THE PLATFORM OF 1852, JUNE I-FRANKLIN PIERCE

NOMINATED.

This platform was but a repetition of those of 1840-44 and of 1848; and resolving 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 cardinal principles in the Democratic faith; and every attempt to abridge the privilege of becoming citizens, and the owners of the soil among us, ought to be resisted with the same spirit that swept the alien and sedition laws from our statute books.

*

12. 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; and that all efforts * to interfere with such questions * * are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences; and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency 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.

* made to induce Congress

The remainder of the resolutions in the platform of A. D. 1852, is but a repetition of others already given, or relates to temporary questions not within the scope of this work and therefore omitted.

DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM of 1856—JAMES BUCHANAN NOMINATED AND ELECTED.

PLATFORM OF 1856-JUNE 6.-The platform of A. D. 1856, adopted at Cincinnati, June 6th of that year, is the most comprehensive of any that had preceded it, embracing all the leading resolutions adopted and promulgated by the Democratic party for more than fifty years previous thereto, and are already stated in the prevous platforms given in this work, and therefore unnecessary to be here again repeated, but as the old Whig party had been within the previous four years substantially dissolved, and the so-called American, or Know Nothing party had been organized in its place, raising new questions and issues, the convention to meet those, added the following resolutions to the platform.

"Whereas: Since the foregoing declaration was uniformly adopted by our predecessors in National Conventions, an adverse political and religious test has been secretly organized by a party claiming to be exclusively American, and it is proper that the American Democracy should clearly define its relations thereto, and declare its determined opposition to all secret political societies, by whatever name they may be called, therefore the convention, Resolved.

"That the foundation of this Union of States having been laid in and its prosperity, expansion and pre-eminent example in free government built upon entire freedom of religious concernment, and no respect of persons in regard to rank or place of birth, no party can justly be deemed to be National, Constitutional, or in accordance with American principles, which bases its exclusive

organization upon religious grounds and accidental birthplace; and hence a political crusade in the Nineteenth Century, and in the United States of America, against Catholics and foreign-born, is neither justified by the past history or future prospects of the country, nor in unison with that spirit of toleration and enlightened freedom which peculiarly distinguishes the American system of popular government."

Here follow several resolutions to be found in the platform of A. D. 1852, on the subject of slavery, and leaving that position as fixed and settled upon the basis of noninterference by Congress in the domestic institutions of a State. In order to meet distinctly the issue on which a sectional party had arisen, subsisting alone upon slavery agitation, the Convention adopted the following additional resolutions:

"1. 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 concerning domestic slavery which seek to embroil the States and incite to treason and armed resistance to law in the Territories, and whose avowed purpose if consummated, must end in civil war and disunion, the American Democracy recognize and adopt the principles contained in the organic laws establishing the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, as embodying the only sound and safe solution of the slavery question upon which the great national idea of the people of this whole country can repose in its determined conservation of the Union, and non-interference by Congress with slavery in the Territories, or in the District of Columbia.