The Daily clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1866-1888, 1868-07-11
DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE
FOR PRESIDENT.
Speech of Hon. HOrafiO W. Sew
mOur Before the Convention.

1H6 alOllO III = 10 Tile SpCcCu vi I1Ou
Horatio n. Seymour, of New York,
the Democratic candidate for Presi-
dent, on taking the chair as presiding
officer of the Democratic National
Convention
GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION -
thank you for the honor you have
done me in making me your presiding
officer. This convention is made up
of large number of delegates from
all parts of our broad land. To a
great degree we are strangers to each
other, and view the subjects which
agitate our country from different
stand points. We cannot at once
learn each others mode of thought or
grasp all the facts which bear upon
the minds of others. Yet our session
must be brief, and we are to utter
voice without delay upon questions Of
an exciting character and of deep in
terest to our country. To maintain
order, to restrain all exhibitions of
passion, to drive out of our minds all
unkind suspicious, is, at this time
great duty. Cheers / rely upon
your sense of this duty and not upon
my own ability to sustain me in the
station in which / am placed by your
kind partially. Men never met under
greater responsibilities than those
which now weigh upon us. 1t is not
a mere party triumph we seek We
are trying to save our country from
the dangers which overhang it. We
wish to lift off the perplexities and
shacl1les which, in the shape of bad
laws and of crushing taxation now
paralyze the business and labor of our
land. Loud cheers. We hope at
least we can give order, prosperity and
| happiness to those sections of our
country which suffer so deeply to day
in their homes and in all the fields of
their industry from the events of the
past eight years.I trust our action will
show that we are governed by earnest
purposes to help ali classes of our cit
liens. Avoiding harsh invectives
against men, we should keep the pub
lie mind fixed upon the questions
which must now be met and solved
Let us leave the past to the calm iudg-
ment of the future and confront the
perils of the day. Cheers
We are forced to meet the associa-
tons brought forth by the late Repub,
lican Convention. / aver that there
is not in this body one man who has
it in his heart to excite so much of
angry feeling against the Republican
party as must be stirred up in the minds
of those who read these declarations
in the light of recent events, and in
view of the condition of our country.
In the first place, they congratulate
| the perplexed man of business, the
burthened taxpayer - the laborer,
whose hours of toll are heightened
out by the growing cost of the neces-
saries of life, upon the success of that
reconstruction policy, which has bro't
all these evils upon them, by the cost
of its military despotism, and the cor
ruption Of its bureau agencies In
one resolution they denounce all the
forms of reputation as a national
crime. Then why did they put upon
the statute books of the nation the
laws which invite the citizens who
borrow coin, to force their creditors
to take debased paper, and thus wrong
him out of large share of his claim,
in violation of the most solemn com
pact? Loud cheering If repudia.
ton is national crime, it is crime
to invite the citizens of this country
thus to repudiate their individual
promises. Applause. Was it not
a crime to force the creditors of this
and other States, to take currency
at times worth no more than forty
cents on the dollar, in payment for the
sterling coin they gave to build roads
and canals, which yield such ample re-
turns of wealth and prosperity lap
plause.
Again they say it is due to the labor
of the nation that taxation should be
equalized Then why did they make
taxation unequal beyond the injustice
of making one class of citizens paw
for another the shares of the costs OF
schools, of roads, Of the local laws
which protected their lives and proper
ty? 1t was an unwise and hurtful
thing. 1t sunk the credit of the coun-
try, as unusual terms always are hurt
full to the credit Of the borrower
They also declare the best policy to
diminish our burden of debt is so hurt
full to 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 reputation
is threatened or suspected Then why
have they used full $500,O0O,OO0 OF
the taxes drawn from the people OF
this country to uphold despotic mill
tary authority, and to crush out the
life of States, when. if this money
had been used to pay our debts, CAPT
talists would now seek to lend us mo
ney at lower rates of interest? But
tor this covert reputation, our nation
al credit would not be tainted in the
markets of the world. Applause.
| Again, they declare that all who were
faithful in the trialsof the late war, there
were none entitled to more especial
honor than the brave soldiers and sea-
men who endured the hardships of the
| camDaiUn and crIlisa- and imnariIad