American citizen. [volume] (Butler, Butler County, Pa.) 1863-1872, 1867-07-17
REPUBLICAN PLATFORM !
Important and Significant Res
Oluti0ns.

passed by the State Convention at Will
| Transport, on the 18th ult. They are
plain and practical Read them care
fully.
The Republicans OF Pennsylvania,
appealing again to the people, take pleas
ure in recalling the repeated occasions in
which the voters of the Commonwealth
have sustained and ratified their eandi-
dates and principles, and strongly i'm
pressed with the Importance of the issues
involved in the ensuing election, make
this declaration of their opinions ani
principles:
First That, in the name Of the nation
saved from treason, we demand security
against its repetition by exacting from
the vanquished such guarantees as will
make treason so odious as to be forever
impossible.
Second That, as in the past We cor
daily justified the administration Of
Abraham Lincoln in all necessary acts
for the suppression of rebellion, we record
it as our Judgment that the administra-
tion of Andrew johnson has been chiefly
faithless, because it has failed to try to
gather up and fix in the organic and
statute law the great principles which
the war has settled, aud without whose
adoption as the rule Of action peace is
but delusion and snare.
Third. That, in the completion of the
| task of reconstruction so firmly as to be
perpetual, it is indispensable that traitors
beaten in the field shall not find sanctu-
airy in the courts that the laws shall not
be tortured to justify or palliate the
crimes of which the country's enemies
have been guilty, and that the law of
war shall be so distinctly declared by the
courts that no disturbing and paralyzing
doubts may ever be raised, as in 1861,
affecting the essential rights of the gov
erpment or personal duties of citizens.
Fourth. That this convention, speak>
ing for the Republicans of Pennsylvania,
unreservedly endorses the reconstruction
measures of The Thirty ninth and Fortieth
Congresses as basis upon sound princi,
Piles, essentially just and wise, and prom>
Use an early legal and permanent restora,
tion of the rebel States to their share in
.he government of the Union; that we
denounce and condemn the offers OF
President johnson, through his plant
Attorney General and majority of his
Cabinet, to evade these laws by inter-
fering to obstruct and prevent their
enforcement in the spirit in which they
we're passed, and that we call upon Con-
gress, soon to meet, promptly and
decisively to dispose of this new nulli-
6cation
Fifth. That the thanks of the loyal
men of this Commonwealth are hereby
rendered to Maj. Gen. Sheridan and Maj.
Gen. Sickies for their publicly declared
unWillingness to be made instrumental,
in the startling and truthful words of the
former, 8" in opening, under the Presi-
dental declaration, a broad, macadamized
way for perjury and fraud to travel on"
in pursuit of the coveted repossession of
political power in the rebel States; and
that this convention confidently expects
that General Grant will vindicats his
past record by cordially sustaining them
in their patriotic efforts to execute the
law.
| Sirth. That President johnson further
merits our condemnation for his reckless
pardon and attempted restoration to polit-
ical rights OF many of the chief conspir-
ators against the Union; and that
especially his persistent efforts to compel
the release of Jefferson Davis without
question for his crimes, were reproach
to the administration of justice, and an
insult to the whole loyal people of the
nation.
Screnh. That warned by past misfor-
tune, we ask that the Supreme Court Of
the State be placed in harmony with the
political opinions of the majority of the
| people, to the end that the court may
never again, by unjust decisions, seek to
set aside laws vital to the ration, nor
imperil the safety ofthc public secureties,
nor impair the operation Of the bounty,