UNITED STATES. 



699 



The proceedings of the Convention occupied 

 three days, a contesting Tammany delegation 

 from New York being rejected. " On Thurs- 

 day, June 24th, General Winfield Scott Han- 

 cock, of Pennsylvania, was nominated for 



President on the third ballot taken, and Wil- 

 liam H. English, of Indiana, was made the can- 

 didate for Vice-President by a single ballot. 

 The votes on the three ballots for candidate 

 for President were as follows : 



ITi 



820 

 705 



153* 

 111 



6S* 



50 



65 

 05* 



128* 



10 



735* 



The following is the platform adopted : 



The Democrats of the United States, in convention 

 assembled, declare : 



1. We pledge ourselves anew to the constitutional 

 doctrines and traditions of the Democratic party, as 

 illustrated by the teachings and example of a long line 

 of Democratic statesmen and patriots, and embodied in 

 the platform of the last National Convention of the 

 party. 



2. Opposition to centralizationism, and to that dan- 

 gerous spirit of encroachment which tends to consoli- ' 

 date the powers of all the departments in one, and 

 thus to create j whatever be the form of government, 

 a real despotism ; no sumptuary laws ; separation or 

 Church and state for the good of each ; common schools 

 fostered and protected. 



3. Home rule, honest money, consisting of gold and 

 silver, and paper convertible to coin on demand ; the 

 strict maintenance of the public faith, State and na- 

 tional, and a tariff for revenue only. 



4. Tnc subordination of the military to the civil power, 

 and a general and thorough reform of the civil service. 



5. The right to a free ballot is the right preservative 

 of all rights, and must and shall be maintained in ev- 

 ery part of the United States. 



6. The existing Administration is the representative 

 of conspiracy omyj and its claim of right to surround 

 the ballot-boxes with troops and deputy-marshals, to 

 intimidate and obstruct the electors, and the unpreca- 

 dented use of the veto to maintain its corrupt and 

 despotic power, insults the people and imperils their 

 institutions. 



7. The great fraud of 187 6-' 77, by which, upon a 

 false count of the electoral votes of two States, the can- 

 didate defeated at the polls was declared to be Presi- 

 dent, and, for the first time in American history, the 

 will of the people was set aside under a threat 01 mil- 

 itary violence, struck a deadly blow at our system of 

 representative government. The Democratic party, 

 to preserve the country from the horrors of a civil war, 

 submitted for the time, in firm and patriotic faith that 

 the people would punish this crime in 1880. _ This is- 

 sue precedes and dwarfs every other. It imposes a 

 more sacred duty upon the people of the Union than 

 ever addressed the conscience ot a nation of freemen. 



8. We execrate the course of this Administration in 

 making places in the civil service a reward for politi- 

 cal crime, and demand a reform by statute which shall 

 make it for ever impossible for the defeated candidate 

 to bribe his way to the seat of a usurper by billeting 

 villains upon the people. 



9. The resolution of Samuel J. Tilden not again to 

 be a candidate for the exalted place to which he was 

 elected by a majority of his countrymen, and from 

 which he was excluded by the leaders of the Kepubli- 

 can party, is received by the Democrats of the United 

 States with sensibility, and they declare their confi- 

 dence in his wisdom, patriotism, and integrity, un- 

 shaken by the assaults of a common enemy, and they 

 further assure him that he is followed into the retire- 

 ment he has chosen for himself by the sympathy and 

 respect of his fellow-citizens, who regard him as one 

 who, by elevating the standards of public morality, 

 and adorning and purifying the public service, merits 

 the lasting gratitude of his country and his party. 



10. Free ships and a living chance for American 

 commerce on the seas and on the land. No discrimi- 

 nation in favor of transportation lines, corporations, or 

 monopolies. 



11. Amendment of the Burlingame treaty. No more 

 Chinese immigration except for travel, education, and 

 foreign commerce, and therein carefully guarded. 



12. Public money and public credit for public pur- 

 poses solely, and public land for actual settlers. 



13. The Democratic party is the friend of labor and 

 the laboring-man, and pledges itself to protect him 

 alike against the cormorants and the Commune. 



14. We congratulate the country upon the honesty 

 and thrift of a Democratic Congress, which has re- 

 duced the public expenditure $40,000,000 a year ; upon 

 the continuation of prosperity at home and the national 

 honor abroad, and above all upon the promise of such 

 a change in the administration of the Government as 

 shall insure us genuine and lasting reform in every 

 department of the public service. 



General Weaver was formally notified of his 

 nomination by the Convention of the National 

 Greenback-Labor party on the 23d of June by 

 a committee appointed for the purpose, and on 

 July 3d signified his acceptance in a long letter, 

 of which the following are the material parts: 



It being the duty of man to earn his bread in the 

 sweat of his face, it becomes the first duty of civil 

 government to foster industry. All laws, therefore, 

 which place a premium upon idleness, whether of 

 men or money, unjustly discriminate in favor of capi- 

 tal, or withhold from honest men the full and just re- 

 ward for their labor, are simply monstrous. Capital 

 should be the servant of labor rather than its master. 



This great truth can never be realized until there is 

 an adequate circulating medium. Inasmuch as this 

 circulating medium is for the benefit of all, its issue 

 and volume should be sacredly kept under the control 

 of the people, without the intervention of banking 

 corporations. All money, whether gold, silver, or 

 paper, should be issued by the supreme authority of 

 the nation, and be made a full legal tender in pay- 

 ment of all debtSj public and private. 



The system which now prevails gives into the hands 

 of banking corporations absolute control over the 

 volume of the currency, and through this they have 

 the power to fix the price of the labor and property of 

 fifty millions of people. By provision of law, the 

 method is clearly defined whereoy they may, without 

 limit, inflate or contract the currency at will. Cognate 

 to this and a part of the same scheme, stands the sys- 

 tem of funding the public debt. Like national bank- 

 ing, this was borrowed from the English monarchy. 

 By this system an enormous non-taxable, interest- 

 bearing debt is to be perpetuated. The bonds support 

 the banks, and the banks foster the public debt. If 

 you pay off the bonds, the banks must cease to exist. 

 Hence, if the national banks are to continue, we must 

 have a perpetual bonded debt. Both patriotism and 

 sound statesmanship loudly call for the abolition of 

 banks of issue, and the substitution of legal-tender 

 Treasury notes for their circulation. Pay the bonds 

 according to contract, and as rapidly as possible. 



