1848

WHIG PLATFORM.

1. Resolved, That the Whigs of the United States, here assembled by their representatives, heartily ratify the nominations of General Zachary Taylor, as President, and Millard Fillmore, as Vice-President of the United States, and pledge themselves to their support.

2. Resolved, That in the choice of General Taylor as the Whig candidate for President we are glad to discover sympathy with a great popular sentiment throughout the Nation-a sentiment which having its origin in admiration of great military success, has been strengthened by the development, in every action and every word, of sound conservative opinions, and of true fidelity to the great example of former days and to the principles of the Constitution as administered by its founders.

3. Resolved, That General Taylor, in saying that, had he voted in 1844 he would have voted the Whig ticket, gives us the assurance and no better is needed from a consistent and truth-speaking man-that his heart was with us at the crisis of our political destiny when Henry Clay was our candidate, and when not only Whig principles were well defined and clearly asserted, but Whig measures depended upon success. The heart that was with us then is with us now, and, we have a soldier's word of honor, and a life of public and private virtue as the security.

4. Resolved, That we look on General Taylor's administration of the Government as one conducive of peace, prosperity and union; of peace, because no one better knows, or has greater reason to deplore, what he has seen sadly on the field of victory, the horrors of war, and especially of a foreign and aggressive war; of prosperity, now more than ever needed to relieve the Nation from a burden of debt and restore industry-agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial-to its accustomed and peaceful functions and influences; of union,

because we have a candidate whose very position as a Southwestern man, reared on the banks of the great stream whose tributaries, natural and artificial, embrace the whole Union, renders the protection of the interests of the whole country his first trust, and whose various duties in past life have been rendered not on the soil, or under the flag of any State or section, but over the wide frontier and under the broad banner of the Nation.

5. Resolved, That standing, as the Whig party does, on the broad and firm platform of the Constitution, braced up by all its inviolable and sacred guarantees and compromises, and cherished in the affections, because protective of the interests of the people, we are proud to have as the exponent of our opinions one who is pledged to construe it by the wise and generous rules which Washington applied to it, and who has said—and no Whig desires any other assurance-that he will make Washington's administration his model.

6. Resolved, That as Whigs and Americans we are proud to acknowledge our gratitude for the great military services, which, beginning at Palo Alto and ending at Buena Vista, first awakened the American people to a just estimate of him who is now our Whig candidate. In the discharge of a painful duty-for his march into the enemy's country was a reluctant one; in the command of regulars at one time, and volunteers at another, and of both combined; in the decisive though punctual discipline of his camp, where all respected and loved him; in the negotiations of terms for a dejected and desperate enemy; in the exigency of actual conflict when the balance was perilously doubtful-we have found him the same-brave, distinguished, and considerate, no heartless spectator of bloodshed, no trifler with human life or human happiness; and we do not know which to admire most, his heroism in withstanding the assaults of the enemy in the most hopeless fields of Buena Vista-mourning in generous sorrow over the graves of Ringgold, of Clay, of Hardin-or in giving, in the heat of battle, terms of merciful capitulation to a vanquished foe at Monterey, and not being ashamed to vow that he did it to spare women and children, helpless infancy and more helpless age, against whom no American soldier ever wars.

Such

a military man, whose triumphs are neither remote nor doubtful, whose virtues these trials have tested, we are proud to make our candidate.

7.

Resolved, That in support of this nomination we ask our Whig friends throughout the Nation to unite, to co-operate zealously, resolutely, with earnestness, in behalf of our candidate, whom calumny can not reach, and with respectful demeanor to our adversaries, whose candidates have yet to prove their claims on the gratitude of the Nation.

1.

DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM.

Resolved, That the American Democracy place their trust in the intelligence, the patriotism, and the discriminating justice of the American people.

2.

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 element in a form of government springing from and upheld by the popular will, and contrasted with the creed and practice of federalism, under whatever name or form, which seeks to palsy the will of the constituent and which conceives no imposture too monstrous for the popular credulity.

3. Resolved, Therefore, that entertaining these views, the Democratic party of this Union, through the delegates assembled in general convention of the States, coming together in a spirit of concord, of devotion to the doctrines and faith of a free representative government, and appealing to their fel low citizens for the rectitude of their intentions, renew and reassert before the American people, the declaration of principles avowed by them on a former occasion, when, in general convention, they presented their candidates for the popular suffrage.

Resolutions 1, 2, 3 and 4, of the platform of 1840, were

reaffirmed.

8. Resolved, That it is the duty of every branch of the Government to enforce and practice the most rigid economy in conducting our public affairs, and that no more revenue ought to be raised than is required to defray the necessary expenses of the Government, and for the gradual but certain extinction

of the debt created by the prosecution of a just and necessary

war.

Resolution 5 of the platform of 1840 was enlarged by the following:

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 careful and practical men of all parties their. soundness, safety and utility in all business pursuits.

Resolutions 7, 8 and 9 of the platform of 1840 were here

inserted.

13. Resolved, That the proceeds of the public lands ought to be sacredly applied to the national object 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.

14. Resolved, That we are decidedly opposed to taking from the President the qualified veto power, by which he is enabled, under restrictions and responsibilities amply sufficient to guard the public interests, to suspend the passage of a bill whose merits can not secure the approval of two-thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, until the judgment of the people can be obtained thereon, and which has saved the American people from the corrupt and tyrannical domination of the Bank of the United States, and from a corrupting system of general internal improvements.

MEXICAN WAR.

15. Resolved, That the war with Mexico, provoked on her part by years of insult and injury, was commenced by her army crossing the Rio Grande, attacking the American troops and invading our sister State of Texas, and upon all the principles of patriotism and laws of Nations, it is a just and necessary war on our part, in which every American citizen should have showed himself on the side of his country, and neither morally nor physically, by word or by deed, have given "aid and comfort to the enemy."

16. Resolved, That we should be rejoiced at the assurance

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of peace with Mexico, founded on the just principles of indemnity for the past and security for the future; but that while the ratification of the liberal treaty offered to Mexico remains in doubt it is the duty of the country to sustain the administration and to sustain the country in every measure necessary to provide for the vigorous prosecution of the war, should that treaty be rejected.

17. Resolved, That the officers and soldiers who have carried the arms of their country into Mexico have crowned it with imperishable glory. Their unconquerable courage, their daring enterprise, their unfaltering perseverance and fortitude when assailed on all sides by innumerable foes and that more formidable enemy-the diseases of the climate-exalt their devoted patriotism into the highest heroism, and give them a right to the profound gratitude of their country and the admiration of the world.

18.

FRENCH REPUBLIC.

Resolved, That the Democratic National Convention of the thirty States composing the American Republic tender their fraternal congratulations to the National Convention of the Republic of France, now assembled as the free suffrage representative of the sovereignty of thirty-five millions of Republicans, to establish Government on those eternal principles of equal rights for which their Lafayette and our Washington fought side by side in the struggle for our National Independence; and we would especially convey to them, and to the whole people of France, our earnest wishes for the consolidation of their liberties, through the wisdom that shall guide their councils on the basis of a Democratic constitution not derived from grants or concessions of kings or dynasties, but originating from the only true source of political power recognized in the States of this Union-the inherent and inalienable right of the people, in their sovereign capacity, to make and to amend their forms of Government in such manner as the welfare of the community may require.

19. Resolved, That in view of the recent developments of this grand political truth, of the sovereignty of the people and