CONNECTICUT. 



209 



the constitution and the amendments thereto, shall 

 apply, mutatu mutandis, to all elections held on the 

 Tuesday '' tl ' r tllt! ^rst Monday of November, 1878, 

 an I uiuiually thereafter." 



8. .1 n UTS' of the courts of Common Pleas and of 

 thi- .li-trirt courts shall be appointed for terms of 

 four yciirs : judges of the city courts and of police 

 courts shall DO appointed for terms of two years. 



4. That the judges of probate shall be elected on 

 the Tuesday after the first Monday of November, 

 1876, and biennially thereafter ; that judges so 

 elected shall hold their offices for two years from 

 and after the Wednesday after the first Monday of 

 the next succeeding January ; and that tin- judges 

 of probate elected on the first Monday of April, 1876, 

 ahull hold their offices only until the Wednesday 

 after the first Monday of January, 1877. 



5. The compensation of members of the General 

 Assembly shall not exceed $300 per annum, and one 

 mileage each way for each session, at the rate of 25 

 cents per mile. 



6. That Article VIII. of the amendments to the 

 constitution be amended by erasing the word 

 ' white" from the first line. 



The following amendments to the constitu- 

 tion were passed at this session for continuance 

 to next year : Increasing the senatorial dis- 

 tricts of the State by an addition of from six 

 to ten; increasing the number of judges; pro- 

 hibiting the voting of town aid to railroads ; 

 providing for biennial elections of the Legis- 

 lature ; and prohibiting the use of money in 

 elections. 



A constitutional amendment was proposed 

 purporting expressly " to prevent bribery in 

 elections," and another "to prohibit the use 

 of public money for Catholic schools," both of 

 which were rejected. 



A resolution to encourage the resumption of 

 specie payment, by the Federal Government, 

 was indefinitely postponed by the House of 

 Ropresentatives on June 28th, and by the Sen- 

 ate in concurrence on the same day. 



In preparation for the general election of 

 November 7, 1876, when, in accordance with 

 the new order of things, the people of Con- 

 necticut should for the first time elect their 

 State officers to be installed in January next 

 ensuing, the political organizations in the State 

 severally met in convention again, for the pur- 

 pose of nominating their respective State and 

 electoral tickets. 



The Republican party assembled at New 

 Haven on August 30th, when the following- 

 named presidential electors were nominated: 

 At large Theodore J. Woolsey, the ex-Presi- 

 dent of Yale College, and Marshall Jewell. By 

 districts first, George Maxwell, of Vernon ; 

 second, John Allen, of Saybrook ; third, 

 George S. Moulton, of Windham ; fourth, 

 Donald J. Warner, of Salisbury. 



. Concerning the nomination of State officers, 

 it was moved "that the ticket of last spring, 

 with Henry C. Robinson at the head, be nomi- 

 nated by acclamation," which finally prevailed. 

 The following platform was adopted by the 

 convention : 



1. The Republican party of Connecticut renews 

 its declaration of implicit allegiance to the Consti- 

 tutions of tlrj United States and of the State of 



VOL. XVL 14 A 



Connecticut, and its devotion to tho inspiration in 

 which the party was bora, and by which it carried 

 the nation in triumph through the period of the 

 civil war. 



2. It declares that the lesxon taught by the late 

 rebellion must be honored in the policy and conduct 

 of our Government, and indignantly protests againd 

 the unblushing avowal by the Democratic leaders of 

 theories of State sovereignty which were the legiti- 

 mate parent of the infamous attempts at secession 

 and the immediate cause of the terrible war through 

 which the republic has passed ; and against the out- 

 rages of fraud, intimidation, and violence, by Demo- 

 cratic politicians in the reconstructed States upon 

 the free suffrage and citizenship of the people of 

 those States. 



3. It declares for reformation in the civil service 

 and in the administration of all public uti'iiirs, as set 

 forth in the letter of acceptance of Rutherford B. 

 Hayes; for economy and retrenchment in public ex- 

 penses ; for the speedy resumption of specie pay- 

 ment, and the prompt fulfillment of the obligations 

 of the Government written upon its paper currency ; 

 and protests against the repeal by the Democratic 

 House of Representatives of the clause of the law 

 of 1875 for the resumption of specie payment in 

 1879, to which the national faith is pledged, and by 

 whose repeal the national faith is dishonored. 



4. It declares for generosity and good-will to the 

 people of the South, for harmony and peace through- 

 out the land; but protests against rewarding with 

 honors and emoluments the services of rebellion and 

 treasonj and insists upon the protection of every 

 citizen m the exercise of his civil rights as granted 

 in the amendments to our Constitution. 



5. It declares its unqualified love of law and 

 liberty, its welcome to improvement and progress, 

 and seeks fi>r its supreme objects the comfort and 

 elevation of the people, and the preservation, un- 

 stained, of the national honor. 



6. In matters of State policy, it declares for econ- 

 omy and simplicity ; for the encouragement of in- 

 dustry ; for a universal system of unsectarian educa- 

 tion, secured by legislation ; for short legislative 

 sessions ; for general laws, and against special legis- 

 lation ; for the limitation of municipal indebtedness, 

 and public appropriations to the legitimate objects 

 of support by taxation ; against bribery and corrup- 

 tion ot elections ; against bargains and trades in 

 appointmentSj and for reduced expenses and lower 

 rates of taxation. 



7. It charges the Democratic party with subservi- 

 ency to the men who have but just laid down rebel- 

 lious arms; with evasion and dishonesty in its 

 treatment of the financial question; with studied 

 insult to the Union soldiers ; with an utter disregard 

 of the honor and fair name of the republic: and with 

 the purchase of power in this State by bribery and 

 corruption at elections. 



8. It charges that the Democratic party is true to 

 its record in proposing for Chief Magistrate of a re- 

 stored Union a man who withheld from the friends 

 of that Union his sympathy and support when the 

 nation's existence was in peril; and, as a model re- 

 former, a man who reached his first political prom- 

 inence bv associating with the most corrupt and 

 unscrupulous politicians who ever disgraced our 

 land. 



9. It accepts and most cordially indorses the plat- 

 form and principles of the party as established by 

 the Cincinnati National Convention, and in the n^rn- 

 inntion of General Rutherford B. Hayes and "Wil- 

 liam A. Wheeler for President and Vice-Prcsidcnt 

 it finds assurance of the elevation to those high 

 places of men whose lives and records and letters of 

 acceptance furnish a cruarnntee that the principles of 

 the party will be enforced in the administration of 

 our Government. It declares that President Grant 

 is entitled to our thanks for his patriotic services t<> 

 the country, and that his name will be deservedly 



