NEW JERSEY. 



043 



"people's convention," assembled at Trenton 

 in the month of July, and nominated Mar 

 Ward for governor, and adopted the following 

 resolutions, as expressive of the views of the 

 convention on national affairs : 



Whereof, this convention has assembled to nominate 

 to the people of New Jersey a candidate for the office 

 of governor, to be chosen by their suffrages at the en- 

 suing election ; and whereas, the delegates now met 

 for this purpose, at a crisis in our history grave and 

 momentous beyond all example, have been appointed 

 to this duty upon a public and general call to all the 

 citizens of 'the State who, forgetful of past party dis- 

 tinctions and divided opinions, are united in the sin- 

 cere, unqualified purpose to support to their utmost 

 ability the National Government in its policy, and its 

 efforts to crush the rebellion, to maintain tne Consti- 

 tution, to preserve the American Union, and to restore 

 order and peace to the land ; therefore, 



Resolved, That discarding all personal, partisan 

 views, looking solely to the welfare and duty of the 

 State, whether separately by itself, or as vitally and 

 inseparably a part of the Union, we believe we* shall 

 best and most surely secure and fulfil them by aiming 

 to continue in the highest executive office of our 

 State the same principles, policy, and conduct that 

 have marked with admirable distinction the executive 

 term now drawing to its close ; that in reviewing the 

 vigilance, the fidelity, and the wisdom with which its 

 duties have been discharged the ready and vigorous 

 responses to the requisitions of the country and the 

 war, and the confidence inspired by its general course 

 among ourselves and abroad, we 'find with grateful 

 satisfaction the character and qualities peculiarly fit- 

 ted for the exigencies of the place and the times. 



Resolved, That the foremost and paramount duty of 

 the General Government, of the States, and of the peo- 

 ple, is to devote their utmost energies, their resources, 

 and their lives, the most effectually and forever to 

 subdue the rebellion now raised against the Govern- 

 ment, the liberties, and the life of the nation ; that 

 everything in the origin and the progress of this re- 

 bellion the vindictive pride and disappointed ambi- 

 tion that engendered it the false and insidions politi- 

 cal teachings that quickened it into birth the delu- 

 sive pretexts and cunning acts that stimulated its 

 growth, and the lawless passions that, reckless of rea- 

 son, justice, and of oaths, forced its first violent out- 

 burst upon the deluded and misguided millions now 

 drawn under its power, all stamp Ft the most causeless, 

 wicked, and infamons ever known among men. 



''ed. That the disruption, the dismemberment, 

 or the new formation of this nation, are not subjects 

 submitted to the discretion or choice of our people ; 

 that the causes and powers conspicuously seen through 

 more than two hundred years, in every period of our 

 being, determining our "destiny, shaping and guiding 

 and compacting our growth, are before and superior 

 to such discretion or choice, and exact by inevitable 

 law the concurrence and cooperation of both; that the 

 influences, the agencies, and the conditions, varied 

 and marvellous as they were, by which, in all the eras 

 of our history, colonial, revolutionary, and constitu- 

 tional, the hand of a beneficent Divinity formed and 

 developed our national proportions and life, assure us 

 by infallible proofs that they must be nurtured and 

 preserved as they were bestowed, and that all efforts 

 to divide or refashion them alike impious and vain 

 must end in anarchy and remediless national decay. 



R<:solveJ, That as citizens of New Jersey we are 

 bound to the maintenance of the Constitution and the 

 Union by obligations of duty, of interest, of affection, 

 and of honor, as sacred, as indissoluble at the least as 

 can belong to any other of the sisterhood of States. 

 Proved and experienced by us as the sources and se- 

 curity of all earthly good consecrated by the sacri- 

 fices," the sufferings, and the heroisms of the past, we 

 are bound to spare nothing upon earth to transmit them 

 unimparcd to our children and generations to come. 



Resolved, That the principles adopted and the ob- 

 jects pursued by the President and his Administration 

 in the conduct of the war, and in the general manage- 

 ment of our national affairs, command our entire and 

 cordial approval ; that in the confidence, unabated and 

 increasing, reposed without distinction of party by the 

 loyal millions of our countrymen, in the fidelity, wis- 

 dom, firmness, and patriotism displayed in their policy 

 and course, we find the strongest grounds of encour- 

 agement, and the most auspicious omens of the future ; 

 and that, standing as they now do on the eve of the 

 great and final events which must result in the over- 

 throw of rebellion, or in the utter ruin of the country, 

 and clothed as thev now are with all the powers that 

 can be conferred by legislation, and all the instru- 

 ments of war that can be furnished by the people, it ia 

 the imperative duty of the Administration to exercise 

 all those powers, and to wield all those instruments 

 with the most unflinching and uniform vigor, until 

 the end shall be attained, in the absolute and univer- 

 sal supremacy of the Government ; that their prompt 

 and fearless discharge of that duty is demanded alike 

 by the popular instinct of self-preservation, and by 

 the simplest obligations of their official position ; and 

 being fully assured that they cannot in this direction 

 outrun public sentiment, we demand that they shall 

 keep pace with it. 



Resolved, That with rebellion existing in our land, 

 foreign governments have nothing to do and that 

 against all intervention by them we will wage a war 

 as persistent and uncompromising as against the rebel- 

 lion itself. 



Resolved, That onr lasting gratitude is due to the 

 generals, the officers, and soldiers of our armies from 

 our own and sister States, by whose bravery and skill 

 so many victories have been'won. 



The democratic convention assembled at 

 Trenton in September, and nominated Joel 

 Parker for governor, and adopted the follow- 

 ing resolutions as expressing the views of the 

 convention : 



Whereat, the democracy of New Jersey have again 

 assembled in convention, to exercise the right of free- 

 men to nominate a candidate for the highest office in 

 the gift of the people ; and whereas, we Hold that pop- 

 ular conventions alone may rightfully proclaim the 

 tenets of the party ; therefore, 



R* tolved. That deploring the demoralizing tendency 

 of the higher law teachings of the republican party, 

 we feel impelled to reiterate our faith in the doctrine 

 that constitutional law is the only true basis of execu- 

 tive action in peace or war. 



2. That in the present exigencies of the country we 

 extend to the National Administration our most cor- 

 dial support for the suppression of the rebellion by all 

 constitutional means, and that the party stands, as it 

 has ever stood since the formation of the Government, 

 for the Union, the Constitution, and enforcement of 

 the laws. 



3. That as in establishing the Constitution the peo- 

 ple reserve to themselves all powers not delegated to 

 the Government, therefore all assumptions of power by 

 the Administration, whether in the suspension of the 

 writ of habeas corpus, arrests and imprisonments with- 

 out due course of law, or restrictions of freedom of 

 speech and of the press, are dangerous infringements 

 of the constitutional rights of tne people, only to be 

 patiently borne by the hopeless serfs of an irresistible 

 despotism. 



4. That, while we enter our solemn protest against 

 the reckless extravagance, infamous peculation, _and 

 political outrages of which the party in power is guilty, 

 and while we deprecate the horrors of the civil conflict 

 now raging, we still hold it our duty to advocate the 

 use of eveirv constitutional means to the extent of the 

 full power of the Government, for the suppression of 

 the rebellion, the vindication of the authority of the 

 " Constitution as it is, and the restoration of the Union 

 as it was." 



