The Political History of the United States of America During the Period of Reconstruction

travagance have exceeded anything known in history, and, by its frauds and monopolies, it has nearly doubled the burden of the debt created by the war. It has stripped the President of his constitutional power of appointment, even of his own cabinet. Under its repeated assaults the pillars of the Government are rocking on their base, and should it succeed in November next and inaugurate its President, we will meet as a subjected and conquered people, amid the ruins of liberty and the scattered fragments of the Constitution.

And we do declare and resolve that ever since the people of the United States threw off all subjection to the British Crown the privilege and trust of suffrage have belonged to the several States, and have been granted, regulated, and controlled exclusively by the political power of each State respectively, and that any attempt by Congress, on any pretext whatever, to deprive any State of this right, or interfere with its exercise, is a flagrant usurpation of power which can find no warrant in the Constitution, and, if sanctioned by the people, will subvert our form of government, and can only end in a single centralized and consolidated government, in which the separate existence of the States will be entirely absorbed, and an unqualified despotism be established in place of a Federal union of co-equal States.

And that we regard the reconstruction acts (so called) of Congress, as such, as usurpations and unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void. That our soldiers and sailors, who carried the flag of our country to victory against a most gallant and determined foe, must ever be gratefully remembered, and all the guarantees given in their favor must be faithfully carried into

execution.

That the public lands should be distributed as widely as possible among the people, and should be disposed of either under the pre-emption of homestead lands, or sold in reasonable quantities, and to none but actual occupants, at the minimum price established by the Government. When grants of the public lands may be allowed, necessary for the encouragement of important public improvements, the proceeds of the sale of such lands, and not the lands themselves, should be so applied.

That the President of the United States, Andrew Johnson, in exercising the power of his high office in resisting the aggressions of Congress upon the constitutional rights of the States and the people, is entitled to the gratitude of the whole American people, and in behalf of the Democratic party we tender him our thanks for his patriotic efforts in that regard.

Upon this platform the Democratic party appeal to every patriot, including all the Conservative element and all who desire to support the Constitution and restore the Union, forget ting all past differences of opinion, to unite with us in the present great struggle for the liberties of the people; and that to all such, to whatever party they may have heretofore belonged, we extend the right hand of fellowship, and hail all such co-operating with us as friends and brethren.

Resolved. That this convention sympathize

cordially with the workingmen of the United States in their efforts to protect the rights and interests of the laboring classes of the country. [Offered by Mr. Vallandigham, and adopted the last day of the convention.]

Resolved, That the thanks of the convention are tendered to Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, for the justice, dignity, and impartiality with which he presided over the court of impeachment on the trial of President Andrew Johnson.

[This last was offered by Mr. Kernan, of New York, after the nominations and immediately before the final adjournment, and was carried by acclamation.]

Soldiers and Sailors, at New York, July. Whereas a mutual interchange of views between members of this Convention and delegates to the Democratic National Convention, has fully confirmed us in our previously entertained opinion of the purity and patriotism of that body, and fully justifies the belief that in the selection of candidates and in the construction of a platform the Convention will be governed by the spirit of the address adopted by this body on the 6th inst.; therefore, relying upon this belief,

Resolved, That we will support its nominees for President and Vice President of the United States, and that on our return home we will induce our late comrades in arms to unite with us in yielding to them a united support.

[Reported from the Committee on Resolutions and adopted-yeas 287, nays 7.]

Resolved, That the declaration of principles adopted by the Democratic National Convention be and the same is hereby ratified and approved, and that the secretary communicate to that Convention a copy of this resolution forthwith.

Resolved, That the President of the Convention appoint a committee of five to wait upon General George B. McClellan, and assure him that although we are called upon by duty to support the nominee for the Presidency of the National Democratic party now in Convention, our confidence in him is unimpaired, and that our love for him is as ardent as ever, and that the highest honor that this Convention could confer upon him would but poorly express our esteem for him. Also, that the said committee be requested to ask him to come and assist us with all his ability during the coming campaign.

Resolved, That the thanks of this Convention, and of all patriotic and right minded citizens, are due to the President of the United States for the removal of E. M. Stanton from the War Department of the Government, a position which the said Stanton has disgraced and dishonored ever since his appointment to that office, by his many acts of cruelty-both to the Union and Confederate soldiers-and by his official acts of tyranny; and that the soldiers and sailors should. on all occasions, meet him with the same feelings of outraged dignity and patriotism that he was received with, on an ever-memorable occasion, in the city of Washington, from that great and glorious soldier-General William Tecumseh Sherman.

[The last three resolutions were offered in the Convention, and adopted unanimously, under

suspension of the rule requiring the reference of all resolutions to the committee on resolutions.] Pending the resolutions reported from the committee above, General Thomas Ewing, jr., of Kansas, offered this resolution:

in defiance of the express language of the Constitution, have erected a military despotism in ten of the States of the Union, have taken from the President the powers vested in him by the supreme law, and have deprived the Supreme Court of its jurisdiction. The right of trial by jury, and the .great writ of right, the habeas corpus-shields of safety for every citizen, and which have descended to us from the earliest traditions of our ancestors, and which our revo

Resolved, That the faith of the republic to its creditors, as pledged in its laws, is inviolable, and the public burdens should be lightened by vigilant economy in expenditures, and never by repudiation; that all the bonds of the United States issued after the passage of the legal ten-lutionary fathers sought to secure to their posder act, and not by law expressly payable in coin, should be paid when redeemable in legaltender notes, but without undue inflation of the currency, or at the option of the holders, converted into bonds bearing a low rate of interest; that the national bank currency should be retired and its place supplied by legal tenders, so as to save to the Government interest upon the amount of that circulation, and that the policy of permitting banks to supply nearly half of the national currency allowing the five-twenty bonds, bearing, as they do, interest at the rate of nearly nine per cent. per annum, to run beyond the date when they become redeemable, and of contracting the currency until it shall rise to the value of gold, is a policy which favors the few against the many, is oppressive to the laboring and the debtor classes, and tends to bring upon the country the dishonor of repudiation.

[He moved for the suspension of the rule requiring reference to the committee, which was lost-yeas 78, nays 197; and the resolution was accordingly referred, and not again considered.]

General Blair's Letter.

terity forever in the fundamental charter of our liberties-have been ruthlessly trampled under foot by the fragment of a Congress. Whole States and communities of people of our own race have been attainted, convicted, condemned, and deprived of their rights as citizens, without presentment, or trial, or witnesses, but by congressional enactment of ex post facto laws, and in defiance of the constitutional prohibition denying even to a full and legal Congress the authority to pass any bill of attainder or ex post facto law. The same usurping authority has substituted as electors in place of the men of our own race, thus illegally attainted and disfranchised, a host of ignorant negroes, who are supported in idleness with the public money, and combined together to strip the white race of their birthright, through the management of freedmen's bureaus and the emissaries of conspirators in other States; and, to complete the ppression, the military power of the nation has beer placed at their disposal, in order to make this barbarism supreme.

The military leader under whose prestige this usurping Congress has taken refuge since the condemnation of their schemes by the free peo. OMAHA, NEBRASKA, July 13, 1868. ple of the North in the elections of the last General GEORGE W. MORGAN, Chairman Com-year, and whom they have selected as their canmittee National Democratic Convention. GENERAL: I take the earliest opportunity of replying to your letter, notifying me of my nomination for Vice President of the United States by the National Democratic Convention, recently held in the city of New York.

I accept without hesitation the nomination tendered in a manner so gratifying, and give you and the committee my thanks for the very kind and complimentary language in which you have conveyed to me the decision of the con

vention.

I have carefully read the resolutions adopted by the convention, and most cordially concur in every principle and sentiment they announce. My opinion upon all of the questions which discriminate the great contending parties have been freely expressed on all suitable occasions, and I do not deem it necessary at this time to reiterate them.

The issues upon which the contest turns are clear, and cannot be obscured or distorted by the sophistries of our adversaries. They all resolve themselves into the old and ever-renewing struggle of a few men to absorb the political power of the nation. This effort, under every conceivable name and disguise, has always characterized the opponents of the Democratic party, but at no time has the attempt assumed a shape so open and daring as in this contest. The adversaries of free and constitutional government,

didate to shield themselves from the result of
their own wickedness and crime, has announced
his acceptance of the nomination, and his will-
ingness to maintain their usurpations over eight
millions of white people at the South, fixed to
the earth with his bayonets. He exclaims:
Let us have peace. Peace reigns in War-
saw" was the announcement which heralded
the doom of the liberties of a nation.
empire is peace," exclaimed Bonaparte, when
freedom and its defenders expired under the
sharp edge of his sword. The peace to which
Grant invites us is the peace of despotism and
death.

The

Those who seek to restore the Constituiion by executing the will of the people condemning the reconstruction acts, already pronounced in the elections of last year, and which will, I am convinced, be still more emphatically expressed by the election of the Democratic candidate as the President of the United States, are denounced as revolutionists by the partisans of this vindictive Congress. Negro suffrage, which the popular vote of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Connecticut, and other States have condemned as expressly against the letter of the Constitution, must stand, because their Senators and Representatives have willed it. If the people shall again condemn these atrocious measures by the elec [tion of the Democratic candidate for President,

they must not be disturbed, although decided to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, and although the President is sworn to maintain and support the Constitution. The will of a fraction of a Congress, reinforced with its partisan emissaries sent to the South and supported there by the soldiery, must stand against the will of the people and the decision of the Supreme Court, and the solemn oath of the President to maintain and support, the Constitution.

It is revolutionary to execute the will of the people! It is revolutionary to execute the judgment of the Supreme Court! It is revolutionary in the President to keep inviolate his oath to sustain the Constitution! This false construction of the vital principle of our Government is the last resort of those who would have their arbitrary reconstruction sway and supersede our time-honored institutions. The nation will say the Constitution must be restored, and the will of the people again prevail.

Thia

The appeal to the peaceful ballot to attain this end is not war, is not revolution. They make war and revolution who attempt to arrest this quiet mode of putting aside military despotism and the usurpations of a fragment of & Congress, asserting absolute power over that benign system of regulated liberty left us by our fathers. This must be allowed to take its course. is the only road to peace. It will come with the election of the Democratic candidate, and not with the election of that mailed warrior, whose bayonets are now at the throats of eight millions of people in the South, to compel them to support him as a candidate for the Presi. dency, and to submit to the domination of an alien race of semi-barbarous men. No perversion of truth or audacity of misrepresentation can exceed that which hails this candidate in arms as an angel of peace. I am, very respectfully, your most obedient servant, FRANK P. BLAIR.

The nomination of Ex-Governor Seymour was made, July 9, on the 22d ballot, as follows: