Adopted by the Chicago Convention, July 10th.
The Democratic party of the Union through its representatives in the National Convention assembled, recognizes that as the Nation grows older new issues are born, of time and progress, and old issues perish. But the fundamental principles of the Democracy approved by the united voice of the people, remain and will ever remain as the best and only security for the continuance of free government. The preservation of personal rights, the equality of all citizens before the law, the reserved rights of the States and the supremacy of the Federal Government within the limits of the Constitution will ever form the true basis of our liberties, and can never be surrendered without destroying that balance of rights and powers which enables a continent to be developed in peace, and social order to be maintained by means of local self-government. But it is indispensable for the practical application and enforcement of these fundamental principles that the Government should not always be controlled by one political party. Frequent change of administration is as necessary as a constant recurrence to the popular will. Otherwise abuses grow, and the Government, instead of being carried on for the general welfare, becomes an instrumentality for imposing heavy burdens on the many who are governed for the benefit of the few who govern. Public servants thus become arbitrary rulers.
This is now the condition of the country, hence a change is demanded. The Republican party, so far as principle is concerned, is a reminiscence in practice, it is an organization for enriching those who control its machinery. The frauds and jobbery which have been brought to light in every department of the Government are sufficient to have called for reform within the Republican party. Yet those in authority, made reckless by the long possession of power, have succumbed to its corrupting influences, and have placed in nomination a ticket against which the Independent portion of the party are in open revolt. Therefore a change is demanded. Such a change was alike necessary in 1876, but the will of the people was then defeated by a fraud which can never be forgotten nor condoned. Again in 1880 the change demanded by the people was defeated by the lavish use of money, contributed by unscrupulous contractors and shameless jobbers, who had bargained for unlawful profits or for high office.
The Republican party during its legal, its stolen and its bought tenures of power, has steadily decayed in moral character and political capacity. Its platform promises are now a list of its past failures. It demands the restoration of our navy. It has squandered hundreds of millions to create a navy that does not exist. It calls upon Congress to remove the burdens under which American shipping has been depressed. It imposed and has continued those burdens. It professes the policy of reserving the public lands for small holdings by actual settlers. It has given away the people’s heritage till now a few railroads and non-resident aliens, individual and corporate, possess a larger area than that of all our farms between the two seas. It professes a preference for free institutions. It organized and tried to legalize a control of State elections by Federal troops. It professes a desire to elevate labor. It has subjected American workingmen to the competition of convict and imported contract labor. It professes gratitude to all who were disabled or died in the war leaving widows and orphans. It left to a Democratic House of Representatives the first effort to equalize both bounties and pensions. It proffers a pledge to correct the irregularities of our tariff. It created and has continued them. Its own tariff commission confessed the need of more than 20 per cent. reduction. Its Congress gave a reduction of less than 4 per cent. It professes the protection of American manufacturers. It has subjected them to an increasing flood of manufactured goods and a hopeless competition with manufacturing nations, not one of which taxes raw materials. It professes to protect all American industries. It has impoverished many to subsidize a few. It professes the protection of American labor. It has depicted the returns of American agriculture, an industry followed by half our people. It professes the equality of men before the law. Attempting to fix the status of colored citizens, the act of its Congress was overset by the decision of its courts. It “accepts anew the duty of leading in the work of progress and reform.” Its caught criminals are permitted to escape through contrived delays or actual connivance in the prosecution. Honeycombed with corruption, outbreaking exposures no longer shock its moral sense, its honest members. Its independent journals no longer maintain a successful contest for authority in its counsels or a veto upon bad nominations.
That a change is necessary is proved by an existing surplus of more than $100,000,000, which has yearly been collected from a suffering people. Unnecessary taxation is unjust taxation. We denounce the Republican party for having failed to relieve the people from crushing war taxes which have paralyzed business, crippled industry, and deprived labor of employment and of just reward. The Democracy pledges itself to purify the administration from corruption, to restore economy, to revive the respect of the law, and to reduce taxation to the lowest limit consistent with due regard to the preservation of the faith of the nation to its creditors and pensioners.
Knowing full well, however that legislation affecting the occupations of the people should be cautious and conservative in method, not in advance of public opinion, but responsive to its demands, the Democratic party is pledged to revise the tariff in a spirit of fairness to all. But in making a reduction in taxes, it is not proposed to injure any domestic industries, but rather to promote their healthy growth. From the foundation of this Government taxes collected at the custom-house have been the chief source of Federal revenue. Such they must continue to be. Moreover, many industries have come to rely upon legislation for successful continuance, so that any change of law must be at every step regardful of the labor and the capital thus involved. The process of reform must be subject in the execution to this plain dictate of justice. All taxation shall be limited to the requirements of economical government. The necessary reduction in taxation can and must be effected without depriving American labor of the ability to compete successfully with foreign labor, and without imposing lower rates of duty than will be ample to cover any increased cost of production which may exist in consequence of the higher rate of wages prevailing in this country. Sufficient revenue to pay all the expenses of the Federal Government, economically administered, including pensions, interest and principal of the public debt, can be got, under our present system of taxation, from custom house taxes on fewer imported articles, bearing heaviest on articles of luxury, and bearing lightest on articles of necessity. We therefore denounce the abuses of the existing tariff, and subject to the preceding limitations, we demand that Federal taxation shall be exclusively for public purposes and shall not exceed the needs of the Government economically administered.
The system of direct taxation, known as the “internal revenue,” is a war tax, and so long as the law continues, the money derived therefrom should be sacredly devoted to the relief of the people from the remaining burdens of the war, and be made a fund to defray the expense of the care and comfort of the worthy soldiers disabled in line of duty in the wars of the Republic, and for the payment of such pensions as Congress may from time to time grant to such soldiers, a like fund for the sailors having been already provided; and any surplus should be paid into the treasury.
We favor an American continental policy, based upon more intimate commercial and political relations with the fifteen sister Republics of North, Central and South America, but entangling alliances with none. We believe in honest money, the gold and silver coinage of the Constitution, and a circulating medium convertible into such money without loss.
Asserting the equality of all men before the law, we hold that it is the duty of the Government, in its dealings with the people, to mete out equal and exact justice to all citizens, of whatever nativity, race, color or persuasion, religious or political. We believe in a free ballot and a fair count, and we recall to the memory of the people the noble struggle of the Democrats in the Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth Congresses by which a reluctant Republican opposition was compelled to assent to legislation making everywhere illegal the presence of troops at the polls, as the conclusive proof that a Democratic administration will preserve liberty with order. The selection of Federal officers for the Territories should be restricted to citizens previously resident therein. We oppose sumptuary laws, which vex the citizens and interfere with individual liberty. We favor honest civil service reform, and the compensation of all United States officers by fixed salaries; the separation of Church and State and the diffusion of free education by common schools, so that every child in the land may be taught the rights and duties of citizenship.
While we favor all legislation which will tend to the equitable distribution of property to the prevention of monopoly, and to the strict enforcement of individual rights against corporate abuses, we hold that the welfare of society depends upon a scrupulous regard for the rights of property as defined by law.