American politics (non-partisan) from the beginning to date

by Thomas V. Cooper; Hector T. Fenton

DEMOCRATIC.	REPUBLICAN.
1860—That the Democracy of the United States recognize it as the imperative of this Government to protect the naturalized citizen in all his rights, whether at home or in foreign lands, to the same extent as its native-born citizens. [Plank 6.	1860—The Republican party is opposed to any change in our naturalization laws, or any State legislation by which the rights of citizenship hitherto accorded to immigrants from foreign lands shall be abridged or impaired; and in favor of giving a full and efficient protection to the right of all classes of citizens, whether native or naturalized, both home and abroad. [Plank 14.
1864—	1864—
1868—Equal rights and protection for naturalized and native-born citizens at home and abroad, the assertion of American nationality which shall command the respect of foreign powers, and furnish an example and encouragement to people struggling for national integrity, constitutional liberty, and individual rights and the maintenance of the rights of naturalized citizens against the absolute doctrine of immutable allegiance, and the claims of foreign powers to punish them for alleged crime committed beyond their jurisdiction. [Plank 8.	1868—The doctrine of Great Britain and other European Powers, that because a man is once a subject he is always so, must be resisted at every hazard by the United States, as a relic of feudal times, not authorized by the laws of nations, and at war with our national honor and independence. Naturalized citizens are entitled to protection in all their rights of citizenship as though they were native-born; and no citizen of the United States, native or naturalized, must be liable to arrest and imprisonment by any foreign power for acts done or words spoken in this country; and, if so arrested and imprisoned, it is the duty of the Government to interfere in his behalf. [Plank 9.
1872—	1872—The doctrine of Great Britain and other European Powers concerning allegiance—“once a subject always a subject”—having at last, through the efforts of the Republican party, been abandoned, and the American idea of the individual’s right to transfer allegiance having been accepted by European nations, it is the duty of our Government to guard with jealous care the rights of adopted citizens against the assumption of unauthorised claims by their former Governments, and we urge continued careful encouragement and protection of voluntary immigration. [Plank 9.
1876—	1876—It is the imperative duty of the Government so to modify existing treaties with European governments, that the same protection shall be afforded to the adopted American citizen that is given to the native-born, and that all necessary laws should be passed to protect emigrants in the absence of power in the State for that purpose. [Plank 10.
1880—	1880—* * * Everywhere the protection accorded to a citizen of American birth must be secured to citizens by American adoption. [Plank 5.

The Chinese.

DEMOCRATIC.	REPUBLICAN.
1876—Reform is necessary to correct the omissions of a Republican Congress, and the errors of our treaties and our diplomacy, which have stripped our fellow-citizens of foreign birth and kindred race recrossing the Atlantic, of the shield of American citizenship, and have exposed our brethren of the Pacific coast to the incursions of a race not sprung from the same great parent stock, and in fact now by law denied citizenship through naturalization as being neither accustomed to the traditions of a progressive civilization nor exercised in liberty under equal laws. We denounce the policy which thus discards the liberty-loving German and tolerates a revival of the coolie trade in Mongolian women imported for immoral purposes, and Mongolian men held to perform servile labor contracts, and demand such modification of the treaty with the Chinese Empire, or such legislation within constitutional limitations, as shall prevent further importation or immigration of the Mongolian race.	1876—It is the immediate duty of Congress to fully investigate the effect of the immigration and importation of Mongolians upon the moral and material interests of the country. [Plank 11.
1880—Amendment of the Burlingame Treaty. No more Chinese immigration, except for travel, education, and foreign commerce, and therein carefully guarded. [Plank 11.	1880—Since the authority to regulate immigration and intercourse between the United States and foreign nations rests with the Congress of the United States and the treaty-making power, the Republican party, regarding the unrestricted immigration of Chinese as a matter of grave concernment under the exercise of both these powers, would limit and restrict that immigration by the enactment of such just, humane, and reasonable laws and treaties as will produce that result. [Plank 6.

Civil Service.

DEMOCRATIC.	REPUBLICAN.
1872—The civil service of the government has become a mere instrument of partisan tyranny and personal ambition and an object of selfish greed. It is a scandal and reproach upon free institutions and breeds a demoralization dangerous to the perpetuity of Republican Government. We therefore regard a thorough reform of the civil service as one of the most pressing necessities of the hour; that honesty, capacity and fidelity constitute the only valid claim to public employment; and the offices of the Government cease to be a matter of arbitrary favoritism and patronage, and public station become again a post of honor. To this end it is imperatively required that no President shall be a candidate for re-election.	1872—Any system of the civil service, under which the subordinate positions of the Government are considered rewards for mere party zeal is fatally demoralizing, and we therefore favor a reform of the system by laws which shall abolish the evils of patronage and make honesty, efficiency and fidelity the essential qualifications for public positions, without practically creating a life tenure of office. [Plank 5.
1876—Reform is necessary in the civil service. Experience that proves efficient, economical conduct of Governmental business is not possible if the civil service be subject to change at every election, be a prize fought for at the ballot-box, be a brief reward of party zeal, instead of posts of honor assigned for proved competency, and held for fidelity in the public employ; that the dispensing of patronage should neither be a tax upon the time of all our public men, nor the instrument of their ambition.	1876—Under the Constitution the President and heads of Departments are to make nominations for office; the Senate is to advise and consent to appointments, and the House of Representatives to accuse and prosecute faithless officers. The best interest of the public service demands that these distinctions be respected; that Senators and Representatives who may be judges and accusers should not dictate appointments to office. The invariable rule in appointments should have reference to the honesty, fidelity and capacity of the appointees, giving to the party in power those places where harmony and vigor of administration require its policy to be represented, but permitting all others to be filled by persons selected with sole reference to the efficiency of the public service, and the right of all citizens to share in the honor of rendering faithful service to the country. [Plank 5.
1880—* * * Thorough reform in the civil service.	1880—The Republican party, adhering to the principles affirmed by its last National Convention of respect for the Constitutional rules governing appointments to office, adopts the declaration of President Hayes, that the reform of the civil service should be thorough, radical and complete. To this end it demands the co-operation of the legislative with the executive departments of the Government, and that Congress shall so legislate that fitness, ascertained by proper practical tests, shall admit to the public service.

The Tariff Issue of 1884.

REPUBLICAN.

DEMOCRATIC.

We therefore demand that the imposition of duties on foreign imports shall be made not for “revenue only,” but that in raising the requisite revenues for the government such duties shall be so levied as to afford security to our diversified industries and protection to the rights and wages of the laborer, to the end that active and intelligent labor, as well as capital, may have its just award and the laboring man his full share in the national prosperity. Against the so-called economical system of the Democratic party, which would degrade our labor to the foreign standard, we enter our earnest protest. The Democratic party has failed completely to relieve the people of the burden of unnecessary taxation by a wise reduction of the surplus. The Republican party pledges itself to correct the inequalities of the tariff and to reduce the surplus, not by the vicious and indiscriminate process of horizontal reduction, but by such methods as will relieve the taxpayer without injuring the laborer or the great productive interests of the country. We recognize the importance of sheep husbandry in the United States, the serious depression which it is now experiencing and the danger threatening its future prosperity, and we therefore respect the demands of the representatives of this important agricultural interest for a readjustment of duty upon foreign wool, in order that such industry shall have full and adequate protection. We have always recommended the best money known to the civilized world and we urge that an effort be made to unite all commercial nations in the establishment of the international standard which shall fix for all the relative value of gold and silver coinage.

The Democracy pledges itself to purify the administration from corruption, to restore economy, to revive respect for 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 interests. But in making 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 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 Tariff and Revenue, 1888.

DEMOCRATIC.	REPUBLICAN.
The Democratic party of the United States, in National Convention assembled, renews the pledge of its fidelity to Democratic faith, and reaffirms the platform adopted by its representatives in the Convention of 1884, and endorses the views expressed by President Cleveland in his last annual message to Congress as the correct interpretation of that platform upon the question of tariff reduction; and also endorses the efforts of our Democratic representatives in Congress to secure a reduction of excessive taxation. Chief among its principles of party faith are the maintenance of an indissoluble union of free and indestructible States, now about to enter upon its second century of unexampled progress and renown; devotion to a plan of government regulated by a written constitution strictly specifying every granted power and expressly reserving to the States or people the entire ungranted residue of power; the encouragement of a jealous popular vigilance, directed to all who have been chosen for brief terms to enact and execute the laws, and are charged with the duty of preserving peace, ensuring equality, and establishing justice.   *  *  *  *  * It is repugnant to the creed of Democracy that by such taxation the cost of the necessaries of life should be unjustifiably increased to all our people. Judged by Democratic principles the interest of the people are betrayed when, by unnecessary taxation, trusts and combinations are permitted to exist, which, while unduly enriching the few that combine, rob the body of the citizens by depriving them of the benefits of natural competition. Every Democratic rule of governmental action is violated when, through unnecessary taxation, a vast sum of money, far beyond the needs of an economical administration, is drawn from the people and the channels of trade and accumulated as a demoralizing surplus in the National Treasury. The money now lying idle in the Federal Treasury, resulting from superfluous taxation, amounts to more than one hundred and twenty-five millions, and the surplus collected is reaching the sum of more than sixty millions annually. Debauched by this immense temptation, the remedy of the Republican party is to meet and exhaust by extravagant appropriations and expenses, whether constitutional or not, the accumulation of extravagant taxations. The Democratic policy is to enforce frugality in public expense and abolish unnecessary taxation. Our established domestic industries and enterprises should not and need not be endangered by the reduction and correction of the burdens of taxation. On the contrary, a fair and careful revision of our tax laws, with due allowance for the difference between the wages of America and foreign labor, must promote and encourage every branch of such industries and enterprises by giving them assurances of an extended market and steady and continuous operations. In the interests of American labor, which should in no event be neglected, revision of our tax laws, contemplated by the Democratic party, should promote the advantage of such labor by cheapening the cost of necessaries of life in the home of every working man, and at the same time securing to him steady and remunerative employment. Upon this question of tariff reform, so closely concerning every phase of our national life, and upon every question involved in the problem of good government, the Democratic party submits its principles and professions to the intelligent suffrages of the American people. Resolved, That this Convention hereby endorses and recommends the early passage of the bill for the reduction of the revenue now pending in the House of Representatives. Resolved, That we express our cordial sympathy with struggling people of all nations in their efforts to secure for themselves the inestimable blessings of self-government and civil and religious liberty; and we especially declare our sympathy with the efforts of those noble patriots who, led by Gladstone and Parnell, have conducted their grand and peaceful contest for Home rule in Ireland.	We are uncompromisingly in favor of the American system of protection. We protest against its destruction as proposed by the President and his party. They serve the interests of Europe; we will support the interests of America. We accept the issue and confidently appeal to the people for their judgment. The protective system must be maintained. Its abandonment has always been followed by general disaster to all interests except those of the usurer and the sheriff. We denounce the Mills bill as destructive to the general business, the labor and the farming interests of the country, and we heartily endorse the consistent and patriotic action of the Republican Representatives in Congress in opposing its passage. We condemn the proposition of the Democratic party to place wool on the free list, and we insist that the duties thereon shall be adjusted and maintained so as to furnish full and adequate protection to that industry. The Republican party would effect all needed reduction of the national revenue by repealing the taxes upon tobacco, which are an annoyance and burden to agriculture, and the tax upon spirits used in the arts and for mechanical purposes, and by such revision of the tariff laws as will tend to check imports of such articles as are produced by our people, the production of which gives employment to our labor, and release from import duties those articles of foreign production (except luxuries) the like of which cannot be produced at home. If there shall still remain a larger revenue than is requisite for the wants of the Government, we favor the entire repeal of internal taxes rather than the surrender of any part of our protective system at the joint behest of the whisky trusts and the agents of foreign manufacturers.

Civil Service Reform, 1888.