of all their rights are duties 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 legislative and executive departments of the Government to put into immediate and vigorous exercise all their Constitutional powers for removing any just causes of discontent on the part of any class, and for securing to every American citizen complete liberty and exact equality in the exercise of all civil, political, and public rights. To this end we imperatively demand a Congress and a Chief Executive whose courage and fidelity to these duties shall not falter until these results are placed beyond dispute or recall. 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 provisions, at the earliest practicable period, for the redemption of the United States notes in coin." Commercial prosperity, public morals, and the national credit demand that this promise be fulfilled by a continuous and steady progress 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 appointments, and the House of Representatives is to accuse and prosecute faithless officers. The best interest of the public service demands that these distinctions be respected, that Senators and Representatives who may be judges and accusers should not dictate appointments to office. The invariable rule for 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 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 rendering faithful service to the country. 6. We rejoice in the quickening conscience of the people concerning political 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 recommend 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 corporations 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 treaties 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 advances 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 power over the Territories 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 1880 1884 1888 1892 189 190 190 19 1 Territories, that relic of barbarism, polygamy; and we demand such legislation 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 imperiled their lives for the country's preservation in the kindest remembrance. 15. We sincerely deprecate all sectional feeling and tendencies. We therefore note with deep solicitude that the Democratic party counts, as its chief hope 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 promoting Confederate soldiers to the front; with deliberately proposing to repudiate the plighted faith of the Government; with being equally false and imbecile upon the overshadowing financial question; 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 incapable. 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 patriotism and his eminent services, in war and in peace. 18. We present as our candidates for President and Vice-President of the United 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 Rutherford B. Hayes and William A. Wheeler. The Democratic Convention of 1880 was held at Cincinnati, Ohio, June 22-24. Winfield S. Hancock, of Pennsylvania, was nominated for President and William H. English, of Indiana, was nominated for Vice-President. The following platform was adopted: DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM, 1880. The Democrats of the United States, in convention assembled, declare 1. We pledge ourselves anew to the Constitutional doctrines and traditions of the Democratic party, as illustrated by the teachings and example of a long line of Democratic statesmen and patriots, and embodied in the platform of the last national convention of the party. 2. Opposition to centralizationism and to that dangerous spirit of encroachment which tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever be the form of government, a real despotism. 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. 1880 1884 1888 1892 189 190 190 19 1 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. 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 ínstitutions. 7. 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 seat of the usurper by billeting villains upon the people. 8. The great fraud of 1876-77, by which upon a false count of the electoral 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 preserve 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 more sacred duty upon the people of the Union than ever addressed the conscience of a nation of free men. 9. The resolution of Samuel J. Tilden not again to be a candidate for the exalted place to which he 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 his country and his party. 10. Free ships and a living chance for American commerce on the seas and on the land. No discrimination in favor of transportation lines, corporations, or monopolies. |