MASSACHUSETTS. 



415 



Commonwealth, without distinction of race or 

 color, is equal before the law. Until the passage 

 of that act, the Indians of the Commonwealth, 

 and people of color residing on Indian lands, 

 though recipients of the liberal charities of the 

 Commonwealth, were the subjects of civil and 

 political proscriptions. 



On the 14th of July the French Atlantic 

 cable was landed at Duxbury with imposing 

 ceremonies. 



The State Temperance Convention was 

 held in Boston on the 17th of August. The 

 design of forming a new political party was 

 distinctly disavowed, and a platform embracing 

 twenty resolutions was adopted. The first 

 eleven are of the usual style of temperance 

 resolutions, reaffirming the belief in the policy 

 of prohibition ; and several others are of no 

 consequence. Those that have any particular 

 point or saliency are the following: 



12. "We hereby call on the political parties of the 

 Commonwealth to insert in their platforms the ap- 

 proval of prohibition, as a principle right in itself, of 

 the highest benefit to the people, that has been ap- 

 proved by the State for the last thirty years, and in 

 its present form for the last fifteen years, except a 

 single year of falling away. It is, therefore, so com- 

 pletely the policy of the State, that its representative 

 parties should indorse it, and adopt it as their own. 



13. The partjr that for nearly twenty years has con- 

 trolled the administration of our State government is 

 especially bound to recognize this principle, if it would 

 continue to direct the counsels of the State. To its 

 successful controversy with a gigantic national crime 

 should now be added its controversy with another 

 crime, national no less than local ; and in which, if it 

 is as faithful as it has been in that duty, still larger 

 success awaits it than any it has received from a grate- 

 ful people emancipated from the thraldom of rum. 



14. The Democratic party, professing as its original 

 corner-stone the equal rights of all men, should ap- 

 prove of a law which keeps men of every class from 

 becoming slaves of the rum-seller, and which insures 

 that freedom from temptation that alone can make 

 all men happy and virtuous ; and we, therefore, urge 

 upon these, our fellow-citizens, to declare themselves 

 in favor of the prohibitory law. 



16. We thank the Constable of the Commonwealth 

 for the faithfulness and progress evinced in the exe- 

 cution of the law ; and, recognizing the difficulties in 

 securing as deputy constables reliable men throughout 

 the State, the obstacles which the far more numerous 

 policemen of our several cities, who are under con- 

 current obligations to execute the laws, may throw 

 in their way, and the brevity of the period within 

 which the law had been operated, we call upon the 

 citizens and officers of our cities and towns to co- 

 operate with the constable in its more complete exe- 

 cution. 



17. We gratefully recognize the various services of 

 his Excellency, Governor Claflin,to the cause of pro- 

 hibition, especially in the appointment of judges by 

 whom we may expect a faithful administration of the 

 laws ; and we hereby pledge his Excellency our hearty 

 support in the discharge of all those onerous duties 

 of which these services are the harbinger. 



The Democratic State Convention met in 

 the city of Worcester on the 24th of August, 

 for the purpose of nominating candidates for 

 State officers. 



John Quincy Adams was unanimously nom- 

 inated for Governor by acclamation. 



The other nominations were : For Lieutenant- 



Governor, S. O. Lamb, of Greenfield; Secretary 

 of State, John K. Tarbox, of Lawrence ; Treas- 

 urer, Hey wood, of Gardiner ; Attorney- 

 General, Josiah G.Abbott, of Boston: Auditor, 

 Phineas Allen, of Pittsfield. 



The following resolutions were adopted as 

 the platform of the party : 



Resolved, That the Democratic party of Massachu- 

 setts have no new theories to advance upon national 

 subjects. Kecent events, as well as the experience oi 

 our earlier history, serve to convince us that the fur- 

 ther the nation wanders from the old and cherished 

 principles of the Democracy, the more urgent grows 

 the need of a speedy return to them. But we never- 

 theless deem it a political duty to acquiesce in settled 

 results, and postpone fruitless opposition to the accom- 

 plished facts of yesterday, in order to secure effective 

 action upon the pressing problems of to-day. 



Resolved, That we repeat pur demand for assured 

 honesty and ascertained ability in public servants, 

 rigid economy in public expenditures, and an oppor- 

 tunity for all to buy in the cheapest market and with 

 honest coin, so that taxes may no longer utterly con- 

 sume wages ; and renew our declaration in favor oi 

 the Monroe doctrine, and in favor of protecting the 

 rights of our naturalized citizens at home and abroad ; 

 and our sympathy with every people now struggling 

 for independence and self-government ; and now, as 

 heretofore, acknowledge our obligations and indebt- 

 edness to the courage and bravery of our fellow- 

 citizens who, in the hour of peril, defended the flag 

 of our country on land and sea. 



Resolved, That we condemn the increase of the 

 State debt, by extravagance and improvident grants 

 of the public funds, as intolerably onerous to the tax- 

 payer, unequal, unjust, and undemocratic ; and we pro- 

 test against the undue length of the sessions of the 

 Legislature. If the public scandal of three hundred 

 men spending more than five months and a half 

 in making laws to govern the people the other six 

 months and a half, thereby increasing the burden oi 

 taxation by $300,000 a year, cannot be otherwise re- 

 moved, we are in favor of doing it by a constitutional 

 limitation. 



Resolved, That the constitutional and statutory pro- 

 visions now in force in this Commonwealth, limiting 

 the exercise of the elective franchise, aimed at certain 

 classes of citizens, and intended to deprive them of 

 the free exercise of that right, are uniust, pernicious, 

 and at variance with the principles of true democratic 

 government, and should be summarily repealed. 



Resolved, That this convention, in presenting the 

 name of John Quincy Adams for Governor of Massa- 

 chusetts, and his associates upon the State ticket this 

 day nominated, confidently ask for them the suffrages 

 of all liberty-loving voters of the Commonwealth. 



Resolved, That equal rights and equal privileges to 

 all classes ^of the people, the laborer equally with the 

 capitalist, is the cherished doctrine of the Democratic 

 party ; that, while capital is encouraged to organize for 

 the increase of its prosperity, the prayer of labor for 

 chartered privilegeSj in its effort to secure its rights 

 and elevate its condition, should not be denied ; that 

 the present Kepublican Legislature of this State, in 

 refusing to grant charters to the labor organizations 

 which petitioned for acts of incorporation : outraged 

 justice, and robbed the working-man of his just right : 

 and that the working-classes of the country should 

 have prompt relief from the oppressions of the per- 

 nicious system of legislation and administration in 

 State and nation which, under the rule of the Kepub- 

 lican party, pampers capital and degrades labor. 



On the 22d of September the Republican 

 Convention assembled in the city of Wor- 

 cester, and made the following nominations: 

 For Governor, William Claflin ; Lieutenant- 

 Governor, Joseph Tucker ; Secretary of State, 



