USA > New York > History of the state of New York, political and governmental, Vol. VI > Part 19
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The principal candidates for the Presidential nomi- nation were James G. Blaine, President Arthur, George F. Edmunds, John A. Logan, John Sherman, and Joseph R. Hawley. Blaine was nominated on the fourth ballot, the vote being as follows: Blaine, 541;
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Arthur, 207; Edmunds, 41; Hawley, 15; Logan, 7; Robert T. Lincoln, of Illinois, 2.
For Vice-President John A. Logan, of Illinois, was nominated on the first ballot by 773 votes to 7 for two others.
Platform :
"The Republicans of the United States, in national convention assembled, renew their allegiance to the principles upon which they have triumphed in six successive Presidential elections, and congratu- late the American people on the attainment of so many results in legislation and administration by which the Republican party has, after saving the Union, done so much to render its institutions just, equal, and beneficent, the safeguard of liberty and the embodiment of the best thought and highest purposes of our citizens.
"The Republican party has gained its strength by quick and faithful response to the demands of the people for the freedom and equality of all men; for a united nation, assuring the rights of all citizens; for the elevation of labor; for an honest currency; for purity in legislation, and for integrity and accountability in all de- partments of the government; and it accepts anew the duty of lead- ing in the work of progress and reform.
"We lament the death of President Garfield, whose sound states- manship, long conspicuous in Congress, gave promise of a strong and successful administration-a promise fully realized during the short period of his office as President of the United States. His dis- tinguished services in war and peace have endeared him to the hearts of the American people.
"In the administration of President Arthur we recognize a wise, conservative, and patriotic policy under which the country has been blessed with remarkable prosperity, and we believe his eminent serv- ices are entitled to and will receive the hearty approval of every citizen.
"It is the first duty of a good government to protect the rights and promote the interests of its own people.
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"The largest diversity of industry is most productive of general prosperity and of the comfort and independence of the people.
"We therefore demand that the imposition of duties on foreign imports shall be made not 'for revenue only,' but that in raising the requisite revenues for the government such duties shall be so levied as to afford security to our diversified industries and protection to the rights and wages of the laborer, to the end that active and intelli- gent labor, as well as capital, may have its just reward, and the laboring man his full share in the national prosperity.
"Against the so-called economic system of the Democratic party, which would degrade our labor to the foreign standard, we enter our earnest protest.
"The Democratic party has failed completely to relieve the people of the burden of unnecessary taxation by a wise reduction of the surplus.
"The Republican party pledges itself to correct the inequalities of the tariff and to reduce the surplus, not by the vicious and indis- criminate process of horizontal reduction, but by such methods as will relieve the taxpayer without injuring the laborer or the great productive interests of the country.
"We recognize the importance of sheep husbandry in the United States, the serious depression which it is now experiencing, and the danger threatening its future prosperity; and we therefore respect the demands of the representatives of this important agricultural interest for a readjustment of duties upon foreign wool, in order that such industry shall have full and adequate protection.
"We have always recommended the best money known to the civilized world; and we urge that efforts should be made to unite all commercial nations in the establishment of an international stand- ard which shall fix for all the relative value of gold and silver coinage.
"The regulation of commerce with foreign nations and between the States is one of the most important prerogatives of the general government; and the Republican party distinctly announces its pur- pose to support such legislation as will fully and efficiently carry out the constitutional power of Congress over interstate commerce.
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"The principle of public regulation of railway corporations is a wise and salutary one for the protection of all classes of the people ; and we favor legislation that shall prevent unjust discrimination and excessive charges for transportation, and that shall secure to the people and the railways alike the fair and equal protection of the laws.
"We favor the establishment of a national Bureau of Labor; the enforcement of the Eight-hour law; a wise and judicious system of general education by adequate appropriation from the national revenues, wherever the same is needed. We believe that everywhere the protection to a citizen of American birth must be secured to citizens by American adoption; and we favor the settlement of international differences by international arbitration.
"The Republican party, having its birth in a hatred of slave labor and a desire that all men may be truly free and equal, is unalterably opposed to placing our workingmen in competition with any form of servile labor, whether at home or abroad. In this spirit we denounce the importation of contract labor, whether from Europe or Asia, as an offense against the spirit of American institutions; and we pledge ourselves to sustain the present law restricting Chinese im- migration and to provide such further legislation as is necessary to carry out its purposes.
"Reform of the civil service, auspiciously begun under Republican administration, should be completed by the further extension of the reform system, already established by law, to all the 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 objects 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 public lands are a heritage of the people of the United States, and should be reserved as far as possible for small holdings by actual settlers. We are opposed to the acquisition of large tracts of these lands by corporations or individuals, especially where such holdings are in the hands of non-resident aliens. And we will
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endeavor to obtain such legislation as will tend to correct this evil. We demand of Congress the speedy forfeiture of all land grants which have lapsed by reason of non-compliance with acts of incor- poration in all cases where there has been no attempt in good faith to perform the conditions of such grants.
"The grateful thanks of the American people are due to the Union soldiers and sailors of the late war; and the Republican party stands pledged to suitable pensions for all who were disabled, and for the widows and orphans of those who died in the war. The Republican party also pledges itself to the repeal of the limitations contained in the Arrears act of 1879, so that all invalid soldiers shall share alike and their pensions begin with the date of disability or discharge and not with the date of application.
"The Republican party favors a policy which shall keep us from entangling alliances with foreign nations, and which gives us the right to expect that foreign nations shall refrain from meddling in American affairs-a policy which seeks peace and trade with all powers, but especially with those of the western hemisphere.
"We demand the restoration of our navy to its old-time strength and efficiency, that it may in any sea protect the rights of American citizens and the interests of American commerce; and we call upon Congress to remove the burdens under which American shipping has been depressed, so that it may again be true that we have a com- merce which leaves no sea unexplored and a navy which takes no law from superior force.
"Resolved, That appointments by the President to offices in the Territories should be made from the bona fide citizens and residents of the Territories wherein they are to serve.
"Resolved, That it is the duty of Congress to enact such laws as shall promptly and effectually suppress the system of polygamy within our Territories, and divorce the political from the ecclesiastical power of the so-called Mormon church; and that the laws so enacted should be rigidly enforced by the civil authorities if possible, and by the military if need be.
"The people of the United States, in their organized capacity, constitute a nation, and not a mere confederacy of States. The
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national government is supreme within the sphere of its national duties ; but the States have reserved rights which should be faithfully maintained. Each should be guarded with jealous care, so that the harmony of our system of government may be preserved and the Union kept inviolate.
"The perpetuity of our institutions rests upon the maintenance of a free ballot, an honest count, and correct returns. We denounce the fraud and violence practiced by the Democracy in southern States by which the will of the voter is defeated, as dangerous to the preservation of free institutions ; and we solemnly arraign the Demo- cratic party as being the guilty recipient of fruits of such fraud and violence.
"We extend to the Republicans of the south, regardless of their former party affiliations, our cordial sympathy, and pledge to them our most earnest efforts to promote the passage of such legislation as will secure to every citizen, of whatever race and color, the full and complete recognition, possession, and exercise of all civil and political rights."
Democratic Party
Convention held in Chicago, July 8-11, 1884; tem- porary chairman, Richard B. Hubbard, of Texas ; per- manent chairman, William F. Vilas, of Wisconsin. By 463 to 332 the convention voted to permit State dele- gations to enforce the unit rule, the opposition being led by the anti-Cleveland delegates from New York. During the presentation of the names of Presidential candidates, after several bitter speeches had been made by Mr. Cleveland's New York foes General Edward S. Bragg, of Wisconsin, delivered his famous address advocating the nomination of Cleveland because of the enemies he had made.
On the first ballot for President, Grover Cleveland, of New York, received 392 votes, his nearest competi-
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tor being Thomas F. Bayard with 170, and 258 being cast for eight others. Cleveland was nominated on the second ballot, the result of which, after changes, was : Cleveland, 683; Bayard, 811/2 ; Thomas A. Hendricks, 451/2; Allen G. Thurman, 4; Samuel J. Randall, 4; Joseph E. McDonald, of Indiana, 2.
For Vice-President Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indi- ana, was nominated unanimously on the first ballot.
Platform :
"The Democratic party of the Union, through its representatives in national convention assembled, recognizes that, as the nation grows older, new issues are born of time and progress, and old issues perish. But the fundamental principles of the Democracy, approved by the united voice of the people, remain and will ever remain as the best and only security for the continuance of free government. The preservation of personal rights; the equality of all citizens before the law; the reserved rights of the States, and the supremacy of the Federal government within the limits of the Constitution, will ever form the true basis of our liberties, and can never be surrendered without destroying that balance of rights and powers which enables a continent to be developed in peace and social order to be maintained by means of local self-government. But it is indispensable for the practical application and enforcement of these fundamental prin- ciples, that the government should not always be controlled by one political party. Frequent change of administration is as necessary as constant recurrence to the popular will. Otherwise, abuses grow, and the government, instead of being carried on for the general wel- fare, becomes an instrumentality for imposing heavy burdens on the many who are governed for the benefit of the few who govern. Public servants thus become arbitrary rulers. This is now the condi- tion of the country ; hence a change is demanded.
"The Republican party, so far as principle is concerned, is a remi- niscence. In practice it is an organization for enriching those who control its machinery. The frauds and jobbery which have been
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brought to light in every department of the government are suffi- cient to have called for reform within the Republican party; yet those in authority, made reckless by the long possession of power, have succumbed to its corrupting influence and have placed in nomi- nation a ticket against which the independent portion of the party are in open revolt. Therefore, a change is demanded. Such a change was alike necessary in 1876, but the will of the people was then defeated by a fraud which can never be forgotten nor condoned. Again, in 1880, the change demanded by the people was defeated by the lavish use of money contributed by unscrupulous contractors and shameless jobbers, who had bargained for unlawful profits or high office. The Republican party, during its legal, its stolen, and its bought tenures of power, has steadily decayed in moral character and political capacity. Its platform promises are now a list of its past failures. It demands the restoration of our navy : it has squan- dered hundreds of millions to create a navy that does not exist. It calls upon Congress to remove the burdens under which American shipping has been depressed : it imposed and has continued those bur- dens. It professes a policy of reserving the public lands for small holdings by actual settlers: it has given away the people's heritage till now a few railroads and non-resident aliens, individual and cor- porate, possess a larger area than that of all our farms between the two seas. It professes a preference for free institutions : it organized and tried to legalize a control of State elections by Federal troops. It professes a desire to elevate labor : it has subjected American workingmen to the competition of convict and imported contract labor. It professes gratitude to all who were disabled or died in the war, leaving widows and orphans: it left to a Democratic House of Representatives the first effort to equalize both bounties and pen- sions. It proffers a pledge to correct the irregularities of our tariff: it created and has continued them. Its own Tariff commission con- fessed the need of more than twenty per cent. reduction: its Con- gress gave a reduction of less than four per cent. It professes the protection of American manufactures: it has subjected them to an increasing flood of manufactured goods and a hopeless competition with manufacturing nations, not one of which taxes raw materials.
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It professes to protect all American industries: it has impoverished many to subsidize a few. It professes the protection of American labor : it has depleted the returns of American agriculture, an indus- try followed by half of our people. It professes the equality of all men before the law, attempting to fix the status of colored citizens: the acts of its Congress were overset by the decisions of its courts. It 'accepts anew the duty of leading in the work of progress and reform': its caught criminals are permitted to escape through con- trived delays or actual connivance in the prosecution. Honeycombed with corruption, outbreaking exposures no longer shock its moral sense. Its honest members, its independent journals no longer main- tain a successful contest for authority in its councils or a veto upon bad nominations. That change is necessary is proven by an exist- ing surplus of more than $100,000,000, which has yearly been col- lected from a suffering people. Unnecessary taxation is unjust taxa- tion. We denounce the Republican party for having failed to relieve the people from crushing war taxes, which have paralyzed business, crippled industry, and deprived labor of employment and of just reward.
"The Democracy pledges itself to purify the administration from corruption, to restore economy, to revive respect for law, and to reduce taxation to the lowest limit consistent with due regard to the preservation of the faith of the nation to its creditors and pensioners. Knowing full well, however, that legislation affecting the occupations of the people should be cautious and conservative in method, not in advance of public opinion but responsive to its demands, the Demo- cratic party is pledged to revise the tariff in a spirit of fairness to all interests. But, in making reduction in taxes, it is not proposed to injure any domestic industries, but rather to promote their healthy growth. From the foundation of this government, taxes collected at the custom house have been the chief source of Federal revenue. Such they must continue to be. Moreover, many industries have come to rely upon legislation for successful continuance, so that any change of law must be at every step regardful of the labor and capi- tal thus involved. The process of reform must be subject in the execution to this plain dictate of justice: all taxation shall be limited
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to the requirements of economical government. The necessary re- duction and taxation can and must be effected without depriving American labor of the ability to compete successfully with foreign labor, and without imposing lower rates of duty than will be ample to cover any increased cost of production which may exist in conse- quence of the higher rate of wages prevailing in this country. Suffi- cient revenue to pay all the expenses of the Federal government economically administered, including pensions, interest and principal of the public debt, can be got under our present system of taxation from the custom house taxes on fewer imported articles, bearing heaviest on articles of luxury and bearing lightest on articles of neces- sity. We therefore denounce the abuses of the existing tariff, and, subject to the preceding limitations, we demand that Federal taxa- tion shall be exclusively for public purposes and shall not exceed the needs of the government economically administered.
"The system of direct taxation known as the 'Internal Revenue' is a war tax, and, so long as the law continues, the money derived therefrom should be sacredly devoted to the relief of the people from the remaining burdens of the war, and be made a fund to defray the expense of the care and comfort of worthy soldiers disabled in line of duty in the wars of the republic and for the payment of such pen- sions as Congress may from time to time grant to such soldiers, a like fund for the sailors having already been provided ; and any sur- plus should be paid into the treasury.
"We favor an American continental policy based upon more inti- mate commercial and political relations with the fifteen sister repub- lics of North, Central, and South America, but entangling alliances with none.
"We believe in honest money, the gold and silver coinage of the Constitution, and a circulating medium convertible into such money without loss.
"Asserting the equality of all men before the law, we hold that it is the duty of the government in its dealings with the people to mete out equal and exact justice to all citizens, of whatever nativity, race, color, or persuasion, religious or political.
"We believe in a free ballot and a fair count, and we recall to
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the memory of the people the noble struggle of the Democrats in the Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth Congresses by which a reluctant Repub- lican opposition was compelled to assent to legislation making every- where illegal the presence of troops at the polls, as the conclusive proof that a Democratic administration will preserve liberty with order.
"The selection of Federal officers for the Territories should be restricted to citizens previously resident therein.
"We oppose sumptuary laws, which vex the citizen and interfere with individual liberty.
"We favor honest civil service reform and a compensation of all United States officers by fixed salaries ; the separation of church and state, and the diffusion of free education by common schools, so that every child in the land may be taught the rights and duties of citizen- ship.
"While we favor all legislation which will tend to the equitable distribution of property, to the prevention of monopoly, and to the strict enforcement of individual rights against corporate abuses, we hold that the welfare of society depends upon a scrupulous regard for the rights of property as defined by law.
"We believe that labor is best rewarded where it is freest and most enlightened. It should therefore be fostered and cherished. We favor the repeal of all laws restricting the free action of labor, and the enactment of laws by which labor organizations may be incorporated, and of all such legislation as will tend to enlighten the people as to the true relations of capital and labor.
"We believe that the public land ought, as far as possible, to be kept as homesteads for actual settlers; that all unearned lands hereto- fore improvidently granted to railroad corporations by the action of the Republican party should be restored to the public domain, and that no more grants of land shall be made to corporations or be allowed to fall into the ownership of alien absentees.
"We are opposed to all propositions which, upon any pretext, would convert the general government into a machine for collecting taxes to be distributed among the States or the citizens thereof.
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"In reaffirming the declaration of the Democratic platform of 1856, that 'the liberal principles embodied by Jefferson in the Declara- tion of Independence, and sanctioned in the Constitution, which make ours the land of liberty and the asylum of the oppressed of every nation, have ever been cardinal principles in the Democratic faith,' we nevertheless do not sanction the importation of foreign labor or the admission of servile races, unfitted by habits, training, religion, or kindred for absorption into the great body of our people, or for the citizenship which our laws confer. American civilization demands that against the immigration or importation of Mongolians to these shores our gates be closed.
"The Democratic party insists that it is the duty of this government to protect with equal fidelity and vigilance the rights of its citizens, native and naturalized, at home and abroad; and to the end that this protection may be assured United States papers of naturaliza- tion, issued by courts of competent jurisdiction, must be respected by the executive and legislative departments of our own government and by all foreign powers. It is an imperative duty of this govern- ment to efficiently protect all the rights of persons and property of every American citizen in foreign lands, and demand and enforce full reparation for any invasion thereof. An American citizen is only responsible to his own government for any act done in his own country or under her flag, and can only be tried therefor on her own soil and according to her laws; and no power exists in this govern- ment to expatriate an American citizen to be tried in any foreign land for any such act.
"This country has never had a well-defined and executed foreign policy save under Democratic administration. That policy has ever been in regard to foreign nations, so long as they do not act detri- mentally to the interests of the country or hurtfully to our citizens, to let them alone; that as a result of this policy we recall the acquisi- tion of Louisiana, Florida, California, and of the adjacent Mexican territory, by purchase alone, and contrast these grand acquisitions of Democratic statesmanship with the purchase of Alaska, the sole fruit of a Republican administration of nearly a quarter of a cen- tury.
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"The Federal government should care for and improve the Mis- sissippi River and other great waterways of the republic, so as to secure for the interior States easy and cheap transportation to tide- water.
"Under a long period of Democratic rule and policy our mer- chant marine was fast overtaking, and on the point of outstripping, that of Great Britain. Under twenty years of Republican rule and policy our commerce has been left to British bottoms, and almost has the American flag been swept off the high seas. Instead of the Republican party's British policy, we demand for the people of the United States an American policy. Under Democratic rule and policy our merchants and sailors, flying the Stars and Stripes in every port, successfully searched out a market for the varied products of American industry: under a quarter-century of Republican rule and policy-despite our manifest advantage over all other nations in high-paid labor, favorable climate, and teeming soils; despite free- dom of trade among all these United States; despite their popula- tion by the foremost races of men, and an annual immigration of the young, thrifty, and adventurous of all nations; despite our free- dom here from the inherited burdens of life and industry in the old world monarchies, their costly war navies, their vast tax-consuming, non-producing standing armies; despite twenty years of peace-that Republican rule and policy have managed to surrender to Great Britain, along with our commerce, the control of the markets of the world. Instead of the Republican party's British policy, we demand in behalf of the American Democracy an American policy. Instead of the Republican party's discredited scheme and false pretense of friendship for American labor, expressed by imposing taxes, we de- mand, in behalf of the Democracy, freedom for American labor by reducing taxes, to the end that these United States may compete with unhindered powers for the primacy among nations in all the arts of peace and fruits of liberty.
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