UNITED STATES. 



695 



ties secured to this generation should be transmitted 

 undirainished to future generations ; that the order 

 established and the credit acquired should never be 

 impaired ; that the pensions promised should be ex- 

 tinguished by the full payment of every dollar there- 

 of; that the. reviving industries should be further pro- 

 moted, and that the commerce already so great should 

 be steadily encouraged. 



2. The Constitution of the United States is a supreme 

 law, and not a mere contract. Out of confederated 

 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 dele- 

 gated and those reserved is to be determined by the 

 national, and not by the State, tribunals. 



3. The work of popular education is one left to the 

 care of the several States, but it is the duty of the na- 

 tional Government to aid that work to the extent of 

 its constitutional power. The intelligence of the na- 

 tion is but the aggregate of the intelligence in the sev- 

 eral States, and the destiny of the nation must not be 

 guided by the genius of any one State, but by the av- 

 erage genius of all. 



4. The Constitution wisely forbids Congress to make 

 any law respecting an establishment of religion, but it 

 is idle to hope that the nation can be protected against 

 the influence of sectarianism while each State is ex- 

 posed to its domination. We therefore recommend 

 that the Constitution be so amended as to lay the same 

 prohibition upon the Legislature of each State, and to 

 forbid the appropriation of public funds to the sup- 

 port of sectarian schools. 



5. We affirm the belief, avowed in 1876, that the 

 duties levied for the purpose of revenue should so dis- 

 criminate as to favor American labor ; that no further 

 grant of the public domain should be made to any 

 railway or other corporation ; that slavery having per- 

 ished in the States, its twin barbarity, polygamy, 

 must die in the Territories ; that everywhere the pro- 

 tection accorded to citizens of American birth must be 

 secured to citizens by American adoption ; and that 

 we esteem it the duty of Congress to develop and im- 

 prove our watercourses and harbors, but insist that 

 further subsidies to private persons or corporations 

 must cease. That the obligations of the republic to 

 the men who preserved its integrity in the hour of 

 battle are undiminished by the lapse of the fifteen 

 years since their final victory. To do them perpetual 

 honor is, and shall for ever be, the grateful privilege 

 and sacred duty of the American people. 



6. Since the authority to regulate immigration and 

 intercourse between the United States and foreign na- 

 tions rests with Congress, or with the United States 

 and its treaty-making power, the Kepublican party, 

 regarding the unrestricted immigration of the Chinese 

 as an evil of great magnitude, invokes the exercise of 

 those powers to restrain and limit that immigration by 

 the enactment of such just, humane, and reasonable 

 provisions as will produce that result. 



7. That the purity and patriotism which character- 

 ized the earlier career of Kutherford B. Hayes, in 

 peace and war, and which guided the thoughts of our 

 immediate predecessors to him for a Presidential can- 

 didate, have continued to inspire him in his career as 

 Chief Executive, and that history will accord to his 

 Administration the honors which are due to an effi- 

 cient, just, and courteous discharge of the public busi- 

 ness, and will honor his interpositions between the 

 people and proposed partisan laws. 



8. We charge upon the Democratic party the ha- 

 bitual sacrifice of patriotism and justice to a supreme 

 and insatiable lust of office and patronage; that to 

 obtain possession of the national and State govern- 

 ments, and the control of place and position, they 

 have obstructed all efforts to promote the purity and 

 to conserve the freedom of suffrage, and have devised 

 fraudulent certifications and returns ; have labored to 

 unseat lawfully-elected members of Congress ; to se- 

 cure, at all hazards, the vote of a majority of the States 

 in the House of Kepresentatives ; have endeavored to 



occupy, by force and fraud, the places of trust given 

 to others by the people of Maine, and rescued by the 

 courageous action ot Maine's patriotic sons ; have, by 

 methods vicious in principle and tyrannical in prac- 

 tice, attached partisan legislation to appropriation bills, 

 upon whose passage the very movement of the Gov- 

 ernment depends, and have crushed the rights of in- 

 dividuals ; have advocated the principles and sought 

 the favor of rebellion against the nation, and have en- 

 deavored to obliterate the sacred memories of the war, 

 and to overcome its inestimably valuable results of 

 nationality, personal freedom, and individual equality. 

 The equal, steady, arid complete enforcement of laws, 

 and the protection of all our citizens in the enjoyment 

 of all privileges and immunities guaranteed by the 

 Constitution, are the first duties ot the nation. The 

 dangers of a solid South can only be averted by a faith- 

 ful performance of every promise which the nation has 

 made to the citizen. The execution of the laws and 

 the punishment of all those who violate them are the 

 only safe methods by which an enduring peace can be 

 secured, and genuine prosperity established through- 

 out the South. Whatever promises the nation makes 

 the nation must perform, and the nation can not with 

 safety relegate this duty to the States. The solid 

 South must be divided by the peaceful agencies of the 

 ballot, and all opinions must there find free expression, 

 and to this end the honest voter must be protected 

 against terrorism, violence, or fraud. And we affirm 

 it to be the duty and the purpose of the Kepublican 

 party to use every legitimate means to restore all the 

 States of this Union to the most perfect harmony that 

 may be practicable ; and we submit it to the practical, 

 sensible people of the United States to say whether it 

 would not be dangerous to the dearest interests of our 

 country at this time to surrender the administration 

 of the national Government to the party which seeks 

 to overthrow the existing policy under which we are 

 so prosperous, and thus bring distrust and confusion 

 where there are now order, confidence, and hope. 



The following, offered by a delegate from 

 Massachusetts, was added after some debate, 

 and the whole adopted : 



The Eepublican party, adhering to the principles 

 affirmed by its last National Convention, of respect 

 for the constitutional rules governing appointment to 

 office, adopts the declaration of President Hayes, that 

 the reform in the civil service shall be thorough, radi- 

 cal, and complete. To that end it demands the co- 

 operation of the legislative with the executive de- 

 partment of the Government, and that Congress shall 

 so legislate that fitness, ascertained by proper practical 

 tests^ shall admit to the public service ; that the ten- 

 ure of administrative offices (except those through 

 which distinctive policy of the party in power shall 

 be carried out) shall be made per/nanent during good 

 behavior, and that the power of removal for cause, 

 with due responsibility for the good conduct of sub- 

 ordinates, shall accompany the power of appoint- 

 ment. 



The first ballot was taken on Monday, June 

 7th, the fifth day of the Convention, and re- 

 sulted in 304 votes for General U. S. Grant, of 

 Illinois ; 284 for James G. Blaine, of Maine ; 

 93 for John Sherman, of Ohio ; 34 for George 

 F. Edmunds, of Vermont; 30 for Elihu B. 

 Washburne, of Illinois; and 10 for William 

 Windom, of Minnesota. The balloting con- 

 tinued during two days, thirty six votes being 

 taken in all, and resulted finally in the nomina- 

 tion of General James A. Garfield, of Ohio, 

 as the candidate of the Republican party for 

 the office of President of the United States. 

 The following table exhibits the result of the 

 several ballotings : 



