivors who have received 
 disabling and honorable wounds in the service of the country; and that the 
 memories of those who have fallen in its defense shall be held in grateful and 
 everlasting remembrance. 
 
 5. That we approve and applaud the practical wisdom, the unselfish patriot¬ 
 ism, and the unswerving fidelity to the Constitution and the principles of 
 American liberty with which Abraham Lincoln has discharged, under circum¬ 
 stances of unparalleled difficulty, the great duties and responsibilities of the 
 presidential office; that we approve and indorse, as demanded by the emerg¬ 
 ency and essential to the preservation of the Nation and as within the provis¬ 
 ions of the Constitution, the measures and acts which he has adopted to defend 
 the Nation against its open and secret foes; that we approve especially the 
 proclamation of emancipation and the employment as Union soldiers of men 
 heretofore held in slavery; and that we have full confidence in his determina¬ 
 tion to carry these and all other constitutional measures essential to the salva¬ 
 tion of the country into full and complete effect. 
 
 6. That we deem it essential to the general welfare that harmony should 
 prevail in the national councils, and we regard as worthy of public confidence 
 and official trust those only who cordially indorse the principles proclaimed in 
 these resolutions, and which should characterize the administration of the Gov¬ 
 ernment. 
 
 7. That the Government owes to all men employed in its armies, without 
 regard to distinction of color, the full protection of the laws of war; and that 
 any violation of these laws, or of the usages of civilized nations in time of 
 war by the rebels now in arms, should be made the subject of prompt and full 
 redress. 
 
 8. That foreign immigration, which in the past has added so much to the 
 wealth, development of resources, and increase of power to the Nation—the 
 asylum of the oppressed of all nations—should be fostered and encouraged by 
 a liberal and just policy. 
 
 9. That we are in favor of the speedy construction of the railroad to the 
 Pacific coast. 
 
 10. That the National faith, pledged for the redemption of the public debt, 
 must be kept inviolate, and that for this purpose we recommend economy and 
 rigid responsibility in the public expenditures, and a vigorous and just system 
 of taxation; and that it is the duty of every loyal State to sustain the credit 
 and promote the use of the National currency. 
 
 11. That we approve the position taken by the Government that the people 
 of the United States can never regard with indifference the attempt of any 
 European power to overthrow by force, or to supplant by fraud, the institu¬ 
 tions of any republican government on the western continent; and that they 
 will view with extreme jealousy, as menacing to the peace and independence 
 of their own country, the efforts of .any such power to obtain new footholds 
 for monarchical governments, sustained by foreign military force, in near 
 proximity to-the United States. 
 
 DEMOCRATIC—1864. 
 
 Besolved, That, in the future, as in the past, we will adhere with unswerv¬ 
 ing fidelity to the Union under the Constitution as the only solid foundation 
 of our strength, security, and happiness as a people, and as a framework of 
 
11 
 
 government equally conducive to the welfare and prosperity of all the States, 
 both Northern and Southern. 
 
 Resolved, That this convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of the 
 American people, that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the 
 experiment of war, during which, under the pretense of a military necessity 
 or war-power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been 
 disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden 
 down, and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, 
 humanity, liberty;, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be 
 made for a cessation of hostilities; with a view to the ultimate convention of 
 the States, or other peaceable means, to the end that, at the earliest practicable 
 moment peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States. 
 
 Resolved, That the direct interference of the military authorities of the 
 United States in the recent elections held in Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, 
 and Delaware was a shameful violation of the Constitution, and a repetition of 
 such acts in the approaching election will be held as revolutionary, and resisted 
 with all the means and power under our control. 
 
 Resolved, That the aim and object of the Democratic party is to preserve 
 the Federal Union and the rights of the States unimpaired, and they hereby 
 declare that they consider that the administrative usurpation of extraordinary 
 and dangerous powers not granted by the Constitution—the subversion of the 
 civil by military law in States not in insurrection; the arbitrary military ar¬ 
 rest, imprisonment, trial, and sentence of American citizens in States where 
 civil law exists in full force; the suppression of freedom of speech and of the 
 press; the denial of the right of asylum; the open and avowed disregard of 
 State rights; the employment of unusual test oaths; and the interference with 
 and denial of the right of the people to bear arms in their defense is calculated 
 to prevent a restoration of the Union and the perpetuation of a Government 
 deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed. 
 
 Resolved, That the shameful disregard of the Administration to its duty in 
 respect to our fellow-citizens who now are and long have been prisoners of 
 war in a suffering condition deserves the severest reprobation on the score 
 alike of public policy and common humanity. 
 
 Resolved, That the sympathy of the Democratic party is heartily and ear¬ 
 nestly extended to the soldiery of our Army and sailors of our Navy, who are 
 and have been in the field and on the sea under the flag of our country, and, 
 in the event of its attaining power, they will receive all the care, protection, 
 and regard that the brave soldiers and sailors of the Republic so nobly earned. 
 
 REPUBLICAN—1868. 
 
 The National Republican party of the United States, assembled in National 
 Convention in the city of Chicago, on the 21st day of May, 1868, make the* fol¬ 
 lowing declaration of principles: 
 
 1. We congratulate the country on the assured success of the reconstruc¬ 
 tion policy of Congress, as evinced by the adoption, in the majority of the 
 States lately in rebellion, of constitutions securing equal civil and political rights 
 to all; and it is the duty of the Government to sustain those institutions and 
 prevent the people of such States from being remitted to a state of anarchy. 
 
 2. The guaranty by Congress of equal suffrage to all loyal men at the South 
 was demanded by every consideration of public safety, of gratitude, and of 
 justice, and must be maintained; while the question of suffrage in all the 
 loyal States properly belongs to the people of those States. 
 
 3. We denounce all forms of repudiation as a National crime; and the Na¬ 
 tional honor requires the payment of the public indebtedness in the uttermost 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF HLWOW 
 
12 
 
 good faith to all creditors at home and abroad, not only according to the let¬ 
 ter, but the spirit of the laws under which it was contracted. 
 
 4. It is due to the labor of the Nation that taxation should be equalized 
 and reduced as rapidly as the National faith will permit. 
 
 5. The National debt, contracted as it has been for the preservation of the 
 Union for all time to come, should be extended over a fair period for redemp¬ 
 tion ; and it is the duty of Congress to reduce the rate of interest thereon 
 whenever it can be honestly done. 
 
 6. That the best policy to diminish our burden of debt is to so improve our 
 credit that capitalists will seek to loan us money at lower rates of interest than 
 we now pay and must continue to pay so long as repudiation, partial or total, 
 open or covert, is threatened or suspected. 
 
 7. The Government of the United States should be administered with the 
 strictest economy; and the corruptions which have been so shamefully nursed 
 and fostered by Andrew Johnson call loudly for radical reform. 
 
 8. We profoundly deplore the untimely and tragic death of Abraham Lin¬ 
 coln, and regret the accession to the Presidency of Andrew Johnson, who has 
 acted treacherously to the people who elected him and the cause he was 
 pledged to support; who has usurped high legislative and judicial functions ; 
 who nas refused to execute the laws; who has used his high office to induce 
 other officers to ignore and violate the laws; who has employed his Executive 
 powers to render insecure the property, the peace, liberty, and life of the citi¬ 
 zen ; who has abused the pardoning power; who has denounced the National 
 Legislature as unconstitutional; who has persistently and corruptly resisted, 
 by every means in his power, every proper attempt at the reconstruction of 
 the States lately in rebellion; who has perverted the public patronage into an 
 engine of wholesale corruption; and who has been justly impeached for high 
 crimes and misdemeanors, and properly pronounced guilty thereof by the vote 
 of thirty-five Senators. 
 
 9. The doctrine of Great Britain and other European Powers, that because 
 a man is once a subject he is always so, must be resisted at every hazard by 
 the United States, as a relic of feudal times, not authorized by the laws of na¬ 
 tions, and at war with our National honor and independence. Naturalized cit¬ 
 izens are entitled to protection in all their rights or citizenship as though they 
 were native-born ; and nO citizen of the United States, native or naturalized, 
 must be liable to arrest and imprisonment by any foreign power for acts done 
 or words spoken in this country; and, if so arrested and imprisoned, it is the 
 duty of the Government to interfere in his behalf. 
 
 10. Of all who were faithful in the trials of the late war, there were none 
 entitled to more especial honor than the brave soldiers and seamen who en¬ 
 dured the hardships of campaign and cruise, an<J imperiled their lives in the 
 service of the country; the bounties and pensions provided by the laws for 
 these brave defenders of the Nation are obligations never to be forgotten; the 
 widows and orphans of the gallant dead are the wards of the people—a sacred 
 legacy bequeathed to the Nation’s protecting care. 
 
 11. Foreign immigation, which in the past has added so much to the wealth, 
 development, and resources, and increase of power to this Republic, the asylum 
 of the oppressed of all nations, should be fostered and encouraged by a liberal 
 and just policy. 
 
 12. This convention declares itself in sympathy with all oppressed peoples 
 struggling for their rights. 
 
 18. That we highly commend the spirit of magnanimity and forbearance 
 with which men who have served in the rebellion, but who now frankly and 
 honestly co-operate with us in restoring the peace of the country and recon¬ 
 structing the Southern State governments upon the basis of impartial justice 
 and equal rights, are received back into the communion of the loyal people; 
 and we favor the removal of the disqualifications and restrictions imposed upon 
 the late rebels in the same measure as the spirit of disloyalty will die out, and 
 as may be consistent with the safety of the loyal people. 
 
 14. That we recognize the great principles laid down in the immortal Dec- 
 
13 
 
 laration of Independence as the true foundation of Democratic government; 
 and we hail with gladness every effort toward making these principles a living 
 reality on every inch of American soil. 
 
 DEMOCRATIC—1808. 
 
 The Democratic party, in National Convention assembled, reposing its 
 trust in the intelligence, patriotism, and discriminating justice of the people, 
 standing upon the Constitution as the foundation and limitation of the powers 
 of the Government, and the guarantee of the liberties of the citizen, and recog- 
 gnizing the questions of slavery and secession as having been settled, for all 
 time to come, by the war or the voluntary action of the Southern States in 
 constitutional conventions assembled, and never to be renewed or reagitated, 
 do, with the return of peace, demand: 
 
 1. Immediate restoration of all the States to their rights in the Union under 
 the Constitution, and of civil government to the American people. 
 
 2. Amnesty for all past political offences, and the regulation of the elective 
 franchise in the States by their citizens. 
 
 3. Payment of the public debt of the United States as rapidly as practicable; 
 all moneys drawn from the people by taxation, except so much as is requisite 
 for the necessities of the Government, economically administered, being hon¬ 
 estly applied to such payment, and where the obligations of the Government 
 do not expressly state upon their face, or the law under which they were issued 
 does not provide that they shall be paid in coin, they ought, in right and in 
 justice, to be paid in the lawful money of the United States. 
 
 4. Equal taxation of every species of property according to its real value, 
 including Government bonds and other public securities. 
 
 5. One currency for the Government and the people, the laborer and the 
 office-holder, the pensioner and the soldier, the producer and the bondholder. 
 
 6. Economy in the administration of the Government; the reduction of the 
 standing Army and Navy; the abolition of the Freedman’s Bureau and all po¬ 
 litical instrumentalities designed to secure negro supremacy; simplification of 
 the system, and discontinuance of inquisitorial modes of assessing and collect¬ 
 ing Internal Revenue, so that the burden of taxation may be equalized and less¬ 
 ened ; the credit of the Government and the currency made good; the repeal 
 of all enactments for enrolling the State militia into National forces in time 
 of peace; and a tariff for revenue upon foreign imports, and such equal taxa- 
 ation under the Internal Revenue laws as will afford incidental protection to 
 domestic manufactures, and as will, without impairing the revenue, impose the 
 least burden upon and best promote and encourage the great industrial inter¬ 
 ests of the country. 
 
 7. Reform of abuses in the administration, the expulsion of corrupt men 
 from office, the abrogation of useless offices, the restoration of rightful author¬ 
 ity to, and the independence of, the executive and judicial departments of the 
 Government, the subordination of the military to the civil power, to the end 
 that the usurpations of Congress and despotism of the sword may cease. 
 
 8. Equal rights and protection for naturalized and native-born citizens at 
 home and abroad, the assertion of American nationality which shall command 
 the respect of foreign powers, and furnish an example and encouragement to 
 people struggling for national integrity, constitutional liberty, and individual 
 rights and the maintenance of the rights of naturalized citizens against the ab¬ 
 solute doctrine of immutable allegiance, and the claims of foreign powers to 
 punish them for alleged crime committed beyond their jurisdiction. 
 
 In demanding these measures and reforms, we arraign the Radical party 
 for its disregard of right and the unparalleled oppression and tyranny tvhich 
 have marked its career. 
 
14 
 
 After the most solemn and unanimous pledge of both Houses of Congress 
 to prosecute the war exclusively for the maintenance of the Government and 
 the preservation of the Union under the Constitution, it has repeatedly violated 
 that most sacred pledge under which alone was rallied that noble volunteer 
 Army which carried our flag to victory. Instead of restoring the Union, it has, 
 so far as in its power, dissolved it, and subjected ten States, in time of pro¬ 
 found peace, to military despotism and negro supremacy. It has nullified there 
 the right of trial by jury; it has abolished the habeas corpus, that most sacred 
 writ of liberty; it has overthrown the freedom of speech and the press ; it has 
 substituted arbitrary seizures and arrests, and military trials and secret star- 
 chamber inquisitions for the constitutional tribunals; it has disregarded in 
 time of peace the right of the people to be free from searches and seizures; it 
 has entered the post and telegraph offices, and even the private rooms of in¬ 
 dividuals, and seized their private papers and letters without any specific 
 charge or notice of affidavit, as required by the organic law; it has converted 
 the American Capitol into a bastile; it has established a system of spies and 
 official espionage to which no constitutional monarchy of Europe would now dare 
 to resort; it has abolished the right of appeal on important constitutional ques¬ 
 tions to the supreme judicial tribunals, and threatens to curtail or destroy its 
 original jurisdiction, which is irrevocably vested by the Constitution, while the 
 learned Chief Justice has been subjected to the most atrocious calumnies, 
 merely because he would not prostitute his high office to the support of the false 
 and partisan charges prefered against the President. Its corruption and ex¬ 
 travagance have exceeded anything known in history, and, by its frauds and 
 monopolies, it has nearly doubled the burden of the debt created by the war. 
 It has stripped the President of his constitutional power of appointment, even 
 of his own cabinet. Under its repeated assaults the pillars of the Government 
 are rocking on their base, and should it succeed in November next and inaug¬ 
 urate its President, we will meet as a subjected and conquered people, amid 
 the ruins of liberty and the scattered fragments of the Constitution. 
 
 And we do declare and resolve that ever since the people of the United 
 States threw off all subjection to the British Crown the privilege and trust of 
 suffrage have belonged to the several States, and have been granted, regulated, 
 and controlled exclusively by the political power of each State respectively, 
 and that any attempt by Congress, on any pretext whatever, to deprive any 
 State of this right, or interfere with its exercise, is a flagrant usurpation of 
 power which can find no warrant in the Constitution, and, if sanctioned by the 
 people, will subvert our form of government, and can only end in a single, cen¬ 
 tralized and consolidated government, in which the separate existence of the 
 States will he entirely absorbed, and an unqualified despotism be established 
 in place of a Federal Union of co-equal States. 
 
 And that we regard the reconstruction acts (so called) of Congress, as such, 
 as usurpations and unconstitutional, revolutionary and void. That our soldiers 
 and sailors, who carried the flag of our country to victory against a most gal¬ 
 lant and determined foe, must ever be gratefully remembered, and all the 
 guarantees given in their favor must be faithfully carried into execution. 
 
 That the public lands should be distributed as widely as possible among 
 the people, and should be disposed of either under the pre-emption of home¬ 
 stead lands, or sold in reasonable quantities, and to none but actual occupants, 
 at the minimum price established by the Government. When grants of the 
 public lands may be allowed, necessary for the encouragement of important 
 public improvements, the proceeds of the sale of such lands, and not the lands 
 themselves, should be so applied. 
 
 That the President or the United States, Andrew Johnson, in exercising 
 the power of his high office in resisting the aggressions of Congress upon the 
 constitutional rights of the States and the people, is entitled to the gratitude 
 of the whole American people, and in behalf of the Democratic party we tender 
 him our thanks for his patriotic efforts in that regard. 
 
 Upon this platform the Democratic party appeal to every patriot, includ¬ 
 ing all the conservative element and all who desire to support the Constitution 
 
15 
 
 and restore the Union, forgetting all past differences of opinion, to unite with us. 
 in the present great struggle for the liberties of the people; and that to all 
 such, to whatever party they may have heretofore belonged, we extend the right 
 hand of fellowship, and hail all such co-operating with us as friends and breth¬ 
 ren. 
 
 Besolved, That this convention sympathize cordially with the workingmen 
 of the United States in their efforts to protect the rights and interests of the 
 laboring classes of the country. 
 
 [Offered by Mr. Vallandigham, and adopted on the last day of the conven¬ 
 tion.] 
 
 Besolved, That the tffanks of the convention are tendered to Chief Justice 
 Salmon P. Chase, for the justice, dignity, and impartiality with which he pre¬ 
 sided over the court of impeachment on the trial of President Andrew Johnson. 
 
 [This last was offered by Mr. Kernan, of New York, after the nominations 
 and immediately before the final adjournment, and was carried by acclama¬ 
 tion.] 
 
 REPUBLICAN—1872. 
 
 The Republican party of the United States, assembled in national conven¬ 
 tion in the city of Philadelphia on the 5th and 6th days of June, 1872, again 
 declares its faith, appeals to its history, and announces its position upon the 
 questions before the country. 
 
 1. During eleven years of supremacy it has accepted with grand courage 
 the solemn duties of the time. It supressed a gigantic rebellion, emancipated 
 four millions of slaves, decreed the equal citizenship of all, and established 
 universal suffrage. Exhibiting unparalleled magnanimity, it criminally pun¬ 
 ished no man for political offenses, and warmly welcomed all who proved loy¬ 
 alty by obeying the laws and dealing justly with their neighbors. It has 
 steadily decreased with firm hand the resultant disorders of a great war, and 
 initiated a wise and humane policy toward the Indians. The Pacific railroad 
 and similar vast enterprises have been generously aided and successfully con¬ 
 ducted, the public lands freely given to actual settlers, immigration protected 
 and encouraged, and a full acknowledgment of the naturalized citizen’s rights 
 secured from European Powers. A u nif orm national currency has been pro¬ 
 vided, repudiation frowned down, the national credit sustained under the 
 most extraordinary burdens, and new bonds negotiated at lower rates. The 
 revenues have been carefully collected and honestly applied. Despite annual 
 large reductions of the rates of taxation, the public debt has been reduced 
 during General Grant’s Presidency at the rate of a hundred millions a year, 
 great financial crises have been avoided, and peace and plenty prevail through¬ 
 out the land. Menacing foreign difficulties have been peacefully and honor¬ 
 ably composed, and the honor and power of the Nation kept in high respect 
 throughout the world. This glorious record of the past is the party’s best 
 pledge for the future. We believe the people will not intrust the Government 
 to any party or combination of men composed- chiefly of those who have re¬ 
 sisted every step of this beneficent progress. 
 
 2. The recent amendments to the National Constitution should be cordially 
 sustained because they are right, not merely tolerated because they are law, 
 and should be carried out .according to their spirit by appropriate legislation, 
 the enforcement of which can safely be intrusted only to the party that se¬ 
 cured those amendments. 
 
 3. Complete liberty and exact equality in the enjoyment of all civil, po¬ 
 litical, and public rights should be established and effectually maintained 
 throughout the Union by efficient and appropriate State and Federal legis¬ 
 lation. Neither the law nor its administration should admit any discrimina¬ 
 tion in respect of citizens by reason of race, creed, color, or previous condition 
 of servitude. 
 
16 
 
 4. The National Government should seek to maintain honorable peace with 
 all nations, protecting its citizens everywhere and sympathizing with all peo¬ 
 ples who strive for greater liberty. 
 
 5. Any system of the civil service under which the subordinate positions 
 of the Government are considered rewards for mere party zeal is fatally de¬ 
 moralizing, and we therefore favor a reform of the system by laws which 
 shall abolish the evils of patronage and make honesty, efficiency, and fidelity 
 the essential qualifications for public positions, without practically creating a 
 life tenure of office. 
 
 6. We are opposed to further grants of the public lands to corporati ms 
 and monopolies, and demand that the national domain be set apart for free 
 homes for the people. 
 
 7. The annual revenue, after paying current expenditures, pensions, and 
 the interest on the public debt, should furnish a moderate balance for the re¬ 
 duction of the principal, and that revenue, except so much as may be derived 
 from a tax upon tobacco and liquors, should be raised by duties upon impor¬ 
 tations, the details of which should be so adjusted as to aid in securing remu¬ 
 nerative wages to labor, and promote the industries, prosperity, and growth 
 of the whole country. 
 
 8. We hold in undying honor the soldiers and sailors whose valor saved 
 the Union. Their pensions are a sacred debt of the Nation, and the widows 
 and orphans of those who died for their country are entitled to the care of a 
 generous and grateful people. We favor such additional legislation as will 
 extend the bounty of the Government to all our soldiers and sailors who were 
 honorably discharged, and who in the line of duty became disabled, without 
 regard to the length of service or the cause of such discharge. 
 
 9. The doctrine of Great Britain and other European Powers concerning 
 .allegiance—“once a subject always a subject”—having at last through the ef¬ 
 forts of the Republican party been abandoned, and the American idea of the 
 individual’s right to transfer allegiance having been accepted by European 
 nations, it is the duty of our Government to guard with jealous care the rights 
 of adopted citizens against the assumption of unauthorized claims by their 
 former Governments, and we urge continued careful encouragement and pro¬ 
 tection of voluntary immigration. 
 
 10. The franking privilege ought to be abolished, and the way prepared 
 for a speedy reduction in the rates of postage. 
 
 11. Among the questions which press for attention’is that which concerns 
 the relations of capital and labor, and the Republican party recognizes the 
 duty of so shaping legislation as to secure full protection and the amplest field 
 for capital, and for labor, the creator of capital, the largest opportunities and 
 a just share of the mutual profits of these two great servants of civilization. 
 
 12. We hold that Congress and the President have only fulfilled an impera¬ 
 tive duty in their measures for the suppression of violent and treasonable or¬ 
 ganizations in certain lately rebellious regions, and for the protection of the 
 ballot-box; and therefore they are entitled to the thanks of the nation. 
 
 18. We denounce repudiation of the public debt, in any form or disguise, 
 as a national crime. We witness with pride the reduction of the principal of 
 the debt, and of the rates of interest upon the balance, and confidently expect 
 that our excellent national currency will be perfected by a speedy resumption 
 of specie payment. 
 
 14. The Republican party is mindfuPof its obligations to the loyal women 
 of America for their noble devotion to the cause of freedom. Their admission 
 to wider fields of usefulness is viewed with satisfaction ; and the honest de¬ 
 mand of any class of citizens for additional rights should be treated with re¬ 
 spectful consideration. 
 
 15. We heartily approve the action of Congress in extending amnesty to 
 those lately in rebellion, and rejoice in the growth of peace and fraternal feel¬ 
 ing throughout the land. 
 
 16. The Republican party proposes to respect the rights reserved by the 
 people to themselves as carefully as the powers delegated by them to the State 
 
IT 
 
 and to the Federal Government. It disapproves of the resort to unconstitu¬ 
 tional laws for the purpose of removing evils, by interference with rights not 
 surrendered by the people to either the State or National Government. 
 
 17. It is the duty of the General Government to adopt such measures as 
 may tend to encourage and restore American commerce and ship-building. 
 
 18. We believe that the modest patriotism, the earnest purpose, the souncj 
 judgment, tho practical wisdom, thedncorruptible integrity, and the illustrious 
 services of Ulysses S. Grant have commended him to the heart of the Ameri* 
 can people, and with him at our head we start to-day upon a new march to 
 victory. 
 
 19. Henry Wilson, nominated for the Vice-Presidency, known to the whole 
 land from the early days of the great struggle for liberty as an indefatigable 
 laborer in all campaigns, an incorruptible legislator and representative man 
 of American institutions, is worthy to associate with our great leader and 
 share the honors which we pledge our best efforts to bestow upon them. 
 
 DEMOCRATIC—1872. 
 
 We, the Democratic electors of the United Sfates in convention assem- 
 bled, do present the following principles, already adopted at Cincinnati, as 
 essential to just government: 
 
 1. We recognize the equality of all men before the law, and hold that it is 
 the duty of government in its dealings with the people to mete out equal and 
 exact justice to all, of whatever nativity, race, color, or persuasion, religious, 
 or political. 
 
 2. We pledge ourselves to maintain the union of these States, emancipa¬ 
 tion, and enfranchisement, and to oppose any reopening of the questions sefr 
 tied by the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments to the Constitu¬ 
 tion. 
 
 8. We demand the immediate and absolute removal of all disabilities im¬ 
 posed on account of the rebellion, which was finally subdued seven years ago, 
 believing that universal amnesty will result in complete pacification in all 
 sections of the country. 
 
 4. Local self-government, with impartial suffrage, will guard the rights of 
 all citizens more securely than any centralized power. The public welfare re¬ 
 quires the supremacy of the.civil over the military authority, and freedom of 
 persons under the protection of the habeas corpus. We demand for the indi¬ 
 vidual the largest liberty consistent with public order; for the State self-gov¬ 
 ernment, and for the nation a return to the methods of peace and the consti¬ 
 tutional limitations of power. 
 
 5. The civil service of the Government has become a mere instrument of 
 partisan tyranny and personal ambition and an object of selfish greed. It is a 
 scandal and reproach upon free institutions and breeds a demoralization dan¬ 
 gerous to the perpetuity of republican government. We therefore regard a 
 thorough reform of the civil service as one of the most pressing necessities of 
 the hour; that honesty,"capacity, and fidelity constitute the only valid claim to 
 public employment; that the offices of the Government cease to be a matter of 
 arbitrary favoritism and patronage, and that public station become again a 
 post of honor. To this end it is imperatively required that no President shall 
 be a candidate for re-election. 
 
 6. We demand a system of Federal taxation which shall not unnecessarily 
 interfere with the industry of the people, and which shall provide the means 
 necessary to pay the expenses of the Government, economically administered, 
 the pensions, the interest on the public debt, and a moderate reduction an¬ 
 nually of the principal thereof; and recognizing that there are in our midst 
 honest but irreconcilable differences of opinion with regard to the respective 
 
18 
 
 systems of protection and free trade, we remit the discussion of the subject to 
 the people m their Congressional districts, and to the decision of the Congress 
 thereon, wholly free from executive interference or dictation. 
 
 7. The public credit must be sacredly maintained, and we denounce repu¬ 
 diation in every form and guise. 
 
 8. A speedy return to specie payment is demanded alike by the highest 
 considerations of commercial morality and honest government. 
 
 9. We remember with gratitude the heroism and sacrifices of the soldiers 
 and sailors of the “Republic, and no act of ours shall ever detract from their 
 justly earned fame for the full reward of their patriotism. 
 
 10. We are opposed to all further grants of lands to railroads or other cor¬ 
 porations. The public domain should be held sacred to actual settlers. 
 
 11. We hold that it is the duty of the Government in its intercourse with 
 foreign nations to cultivate the friendships of peace, by treating with all on 
 fair and equal terms, regarding it alike dishonorable either to demand what is 
 not right or to submit to what is wrong. 
 
 12. For the promotion and success of these vital principles, and the sup¬ 
 port of the candidates nominated by this convention, we invite and cordially 
 welcome the co-operation of all patriotic citizens, without regard to previous 
 political affiliations. 
 
 REPUBLICAN—1876. 
 
 When, in the economy of Providence, this land was to be purged of human 
 slavery, and when the strength of government of the people, by the people, 
 and for the people, was to be demonstrated, the Republican party came into 
 power. Its deeds have passed into history, and we look back to them with 
 pride. Incited by their memories to high aims for the good of our country 
 and mankind, and looking to the future with unfaltering courage, hope, and 
 purpose, we, the representatives of the party in National Convention assem¬ 
 bled, make the following declarations of principles: 
 
 1. The United States of America is a Nation, not a league. By the com¬ 
 bined workings of the National and State Governments, under their respective 
 constitutions, the rights of every citizen are secured at home and abroad, and 
 the common welfare promoted. 
 
 2. The Republican party has preserved these Governments to the hun¬ 
 dredth anniversary of the Nation’s birth, and they are now embodiments of 
 the great truths spoken at its cradle—“that all men are created equal; that 
 they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among 
 which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that for the attainment 
 of these ends governments have been instituted among men, deriving their 
 ]ust powers from the consent of the governed.” Until these truths are cheer¬ 
 fully obeyed, or, if need be, vigorously enforced, the work* of the Republican 
 party is unfinished. 
 
 8. The permanent pacification of the Southern section of the Union and 
 the complete protection of all its citizens in the free enjoyment of all their 
 rights is a duty to which the Republican party stands sacredly pledged. The 
 power to provide for the enforcement of the principles embodied in the recent 
 constitutional amendments is vested by those amendments in the Congress of 
 the United States, and we declare it to be the solemn obligation of the legis¬ 
 lative and executive departments of the Government to put into immediate 
 and vigorous ' « all their constitutional powers for removing any just 
 causes of discontent on the part of any class, and for securing to every Amer¬ 
 ican citizen complete liberty and exact equality in the exercise of all civil, po¬ 
 litical, and public rights. To this end we imperatively demand a Congress and 
 a Chief Executive whose courage and fidelity to these duties shall not faltei 
 until these results are placed beyond dispute or recall. 
 
19 
 
 4. In the first act of Congress signed by President Grant, the National 
 Government assumed to remove any doubts of its purpose to discharge all just 
 obligations to the public creditors, and “ solemnly pledged its faith to make 
 provision at the earliest practicable period for the redemption of the United 
 States notes in coin.” Commercial prosperity, public morals and National 
 credit demand that this promise be fulfilled by a continuous and steady prog¬ 
 ress to specie payment. 
 
 5. Under the Constitution the President and heads of Departments are to 
 make nominations for office; the Senate is to advise and consent to appoint¬ 
 ments, and the House of Representatives is to accuse and prosecute faithless 
 officers. The best interest of the public service demands that these distinc¬ 
 tions be respected; that Senators and Representatives who may be judges and 
 accusers should not dictate appointments to office. The invariable rule in 
 appointments should have reference to the honesty, fidelity, and capacity of 
 the appointees, giving to the party in power those places where harmony and 
 vigor of administration require its policy to be represented, but permitting all 
 others to be be filled by persons selected with sole reference to the efficiency of 
 the public service, and the right of all citizens to share in the honor of render¬ 
 ing faithful service to the country. 
 
 6. We rejoice in the quickened conscience of the people concerning politi¬ 
 cal affairs, and will hold all public officers to a rigid responsibility, and engage 
 that the prosecution and punishment of all who betray official trusts shall be 
 swift, thorough, and unsparing. 
 
 7. The public school system of the several States is the bulwark of the 
 American Republic, and with a view to its security and permanence we recom¬ 
 mend an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, forbidding the 
 application of any public funds or property for the benefit of any schools or 
 institutions under sectarian control. 
 
 8. The revenue necessary for current expenditures and the obligations of 
 the public debt must be largely derived from duties upon importations, which, 
 so far as possible, should be adjusted to promote the interests of American 
 labor and advance the prosperity of the whole country. 
 
 9. We reaffirm our opposition to further grants of the public lands to cor¬ 
 porations and monopolies, and demand that the National domain be devoted to 
 free homes for the people. 
 
 10. It is the imperative duty of the Government so to modify existing trea¬ 
 ties with European governments, that the same protection shall be afforded to 
 the adopted American citizen that is given to the native born; and that all 
 necessary laws should be passed to protect emigrants in the absence of power 
 in the States for that purpose. 
 
 11. It is the immediate duty of Congress to fully investigate the effect of 
 the immigration and importation of Mongolians upon the moral and material 
 interests of the country. 
 
 12. The Republican party recognizes with approval the substantial ad¬ 
 vances recently made toward the establishment of equal rights for women by 
 the many important amendments effected by Republican Legislatures, in the 
 laws which concern the personal and property relations of wives, mothers, and 
 widows, and by the appointment and election of women to the superintendence 
 of education, charities, and other public trusts. The honest demands of this 
 class of citizens for additional rights, privileges, and immunities, should be 
 treated with respectful consideration. 
 
 13. The Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign x>owerover the Ter¬ 
 ritories of the United States for their government, and in the exercise of' this 
 power it is the right and duty of Congress to prohibit and extirpate; in the 
 Territories, that relic of barbarism—polygamy; and we demand such legisla¬ 
 tion as shall secure this end and the supremacy of American institutions in all 
 the Territories. 
 
 14. The pledges which the Nation has given to her soldiers and sailors 
 must be fulfilled, and a grateful people will always hold those who imper¬ 
 iled their lives for the country’s preservation, in the kindest remembrance. 
 
20 
 
 15. We sincerely deprecate all sectional feeling and tendencies. We tliere- 
 fpre note with deep solicitude that the Democratic party counts, as its chief 
 f ope of success, upon the electoral vote of a united South, secured through the 
 efforts of those who were recently arrayed against the Nation; and we invoke 
 the earnest attention of the country to the grave truth that a success thus 
 achieved would reopen sectional strife and imperil National honor and human 
 rights. 
 
 16. We charge the Democratic party with being the same in character and 
 
 spirit as when it sympathized with treason; with making its control of the 
 House of Representatives the triumph and opportunity of the Nation’s recent 
 foes ; with reasserting and applauding in the National Capitol the sentiments 
 of unrepentant rebellion; with sending Union soldiers to the rear, and pro¬ 
 moting confederate soldiers to the front; with deliberately proposing to repu¬ 
 diate the plighted faith of the Government; with being equally false and im¬ 
 becile upon the overshadowing financial questions; with thwarting the ends 
 of justice by its partisan mismanagements and obstruction of investigation; 
 with proving itself, through the period of its ascendency in the Lower House 
 of Congress, utterly incompetent to administer the Government; and we warn 
 the country against trusting a party thus alike unworthy, recreant, and inca¬ 
 pable. • 
 
 17. The National Administration merits commendation for its honorable 
 work in the management of domestic and foreign affairs, and President Grant 
 deserves the continued hearty gratitude of the American people for his patri¬ 
 otism and his eminent services, in war and in peace. 
 
 18. We present as our candidates for President and Vice-President of the 
 ynited States two distinguished statesmen, of eminent ability and character, 
 and conspicuously fitted for those high offices, and we confidently appeal to the 
 American people to intrust the administration of their public affairs to Ruther¬ 
 ford B, Hayes and William A. Wheeler. 
 
 DEMOCRATIC—1876. 
 
 We, the delegates of the Democratic party of the United States in Na¬ 
 tional Convention assembled, do hereby declare the administration of the 
 Federal Government to be in urgent need of immediate reform; do hereby 
 enjoin upon the nominees of this Convention, and of the Democratic party in 
 each State, a zealous effort and co-opqration to this end ; and do hereby appeal 
 |o our fellow-citizens of every former political c onnection to undertake with 
 US this first and most pressing patriotic duty. 
 
 For the Democracy of the whole country we do here reaffirm our faith in 
 the permanence of the Federal Union, our devotion to the Constitution of the 
 United States, with its amendments universally accepted as a final settlement 
 of the Controversies that engendered civil war, and do here record our stead¬ 
 fast confidence in the perpetuity of republican self-government. 
 
 In absolute acquiescence in the will of the majority—the vital principle of * 
 republics; in the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; in the 
 total separation of Church and State, for the sake alike of civil and religious 
 freedom; in the equality of all citizens before just laws of their own enact¬ 
 ment ; in the liberty of individual conduct, unvexed by sumptuary laws; in 
 the faithful education of the rising generation, that they may preserve, enjoy, 
 and transmit these best conditions of human happiness and hope,we behold the 
 noblest products of a hundred years of changeful history; but while uphold¬ 
 ing the bond of our Union and great charter of these our rights, it behooves a 
 free people to practice also that eternal vigilance which is the price of liberty. 
 
 Reform is necessary to rebuild and establish in the hearts of the whole 
 people the Union, eleven years ago happily rescued from the danger of a seces- 
 
f 
 
 21 
 
 si on of States; but now to be saved from a corrupt centralism which, after 
 inflicting upon ten States the rapacity of carpet-bag tyrannies, has honey-, 
 combed the offices of the Federal Government itself with incapacity, waste, and 
 fraud; infected States and municipalities with the contagion of misrule, and 
 locked fast the prosperity of an industrious people in the paralysis of “hard 
 times.” 
 
 Eeform is necessary to establish a sound currency, restore the public credit, 
 and maintain the national honor. 
 
 Wfe denounce the failure, for all these eleven years of peace, to make good 
 the promise of the legal-tender notes, which are a changing standard of value 
 in the hands of the people, and the noA-payment of which is a disregard of the 
 plighted faith of the nation. 
 
 We denounce the improvidence which, in eleven years of peace, has taken 
 from the people in Federal taxes thirteen times the whole amount of the legal- 
 tender notes, and squandered four times their sum in useless expense without 
 accumulating any reserve for their redemption. 
 
 We denounce the financial imbecility and immorality of that party, which, 
 during eleven years of peace, has made no advance toward resumption, no 
 preparation for resumption, but instead has obstructed resumption, by wast¬ 
 ing our resources and exhausting all our surplus income; and, while annually 
 professing to intend a speedy return to specie payments, has annually enacted 
 fi^sh hindrances thereto. As such hindrance we denounce the resumption 
 clause of the act of 1875, and we here demand its repeal. 
 
 We demand a judicious system of preparation by public economies, by 
 official retrenchments, and by wise finance, which shall enable the nation soon 
 to assure the whole world of its perfect ability and its perfect readiness to 
 meet any of its promises at the call of the creditor entitled to payment. 
 
 We believe such a system, well devised, and, above all, intrusted to com¬ 
 petent hands for execution, creating at no time an artificial scarcity of cur¬ 
 rency, and at no time alarming the public mind into a withdrawal of that vaster 
 machinery of credit by which ninety-five per cent, of all business transactions 
 are performed—a system open, public, and inspiring general confidence, would 
 from the day of its adoption bring healing on its wings to all our harassed in¬ 
 dustries, set in motion the wheels of commerce, manufactures, and the me¬ 
 chanic arts, restore employment to labor, and renew in all its natural sources 
 the prosperity of the people. 
 
 Eeform is necessary in the sum and modes of Federal taxation, to the end 
 that capital may be set free from distrust, and labor lightly burdened. 
 
 We denounce the present tariff, levied upon nearly 4,000 articles, as a mas¬ 
 ter-piece of injustice, inequality, and false pretense. It yields a dwindling,, 
 not a yearly rising revenue. It has impoverished many industries to subsi¬ 
 dise a few. It prohibits imports that might purchase the products of American 
 labor. It has degraded American commerce from the first to an inferior rank 
 on the high seas. It lias cut down the sales of American manufactures at 
 home and abroad, and depleted the returns of American agriculture—an indus¬ 
 try followed by half our people. It costs the people five times more than it 
 produces to the Treasury, obstructs the processes of production, and wastes 
 the fruits of labor. It promotes fraud, fosters smuggling, enriches dishonest 
 officials, and bankrupts nonest merchants. We demand that all custom-house 
 taxation shall be only for revenue. 
 
 Aeform is necessary in the scale of public expense — Federal, State, and 
 municipal. Our Federal taxation has swollen from sixty millions gold, in 1860, 
 to four hundred and fifty millions currency, in 1870; our aggregate taxation 
 from one hundred and fifty-four millions gold, in 1860, to seven hundred and 
 thirty millions currency, in 1870; or in one decade from less than five dollars 
 
 E er head to more than eighteen dollars per head. Since the peace, the people 
 avc paid to their tax gatherers more than thrice the sum of the national debt, 
 and more than twice that sum for the Federal Government alone. We demand 
 a rigorous frugality in every department, and from every officer of the Gov¬ 
 ernment. 
 
22 
 
 Reform is necessary to put a stop to the profligate waste of public lands, and 
 their diversion from actual settlers by the party in power, which has squan¬ 
 dered 200,000,000 of acres upon railroads alone, and out of more than thrice 
 that aggregate has disposed of less than a sixth directly to tillers of the soil. 
 
 Reform is necessary to correct the omissions of a Republican Congress, and 
 the errors of our treaties and our diplomacy, which have stripped our fellow- 
 citizens of foreign birth and kindred race re-crossing the Atlantic, of the 
 shield of American citizenship, and have exposed our brethren of the Pacific 
 coast to the incursions of a race not sprung from the same great parent stock, and 
 in fact now by law denied citizenship through naturalization as being neither 
 accustomed to the traditions of a progressive civilization nor exercised in lib¬ 
 erty under equal laws. We denounce the policy which thus discards the liberty- 
 loving German and tolerates a revival of the coolie trade in Mongolian women 
 imported for immoral purposes, and Mongolian men held to perform servile 
 labor contracts, and demand such modification of the treaty with the Chinese 
 Empire, or such legislation within constitutional limitations, as shall prevent 
 further importation or immigration of the Mongolian race. 
 
 Reform is necessary and can never be effected but by making it the con¬ 
 trolling issue of the elections, and lifting it above the two false issues with 
 which the office-holding class and the party in power seek to smother it.: 
 
 1. The false issue with which they would enkindle sectarian strife in re¬ 
 spect to the public schools, of which the establishment and support belong 
 exclusively to the several States, and which the Democratic party has cher¬ 
 ished from tlieir foundation, and is resolved to maintain without prejudice or 
 preference for any class, sect, or creed, and without largesses from the Treas¬ 
 ury to any. 
 
 2. The false issue by which they seek to light anew the dying embers of 
 sectional hate between kindred peoples once estranged, but now reunited in 
 one indivisible republic and a common destiny. 
 
 Reform is necessary in the civil service. Experience proves that efficient, 
 economical conduct of the governmental business is not possible if its civil 
 service be subject to change at every election, be a prize fought for at the 
 ballot-box, be a brief reward of party zeal, instead of posts of honor assigned 
 for proved competency, and held for fidelity in the public employ; that the 
 dispensing of patrongage should neither be a tax upon the time of all our 
 public men, nor the instrument of their ambition. Here again promises falsi¬ 
 fied in the performance attest that the party in power can work out no prac¬ 
 tical or salutary reform. 
 
 Reform is necessary even more in the higher grades of the public service. 
 President, Vice-President, Judges, Senators, Representatives, Cabinet officers, 
 these and all others in authority are the people’s servants. Their offices are 
 not a private perquisite; they are a public trust. 
 
 When the annals of this Republic show the disgrace and censure of a Vice- 
 President ; a late Speaker of the House ef Representatives marketing his rul¬ 
 ings as a presiding officer; three Senators profiting secretly by their votes as 
 law-makers ; five chairmen of the leading committees of the late House of 
 Representatives exposed in jobbery; a late Secretary of the Treasury forcing 
 balances in the public accounts ; a late Attorney-General misappropriating 
 public funds; a Secretary of the Navy enriched or enriching frieuds by per¬ 
 centages levied off the profits of contractors with his department; an Ambas¬ 
 sador to England censured in a dishonorable speculation; the President’s 
 private secretary barely escaping conviction upon trial for guiltv complicity 
 in frauds upon the revenue; a Secretary of War impeached for high crimes 
 and misdemeanors—the demonstration is complete that the first step in reform 
 must be the people’s choice of honest men from another party, lest the disease 
 of one political organization infect the body politic, and lest by making no 
 change of men or parties we get no change of measures and no real reform. 
 
 All these abuses, wrongs, and crimes, the product of sixteen years’ ascend¬ 
 ancy of the Republican party, create a necessity for reform confessed by Re- 
 
23 
 
 
 publicans themselves; but their reformers are voted down in convention and 
 displaced from the Cabinet. The party’s mass of honest voters is powerless 
 resist the 80,000 office-holders, its leaders and guides. 
 
 Reform can only be had by a peaceful civic revolution. We demand a 
 change of system, a change of Administration, a change of parties, that we 
 may have a change of measures and of men. 
 
 " Resolved, That this convention, representing the Democratic party of the 
 United States, do cordially indorse the action of the present House of Repre¬ 
 sentatives in reducing and curtailing the expenses of the Federal Government, 
 in cutting down salaries, extravagant appropriations, and in abolishing useless 
 offices, and places not required by the public necessities, and we shall trust to 
 the firmness of the Democratic members of the House that no committee of 
 conference and no misinterpretation of the rules will be allowed to defeat 
 these wholesome measures of economy demanded by the country. 
 
 Resolved, That the soldiers and sailors of the Republic, and the widows 
 and orphans of those who have fallen in battle, have a just claim upon the 
 care, protection, and gratitude of their fellow-citizens. 
 
 REPUBLICAN—1880. 
 
 The Republican party, in National Convention assembled, at the end of 
 twenty years since the Federal Government was first committed to its charge, 
 submits to the people of the United States this brief report of its administra¬ 
 tion: 
 
 It suppressed a rebellion which had armed nearly a million of men to sub¬ 
 vert the National authority, [applause;] it reconstructed the Union of the 
 States with freedom instead of slavery as its corner-stone, [applause;] it trans¬ 
 formed 4,000,000 human beings from the likeness of things to the rank of citi¬ 
 zens, [applause;] it relieved Congress from the infamous work of hunting fu¬ 
 gitive slaves, and charged it to see that slavery does not exist, [applause;] it 
 has raised the value of our paper currency from 38 per cent, to the par of gold, 
 [applause;] it has restored, upon a solid basis, payment in coin of all National 
 obligations, and has given us a currency absolutely good and equal in every 
 j)art of our extended country, [applause;] it has lifted the credit of the Nation 
 from the point of where 6 per cent, bonds sold at 86, to that where 4 per cent, 
 bonds are eagerly sought at a premium, [applause.] 
 
 Under its administration railways have increased from 31,000 miles in 1860 
 to more than 82,000 miles in 1879. [Applause.] Our foreign trade increased 
 from $700,000,000 to $1,150,000,000 in the same time, and our exports, which 
 were $20,000,000 less than our imports in 1860, were $265,000,000 more than our 
 imports in 1879. [Applause, andcriesof “Good!” “Good!”] Without resorting to 
 loans, it has, since the war closed, defrayed the ordinary expenses of gov¬ 
 ernment besides the accruing interest on the public debt, and has disbursed 
 annually more than $30,000,000 for soldiers’ and sailors’ pensions. It has paid 
 $880,000,000 of the public debt, and, by refunding the balance at lower rates, 
 has reduced the annual interest charge from nearly $150,000,000 to less than 
 $89,000,000. All the industries of the country have revived, labor is in demand, 
 wages have increased, and throughout the entire country there is evidence of 
 a coming prosperity greater than we have ever enjoyed. Upon this record 
 the Republican party asks for the continued confidence and support of the 
 people, and this convention submits for their approval the following statement 
 of the principles and purposes which will continue to guide and inspire its 
 efforts: 
 
 1. We affirm that the work of the Republican party for the last twenty 
 years has been such as to commend it to the favor of the Nation; that the 
 fruits of the costly victories which we have achieved through immense diffi- 
 
24 
 
 culties should be preserved; that the peace regained should be cherished; that 
 the Union should be perpetuated, and that the liberty secured to this genera¬ 
 tion should be transmitted undiminished to other generations; that the order 
 established and the credit acquired should never be impaired; that the pen¬ 
 sions promised should be paid; that the debt so much reduced should be ex¬ 
 tinguished by the full payment of every dollar thereof; that the reviving in¬ 
 dustries should be further promoted, and that the commerce already increas¬ 
 ing should be steadily encouraged. 
 
 2. The Constitution of the United States is a supreme law, and not a 
 mere contract. [Applause.] Out of confederated States it made a sovereign 
 nation. Some powers, are denied to the Nation, while others are denied to the 
 States, but the boundary between the powers delegated and those reserved is 
 to be determined by the National, and not by the State tribunal. [Cheers.]! 
 
 3. The work of popular education is one left to the care of the several 
 States, but it is the duty of the National Government to aid that work to the 
 extent of its constitutional ability. The intelligence of the nation is but the 
 aggregate of the intelligence in the several States, and the destiny of the 
 Nation must be guided, not by the genius of any one State, but by the average 
 genius of all. [Applause.] 
 
 4. The Constitution wisely forbids Congress to make any law respecting 
 the establishment of religion, but it is idle to hope that the nation can be pro¬ 
 tected against the influence of secret sectarianism, while each State is exposed 
 to its domination. We, therefore, recommend that the Constitution be so 
 amended as to lay the same prohibition upon the Legislature of each State, 
 and to forbid the appropriation of public funds to the support of sectarian 
 schools. [Cheers.] 
 
 5. We reaffirm the belief avowed in 1876 that the duties levied for the 
 purpose of revenue should so discriminate as to favor American labor, 
 [cheers;] that no further grants of the public domain should be made to any 
 railway or other corporation; that slavery having perished in the States its 
 twin barbarity, polygamy, must die in the Territories; that everywhere the 
 protection accorded to a citizen of American birth must be secured to citizens 
 by American adoption. That we deem it the duty of Congress to develop and 
 improve our seacoast and harbors, but insist that further subsidies to private 
 persons or corporations must cease, [cheers;] that the obligations of the Re¬ 
 public to the men who preserved its integrity in the day of battle are undi¬ 
 minished by the lapse of fifteen years since their final victory. To do them 
 honor is and shall forever be the grateful privilege and sacred duty of the 
 American people. 
 
 6. Since the authority to regulate immigration and intercourse between 
 the United States and foreign nations rests with the Congress of the United 
 States and the treaty-making power, the Republican party, regarding the un¬ 
 restricted immigration of Chinese as a matter of grave concernment under the 
 exercise of both these powers, would limit and restrict that immigration by 
 the enactment of such just, humane, and reasonable laws and treaties as will 
 produce that result. 
 
 7. That the purity and patriotism which characterized the earlier career 
 of Rutherford B. Hayes in peace and war, and which guided the thoughts of 
 our immediate predecessors to him for a Presidential candidate, have contin - 
 ued to inspire him in his career as'Uhief Executive; and that history will ac¬ 
 cord to his Administration the honors which are due to an efficient, just, and 
 courteous discharge of the public business, and will honor his vetoes inter¬ 
 posed between the people and attempted partisan laws. [Cheers.] 
 
 8. We charge upon the Democratic party the habitual sacrifice of patri¬ 
 otism and justice to a supreme and insatiable lust for office and patronage; 
 that to obtain possession of the National Government and control of the place, 
 they have obstructed all efforts to promote the purity and to conserve the 
 freedom of the suffrage, and have devised fraudulent ballots, and invented 
 fraudulent certification of returns; have labored to unseat lawfully elected 
 members of Congress to secure at all hazards the vote of a majority of States 
 
25 
 
 in the House of Representatives; have endeavored to occupy by force and 
 fraud the places of trust given to others by the people of Maine, rescued by 
 the courage and action of Maine’s patriotic sons; have, by methods vicious in 
 principle and tyrannical in practice, attached partisan legislation to appropria¬ 
 tion bills upon whose passage the very movement of the Government de¬ 
 pended ; have crushed the rights of the individual; have advocated the prin¬ 
 ciples and sought the favor of the Rebellion against the Nation, and have en¬ 
 deavored to obliterate the sacred memories and to overcome its inestimably 
 valuable results of nationality, personal freedom, and individual equality. 
 
 The equal, and steady and complete enforcement of the laws, and the pro¬ 
 tection of all our citizens in the enjoyment of all privileges and immunity 
 guaranteed by the Constitution, are the first duties of the nation. [Applause.] 
 The dangers of a “Solid South” can only be averted by a faithful perform¬ 
 ance of every promise which the nation has made to the citizen. [Applause.] 
 The execution of the laws, and the punishment of all those who violate them, 
 are the only safe methods by which an enduring peace can be secured and 
 genuine prosperity established throughout the South. [Applause.J Whatever 
 promises the Nation makes the Nation must perform. A nation cannot with 
 safety relegate this duty to the States. The “ Solid Sonth” must be divided 
 by the peaceful agencies of the ballot and all honest opinions must there find 
 free expression. To this end the honest voter must be protected against ter¬ 
 rorism, violence, or fraud. [Applause.] 
 
 And we affirm it to be the duty and the purpose of the Republican party 
 to use all legitimate means to restore all the States of this Union to the most 
 perfect harmony which may be possible, and we submit to the practical, sen¬ 
 sible people of these United States to say whether it would not be dangerous 
 to the dearest interests of our country at this time to surrender the adminis¬ 
 tration of the National Government to a party which seeks to overthrow the 
 existing policy under which we are so prosperous, and thus bring distrust and 
 confusion where there is now order, confidence, and hope. [Applause.] 
 
 The Republican party, adhering to the principles affirmed by its last Na¬ 
 tional Convention of respect for the constitutional rules governing appoint¬ 
 ments to office, adopts the declaration of President Hayes that the reform of 
 the civil service should be thorough, radical and complete. To this end if de¬ 
 mands the co-operation of the legislative with the executive departments of 
 the Government, and that Congress shall so legislate that fitness, ascertained 
 by proper practical tests, shall admit to the public service. 
 
 DEMOCRATIC—1880. 
 
 The Democrats of the United States, in Convention assembled, declare— 
 
 1. We pledge ourselves anew to the constitutional doctrines and tradi¬ 
 tions of the Democratic party, as illustrated by the teachings and example of 
 a long line of Democratic statesmen and patriots, and embodied in the plat¬ 
 form of the fast National Convention of the party. 
 
 2. Opposition to centralizationism, and to that dangerous spirit of en¬ 
 croachment which tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in 
 one, and thus to create, whatever be the form of government, a real despot¬ 
 ism. No sumptuary laws; separation of Church and State, for the good of 
 each; common schools fostered and protected. 
 
 3. Home rule; honest money—the strict maintenance of the public faith 
 —consisting of gold and silver, and paper convertible into coin on demand; 
 the strict maintenance of the public faith, State and National, and a tariff for 
 revenue only. 
 
 4. The subordination of the military to the civil power, and a general 
 and thorough reform of the civil service. 
 
 5~ The right to a free ballot is the right preservative of all rights, and 
 must and shall be maintained in every part of the United States. 
 
26 
 
 6. The existing Administration is the representative of conspiracy only, 
 and its claim of right to surround the ballot-boxes with troops and deputy 
 marshals, to intimidate and obstruct the electors, and the unprecedented use 
 of the veto to maintain its corrupt and despotic power, insult the people and 
 imperil their institutions. 
 
 7. The great fraud of 1876-’77, by which, upon a false count of the elec¬ 
 toral votes of two States, the candidate defeated at the polls was declared 
 to be President, and, for the first time in American history, the will of the 
 people was set aside under a threat of military violence, struck a deadly blow 
 at our system of representative government; the Democratic party, to pre¬ 
 serve the country from a civil war, submitted for a time in firm and patriotic 
 faith that the people would punish this crime in 1880; this issue precedes and 
 dwarfs every other; it imposes a moro sacred duty upon the people of the 
 Union than ever addressed the conscience of a nation of free men. 
 
 8. We execrate the course of this Administration in making places in 
 the civil service a reward for political crime, and demand a reform by statute 
 which shall make it forever impossible for the defeated candidate to bribe his 
 way to the spat of a usurper by billeting villains upon the people. 
 
 9. The resolution of Samuel J. Tilden, not again to be a candidate for 
 the exalted place to which lie was elected by a majority of his countrymen, 
 and from which he was excluded by the leaders of the Republican party, is 
 received by the Democrats of the United States with sensibility, and they 
 declare their confidence in his wisdom, patriotism and integrity, unshaken 
 by the assaults of a common enemy, and they further assure him that he is 
 followed into the retirement he has chosen for himself by the sympathy and 
 respect of his fellow-citizens, who regard him as one who, by elevating the 
 standards of public morality, merits the lasting gratitude of liis country and 
 his party. 
 
 10. Free ships and a living chance for American commerce on the seas 
 and on the land. Nur discrimination in favor of transportation lines, corpo¬ 
 rations or monopolies. 
 
 11. Amendment of the Burlingame Treaty. No more Chinese immigra¬ 
 tion, except for travel, education, and foreign commerce, and therein care¬ 
 fully guarded. 
 
 12. Public money and public credit for public purposes solely, and pub¬ 
 lic land for actual settlers. 
 
 13. The Democratic party is the friend of labor and the laboring man, 
 and pledges itself to protect him alike against the cormorant and the com¬ 
 mune. 
 
 14. We congratulate the country upon the honesty and thrift of a 
 Democratic Congress which has reduced the public expenditure $40,000,000 a 
 year; upon the continuation of prosperity at home and the National honor 
 abroad, and, above all, upon the promise of such a change iu the administra¬ 
 tion of the Government as shall insure us genuine and lasting reform in every 
 department of the public service. 
 
Re-affirmed in the Demqcratie Platform of 1856. 
 
 KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS, NOVEMBER, 1798. 
 
 1. Besolved, That the several States composing the United States of America 
 are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Gov¬ 
 ernment ; but that, by compact, under the style and title of a Constitution for 
 the United States and of Amendments thereto, they constituted a general gov¬ 
 ernment for special purposes, delegated to that Government certain definite 
 powers, reserving each State to itself the residuary mass of right to their own 
 self-government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes un¬ 
 delegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force: That to 
 this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States 
 forming as to itself the other party: That the government created by this 
 compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers 
 delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Con¬ 
 stitution, the measure of its power; but that, as in all other cases of compact 
 among parties having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge 
 for itself, as well of infractions, as of the mode and measure of redress, 
 
 2. That the Constitution of the United States having delegated to Congress 
 a power to punish treason, counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the 
 United States, piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences 
 against the laws of nations, and no other crimes whatever, and it being true 
 as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the Constitution having 
 also declared, “that the powers not delegated to the United States by the 
 Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States re¬ 
 spectively or to the peopletherefore, also the same act of Congress, passed 
 on the 14th day of July, 1798, and entitled, “ An act in addition to the act en¬ 
 titled, ‘ an act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States,’ 
 as also the act passed by them on the 27th day of June, 1798, entitled ‘ An act 
 to punish frauds committed on the Bank of the United States,’ ” (and all other 
 their acts which assume to create, define, or punish crimes other than those 
 enumerated in the Constitution,) are altogether void and of no force, and that 
 the power to create, define, and punish such other crimes is reserved, and of 
 right of appertains solely and exclusively, to the respective States, each within 
 its own territory. 
 
 3. That it is true as a general principle, and is also expressly declared by 
 one of the amendments to the Constitution, that “ the powers not delegated 
 to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, 
 are reserved to the States respectively or to the peopleand that no power 
 over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press, being 
 delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the 
 States, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, and were 
 reserved, to the States or to the people : That thus was manifested their deter¬ 
 mination to retain to themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness 
 of speech and of the press may be abridged without lessening their useful free¬ 
 dom, and how far those abuses which cannot be separated from their use 
 should be tolerated rather than the use be destroyed; and thus, also, they 
 guarded all abridgment by the United States of the freedom of religious opin¬ 
 ions and exercises, and retained to themselves the right of protecting the 
 same, as this State, by a law passed on the general demand of its citizens, had 
 
28 
 
 already protected them from all human restraint or interference. And that, 
 in addition to this general principle and express declaration, another and more 
 special provision has been made by one of the amendments to the Constitu¬ 
 tion, which expressly declares that “Congress shall make no law respecting an 
 establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging 
 the freedom of speech or of the press,” thereby guarding in the same sentence, 
 and under the same words, the freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press, 
 insomuch that whatever violates either throws down the sanctuary which 
 covers the others, and that libels, falsehoods, and defamation, equally with 
 heresy and false religion, are withheld from the cognizance of Federal tribu¬ 
 nals f That therefore the act of the Congress of the United States, passed on 
 the 14th day of July, 1798, entitled “An act in addition to the act for the pun¬ 
 ishment of certain crimes against the United States,” which does abridge the 
 freedom of the press, is not law, but is altogether void and of no effect. 
 
 4. That alien friends are under the jurisdiction and protection of the laws 
 of the State wherein they are; that no power over them has been delegated to 
 the United States nor prohibited to the individual States distinct from their 
 power over citizens ; and it being true, as a general principle, and one of the 
 amendments to the Constitation having also declared that “ the powers not 
 delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to 
 the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people,” the act of 
 the Congress of the United States, passed on the 22d day of June, 1798, enti¬ 
 tled “An act concerning aliens,” which assumes power over alien friends not 
 delegated by the Constitution, is not law, but is altogether void and of no 
 force. 
 
 5. That in addition to the general principle as well as the express declara¬ 
 tion that powers not delegated are reserved, another and more special provis¬ 
 ion inserted in the Constitution from abundant caution has declared “that the 
 migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing 
 shall think proper to admit shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the 
 year 1808.” That this Commonwealth does admit the migration of alien friends 
 described as the subject of the said act concerning aliens; that a provision 
 against prohibiting their migration is a provision against all acts equivalent 
 thereto, or it would be nugatory; that to remove them when migrated is equiv¬ 
 alent to a prohibition of their migration, and is therefore contrary to the said 
 provision of the Constitution, and void. 
 
 6. That the imprisonment of a'person under the protection of the laws of 
 this Commonwealth, on his failure to obey the simple order of the President 
 to depart out of the United States, as is undertaken by the said act, entitled “An 
 act concerning aliens,” is contrary to the Constitution, one amendment to 
 which has provided that “no person shall be deprived of liberty without due 
 process of law,” and that another having provided “that in all criminal prose¬ 
 cutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a public trial <by an impartial jury, 
 to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation, to be confronted 
 with the witnesses against him, to have compulsory process for obtaining wit¬ 
 nesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense,” the 
 same act undertaking to authorize the President to remove a person out of the 
 United States who is under the protection of the law, on his own suspicion, 
 without accusation, without jury, without public trial, without confrontation 
 of the witnesses against him, without having witnesses in his favor, without 
 defense, without counsel, is contrary to these provisions also of the Constitu¬ 
 tion, is therefore not law, but utterly void ana of no force. That transferring 
 the power of judging any person, who is under the protection of the laws, 
 from the courts to the President of the United States, as is undertaken by the 
 same act concerning aliens, is against the article of the Constitution which 
 provides that “the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in 
 courts, the judges of which shall hold their offices during good behavior; ” and 
 that the said act is void for that reason also; and it is further to be noted, that 
 this transfer of judiciary power is to that magistrate of the General Govern¬ 
 ment who already possesses all the executive, and a qualified negative in all 
 the legislative powers. 
 
29 
 
 7. That the construction applied by the General Government (as is evinced 
 by sundry of their proceedings) to those parts of the Constitution of the 
 United States which delegates to Congress a power to lay and collect taxes, 
 duties, imposts, and excises; to pay the debts, and provide for the common de¬ 
 fense and general welfare of the United States, and to make all laws which 
 shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the powers vested by 
 the Constitution in the Government of the United States, or any department 
 thereof, goes to the destruction of all the limits prescribed to their power by 
 the Constitution. That words meant by that instrument to be subsidiary only 
 to the execution of the limited powers ought not to be so construed as them¬ 
 selves to give unlimited powers, nor a part so to be taken as to destroy the 
 whole residue of the instrument; that the proceedings of the General Govern¬ 
 ment, under color of these articles, will be a fit and necessary subject for re vi¬ 
 sa! and correction at a time of greater tranquility, while those specified in the 
 preceding resolutions call for immediate redress. 
 
 8. That the* preceding resolutions be transmitted to the Senators and Rep¬ 
 resentatives in Congress from this Commonwealth, who are hereby enjoined to 
 present the same to their respective houses, and to use their best endeavors to 
 procure, at the next session of Congress, a repeal of the aforesaid unconstitu¬ 
 tional and obnoxious acts. 
 
 9. Lastly, That the Governor of this Commonwealth be, and is hereby, au¬ 
 thorized and requested to communicate the preceding resolutions to the legis¬ 
 latures of the several States, to assure them that this Commonwealth consid¬ 
 ers union for specified national purposes, and particularly for those specified 
 in their late Federal compact, to be friendly to the peace, happiness, and pros¬ 
 perity of all the States; that faithful to that compact, according to the plain 
 intent and meaning in which it was understood and acceded to by the several 
 parties, it is sincerely anxious for its preservation; that it does also believe 
 that to take from the States all the powers of self-government, and transfer 
 them to a general and consolidated government, without regard to the special 
 obligations and reservations solemnly agreed to in that compact, is not for the 
 peace, happiness, or prosperity of these States. And that therefore this Com- 
 monwealth is determined, as it doubts not its co-States are, tamely to submit 
 to undelegated and consequently unlimited powers in no man or body of men 
 on earth; that if the acts before specified should stand, these conclusions 
 would flow from them; that the General Government ma v place any act they 
 think proper on the list of crimes, and punish it themseh es, whether enumer¬ 
 ated or not enumerated by the Constitution as cogniza! by them; that they 
 may transfer its cognizance to the President or any oth rerson, who may him¬ 
 self be the accuser, counsel, judge, and jury, whose s>-. icions may be the evi¬ 
 dence, his order the sentence, his officer the execute .or, and his breast the 
 sole record of the transaction; that a very numerous and valuable description 
 of the inhabitants of these States, being by this precedent reduced as outlaws 
 to the absolute dominion of one man, and the barrier of the Constitution thus 
 swept away from us all, no rampart now remains against the passions and the 
 power of a majority of Congress to protect from a like exportation or other 
 more grievous punishment the minority of the same body, the legislatures, 
 judges, governors and counselors of the States, nor their other peaceable inhab¬ 
 itants who may venture to reclaim the constitutional rights and liberties of 
 the States and people, or who for other causes, good or bad, may be obnoxious 
 to tbe views, or marked by the suspicions of the President, or be thought 
 dangerous to his or their elections or other interests, public or personal; that 
 the friendless alien has indeed been selected as the safest subject of a first 
 experiment; but the citizen will soon follow, or rather has already followed; 
 for already has a sedition act marked him as its prey; that these and succes¬ 
 sive acts of the same character, unless arrested on the threshold, may tend to 
 drive these States into revolution and blood, and will furnish new calumnies 
 against republican governments, and new pretexts for those who wish it \o be 
 believed that man cannot be governed but by a rod of iron; that it would be a 
 dangerous delusion, were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence 
 
30 
 
 our fears for the safety of our rights; that confidence is everywhere the 
 parent of despotism; free government is founded in jealousy and not in con¬ 
 fidence; it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitu¬ 
 tions to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power; that our 
 Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which and no further our con¬ 
 fidence may go; and let the honest advocate of confidence read the alien 
 and sedition acts, and say if the Constitution has not been wise in fixing limits 
 to the Government it created, and whether we should be wise in destroying 
 those limits. Let him say what the Government is if it be not a tyranny, 
 which the men of our choice have conferred on the President, and the Presi¬ 
 dent of our choice has assented to and accepted over the friendly strangers, 
 to whom the mild spirit of our country and its laws had pledged hospitality 
 and protection; that the men of our choice have more respected the bare sus¬ 
 picions of the President than the solid rights of innocence, the claims of jus¬ 
 tification, the sacred force of truth, and the forms and substance of law and 
 justice. In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in 
 man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution. 
 That this Commonwealth does therefore call on its co-States for an expression 
 of their sentiments on the acts concerning aliens, and for the punishment of 
 certain crimes hereinbefore specified, plainly declaring whether these acts are 
 or are not authorized by the Federal compact, And it doubts not that their 
 sense will be so announced as to prove their attachment unaltered to limited 
 government, whether general or particular, and that the rights and liberties 
 of their co-States will be exposed to no dangers by remaining embarked on a 
 common bottom with their own; that they will concur with this Common¬ 
 wealth in considering the said acts as so palpably against the Constitution as 
 to amount to an undisguised declaration that the compact is not meant to be 
 the measure of the powers of the General Government, but that it will pro¬ 
 ceed in the exercise over these States of all powers whatsoever; that?they will 
 view this as seizing the rights of the States, and consolidating them in the 
 hands of the General Government with a power assumed to bind the States, 
 (not merely in cases made Federal,) but in all cases whatsoever, by laws made, 
 not with their consent, but by others against their consent; that this would 
 be to surrender the form of government we have chosen, ( and to live under one 
 deriving its powers from its own will, and not from our authority; and that 
 the co-States, recurring to their natural right in cases not made Federal, will 
 concur in declaring these acts void and of no force, and will each unite with 
 this Commonwealth in requesting their repeal at the next session of Congress. 
 
 VIRGINIA RESOLUTIONS, DECEMBER, 1798. 
 
 Resolved , That the General Assembly of Virginia doth unequivocally ex¬ 
 press a firm resolution to maintain and defend the Constitution of the United 
 States and the constitution of this State against every aggression, either for¬ 
 eign or domestic, and that they will support the Government of the United 
 States in all measures warranted by the former. 
 
 2. That this Assembly most solemnly declares a warm attachment to the 
 Union of the States, to maintain which it pledges its powers; and that, for this 
 end, it is their duty to watch over and oppose every infraction of those princi¬ 
 ples which constitute the only basis of that Union, because a faithful observ¬ 
 ance of them can alone secure its existence and the public happiness. 
 
 3. That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it 
 views the powers of the Federal Government as resulting from the compact 
 to which the States are parties, as limited by the plain sense and intention of 
 the instrument constituting that compact, as no further valid than they are 
 authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact ; and that, in vm;e of a 
 
31 
 
 deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by 
 the said compact, the States who are parties thereto have the right, and are in 
 duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for main¬ 
 taining, within their respective limits, the authorities, rights, and liberties 
 appertaining to them. 
 
 4. That the General Assembly doth also express its deep regret that a 
 spirit has, in sundry instances, been manifested by the Federal Government 
 to enlarge its powers by forced constructions of the constitutional charter 
 which defines them; and that indications have appeared of a design to expound 
 certain general phrases (which, having been copied from the very limited 
 grant of powers m the former Articles of Confederation, were the less liable 
 to be misconstrued) so as to destroy the meaning and effect of the particular 
 enumeration which necessarily explains and limits the general phrases, and so 
 as to consolidate the States, by degrees, into one sovereignty, the obvious 
 tendency and inevitable result of which would be to transform the present 
 republican system of the United States, into an absolute, or at best, a mixed 
 monarchy. 
 
 5. That the General Assembly doth particularly protest against the palpa¬ 
 ble and alarming infractions of the Constitution m the two late cases of the 
 “alien and sedition acts,” passed at the last session of Congress, the first of 
 which exercises a power nowhere delegated to the Federal Government, and 
 which, by uniting legislative and judicial powers to those of executive, sub¬ 
 verts the general principles of free government, as well as the particular or¬ 
 ganization and positive provisions of the Federal Constitution; and the other 
 of which acts exercises, in like manner, a power not delegated by the Consti¬ 
 tution, but, on the contrary, expressly and positively forbidden by one of the 
 amendments thereto—a power which, more than any other, ought to produce 
 universal alarm, because it is levelled against the right of freely examining 
 public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people 
 thereon, which has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of 
 every other right. 
 
 6. That this State, having by its convention which ratified the Federal 
 Constitution, expiessly declared that, among other essential rights, “the lib¬ 
 erty of conscience and the press cannot be cancelled, abridged, restrained, or 
 modified, by any authority of the United States,” and from its extreme anxiety 
 to guard these rights from every possible attack of sophistry and ambition, 
 having, with other States, recommended an amendment for that purpose, 
 which amendment was, in due time, annexed to the Constitution — it would 
 mark a reproachful inconsistency, and criminal degeneracy if an indifference 
 were now shown to the most palpable violation of one of the rights thus de¬ 
 clared and secured, and to the establishment of a precedent which may be 
 fatal to the other. 
 
 7. That the good people of this Commonwealth, having ever felt, and con¬ 
 tinuing to feel, the most sincere affection for their brethren of the other States, 
 the truest anxiety for establishing and perpetuating the union of all, and the 
 most scrupulous fidelity to that Constitution, which is the pledge of mutual 
 friendship and the instrument of mutual happiness, the General Assembly 
 doth solemnly appeal to the like dispositions in the other States, in confidence 
 that they will concur with this Commonwealth in declaring, as it does hereby 
 declare, that the acts aforesaid are unconstitutional, and that the necessary 
 and proper measures will be taken by each for co-operating with this State in 
 maintaining unimpaired the authorities, rights, and liberties reserved to the 
 States respectively, or to the people. 
 
 8. That the Governor be desired to transmit a copy of the foregoing reso¬ 
 lutions to the executive authority of each of the other States, with a request 
 that the same may be communicated to the legislature thereof, and that a copy 
 be furnished to each of the Senators and Representatives representing this 
 State in the Congregs of the United States. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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