COMPARISON OF PLATFORM PLANKS ON GREAT POLITICAL QUESTIONS.

General Party Doctrines.

DEMOCRATIC.REPUBLICAN.
1856—That the liberal principles embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, and sanctioned in the Constitution, which makes ours the land of liberty and the asylum of the oppressed of every nation, have ever been cardinal principles in the Democratic faith; and every attempt to abridge the present privilege of becoming citizens and the owners of soil among us ought to be resisted with the same spirit which swept the alien and sedition laws from our statute books.
[Plank 8.		1856—That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Federal Constitution, is essential to the preservation of our Republican institutions, and that the Federal Constitution, the rights of the States, and the union of the States shall be preserved; that with our Republican fathers, we hold it to be a self-evident truth that all men are endowed with the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that the primary object and ulterior design of our Federal Government were to secure these rights to all persons within its exclusive jurisdiction.
[Plank 1.
1860—Reaffirmed.1860—That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Federal Constitution, “That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” is essential to the preservation of our Republican institutions; and that the Federal Constitution, the rights of the States, and the Union of the States must and shall be preserved.
[Plank 2.
1864—1864—
1868—1868—
1872—We recognize the equality of all men before the law, and hold that it is the duty of Government in its dealings with the people to mete out equal and exact justice to all, of whatever nativity, race, color, or persuasion, religious or political.
[Plank 1.		1872—Complete liberty and exact equality in the enjoyment of all civil, political and public rights should be established and effectually maintained throughout the Union by efficient and appropriate State and Federal Legislation. Neither the law nor its administration should admit any discrimination in respect of citizens by reasons of race, creed, color or previous condition of servitude.
[Plank 3.
1876—1876—The United States of America is a Nation not a league. By the combined workings of the National and State Governments, under their respective constitutions, the rights of every citizen are secured at home or abroad, and the common welfare promoted.
1880—Opposition to centralizationism, and to that dangerous spirit of encroachment which tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever be the form of Government, a real despotism.
[Plank 2.		1880—The constitution of the United States is a supreme law and not a mere contract. Out of confederate States it made a sovereign nation. Some powers are denied to the nation, while others are denied to the States, but the boundary between the powers delegated and those reserved is to be determined by the National, and not by the State tribunal.
[Cheers.
[Plank 2.