498 



MASSACHUSETTS. 



there must be an actual recognition of the equal rights 

 of all by all. The privileges of citizenship must every- 

 where be respected. Results and settlement of past 

 issues that have been reached at great cost and once 

 accepted must not again be brought into question, and 

 we hold that they who seek to reverse or set them 

 aside, or to revive past controversies for political pur- 

 poses, are unwise statesmen and dangerous political 



leaders, justly responsible for disturbing the peace and 

 structmg the welfare of the country. 



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7. The duty of all Republicans lovally to support 

 the candidates of the party, and the dutv of nominat- 

 ing conventions to present candidates who are accept- 

 able to all Republicans, are reciprocal duties of equal 

 force and obligation. Profoundly sensible of the im- 

 portance of the impending election to the nation's 

 safety, honor, and well-being, the Republicans of Mas- 

 sachusetts demand of the delegates to the National 

 Convention that they use all proper efforts for the 

 nomination of a candidate who, having the requisite 

 qualities for the high office of President, will also have 

 the confidence and approval of all who have hitherto 

 acted with the Republican party ; who will invite the 

 support of other patriotic citizens desiring good gov- 

 ernment more than party success ; whose nomination 

 will be most expedient because most worthy and 

 least objectionable, and whose triumphant election, to 

 which we pledge our hearty and united efforts, will 

 give assurance of the continuance of sound and benefi- 

 cent policies of administration and of uninterrupted 

 and growing national prosperity. While we do not 

 instruct our delegates, we commend to their consider- 

 ation, as a Republican statesman who possesses in an 

 eminent degree such qualities and requisites for the 

 nomination, the Honorable George F. Edmunds, of 

 Vermont. 



The district delegates were chosen at local 

 conventions, and the Democratic delegates at 

 large were designated by the Executive Com- 

 mittee of the party organization. On the 1st 

 of September a Democratic Convention was 

 held at Worcester for the purpose of nominat- 

 ing candidates for State officers and electors. 

 The division in the party which had been occa- 

 sioned by the action of General B. F. Butler, 

 was healed by his public acceptance, of the prin- 

 ciples of the national organization, and the an- 

 nouncement that he would not contend this 

 year for the position of Governor of the State. 

 He made an address in the Convention defin- 

 ing his position and declining the use of his 

 .name as a candidate. Charles P.' Thompson, 

 of Gloucester, was placed at the head of the 

 ticket, receiving 536 votes out of 1,026 on the 

 first ballot, and being immediately after nomi- 

 nated unanimously. William Gaston, of Bos- 

 ton, received 448 votes on the first ballot. 

 The remainder of the ticket was for Lieu- 

 tennnt-Governor, Alpha E. Thompson, of 

 Woburn ; for Secretary of State, Michael T. 

 Donohoe, of Somerville; for Treasurer, Fran- 

 cis J. Parker, of Newton; for Auditor, Charles 

 R. Field, of Greenfield ; for Attorney-General, 

 P. A. Collins, of Boston. The platform adopt- 

 ed was as follows : 



1. The delegates of the united Democracy of Mas- 

 sachusetts, now met in State Convention at Wor- 

 cester, heartily endorse the declaration of principles 

 and policy adopted by the Democratic National Coun- 

 cil at Cincinnati in June last as a correct statement of 

 the Democratic faith and doctrine as applied to the 

 present condition of our public affairs, and we also 

 endorse with complete satisfaction the distinguished 



candidates nominated for the highest offices in the 

 republic. _ We maintain that the Republican party, 

 so called, is sectional and not national ; that its per- 

 sistent fanning of the embers of sectional strife weak- 

 ens the sentiment of union and retards the prosperity 

 of the country j that the people are longing tor one 

 country in reality as well as in name, no longer shared 

 in North and South ; and we condemn the utter aban- 

 donment in the present canvass, on the part of the Re- 

 publican Presidential nominee and his party, of the 

 sentiment and words of the former named, " The man 

 who attempts to get up a political excitement in this 

 country on the old sectional issues, will find himself 

 without a party and without support." We believe 

 that the election of the eminent and patriotic men, the 

 candidates of our party, by the support of the people 

 of all parts of the country, would be the end of sec- 

 tional contention and the complete reconcilement of 

 our countrymen to the union of our common ancestry. 



2. We believe there arc too many commissions 

 in this State, and too little Executive and legislative 

 control over them ; too many sumptuary laws, 

 too much special legislation, too many officials, too 

 much legislative effort to restrict liberty and invent 

 new crimes and misdemeanors, too many obsolete 

 laws left on the statute-book ; and we arraign the Re- 

 publican party in all its cliques, that its legislation in 

 this State is adverse to the progressive spirit of civil 

 liberty, tends to the degradation of the citizen and to 

 the creation of an official aristocracy with long tenures 

 of office and without responsibility to the people. 



3. We believe in manhood suffrage, and we de- 

 mand the removal of the unreasonable restrictions 

 now upon it in this Commonwealth. The municipal 

 and district courts of the State should be permitted 

 to exercise jurisdiction as Congress intended and pro- 

 vided over the naturalization of voters. We enter 

 anew our protest against laws which render the right 

 of man to vote dependent upon the payment of a 

 paltry tax, which is often paid by other parties than 

 the person taxed. The system is undemocratic and de- 

 moralizing, tends to a loss of self-respect in the party 

 taxed and to a false expression of the unbiased will 

 of the voter, and is a fruitful source of corruption and 

 fraud ; and we demand that all laws for the registra- 

 tion of voters and the conduct of elections should, in 

 the language of Chief-Justice Shaw, ' secure and facili- 

 tate the exercise of the right of suffrage in a prompt, 

 orderly, and convenient manner," and not, under the 

 pretense and color of regulating, subvert or injuri- 

 ously restrain the right itself. 



4/The inefficient" way in which the State admin- 

 istration has executed the laws regulating the hours 

 of labor for employees merits our condemnation, and 

 we demand the execution of these laws and of other 

 laws for the protection of the lives and health of op- 

 eratives. 



5. The Republican party of this State has at two 

 successive elections deceived the people by promises 

 of a radical reform in the basis and methods of tax- 

 ation, and we call upon the people to demand of their 

 legislators a just and equal system of taxation. 



6. We congratulate the Democratic party of the 

 Commonwealth upon the honorable settlement of the 

 differences recently existing within it, which has 

 brought harmony to its councils and unity to its ac- 

 tion, and we ask from the people their cordial and 

 united support for the nominees of this Convention. 



A resolution declaring against biennial elec- 

 tions and legislative sessions was voted down. 



The Prohibitory party held a State Conven- 

 tion at Worcester on the 8th of September. 

 Charles Almy, of New Bedford, was nomi- 

 nated for Governor ; Timothy K. Earle, of 

 Worcester, for Lieutenant-Governor ; Solomon 

 T. Root, of Dalton, for Secretary of State; 

 Thomas J. Lothrop, of Taunton, for Treasurer; 

 Jonathan Buck, of Harwich, for Auditor; and 



