UNITED STATES. 



781 



and we denounce repudiation in every form aud 

 guise. 



8. A speedy return to specie payment is demanded 

 alike by the highest considerations of commercial 

 morality and honest government. 



9. We remember with gratitude the heroism and 

 sacrifices of the soldiers and sailors of the republic, 

 and no act of ours shall ever detract from their just- 

 ly-earned fame or the full reward of their patriotism. 



10. We are opposed to all further grants of land to 

 railroads or other corporations. The public domain 

 should be held sacred to actual settlers. 



11. We hold that it is the duty of the Government, 

 in its intercourse with foreign nations, to cultivate 

 the friendship of peace, by treating with all on fair 

 and equal terms, regarding it alike dishonorable 

 either to demand what is not right or to submit to 

 what is wrong. 



12. For the promotion and success of these vital 

 principles, and the support of the candidate? nomi- 

 nated by this convention, we invite and cordially 

 welcome the cooperation of all patriotic citizens, 

 without regard to previous affiliations. 



The resolutions were adopted by the follow- 

 ing vote : 



The vote on the nomination of a candidate 

 for the presidency was as follows: Whole 

 number of votes cast, 732. Horace Greeley 

 received 686 ; James A. Bayard, of Delaware, 

 15; Jeremiah S. Black, of Pennsylvania, 21; 

 William S. Groesbeck, of Ohio, 2 ; blank, 8. 

 The vote on the nomination of a candidate for 

 the vice-presidency was as follows: "Whole 

 number of votes, 732. For B. Gratz Brown, 

 713 ; For John W. Stevenson, of Kentucky, 

 6; blank votes, 13. A committee was ap- 

 pointed by the convention to wait upon Mr. 

 Greeley at a subsequent day, and inform him 

 of his nomination. On June 12th, the com- 

 mittee met him at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, in 

 New York, and Mr. Greeley made the follow- 

 ing reply to the address of the committee : 



Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee of 

 the Convention : 1 should require time and considera- 

 tion to reply fitly to the very important and, I need 

 not sav, gratifying communication that you have 

 presented to me. It may be that I should present 

 in writing some reply to this. However, as I ad- 

 dressed the Liberal Convention of Cincinnati in a 

 letter somewhat widely considered, it is, perhaps, 

 unnecessary that I should make any formal reply to 

 the communication made, other than to say I accept 

 your nomination, and accept gratefully with it the 

 spirit in which it has been presented. My position 

 is one which many would consider a proud one, 

 which, at the same time, is embarrassing, because it 



subjects me to temporary I trust only temporary 

 misconstruction on the part of some old and life-long 

 friends. I feel assured that time only is necessary 

 to vindicate, not only the disinterestedness, but the 

 patriotism, of the course which I determined to pur- 

 sue whicn I had determined long before I had re- 

 ceived so much sympathy and support as has, so 

 unexpectedly to me, been bestowed upon me. I 

 feel certain that time, and. in the good providence of 

 God, an opportunity, will be afforded me to show 

 that, while you, in making this nomination, are not 

 less Democratic, but rather more Democratic, than 

 you would have been in taking an opposite course, 

 I am no less" thoroughly and earnestly Repub- 

 lican than ever I was. But these matters require 

 grave consideration before I should make any thing 

 that seems a formal response. I am not much ac- 

 customed to receiving nominations for the presiden- 

 cy, and cannot make responses so fluently as some 

 others might do. I can only say that I hope some, 

 or all, if you can make it convenient, will come to 

 my humble farmer home, not far distant in the 

 country, where I shall be glad to meet all of you, 

 and where we can converse more freely and deliber- 

 ately than we can here, and where 1 shall be glad to 

 make you welcome well, to the best the farm af- 

 fords. I hope that many of you all of you will be 

 able to accept this invitation, and I now simply 

 thank you and say farewell. Take the 8:15 train. 



Mr. Greeley subsequently, on July 18th, ad- 

 dressed the following letter to the committee : 



NEW YORK, July 18, 1872. 



GENTLEMEN : Upon mature deliberation, it seems 

 fit that I should give to your letter of the 10th inst. 

 some further and fuller response than the hasty, un- 

 premeditated words in which I acknowledged and 

 accepted your nomination at our meeting on the 12th. 



That your convention saw fit to accord its highest 

 honor to one who had been prominently and point- 

 edly opposed to your party in the earnest and some- 

 times angry controversies of the last forty years is 

 essentially noteworthy. That many of you origi- 

 nally preferred that the Liberal Republicans should 

 present another candidate for President, and would 

 more readily have united with us in the support of 

 Adams or Trumbull, Davis or Brown, is well known. 

 I owe my adoption at Baltimore wholly to the fact 

 that I had already been nominated at Cincinnati, and 

 that a concentration of forces upon any new ticket 

 had been proved impracticable^ Gratified as I am 

 at your concurrence in the Cincinnati nominations, 

 certain as I am that you would not have thus con- 

 curred had you not deemed me upright and capable, 

 I find nothing in the circumstance calculated to in- 

 flame vanity or nourish self-conceit. 



But, that your convention saw fit, in adopting the 

 Cincinnati ticket, to reaffirm the Cincinnati platform, 

 is to me a source of the profoundest satisfaction. 

 That body was constrained to take this important 

 step by no party necessity, real or supposed. It 

 might have accepted the candidates of the Liberal Re- 

 publicans upon grounds entirely its own, or it might 

 have presented them (as the first Whig National 

 Convention did Harrison and Tyler) without adopt- 

 ing any platform whatever. That it chose to plant 

 itself deliberately, by a vote nearly unanimous, upon 

 the fullest and clearest enunciation of principles 

 which are at once incontestably Republican and em- 

 phatically Democratic, gives trustworthy assurance 

 that a new and more auspicious era is dawning upon 

 our long-distracted country. 



Some of the best years and best eiforts of my hi 

 were devoted to a struggle against chattel slavery 

 a struggle none the less earnest or arduous because 

 respect for constitutional obligations constrained me 

 to act for the most part on the defensive in resis 

 ance to the diffusion rather than in direct efforts for 

 the extinction of human bondage. Throughout 

 most of those years my vision was uncheered, my 



