The National Debt and Interest, the Public Credit, Repudiation, etc.

DEMOCRATIC.REPUBLICAN.
1864—1864—That the National faith, pledged for the redemption of the public debt, must be kept inviolate, and that for this purpose we recommend economy and rigid responsibility in the public expenditures, and a vigorous and just system of taxation; and that it is the duty of every loyal State to sustain the credit and promote the use of the National currency.
[Plank 10.
1868—Payment of the public debt of the United States as rapidly as practicable; all moneys drawn from the people by taxation, except so much as is requisite for the necessities of the Government, economically administered, being honestly applied to such payment, and where the obligations of the Government do not expressly state upon their face, or the law under which they were issued does not provide that they shall be paid in coin, they ought, in right and in justice, to be paid in the lawful money of the United States.
[Plank 3.
Equal taxation of every species of property according to its real value, including Government bonds and other public securities.
[Plank 4.		1868—We denounce all forms of repudiation as a National crime; and the National honor requires the payment of the public indebtedness in the uttermost good faith to all creditors at home and abroad, not only according to the letter, but the spirit of the laws under which it was contracted.
[Plank 3.
It is due to the labor of the nation that taxation should be equalized and reduced as rapidly as the national faith will permit.
[Plank 4.
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 be honestly done.
[Plank 5.
That the best policy to diminish our burden of debt is to so improve our credit that capitalists will seek to loan 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.
[Plank 6.
1872—We demand a system of Federal taxation which shall not unnecessarily interfere with the industries of the people, and which shall provide the means necessary to pay the expenses of the Government, economically administered, the pensions, the interest on the public debt, and a moderate reduction annually of the principal thereof. * * *
The public credit must be sacredly maintained, and we denounce repudiation in every form and guise.
[Plank 7.		1872—* * * A uniform national currency has been provided, repudiation frowned down, the national credit sustained under the most extraordinary burdens, and new bonds negotiated at lower rates. * * *
[Plank 1.
We denounce repudiation of the public debt, in any form of disguise, as a national crime. We witness with pride the reduction of the principal of the debt, and of the rates of interest upon the balance.
[Plank 13.
1876—Reform is necessary to establish a sound currency, restore the public credit, and maintain the national honor.1876—In the first act of Congress signed by President Grant, the National Government assumed to remove any doubts of its purpose to discharge all just obligations to the public creditors, and “solemnly pledged its faith to make provision at the earliest practicable period for the redemption of the United States notes in coin.” Commercial prosperity, public morals, and national credit demand that this promise be fulfilled by a continuance and steady progress to specie payment.
[Plank 4.
1880—* * * Honest money—the strict maintenance of the public faith—consisting of gold and silver, and paper convertible into coin on demand; the strict maintenance of the public faith, State and national.
[Plank 3.		1880—It [the Republican party] has raised the value of our paper currency from 38 per cent. to the par of gold [applause]; it has restored, upon a solid basis, payment in coin of all national obligations, and has given us a currency absolutely good and equal in every part or our extended country [applause]; it has lifted the credit of the nation from the point of where 6 per cent. bonds sold at 86, to that where 4 per cent. bonds are eagerly sought at a premium.
[Preamble.