right of choice shall devolve upon of mankind requires that they should them, before the fourth day of March declare the causes which impel them next following, then the Vice-Presi- to a separation. dent shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President. We hold these truths to be selfevident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their The person having the greatest Creator with certain inalienable number of votes as Vice-President, rights; that among these are life, libshall be the Vice-President, if such erty, and the pursuit of happiness. number be a majority of the whole That to secure these rights, governnumber of electors appointed; and if ments are instituted among men, no person have a majority, then from deriving their just powers from the the two highest numbers on the list, consent of the governed; and that, the Senate shall choose the Vice- whenever any form of government President à quorum for this purpose becomes destructive of these ends, it shall consist of two-thirds of the whole is the right of the people to alter or to number of Senators, and a majority abolish it, and to institute a new gov of the whole number shall be neces-ernment, laying its foundations on sary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States." DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. ITS VITAL PRINCIPLES VIOLATED BY THE RADICALS. " such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments, long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown,that mankind are more disposed WHEN, in the course of human to suffer, while evils are sufferable, events, it becomes necessary for one than to right themselves by abolishpeople to dissolve the political bands ing the forms to which they are which have connected them with an-accustomed. But, when a long train other, and to assume, among the pow- of abuses and usurpations, pursuing ers of the earth, the separate and invariably the same object, evinces equal station to which the laws of a design to reduce them under absonature and of nature's God entitle lute despotism, it is their right, it is them, a decent respect to the opinions their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for 1 The notes to the Constitution, in so far as they refer to the existence of Military governtheir future security. Such has been ment in ten States of the South, were prepared the patient sufferance of the colonies, preparatory to the admission to representation and such is now the necessity which in Congress of some of those States under bogus constitutions, and with bogus Senators constrains them to alter their former and Representatives. This does not change the systems of government. The history foree of the notes, for the Military power itself of the present king of Great Britain exercises a supervisory control, which amounts to as absolute a despotism as its exclusive is a history of repeated injuries and sway. It is the more offensive since it becomes usurpations, all having, in direct obthe means of giving violent support if necessary to the rotten boroughs which substitute the ject, the establishment of an absolute real States, and which are in the possession and tyranny over these States. To prove under the government of a gang of vagrant this, let facts be submitted to a candid Radicals. Gen. Grant's order to Gen. Mcworld: Dowell, directs him not to turn over the Government of Arkansas absolutely; but "as rapidly as he deems it prudent.' In other words, not to be in a hurry until after the Presidential election. He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to | He has kept among us, in time of pass laws of immediate and pressing peace, standing armies, without the importance, unless suspended in their consent of our legislature. operations till his assent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to the civil power. He has combined, with others, to He has refused to pass other laws subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to for the accommodation of large dis-our Constitution, and unacknowledged tricts of people, unless those people by our laws; giving his assent to would relinquish the right of repre- their acts of pretended legislation : sentation in the legislature-a right For quartering large bodies of inestimable to them, and formidable armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock to tyrants only. He has called together legislative trial, from punishment for any murbodies at places unusual, uncomforta- ders which they should commit on the ble, and distant from the depository inhabitants of these States: of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the State remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the danger of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose, obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance. For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world: For imposing taxes on us without our consent: For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury: For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses: For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies: For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering, fundamentally, the powers of our governments: For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives our people. He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun, with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy that these United Colonies are, and of the head of a civilized nation. right ought to be, free and independHe has constrained our fellow-citi-ent States; that they are absolved from zens, taken captive on the high seas, all allegiance to the British crown, to bear arms against their country, to and that all political connexion bebecome the executioners of their tween them and the State of Great friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. He has excited domestic insurrections among us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions. In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have only been answered by repeated injuries. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their legislature, to extend an unwarrantable jurisdic Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do. And, for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection: of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. Indorsement of the foregoing by the Radical Na tional Convention. Resolved, That we recognize the great principle laid down in the Declaration of Independence as the true platform of democratic Government, and we hail with gladness every effort toward making these principles a living reality on every inch of American soil.-Chicago Platform. tion over us. We have reminded | The Indorsement a Swindle. them of the circumstances of our This Declaration of Independence emigration and settlement here. We it will be seen by reference to the have appealed to their native justice Chicago Platform, was affirmed by and magnanimity, and we have con- the Radical Convention, while all aljured them, by the ties of our common lusion to the Constitution was prekindred, to disavow these usurpations, termitted. The Albany Argus shows which would inevitably interrupt our up the Radical violation also of the connexions and correspondence. They, Declaration of Independence. Says too, have been deaf to the voice of the Argus: justice and consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind-enemies in war; friends. in peace, Who can deny that this indictment against George the Third does not apply to Congress? It sounds as though it was es pecially written to meet the usurpation of the men at Washington. They have dissolved representative govern A miscalled Republican Congress has been guilty of acts of tyranny which render We, therefore, the Representatives them unfit to rule a free people. of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appeal-ments of States in times of peace. ing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare They have annulled State Governments, and refused to receive representatives elected to that body. They have overthrown tribunals estab lished by the people, and erected military tribunals in their stead. They keep large standing armies to eat out the substance of the people, and to resist | diction foreign to their Constitution and and defeat the popular will. unacknowledged by their law. 8th. They They have annulled the right of trial by quartered large bodies of armed troops jury in ten States, and substituted martiallaw in its place. They have declared the military to be superior to the civil power, and stigmatize all as "disloyal" who resist such a usurpation of power. They have suspended Legislatures in ten States, and assume to legislate for the people. They have removed Governors of States by military edicts, because they would not violate the oaths they had taken to support the Constitution. And worse than all, they made a military dictator superior to the President, usurped the powers of the Supreme Court, and declare themselves the government independent of the State, and "outside of the Constitution." A Congress "whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to rule a free pople." Senator Saulsbury graphically portrays the violation by the Radicals of both the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. among them. 9th. They protected officers and troops from punishment for murder and other crimes committed by them. 10th. They cut off the trade of the people among themselves and with other parts of the world. 11th. They deprived the people in many cases of the benefits of the trial by jury. 12th. Without authority of law their President exercised the following powers which belong exclusively to Congress, and was thereby guilty of usurpation, which usurpation was approved by the Republi can party, and thus it became their act: 1, he increased the army; 2, he increased the navy; 3, he appropriated the public money; 4, he regulated commerce with foreign nations; 5, he regulated commerce between the States; 6, he contracted debt on behalf of the nation; 7, he suspended the writ of habeas corpus. 13th. The following powers, denied both to Congress and the President, their President exercised, which exercise of unauthorized power they approved, and thereby are guilty as a party of the usurpation themselves: 1, he proclaimed martiallaw; 2, he arrested without legal warrant; 3, imprisoned and punished without conviction and legal trial; 4, punished under ex post facto or non-existing law; 5, introduced lettres de cachet, bastiles, and the midnight secret proceedings of the Inquisition; 6, interdicted reports; 7, favored some ports to the prejudice of others; 8, regulated the commerce of a State within its own bounds; 9, impaired the freedom of speech and of the press; 10, infringed the people's right to keep and bear arms; 11, made unreasonable searches and seizures; 12, prohibited emigration and required passports; 13, dismissed the police of cities in States not proclaimed in insurrection, and appointed others in their place; 14, interfered by the military force with the freedom of elections in the States; 15, took private property for public use without just compensation. 14th. This 1st. They dissolved Legislatures for oppos- party has conferred the elective franchise ing with manly firmness their invasions on upon the negro in the District of Columbia the rights of the people. 2d. They obstruct against the will of the people. 15th. They ed the administration of justice by imprison- have placed Governors over the people ing Judges and officers of the law. 3d. They against their will and in violation of their attempted to make Judges dependent on their laws, by military force. 16th. They have will alone for the tenure of their offices and caused pretended Legislatures to be elected the payment of their salaries. 4th. They in the States against the will of the people erected a multitude of new offices and sent in the same manner and by the same emamong them swarms of officers to harass ployment of the same means. 17th. They the people and eat out their substance. 5th. have by the same means appointed preThey kept among the people, who were attended conventions to form and revise the peace among themselves, standing armies, Constitutions of the States. 18th. They without the consent of their Legislature. have forced illegal State Constitutions upon 6th. They rendered the military independ- the people against their wills. 19th. They ent of and superior to the civil power. have appropriated money out of the public 7th. They subjected the people to a juris-Treasury; for the support of negroes living in The Republican party waged three wars at one and the same time. A war against the Southern States, a war against their political opponents, and a war against the Constitution of the United States. In the prosecution of these wars they were guilty of almost every offense for the commission of which our fathers declared their independence of the British Crown and made war to secure that independence. I will say nothing of their action in respect to the people of the South. Against those who adhered to the Union, and who were much more devoted to the Constitution and Government of the United States than they were themselves, they were guilty of the following offenses charged in the Declaration of Independence: idleness, and have levied taxes upon the of the United States, assembled in Nawhite citizens for that purpose. 20th. They tional Convention in the city of Chicago, have attempted to deprive the people of the on the 20th day of May, 1868, make the States of the power to determine evidence and regulate the judicial proceedings of their following declaration of principles: own courts, in violation of their laws and 1. We congratulate the country on the Constitutions. 21st. They have deprived assured success of the reconstruction polthe State courts of the jurisdiction to hear icy of Congress as evidenced by the adopand determine questions relating to the rights of persons, liberty, and property tion, in a majority of the States lately in within the State, and to pass and determine rebellion, of Constitutions securing equal upon the guilt or innocence of those accused civil and political rights to all, and reof crimes committed within the State. 22d. gard it as the duty of the Government to They have authorized the arrest and punish- sustain those Constitutions and prevent ment of Judges for deciding questions of law the people of such States from being reagainst their enactment. 23d. They have mitted to a state of anarchy or military annulled the Constitutional authority and prerogatives of the Executive of the United States. 24th. They have banished the citizens from family and home without trial. 25th. They have violated every one of the twelve amendments to the Constitution de signed to protect the people in the enjoy; ment of their rights of persons, liberty, and property. 26th. They have sacrificed the lives of half a million men in a war which they might easily have averted, and have burdened the industry of the people by the creation of a debt amounting to billions of dollars. "And now there was no foe in arms And yet, Mr. President, this Republican party, with this record, instead of calling upon the rocks and mountains to hide them from the face of an outraged and indignant people, coolly charge the members of the Domocratic party with being disloyal and with being unfaithful to the Constitution and laws of their country. O shame, where is thy blush! rule. 2. The guarantee by Congress of equal suffrage to all loyal men in the South was demanded by every consideration of and must be maintained while the public safety, of gratitude and of justice, question of suffrage in all the loyal States, properly belongs to the people of those States. 3. We denounce all forms of repudiation as a national crime, and national honor requires the payment of the public indebtedness in the utmost good faith to our creditors at home and abroad, not only according to the letter, but the spirit of the laws under which it was contracted. 4. It is due to the labor of the nation that taxation should be equalized and reduced as rapidly as national faith will permit. 5. The national debt, contracted as it has been, for the preservation of the Union for all time to come, should be extended over a fair period for redemption, and it is the duty of Congress to reduce the rate of interest thereon whenever it can honestly be done. our burden of debt is to improve our 6. That the best policy to diminish credit, that capitalists will seek to lend us money at lower rates of interest than we now pay, and must continue to pay so long as repudiation, partial or total, open or covert, is threatened or suspected. 7. The Government of the United States should be administered with the strictest economy. which have been so shamefully nursed The corruptions and fostered by Andrew Johnson, call loudly for radical reform. 8. We profoundly deplore the un |