10. We denounce as most dangerous the efforts everywhere manifest to restrict the right of suffrage.
11. We are opposed to an increase of the standing army in time of peace, and the insidious scheme to establish an enormous military power under the guise of militia laws.
12. We demand absolute democratic rules for the government of Congress, placing all representatives of the people upon an equal footing, and taking away from committees a veto power greater than that of the President.
13. We demand a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, instead of a government of the bondholders, by the bondholders, and for the bondholders; and we denounce every attempt to stir up sectional strife as an effort to conceal monstrous crimes against the people.
14. In the furtherance of these ends, we ask the co-operation of all fair-minded people. We have no quarrel with individuals, wage no war upon classes, but only against vicious institutions. We are not content to endure further discipline from our present actual rulers, who, having dominion over money, over transportation, over land and labor, and largely over the press and the machinery of government, wield unwarrantable power over our institutions, and over our life and property.
15. That every citizen of due age, sound mind, and not a felon, be fully enfranchised, and that this resolution be referred to the States, with recommendation for their favorable consideration.
The Prohibition convention met at Cleveland on the 17th of June. The platform was substantially a repetition of the platform of 1876, and General Neal Dow, of Maine, was presented for President, and A. M. Thompson, of Ohio, for Vice-President.
The few scattered fragments of the American party held a convention on the 27th of June, and nominated John W. Phelps, of Vermont, for President, and Samuel C. Pomeroy, of Kansas, for Vice-President. Their platform declared against secret societies, Freemasonry in particular, and all other anti-Christian movements. The party was not heard of in the contest.
The Presidential contest of 1880 was remarkable for the absence of bitterness or vituperation. Garfield and Hancock were both highly respected, and I cannot recall a struggle for the Presidency that exhibited less of the asperities which are usually displayed in the struggle for the political control of the nation. Hancock was beaten on the popular vote by a majority of but little over 7000, and he lost his election by Tammany failing to give him a cordial support in New York.
The following table presents the popular and electoral vote of 1880: