USA > Indiana > Johnson County > The people's guide, a business, political and religious directory of Johnson Co., Ind. together with a collection of very important documents and statistics connected with our moral, political and scientific history; also, a historical sketch of Johnson County > Part 6
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6. That the right for asylum, except for crime, and subject to law, is a recognized principle-a principle of American lib- erty; that any violation of it must not be overlooked, and must not go unrebuked.
7. That the National policy known as the Monroe doctrine has become a recognized principle, and that the establishment of an anti-republican form of government on this continent by a foreign power can not be tolerated.
8. That the gratitude and support of the nation is due to the faithful soldiers, and the earnest leaders of the Union army and navy, for their heroic achievements and valor in defense of our imperiled country and of civil liberty.
9. That the one term policy for the Presidency adopted by
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the people is strengthened by the existing crisis, and shall be maintained by constitutional amendments.
10. That the Constitution shall be so amended that the President and Vice President shall be elected by a direct vote of the people.
11. That the reconstruction of the rebellious States belongs to the people through their representatives in Congress, and not to the Executive.
12. That the confiscation of the lands of the rebels and their distribution among the soldiers and actual settlers is a measure of justice ; that integrity and economy are demanded at all times in the measures of the government, and that now the want of this is criminal.
NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM OF 1864.
Resolved, That in the future, as in the past, we will adhere with unswerving fidelity to the Union under the Constitution as the only solid foundation of our strength, security and hap. piness as a people, and as a framework of 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 fail- ure to restore the Union by experiment of war, during which, under the pretence of military necessity or war power higher than the Constitution. the Constitution itself has been disre- garded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of the country es- sentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities with a view to an ultimate convention of the States, or other peaceable means, to the end that at the earli- est practical moment peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States.
Resolved, That the direct interference of the military au- thorities of the United States in the recent elections held in Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri and Delaware was a shameful
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violation of the Constitution, and a repetition of such acts in the approaching election will be held as revolutionary, and re- sisted 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 arbi- trary military arrest, imprisonment, trial and sentence of American citizens in States where the 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 right of 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 a perpetuation of the Govern- ment deriving its just powers from the consent of the gov- erned.
Resolved, That the shameful disregard of the Administra- tion 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 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 their country, and in the event of its attaining power, they will receive all the care, protec- tion and regard that the brave soldiers and sailors of the Re- public have so nobly earned.
THE CHICAGO PLATFORM, 1868.
The following is the platform as adopted :
The National Republican Party of the United States, as- sembled in National Convention, in the city of Chicago, on the 20th day of May, 1868, make the following declaration of principles :
1. We congratulate the country on the assured success of
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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 consti- tutions and to prevent the people of such States from being remittel to a state of anarchy.
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2. The guarantee 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 main- tained, 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 national honor requires the payment of the public indebtedness in the utmost 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.
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 ex- tended 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.
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 admin- istered 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 professedly deplore the untimely and tragic death of ABRAHAM LINCOLN, and regret the accession of ANDREW JOHNSON to the Presidency, 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 func- tions-who has refused to execute the laws-who has used his high office to induce other officers to ignoro and violate the laws-who has employed his executive powers to render inse-
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cure the property, the peace, liberty, and life of the citizen- who has abused the pardoning power-who has denounced the National Legislature as unconstitutional-persistently and corruptly resisted, by every measure 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 im- peached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and properly pro- nounced guilty thereof by the vote of thirty five Senators.
9. The doctrine of Great Britain and other European Pow- ers, 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 the feudal times, not authorized by the law of nations, and at war with our national honor and independence. Nat- uralized citizens are entitled to be protected 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.
10. Of all who were faithful in the trials of the late war there were none entitled to more especial honor than tho brave soldiers and seamen who endured the hardships of cam- paign and cruise, and 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 emigration, which in the past has added so much to the wealth, development, and resources and increase of power to this nation, 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 the oppressed people which are struggling for their rights.
The following resolutions were also adopted unanimously, and are added to the declaration of principles :
Resolved, That we highly commend the spirit of magnan- imity and forgiveness with which the men who have served in
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the rebellion, but now frankly and honestly co-operate with us in restoring the peace of the country and reconstructing the Southern State governments upon the basis of impartial justice and equal rights, are received back into the com- munion of the loyal people. And we favor the removal of the disqualifications and restrictions placed upon the late rebels in the same measure as the spirit of loyalty will direct, and as may be consistent with the safety of the loyal people.
Resolved, That we recognize the great principles laid down in the immortal Declaration 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.
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DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM OF 1868.
The Democratic party, in National Convention assembled, reposing its trust in the intelligence, patriotism, and discrimi- nating 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- nizing the questions of slavery and secession as having been set- tled for all time to come by the war or the voluntary action of the Southern States in Constitutional Conventions assembled, and never to be revived or re-agitated, do, with the return of peace, demand :
1. The immediate restoration of all the States to their rights in the Union under the Constitution of the civil Gov- ernment and in the American people.
2. Amnesty for all past political offenses ; the regulation of the elective franchise in the States by their citizens.
3. Payment of the public debt of the United States as rap- idly as practicable, all money drawn from the people by taxa- tion, except so much as is requisite for the necessities of the Government economically administered being honestly ap- plied to such payment, and where the obligations of the Gov- ernment 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 justice, be paid in the lawful money of the United States.
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4. Equal taxation of every species of property according to the value ; reducing Government bonds and other public securities.
5. One currency for the Government and the people, the laborer and the office-holder, 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 Freedmen's Bureau, and all political instrumentalities de- signed to secure negro supremacy ; simplification of the system and discontinuance of inquisitorial modes of assessing and collecting internal revenue, that the burden of taxation may be equalized and lessened, and the credit of the Government and the currency made good ; the repeal of all enactments for enrolling the State militia into a national force in time of peace ; and a tariff for revenue upon foreign imports and such equal taxation under the internal revenue laws as will afford incidental protection to domestic manufactures as well, with- out impairing the revenue, impose the least burden upon and best promote and encourage the great industrial interests 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 the rightful authority to and the independ- ence of the Executive and Judicial Departments of the Gov- ernment; the subordination of the military to the civil power, to the end that the usurpation of Congress and the 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 will command the respect of foreign powers furnish an example and encouragement to people struggling for national integrity, constitutional liberty, and individual rights ; and the maintenance of the rights of naturalized citi- zens against the absolute doctrine of immutable allegiance and the claims of foreign powers to punish them for alleged crimes 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 tyrauny which have marked its career, after the most solemn and unanimous pledge of both houses of Congress to prose-
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cute the war exclusively for the maintenance of the Govern- ment and the preservation of the Union under the Constitu- tion. It has repeatedly violated that most sacred pledge under which was rallied that noble volunteer army which car- ried our flag to victory. Instead of restoring the Union it has, so far as it is in its power, dissolved it, and subjected ten States in time of peace to military despotism and negro supremacy. It has nullified there the right of trial by jury ; it has abolished the writ of habeas corpus, that most sacred writ of liberty ; it has overthrown the freedom of speech and of the press ; it has substituted arbitrary seizures and arrests, military trials, se- cret star chambers, and inquisitions for constitutional tribu- nals; it has disregarded, in time of peace, the right of the people to be free from search and seizure; it has entered the post-office and telegraph office, and even the private rooms of individuals and seized there their private papers and letters, without any specification 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 espion- age to which the constitutional monarchies of Europe · never 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 juris- diction, which is irrevocably vested by the Constitution ; while the learned Chief Justice has been subjected to the most atro- cious calumnies merely because he would not prostitute his high office to the support of the false and partisan charges against the President. Its corruption and extravagance have exceeded anything known in history, and by its frauds and monopolies it has nearly doubled the burden of the debt cre- ated during 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 to 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 scat- tered 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
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power of each State respectively, and any attempt by Con- gress, on any pretext whatever, to deprive any State of this right, or interfere with this 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 Govern- ment, and can only end in a single, centralized and consolidated Government, in which the separate existence of the States will be entirely absorbed, and an unqualified despotism then be established in place of a Federal Union of coequal States, and that we regard the reconstruction acts so called of Congress such usurpations and unconstitutional, revolutionary and void ; 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; that the public lands should be distributed widely among the people and should be disposed of either under the pre-emption of the homestead lands and sold in reasonable quantities, and to none but actual occupants, at the price established by the Govern- ment. When the grants of the public lands may be allowed necessary for the encouragement of important public improve- ments, the proceeds of the sale of such lands, and not the lands themselves, should be so applied ; that the President of the United States, Andrew Johnson, exercising the power of his high office in resisting the aggressions of Congress on the constitutional rights of the States and the people, is entitled to the gratitude of the whole American people, and on 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, including all the conservative element, and all who desire to support the Constitution and restore the Union, for- getting 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 be- longed, we extend the right hand of fellowship, and hail all such co-operating with us as friends and brothers.
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REPUBLICAN PLATFORM, 1872.
The Republican party of the United States, assembled in national convention 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 suppressed a gigantic rebellion, emancipated four millions of slaves, de- creed the equal citizenship of all, and established universal suffrage. Exhibiting unparalelled magnanimity, it criminally punished no man for political offenses, and warmly welcomed all who proved loyalty 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 rail- road and similar vast enterprises have been generously aided and successfully conducted, the public lands freely given to actual settlers, immigration protected and encouraged, and a full acknowledgement of the naturalized citizen's rights se- cured from European Powers. 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. The revenues have been care- fully collected and honestly applied. Despite annual large reductions of the rates of taxation, the public debt has been re- duced during General Grant's Presidency at the rate of a hun- dred millions a year, great financial crises have been avoided, and peace and plenty prevail throughout the land. Menacing foreign difficulties have been peacefully and honorably com- posed, 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 benificent progress.
2. The recent amendments to the national Constitution should be cordially sustained because they are right, not
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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 secured those amendments.
3. 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 reason of race, creed, color, or previous condition of servitude.
4. The national Government should seek to maintain hon- orable peace with all nation", protecting its citizens every- where and sympathizing with all peoples who strive for greater liberty.
5. Any system of the civil service under which the subor- dinate positions of the government are considered rewards for mere party zeal is fatally demoralizing, 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 creating a life tenure of office.
6. We are opposed to further grants of the public lands to corporations 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 reduction 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 im- portations, 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.
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 grate- ful people. We favor such additional legislation as will ex- tend the bounty of the Government to all our soldiers and
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sailors who were honorably discharged, and who in the line of duty became disabled, without regard to the length of ser- vice or the cause of such discharge.
9. The doctrine of Great Britain and other European Pow- ers 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 Euro- pean nations, it is the duty of our Government to guard with jealous care the rights of adopted citizens against the assump- tion of unauthorized claims by their former Governments, and we urge continued careful encouragement and protec- tion 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 legis- lation as to secure full protection and the amplest field for capital, and for labor, the creator of capital, the largest oppor- tunities 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 imperative duty in their measures for the sup- pression 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.
13. 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 the rates of in- terest upon the balance, and confidently expect that our ex- cellent national currency will be perfected by a speedy re- sumption of specie payment.
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