574 



NEW YORK. 



Whereas, In the judgment of this committee, every 

 honorable means should be adopted to promote the 

 union and consolidation of the Democracy ; but the 

 unconditional support of candidates nominated by 

 National and State Conventions, convened in accord- 

 ance with the time-honored usages of the Democratic 

 party, is a cardinal principle and obligation imposed 

 upon every Democratic organization ; and 



Whereas, To recognize and negotiate with any fac- 

 tion that arrogates to itself the privilege of violating 

 this essential rule of political action would be a dan- 

 gerous precedent and a fatal concession : therefore, 



Resolved, That we disapprove of any arrangement 

 that necessarily involves the responsibility of intro- 

 ducing into the National or State Conventions dele- 

 gates from any organization which threatens to dis- 

 pute their authority and repudiate their candidates. 

 Whenever such organization consents to unite with 

 the regular Democracy in the unreserved support of 

 national and State candidates, this committee will be 

 prepared cordially to arrange the terms and conditions 

 upon which Democratic cooperation and harmony can 

 be secured and perpetuated. 



The Tammany organization took no part in 

 the State Convention, but, at a gathering of its 

 own, appointed delegates to the Democratic 

 National Convention. At the regular Conven- 

 tion, delegates to Cincinnati were appointed, 

 candidates for Presidential electors were nomi- 

 nated, and the following platform was adopted : 



The Democratic party of New York renew their 

 fidelity to the principles set forth by the National 

 Democratic Convention at St. Louis, and approved by 

 decisive popular majorities in the Presidential elec- 

 tion of 1870. The victory then won was in the name 

 and for the sake of reform. The people were de- 

 frauded of the fruits of that victory by a false count of 

 the electoral votes. Reform throughout the Federal 

 Administration is still an imperative necessity. It yet 

 remains for a truly national party to restore the na- 

 tional Government to the fraternal spirit, the consti- 

 tutional principles,^ the frugal expenditure, and the 

 administrative purity of the fathers of the republic. 

 But the Democratic party of New York also declare 

 their settled conviction that the success of that con- 

 spiracy against the people's constitutional sovereignty, 

 which by perjuries, forgeries, bribes, and violence, in 

 effect, disfranchised 4,300,316 voting citizens a lar^e 

 majority of all and which, by a false count of the 

 electoral votes, reversed the result of the last Presi- 

 dential election, compels the next to turn upon a sin- 

 gle commanding issue. That issue precedes and dwarfs 

 every other. It imposes a more sacred duty upon the 

 people of this Union than ever addressed the con- 

 sciences of a nation of freemen. That duty is to vin- 

 dicate the right of the people to elective self-govern- 

 ment ; that is, whether this generation shall condemn 

 or sanction the wrong-doing of those Republican party 

 leaders who four years ago frustrated the people's de- 

 liberate will and cheated them of their choice in the su- 

 preme act of their sovereignty ; whether we shall pre- 

 serve and transmit to coming generations our own glo- 

 rious political heritage, or paralyze the cause of popular 

 sovereignty here and throughout the world. Despite a 

 century of broadening precedents, despite the guaran- 

 tees of the Declaration of Independence, of every Bill of 

 Rights, of the Federal Constitution, and of every State 

 constitution, establishing the right of the people to 

 govern themselves and to change their rulers at will, 

 those party leaders nevertheless foisted a defeated can- 

 didate into the chair of the Chief Magistracy, there to 

 administer the government according to a policy con- 

 demned by the people, through ministers repudiated by 

 the people, every one of whom, contrivers, aocttors, ad- 

 vocates, and apologists, all were straightway rewarded 

 for their several shares in the conspiracy of fraud by 

 the foremost beneficiary of that unexampled political 

 crime. Republics can not shirk the care of their own 



destinies. A government of the people, for the peo- 

 ple, must be a government by the people. The law- 

 ful exercise and orderly transfer of the people's power, 



I 



repr< 



the political object for which constitutions and laws, 

 are framed. It is the first of popular rights, for. be- 

 sides being the greatest of them, it is the one without 

 which the others can not exist. It is that for which a 

 republic is anywhere preferred above a monarchy, 

 where the transfer is by hereditary succession, as an 

 escape from usurped magistracies and civil wars. It 

 is the substance of civil liberty. As for democracy 

 (the people's rule), the people's right to rule, it is the 

 very jbreath of its life. 



This, then, is the momentous issue, the right of the 

 people to exercise and enjoy an elective self-govern- 

 ment, without impediment by force or fraud from any 

 quarter, least of all by fraud and force from their tem- 

 porary but discarded servants. Shall the conspiracy 

 of 1876 be sanctioned as a precedent by the impunity 

 of its authors and the submission of its victims ? Its 

 victims are the honest citizens of all political parties. 

 To destroy and stigmatize that corrupting precedent, 

 by inflicting a fatal blow upon the Republican party, 

 whose recognized and rewarded leaders were guilty of 

 it, is the supreme duty of the American people. Neg- 

 lected now, in the nature of the case, it is lost for ever. 

 Not now to make that crime odious, is to invite its 

 repetition. The polluting infamy, unpunished, sanc- 

 tioned, must go on demoralizing all political parties, 

 putting their leadership at the mercy of brigands, and 

 infecting their healthful contentions with disease and 

 death. The character, the future, of this republic are 

 all at stake in the next Presidential election. 



The Democratic party of New York add to their 

 condemnation of the electoral conspiracy of 1876 an 

 emphatic declaration of their continued confidence in 

 the character, ability, and fitness of that distinguished 

 citizen of New York who was then elected to the high- 

 est office in the people's gift, and who was, in his own 

 person, the object of their joint attack on his party, 

 his fellow-citizens, and the cause of free government. 

 The blow which deprived the country of its chosen 

 ruler was not aimed so much at him as at the Demo- 

 cratic millions who stood behind him. While mak- 

 ing no instructions as to candidates, and committing 

 to our delegates, as heretofore, the duty of joining in 

 the deliberations of the National Convention, we re- 

 spectfully suggest to our brethren of other States that 

 the dignity and welfare of the party and nation de- 

 mand of them that they take such action as shall 

 best present this great issue to the people. Higher 

 than all other party duties is the solemn obligation 

 to give to the free voters of the land an opportunity 

 to pass their judgment upon this monstrous crime 

 against popular rights. On any such issue the State 

 of New York will speak with no doubtful voice. 



The Democratic party of New York hereby readopt 

 their resolutions adopted in the State Conventions of 

 1864, 1868, 1872, and 1876, as follows: 



Resolved, That the delegates to the Democratic Ns 

 tional Convention, to be appointed, are hereby 

 structed to enter that Convention as a unit, and to 

 and vote as a unit, in accordance with the will of a 

 majority of the members thereof; and, in case any of 

 its members shall be appointed a delegate by any other 

 organization, and shall not forthwith, in writing, de- 

 cline such appointment, his seat shall be regarded as 

 vacated, and the delegates shall proceed to fill the 

 same ; and it is hereby also empowered to supply all 

 vacancies by death, absence, resignation, or otherwise. 



And whereas, the Democratic party of this State lit 

 in the last four national contests, instructed its dele 

 tions to the Democratic National Conventions to ent 

 the Convention as a unit for the purpose of protecting 

 itself thereby against fictitious and fraudulent contests 

 of the seats of the regularly - appointed delegates ; 

 therefore, 



Resolved, That in case any attempt should be made 



