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.

The Rebellion.

DEMOCRATIC.REPUBLICAN.
1864—That this convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of the American people, that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which, under the pretense of a military necessity or war power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to the ultimate convention of the States, or other peaceable means to the end that, at the earliest practicable moment peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States.
[1st resolution.		1864—That it is the highest duty of every American citizen to maintain against all their enemies the integrity of the Union and the paramount authority of the Constitution and laws of the United States; and that laying aside all differences of political opinions, we pledge ourselves as Union men, animated by a common sentiment, and aiming at a common object, to do everything in our power to aid the Government, in quelling by force of arms the rebellion now raging against its authority, and in bringing to the punishment due to their crimes the rebels and traitors arrayed against it.
That we approve the determination of the Government of the United States not to compromise with rebels, or to offer them any terms of peace, except such as may be based upon an unconditional surrender of their hostility and a return to their just allegiance to the Constitution and laws of the United States; and that we call upon the Government to maintain this position and to prosecute the war with the utmost possible vigor to the complete suppression of the rebellion, in full reliance upon the self-sacrificing patriotism, the heroic valor, and the undying devotion of the American people to the country and its free institutions.
[1st and 2d resolutions.

Home Rule.

DEMOCRATIC.REPUBLICAN.
1856—That we recognize the right of the people in all the Territories, including Kansas and Nebraska, acting through the legally and fairly expressed will of a majority of actual residents, and wherever the number of their inhabitants justifies it, to form a constitution * * * and be admitted into the Union upon terms of perfect equality with the other States.1856— * * * The dearest constitutional rights of the people of Kansas have been fraudulently and violently taken from them; their territory has been invaded by an armed force; spurious and pretended legislative, judicial, and executive officers have been set over them, by whose usurped authority, sustained by the military power of the Government, tyrannical and unconstitutional laws have been enacted and enforced; the right of the people to keep and bear arms has been infringed; test oaths of an extraordinary and entangling nature have been imposed as a condition of exercising the right of suffrage and holding office; the right of an accused person to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury has been denied; the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, has been violated; they have been deprived of life, liberty, and property without due process of law; that the freedom of speech and of the press has been abridged; the right to choose their representatives has been made of no effect; murders, robberies, and arsons have been instigated and encouraged, and the offenders have been allowed to go unpunished; that all these things have been done with the knowledge, sanction, and procurement of the present Administration, and that for this high crime against the Constitution, the Union, and humanity, we arraign the Administration, the President, his advisers, agents, supporters, apologists, and accessories, either before or after the fact, before the country and before the world; and that it is our fixed purpose to bring the actual perpetrators of these atrocious outrages and their accomplices to a sure and condign punishment.
[Plank 3.
1860—That when the settlers in a Territory, having an adequate population, form a State Constitution, the right of sovereignty commences, and, being consummated by admission into the Union, they stand on an equal footing with the people of other States; and the State thus organized ought to be admitted into the Federal Union, whether its constitution prohibits or recognizes the institution of slavery.
[Plank 3, Breckinridge, Dem.		1860—That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depends; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.
[Plank 4.
1864—1864—
1868—After the most solemn and unanimous pledge of both Houses of Congress to prosecute the war exclusively for the maintenance of the Government and the preservation of the Union under the Constitution, it [the Republican party] has repeatedly violated that most sacred pledge under which alone was rallied that noble volunteer army which carried our flag to victory. Instead of restoring the Union, it has, so far as in its power, dissolved it, and subjected ten States, in time of profound peace, to military despotism and negro supremacy. It has nullified there the right of trial by jury; it has abolished the habeas corpus, that most sacred writ of liberty; it has overthrown the freedom of speech and the press; it has substituted arbitrary seizures and arrests, and military trials and secret star-chamber inquisitions for the constitutional tribunals; it has disregarded in time of peace the right of the people to be free from searches and seizures; it has entered the post and telegraph offices, and even the private rooms of individuals, and seized their private papers and letters without any specific charge or notice of affidavit, as required by the organic law; it has converted the American Capitol into a bastile; it has established a system of spies and official espionage to which no constitutional monarchy of Europe would now dare to resort; it has abolished the right of appeal on important constitutional questions to the supreme judicial tribunals, and threatens to curtail or destroy its original jurisdiction, which is irrevocably vested by the Constitution, while the learned Chief Justice has been subjected to the most atrocious calumnies, merely because he would not prostitute his high office to the support of the false and partisan charges preferred against the President. * * * 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.1868—We congratulate the country on the assured success of the reconstruction policy of Congress, as evinced by the adoption, in the majority of the States lately in rebellion, of constitutions securing equal civil and political rights to all; and it is the duty of the Government to sustain those institutions and prevent the people of such States from being remitted to a state of anarchy.
1872—Local self-government, with impartial suffrage, will guard the rights of all citizens more securely than any centralized power. The public welfare requires the supremacy of the civil over the military authority, and freedom of persons under the protection of the habeas corpus. We demand for the individual the largest liberty consistent with public order; for the State self-government, and for the nation a return to the methods of peace and the constitutional limitations of power.
[Plank 4.		1872—We hold that Congress and the President have only fulfilled an imperative duty in their measures for the suppression of violent and treasonable organizations in certain lately rebellious regions, and for the protection of the ballot-box; and, therefore, they are entitled to the thanks of the nation.
[Plank 12.
1880—* * “Home Rule.”
[Plank 3.		1880—

Internal Improvements.

DEMOCRATIC.REPUBLICAN.
1856—That the Constitution does not confer upon the general Government the power to commence and carry on a general system of internal improvements.
[Plank 2.		1856—That appropriations by congress for the improvement of rivers and harbors of a national character, required for the accommodation and security of our existing commerce, are authorized by the Constitution and justified by the obligation of Government to protect the lives and property of its citizens.
[Plank 7.
1860—Reaffirmed.1860—That appropriations by Congress for river and harbor improvements of a national character, required for the accommodation and security of an existing commerce, are authorized by the Constitution and justified by the obligation of Government to protect the lives and property of its citizens.
[Plank 15.
1864—1864—
1868—1868—
1872—1872—
1876—1876—
1880—Plank 2 of 1856 reaffirmed.1880– * * * That we deem it the duty of Congress to develop and improve our seacoast and harbors, but insist that further subsidies to private persons or corporations must cease.

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.

Resumption.