NEW YORK. 



563 



[From the National Democratic Platform. Baltimore, 

 July 10, 1872.] 



1. The public credit must be sacredly maintained, 

 and we denounce repudiation in every form and guise. 



2. A speedy return to specie payment is demanded 

 alike by the highest considerations of commercial 

 morality and honest government. 



To these authentic declarations of Democratic 

 principle and policy time gives proof. The present 

 depression of business is caused by reaction from 

 the unhealthy stimulus of an excessive, depreciated, 

 and irredeemable currency; by enormous and ill- 

 adjusted municipal, State, and Federal taxation, and 

 by extravagance, waste, and peculation, in the ad- 

 ministration of public affairs. The remedy for this 

 evil is not to be found in the renewal of any of its 

 causes. In face of the fact that the existing volume 

 of the currency is greater than can be absorbed by 

 business ; in face of the fact that the recent fall of 

 prices has followed repeated inflations, any attempt 

 to increase the currency would be worse than inef- 

 fectual to revive prosperity, for it would interrupt 

 the healing processes of industry. It would be worse 

 than futile to restore confidence, for it would create 

 distrust and new uncertainties in business, paralyze 

 beginnings of enterprise, rob labor of its too scanty 

 employment, and, while stifling the progress of ad- 

 ministrative reforms, would inflict lasting dishonor 

 upon the credit, intelligence, and character, of the 

 country. 



The Democratic party of New York also affirm the 

 principle set forth in their platform adopted last year 

 at Syracuse, indorsed by fifty thousand Democratic 

 majority at the election following in a poll of nearly 

 eight hundred thousand votes, and vindicated before 

 allthe people of this republic by the illustrious ad- 

 ministration of Governor Samuel J. Tilden. 



[From the New York Democratic Platform, Syracuse, 

 September 7, 1874.] 



1. Gold and silver the only legal tender. No cur- 

 rency inconvertible with coin. 



2. Steady steps toward specie payments. No step 

 backward. 



3. Honest payment of all public debt in coiu. Sa- 

 cred preservation of the public faith. 



4. Revenue reform. Federal taxation for revenue 

 only. No Government partnership with protected 

 monopolies. 



5. Home-rule. To limit and localize most jeal- 

 ously the few powers intrusted to public servants, 

 municipal, State, and Federal. No centralization. 



6. Equal and exact justice to all men. No partial 

 legislation. No partial taxation. 



7. A free press. No gag-laws. 



8. Freemen. A uniform excise law. No sumptu- 

 ary laws. 



9. Official accountability, enforced by better civil 

 and criminal remedies. No private use of public 

 funds by public officers. 



10. Corporations chartered by the State always 

 supervisable by the State. 



11. The party in power responsible for all legisla- 

 tion when in power. 



12. The presidency a public trust, not a private 

 perquisite. No third term. 



13. Economy in the public expense, that labor 

 may be lightly burdened. 



The Democrats of New York, in convention as- 

 sembled, pledge themselves, their nominees, and 

 their representatives in Senate and Assembly, to 

 follow where an honest and fearless chief- magistrate 

 has dared to lead in reforming the administration of 

 our great canals, so long despoiled in their construc- 

 tion, maintenance, repairs, and revenues ; to carry 

 on, with unwavering purpose and fidelity, wise 

 measures to increase the efficiency of all depart- 

 ments of public works and service, and to persist in 

 reducing our State tax, in which the burdens have 

 already been lightened by the retrenchments and re- 



forms of a single .year to the amount of nearly three 

 million dollars, and upon this paramount, imme- 

 diate, and practical issue of administrative reform 

 we cordially invite the cooperation of every true 

 Democrat, every Liberal Republican, and all our fel- 

 low-citizens, of whatever party -name, who are will- 

 ing, in the coming State elections, to unite with us 

 in supporting reform candidates upon a reform plat- 

 form. 



On September 22d the Liberal Republicans 

 held a convention at Albany. A State Com- 

 mittee was appointed, but no nominations were 

 made. The following resolutions were adopted : 



Resolved. That we consider it self-evident that 

 there can be no sound currency but coin, or paper 

 convertible into coin on demand, without a speedy 

 return to which national disaster threatens ; that the 

 whole system of civil service needs reform : that the 

 military authority be subordinate to the civil ; that 

 a single ^presidential term is enough ; that local 

 self-government is the basis of free government, 

 and that forcible interference with this right of 

 States usurps it; that social, civil, and political tests 

 discriminating race and color, are fatal to equal and 

 exact justice to all men ; that the original and the 

 amendments of the Federal Constitution are obliga- 

 tory in their text and spirit, and in their judicial ex- 

 position, subject neither to executive caprices nor to 

 the exigencies of a personal government; that a free 

 press is the bulwark of freemen ; that municipal 

 rights be respected, monopolies repressed, and econ- 

 omy| in public expenditures observed ; that the 

 minimum of taxation be secured, peculators pun- 

 ished, and the corruption of public morals banished ; 

 that canal reform be upheld, and the school-fund be 

 sacredly devoted to our present system of common 

 schools, and that appropriations of the people's 

 money to sectarian uses cease ; that bribery and cor- 

 ruption are the canker of the body politic, and should 

 be pursued through all their subtle forms, and the 

 guilty punished. 



Resolved, That while official trusts are inherent in 

 the system, and honest and capable incumbents are 

 essential to the administration of every good gov- 

 ernment, the intrusion of office-holders into the 

 machinery of politics, and their active participation 

 in nominating conventions, are a notorious abuse, at 

 once offensive to public decency and productive of 

 iinmitigated evil. We therefore denounce the prac- 

 tice and demand their exclusion from future political 

 conventions. 



Resolved, That we condemn the national Adminis- 

 tration for its illegal and oppressive acts, for its re- 

 tention of corrupt men in office, for its shifting and 

 unstable policy in the administration of the finances, 

 for its inflation of the currency, its fraudulent pre- 

 tenses to the contrary notwithstanding, for its ex- 

 travagant expenditures, and its general disregard for 

 an intelligent public opinion. 



Resolved, That with every advocate of honesty in 

 public affairs we rejoice in the prospect that the gang 

 of confederate thieves within the canal ring, who 

 have seized upon the substance of the people of the 

 State, shall be pursued and subjected, to condign 

 punishment ; and while this consummation has been 

 publicly prayed for by the Liberals, they by no 

 means stint the generous measure of praise due irre- 

 spective of political considerations to Samuel Tilden, 

 the leader of those crusades, and they by all means 

 propose to sustain his hands, and the hands of 

 everybody besides, who they shall have reason to 

 believe will fight, or whom they find fighting, for pure 

 and incorrupt governments in the interest of the 

 people, and they caution the electors to choose for 

 legislative officers none but those who can be de- 

 pended on to sustain .all measures of reform. 



Resolved, That the Liberal Republicans of the 

 State of New York, in convention assembled, intend- 

 ing to maintain the principles they have now re- 



