The Democratic party of the United States, in National Convention assembled, renews the pledge of its fidelity to Democratic faith, and reaffirms the platform adopted by its representatives in the Convention of 1884, and endorses the views expressed by President Cleveland in his last annual message to Congress as the correct interpretation of that platform upon the question of tariff reduction; and also endorses the efforts of our Democratic representatives in Congress to secure a reduction of excessive taxation. Chief among its principles of party faith are the maintenance of an indissoluble union of free and indestructible States, now about to enter upon its second century of unexampled progress and renown; devotion to a plan of government regulated by a written constitution strictly specifying every granted power and expressly reserving to the States or people the entire ungranted residue of power; the encouragement of a jealous popular vigilance, directed to all who have been chosen for brief terms to enact and execute the laws, and are charged with the duty of preserving peace, ensuring equality and establishing justice.
The Democratic party welcome an exacting scrutiny of the administration of the executive power which, four years ago, was committed to its trusts in the election of Grover Cleveland, President of the United States, but it challenges the most searching inquiry concerning its fidelity and devotion to the pledges which then invited the suffrages of the people. During a most critical period or our financial affairs, resulting from over taxation, the anomalous condition of our currency and a public debt unmatured, it has, by the adoption of a wise and conservative course, not only averted a disaster, but greatly promoted the prosperity of our people.
It has reversed the improvident and unwise policy of the Republican party touching the public domain, and has reclaimed from corporations and syndicates alien and domestic and restored to the people nearly one hundred million acres of valuable land, to be sacredly held as homesteads for our citizens.
While carefully guarding the interest to the principles of justice and equity, it has paid out more for pensions and bounties to the soldiers and sailors of the Republic than was ever paid out during an equal period. It has adopted and constantly pursued a firm and prudent foreign policy, preserving peace with all nations while scrupulously maintaining all the rights and interests of our own Government and people at home and abroad. The exclusion from our shores of Chinese laborers has been effectually secured under the provision of a treaty, the operation of which has been postponed by the action of a Republican majority in the Senate.
Honest reform in the Civil Service has been inaugurated and maintained by President Cleveland, and he has brought the public service to the highest standard of efficiency, not only by rule and precept, but by the example of his own untiring and unselfish administration of public affairs.
In every department and branch of the Government, under Democratic control, the rights and the welfare of all the people have been guarded and defended; every public interest has been protected, and the equality of all our citizens before the law without regard to race or color has been steadfastly maintained. Upon its record thus exhibited, and upon the pledge of a continuance to the people of the benefits of Democracy, invokes a renewal of popular trust by the re-election of a Chief Magistrate who has been faithful, able and prudent. To invoke in addition to that trust by the transfer also to the Democracy of the entire legislative power.
The Republican party controlling the Senate and resisting in both Houses of Congress a reformation of unjust and unequal tax laws, which have outlasted the necessities of war and are now undermining the abundance of a long peace, deny to the people equality before the law, and the fairness and the justice which are their right. Then the cry of American labor for a better share in the rewards of industry is stifled with false pretences, enterprise is fettered and bound down to home markets, capital is discouraged with doubt, and unequal, unjust laws can neither be properly amended nor repealed.
The Democratic party will continue with all the power confided to it, the struggle to reform these laws in accordance with the pledges of its last platform, endorsed at the ballot-box by the suffrages of the people. Of all the industrious freemen of our land, the immense majority, including every tiller of the soil, gain no advantage from excessive tax laws, but the price of nearly everything they buy is increased by the favoritism of an unequal system of tax legislation. All unnecessary taxation is unjust taxation.
It is repugnant to the creed of Democracy that by such taxation the cost of the necessaries of life should be unjustifiably increased to all our people. Judged by Democratic principles the interests of the people are betrayed when, by unnecessary taxation, trusts and combinations are permitted to exist, which, while unduly enriching the few that combine, rob the body of the citizens by depriving them of the benefits of natural competition. Every Democratic rule of governmental action is violated when, through unnecessary taxation, a vast sum of money, far beyond the needs of an economical administration, is drawn from the people and the channels of trade and accumulated as a demoralizing surplus in the National Treasury.
The money now lying idle in the Federal Treasury, resulting from superfluous taxation, amounts to more than one hundred and twenty-five millions, and the surplus collected is reaching the sum of more than sixty millions annually. Debauched by this immense temptation, the remedy of the Republican party is to meet and exhaust by extravagant appropriations and expenses, whether constitutional or not, the accumulation of extravagant taxations. The Democratic policy is to enforce frugality in public expense and abolish unnecessary taxation. Our established domestic industries and enterprises should not and need not be endangered by the reduction and correction of the burdens of taxation. On the contrary, a fair and careful revision of our tax laws, with due allowance for the difference between the wages of American and foreign labor, must promote and encourage every branch of such industries and enterprises by giving them assurance of an extended market and steady and continuous operations. In the interests of American labor, which should in no event be neglected, revision of our tax laws, contemplated by the Democratic party, should promote the advantage of such labor by cheapening the cost of necessaries of life in the home of every working man, and at the same time securing to him steady and remunerative employment. Upon this question of tariff reform, so closely concerning every phase of our national life, and upon every question involved in the problem of good government, the Democratic party submits its principles and professions to the intelligent suffrages of the American people.
Resolved, That this Convention hereby endorses and recommends the early passage of the bill for the reduction of the revenue now pending in the House of Representatives. (Referring to the Mills bill.)
Resolved, That we express our cordial sympathy with the struggling people of all nations in their efforts to secure for themselves the inestimable blessings of self-government and civil and religious liberty; and we especially declare our sympathy with the efforts of those noble patriots who, led by Gladstone and Parnell, have conducted their grand and peaceful contest for Home Rule in Ireland.
The Republican National Platform,
The Republicans of the United States, assembled by their delegates in National Convention, pause on the threshold of their proceedings to honor the memory of their first great leader, the immortal champion of liberty and the rights of the people—Abraham Lincoln—and to cover also with wreaths of imperishable remembrance and gratitude the heroic names of our later leaders who have more recently been called away from our councils—Grant, Garfield, Arthur, Logan, Conkling. May their memories be faithfully cherished. We also recall with our greetings, and with prayer for his recovery, the name of one of our living heroes whose memory will be treasured in the history both of the Republicans and the republic—the name of that noble soldier and favorite child of victory, Philip H. Sheridan.
In the spirit of these great leaders and of our own devotion to human liberty, and with that hostility to all forms of despotism and oppression which is the fundamental idea of the Republican party, we add fraternal congratulation to our fellow-Americans of Brazil upon their great set of emancipation, which completed the abolition of slavery throughout the two American continents. We earnestly hope that we may soon congratulate our fellow-citizens of Irish birth upon the peaceful recovery of Home Rule for Ireland.
We reaffirm our unswerving devotion to the National Constitution and to the indissoluble union of the States; to the autonomy reserved to the States under the Constitution; to the personal rights and liberties of citizens in all the States and Territories in the Union, and especially to the supreme and sovereign right of every lawful citizen, rich or poor, native or foreign born, white or black, to cast one free ballot in public elections, and to have that duly counted. We hold the free and honest popular ballot and the just and equal representation of all the people to be the foundation of our Republican government, and demand effective legislation to secure the integrity and purity of elections, which are the fountains of all public authority. We charge that the present administration and the Democratic majority in Congress owe their existence to the suppression of the ballot by a criminal nullification of the Constitution and laws of the United States.
We are uncompromisingly in favor of the American system of protection. We protest against its destruction as proposed by the President and his party. They serve the interests of Europe; we will support the interests of America. We accept the issue and confidently appeal to the people for their judgment. The protective system must be maintained. Its abandonment has always been followed by general disaster to all interests except those of the usurer and the sheriff. We denounce the Mills bill as destructive to the general business, the labor and the farming interests of the country, and we heartily endorse the consistent and patriotic action of the Republican Representatives in Congress in opposing its passage.
We condemn the proposition of the Democratic party to place wool on the free list, and we insist that the duties thereon shall be adjusted and maintained so as to furnish full and adequate protection to that industry.
The Republican party would effect all needed reduction of the national revenue by repealing the taxes upon tobacco, which are an annoyance and burden to agriculture, and the tax upon spirits used in the arts and for mechanical purposes, and by such revision of the tariff laws as will tend to check imports of such articles as are produced by our people, the production of which gives employment to our labor, and release from import duties those articles of foreign production (except luxuries) the like of which cannot be produced at home. If there shall still remain a larger revenue than is requisite for the wants of the Government, we favor the entire repeal of internal taxes rather than the surrender of any part of our protective system at the joint behest of the whisky trusts and the agents of foreign manufacturers.
We declare our hostility to the introduction into this country of foreign contract labor, and of Chinese labor, alien to our civilization and our Constitution, and we demand the rigid enforcement of the existing laws against it, and favor such immediate legislation as will exclude such labor from our shores.
We declare our opposition to all combinations of capital organized in trusts or otherwise to control arbitrarily the condition of trade among our citizens, and we recommend to Congress and to the State Legislatures in their respective jurisdictions such legislation as will prevent the execution of all the schemes to oppress the people by undue charges on their supplies, or by the unjust rates for the transportation of their products to market. We approve the legislation by Congress to prevent alike unjust burdens and unfair discriminations between the States.
We reaffirm the policy of appropriating the public lands of the United States to be homesteads for American citizens and settlers, not aliens, which the Republican party established in 1862, against the persistent opposition of the Democrats in Congress, and which has brought our great western domain into such magnificent development. The restoration of unearned railroad land grants to the public domain, for the use of the actual settlers, which was begun under the administration of President Arthur, should be continued. We deny that the Democratic party has ever revoked one acre to the people, but declare that, by the joint action of Republicans and Democrats, about fifty millions of acres of unearned lands originally granted for the construction of railroads have been restored to the public domain, in pursuance of the conditions inserted by the Republican party in the original grants. We charge the Democratic administration with failure to execute the laws securing to settlers titles to their homesteads, and with using appropriations made for that purpose to harass innocent settlers with spies and prosecutions under the false pretence of exposing frauds and vindicating the law.
The Government by Congress of the Territories is based upon necessity only, to the end that they may become States in the Union; therefore, whenever the conditions of population, material resources, public intelligence and morality are such as to insure a stable Government therein, the people of such territories should be permitted, as a right inherent in them, the right to form for themselves constitutions and State Governments and be admitted into the Union. Pending the preparation for statehood, all officers thereof should be selected from the bona fide residents and citizens of the territory wherein they are to serve. South Dakota should of right be immediately admitted as a State in the Union under the Constitution framed and adopted by her people, and we heartily endorse the action of the Republican Senate in twice passing bills for admission. The refusal of the Democratic House of Representatives, for partisan purposes, to favorably consider these bills, is a willful violation of the sacred American principle of local self government and merits the condemnation of all just men. The pending bills in the Senate for acts to enable the people of Washington, North Dakota and Montana territories to form Constitutions and establish State Governments, should be passed without unnecessary delay. The Republican party pledges itself to do all in its power to facilitate the admission of the Territories of New Mexico, Wyoming, Idaho and Arizona to the enjoyment of self-government as States, such of them as are not qualified as soon as they may become so.
The political power of the Mormon church in the Territories, as exercised in the past, is a menace to free institutions, a danger no longer to be suffered;
Therefore, we pledge the Republican party to appropriate legislation asserting the sovereignty of the Nation in all Territories where the same is questioned, and in furtherance of that end to place upon the statute books legislation stringent enough to divorce the political from the ecclesiastical power, and thus stamp out the attendant wickedness of polygamy.
The Republican party is in favor of the use of both gold and silver as money, and condemns the policy of the Democratic Administration in its efforts to demonetize silver.
We demand the reduction of letter postage to one cent per ounce.
In a Republic like ours, where the citizen is the sovereign and the official the servant; where no power is exercised except by the will of the people, it is important that the sovereign—the people—should possess intelligence. The free school is the promoter of that intelligence which is to preserve us as a free nation; the State or nation, or both combined, should support free institutions of learning sufficient to afford to every child growing up in the land the opportunity of a good common-school education.
We earnestly recommend that prompt action be taken by Congress in the enactment of such legislation as will best secure the rehabilitation of the American merchant marine, and we protest against the passage by Congress of a free ship bill, as calculated to work injustice to labor by lessening the wages of those engaged in preparing materials as well as those directly employed in our ship yards. We demand appropriations for the early rebuilding of our navy; for the construction of coast fortifications and modern ordnance and other approved modern means of defence for the protection of our defenceless harbors and cities; for the payment of just pensions to our soldiers; for necessary works of national importance in the improvement of harbors and the channels of internal, coastwise and foreign commerce; for the encouragement of the shipping interests of the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific States, as well as for the payment of the maturing public debt. This policy will give employment to our labor, activity to our various industries, increase the security of our country, promote trade, open new and direct markets for our produce, and cheapen the cost of transportation. We affirm this to be far better for our country than the Democratic policy of loaning the Government’s money without interest to “pet banks.”
The conduct of foreign affairs by the present administration has been distinguished by its inefficiency and its cowardice. Having withdrawn from the Senate all pending treaties affected by Republican administrations for the removal of foreign burdens and restrictions upon our commerce and for its extension into better markets, it has neither effected nor proposed any others in their stead. Professing adherence to the Monroe doctrine, it has seen with idle complacency the extension of foreign influence in Central America and of foreign trade everywhere among our neighbors. It has refused to charter, sanction or encourage any American organization for constructing the Nicaragua canal, a work of vital importance to the maintenance of the Monroe doctrine and of our national influence in Central and South America, and necessary for the development of trade with our Pacific territory, with South America and with the islands and further coasts of the Pacific Ocean.
We arraign the present Democratic administration for its weak and unpatriotic treatment of the fisheries question, and its pusillanimous surrender of the essential privileges to which our fishing vessels are entitled in Canadian ports under the treaty of 1818, the reciprocal maritime legislation of 1830, and the comity of nations, and which Canadian fishing vessels receive in ports of the United States.
We condemn the policy of the present administration and the Democratic majority in Congress towards our fisheries as unfriendly and conspicuously unpatriotic, and as tending to destroy a valuable national industry and an indispensable resource of defense against a foreign enemy.
The name of American applies alike to all citizens of the Republic, and imposes upon all alike the same obligation to obedience to the laws. At the same time that citizenship is and must be the panoply and safeguard of him who wears it, and protect him, whether high or low, rich or poor, in all his civil rights, it should and must afford him protection at home and follow and protect him abroad in whatever land he may be on a lawful errand.
The men who abandoned the Republican party in 1884 and continue to adhere to the Democratic party have deserted not only the cause of honest government, of sound finance, of freedom and purity of the ballot, but especially have deserted the cause of reform in the civil service. We will not fail to keep our pledges because they have broken theirs or because their candidate has broken his. We therefore repeat our declaration of 1884, to wit: “The reform of the Civil Service, auspiciously begun under the Republican administration should be completed by the further extension of the reform system already established by law to all grades of the service to which it is applicable. The spirit and purpose of the reform should be observed in all executive appointments, and all laws at variance with the object of existing reform legislation should be repealed, to the end that the dangers to free institutions which lurk in the power of official patronage may be wisely and effectively avoided.”
The gratitude of the nation to the defenders of the Union cannot be measured by laws. The legislation of Congress should conform to the pledge made by a loyal people, and be so enlarged and extended as to provide against the possibility that any man who honorably wore the Federal uniform shall become an inmate of an almshouse, or dependent upon private charity. In the presence of an overflowing treasury it would be a public scandal to do less for those whose valorous service preserved the Government. We denounce the hostile spirit shown by President Cleveland in his numerous vetoes of measures for pension relief, and the action of the Democratic House of Representatives in refusing even a consideration of general pension legislation.
In support of the principles herewith enunciated we invite the co-operation of patriotic men of all parties, and especially of all workingmen, whose prosperity is seriously threatened by the free trade policy of the present administration.
On motion of Hon. Chas. A. Boutelle of Maine, the following was also adopted:
“The first concern of all good government is the virtue and sobriety of the people and the purity of the home. The Republican party cordially sympathizes with all wise and well-directed efforts for the promotion of temperance and morality.”
COMPARISON OF PLATFORM PLANKS ON GREAT POLITICAL QUESTIONS.
General Party Doctrines.
| DEMOCRATIC. | REPUBLICAN. |
|---|---|
| 1856—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 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. [Plank 8. |
1856—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 happiness, and that the primary object and ulterior design of our Federal Government were to secure these rights to all persons within its exclusive jurisdiction. [Plank 1. |
| 1860—Reaffirmed. | 1860—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. [Plank 2. |
| 1864— | 1864— |
| 1868— | 1868— |
| 1872—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. [Plank 1. |
1872—Complete liberty and exact equality in the enjoyment of all civil, political and public rights should be established and effectually maintained throughout the Union by efficient and appropriate State and Federal Legislation. Neither the law nor its administration should admit any discrimination in respect of citizens by reasons of race, creed, color or previous condition of servitude. [Plank 3. |
| 1876— | 1876—The United States of America is a Nation not a league. By the combined workings of the National and State Governments, under their respective constitutions, the rights of every citizen are secured at home or abroad, and the common welfare promoted. |
| 1880—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. [Plank 2. |
1880—The constitution of the United States is a supreme law and not a mere contract. Out of confederate 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. [Plank 2. |
The Rebellion.
| DEMOCRATIC. | REPUBLICAN. |
|---|---|
| 1864—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. [1st resolution. |
1864—That it is the highest duty of every American citizen to maintain against all their enemies the integrity of the Union and the paramount authority 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. 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, except 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. [1st and 2d resolutions. |
Home Rule.
| DEMOCRATIC. | REPUBLICAN. |
|---|---|
| 1856—That we recognize the right of the people in all the Territories, including Kansas and Nebraska, acting through the legally and fairly expressed will of a majority of actual residents, and wherever the number of their inhabitants justifies it, to form a constitution * * * and be admitted into the Union upon terms of perfect equality with the other States. | 1856— * * * The dearest constitutional rights of the people of Kansas have been fraudulently and violently taken from them; their 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 denied; the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, 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 to 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 knowledge, 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 punishment. [Plank 3. |
| 1860—That when the settlers in a Territory, having an adequate population, form a State Constitution, the right of sovereignty commences, and, being consummated 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 admitted into the Federal Union, whether its constitution prohibits or recognizes the institution of slavery. [Plank 3, Breckinridge, Dem. |
1860—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 according 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. [Plank 4. |
| 1864— | 1864— |
| 1868—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 [the Republican party] 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 profound 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 individuals, 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 questions 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 preferred against the President. * * * Under its repeated assaults the pillars of the Government are rocking on their base, and should it succeed in November next and inaugurate its President, we will meet as a subjected and conquered people, amid the ruins of liberty and the scattered fragments of the Constitution. | 1868—We congratulate the country on the assured success of the reconstruction 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. |
| 1872—Local self-government, with impartial suffrage, will guard the rights of all citizens more securely than any centralized power. The public welfare requires the supremacy of the civil over the military authority, and freedom of persons under the protection of the habeas corpus. We demand for the individual the largest liberty consistent with public order; for the State self-government, and for the nation a return to the methods of peace and the constitutional limitations of power. [Plank 4. |
1872—We hold that Congress and the President have only fulfilled an imperative duty in their measures for the suppression of violent and treasonable organizations in certain lately rebellious regions, and for the protection of the ballot-box; and, therefore, they are entitled to the thanks of the nation. [Plank 12. |
| 1880—* * “Home Rule.” [Plank 3. |
1880— |
Internal Improvements.
| DEMOCRATIC. | REPUBLICAN. |
|---|---|
| 1856—That the Constitution does not confer upon the general Government the power to commence and carry on a general system of internal improvements. [Plank 2. |
1856—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. [Plank 7. |
| 1860—Reaffirmed. | 1860—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 obligation of Government to protect the lives and property of its citizens. [Plank 15. |
| 1864— | 1864— |
| 1868— | 1868— |
| 1872— | 1872— |
| 1876— | 1876— |
| 1880—Plank 2 of 1856 reaffirmed. | 1880– * * * 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. |
The National Debt and Interest, the Public Credit, Repudiation, etc.
| DEMOCRATIC. | REPUBLICAN. |
|---|---|
| 1864— | 1864—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. [Plank 10. |
| 1868—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 honestly 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. [Plank 3. Equal taxation of every species of property according to its real value, including Government bonds and other public securities. [Plank 4. |
1868—We denounce all forms of repudiation as a National crime; and the National honor requires the payment of the public indebtedness in the uttermost good faith to all creditors at home and abroad, not only according to the letter, but the spirit of the laws under which it was contracted. [Plank 3. It is due to the labor of the nation that taxation should be equalized and reduced as rapidly as the national faith will permit. [Plank 4. 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 redemption; and it is the duty of Congress to reduce the rate of interest thereon whenever it can be honestly done. [Plank 5. 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. [Plank 6. |
| 1872—We demand a system of Federal taxation which shall not unnecessarily interfere with the industries 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 annually of the principal thereof. * * * The public credit must be sacredly maintained, and we denounce repudiation in every form and guise. [Plank 7. |
1872—* * * A uniform national currency has been provided, repudiation frowned down, the national credit sustained under the most extraordinary burdens, and new bonds negotiated at lower rates. * * * [Plank 1. We denounce repudiation of the public debt, in any form of 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. [Plank 13. |
| 1876—Reform is necessary to establish a sound currency, restore the public credit, and maintain the national honor. | 1876—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 continuance and steady progress to specie payment. [Plank 4. |
| 1880—* * * 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. [Plank 3. |
1880—It [the Republican party] 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 part or 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. [Preamble. |
Resumption.
| DEMOCRATIC. | REPUBLICAN. |
|---|---|
| 1872—A speedy return to specie payment is demanded alike by the highest considerations of commercial morality and honest government. [Plank 8. |
1872—* * * Our excellent national currency will be perfected by a speedy resumption of specie payment. [Plank 13. |
| 1876—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 wasting our resources and exhausting all our surplus income; and, while annually professing to intend a speedy return to specie payments, has annually enacted fresh hindrances thereto. As such hindrance we denounce the resumption clause of the act of 1875, and we here demand its repeal. | 1876—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 progress to specie payment. |
| 1880—* * * Honest money, * * * consisting of gold, and silver, and paper convertible into coin on demand. | 1880—* * * It [the Republican party] 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 part of our extended country. |
Capital and Labor.
| DEMOCRATIC. | REPUBLICAN. |
|---|---|
| 1868—Resolved, That this convention sympathize cordially with the working men of the United States in their efforts to protect the rights and interests of the laboring classes of the country. | 1868— |
| 1872— | 1872—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. [Plank 11. |
| 1880—The Democratic party is the friend of labor and the laboring man, and pledges itself to protect him alike against the cormorant and the commune. [Plank 13. |
1880— |
Tariff.
| DEMOCRATIC. | REPUBLICAN. |
|---|---|
| 1856—The time has come for the people of the United States to declare themselves in favor of * * * progressive free trade throughout the world, by solemn manifestations, to place their moral influence at the side of their successful example. [Resolve 1. 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 interests of one portion to the injury of another portion of our common country. [Plank 4. |
1856— |
| 1860—Reaffirmed. | 1860—That, while providing revenue for the support of the general Government 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 secures 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. [Plank 12. |
| 1864— | 1864— |
| 1868—* * * A tariff for revenue upon foreign imports, and such equal taxation 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 interests of the country. [Plank 6. |
1868— |
| 1872—* * * Recognizing that there are in our midst honest but irreconcilable differences of opinion with regard to the respective systems of protection and free trade, we remit the discussion of the subject to the people in their Congressional districts, and to the decision of the Congress thereon, wholly free from executive interference or dictation. [Plank 6. |
1872—* * * Revenue except so much as may be derived from a tax upon tobacco and liquors, should be raised by duties upon importations, the details of which should be so adjusted as to aid in securing remunerative wages to labor, and promote the industries, prosperity, and growth of the whole country. [Plank 7. |
| 1876—* * * We demand that all custom-house taxation shall be only for revenue. [Plank 11. |
1876—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. [Plank 8. |
| 1880—* * * A tariff for revenue only. [Plank 3. |
1880—Reaffirmed. |
Education.
| DEMOCRATIC. | REPUBLICAN. |
|---|---|
| 1876—The false issue with which they [the Republicans] would enkindle sectarian strife in respect to the public schools, of which the establishment and support belong exclusively to the several States, and which the Democratic party has cherished from their foundation, and is resolved to maintain without prejudice or preference for any class, sect, or creed, and without largesses from the Treasury to any. | 1876—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. [Plank 4. |
| 1880—* * * Common Schools fostered and protected. [Plank 2. |
1880—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. [Plank 3. |
Duty to Union Soldiers and Sailors.
| DEMOCRATIC. | REPUBLICAN. |
|---|---|
| 1864—That the sympathy of the Democratic party is heartily and earnestly 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. [Plank 6. |
1864—That the thanks of the American people are due to the soldiers and sailors 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 defence shall be held in grateful and everlasting remembrance. [Plank 4. |
| 1868—* * * That our soldiers and sailors, who carried the flag of our country to victory, against a most gallant and determined foe, must ever be gratefully remembered, and all the guarantees given in their favor must be faithfully carried into execution. | 1868—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 endured the hardships of campaign and cruise and imperiled their lives in the service of their 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 care. [Plank 10. |
| 1872—* * * 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. [Plank 9. |
1872—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. [Plank 8. |
| 1876—* * * 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. [Last resolution. |
1876—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. [Plank 14. |
| 1880— | 1880—That the obligations of the Republic to the men who preserved its integrity in the day of battle are undiminished 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. |
Naturalization and Allegiance.
| DEMOCRATIC. | REPUBLICAN. |
|---|---|
| 1860—That the Democracy of the United States recognize it as the imperative 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 citizens. [Plank 6. |
1860—The Republican party is opposed to any change in our naturalization 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 right of all classes of citizens, whether native or naturalized, both home and abroad. [Plank 14. |
| 1864— | 1864— |
| 1868—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 absolute doctrine of immutable allegiance, and the claims of foreign powers to punish them for alleged crime committed beyond their jurisdiction. [Plank 8. |
1868—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 nations, and at war with our national honor and independence. Naturalized citizens are entitled to protection in all their rights of 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. [Plank 9. |
| 1872— | 1872—The doctrine of Great Britain and other European Powers concerning allegiance—“once a subject always a subject”—having at last, through the efforts 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 unauthorised claims by their former Governments, and we urge continued careful encouragement and protection of voluntary immigration. [Plank 9. |
| 1876— | 1876—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 State for that purpose. [Plank 10. |
| 1880— | 1880—* * * Everywhere the protection accorded to a citizen of American birth must be secured to citizens by American adoption. [Plank 5. |
The Chinese.
| DEMOCRATIC. | REPUBLICAN. |
|---|---|
| 1876—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 recrossing 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 liberty 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. | 1876—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. [Plank 11. |
| 1880—Amendment of the Burlingame Treaty. No more Chinese immigration, except for travel, education, and foreign commerce, and therein carefully guarded. [Plank 11. |
1880—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 unrestricted 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. [Plank 6. |