Natchitoches spectator. [volume] (Natchitoches, La.) 1867-18??, 1868-06-09
The Radical Platform.

me following is complete copy of the
platform adopted by the radical conven-
ton at Chicago:
The National Republican party of the
United States. assembled in national
convention in the city of Chicago, on
the Goth day of May, 1868. make the
following declaration of principles:
/. We congratulate the country on
the assured success of the reconstruc-
ton of Congress, as evinced by the
adoption in a majority of the States
lately in rebellion of their own Consti-
tutions, and securing equal civil and
political rights to all: and we regard it
as the duty of government to sustain
those institutions and to prevent the
people of such States from being remit
ted to a state of anarchy.
2. The guarantee by Congress of
equal suffrage to all loyal men in the
South, was demanded by every consid-
Grafton of public safety, of gratitude
and Justice, and must be maintained,
while the question of suffrage in the
loyal States properly belongs to the
people of these States.
3. We denounce all forms of repudia-
ton as national crime, and national
honor requires the payment of public
Indebtedness in the utmost good faith
to all conditions at home or abroad, not
only according to the letter, but the
spirit of the laws under which it was
contracted.
4. 1t is due to the labor of the nation
that taxation should be equalized and
reduced as rapidly as the national faith
will permit
8. The national debt, contracted as it
has been, for the preservation of the
Union, for all time to come, should be
extended over fair period for redemp-
ton, and it is the duty of Congress to
reduce the rate of interest thereon,
whenever it can honestly be done.
6. That the best policy to diminish
our burden of debt is to 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 as long as reputation, partial or
local, open or covert, is threatened or
suspected
z. The Government of the United
States should be administered with the
strictest economy, and the corruptions
which have been so shamefully nursed
and fostered by Andrew johnson call
loudly for radical reform.
8. We profoundly deplore the untime-
ly and tragic death Of Abraham Lincoln,
johnson to the Presidency, who has
acted treacherously to the people who
elected him and the cause he was
pledged to support; usurped high legis-
lative andjudicial functions, has refused
to execute the laws; has used his high
Office to induce other officers to ignore
and violate the laws; has employed his
executive powers to render insecure the
property, peace, liberty and life of the
citizens; has abused the pardoning pow
er; has denounced the national legisla-
ture as unconstitutional; has persistently
refused, by every measure in his power,
every proper attempt at the recOnStruc-
ton of the States lately in rebellion;
has perverted the public patronage into
an engine of wholesale corruption, and
has been justly lmpeached for high
crimes and misdemeanors, and properly
guilty thereof by the votes of thirty-five
Senators.
9. The doctrine of Great Britain and
other European powers that because n
man is once subject he is always so,
must be resisted at every hazard by the
United States, as relic of feudal time
not authorized by the law of nations,
and at war with our national honor and
independence. Naturalized citizens
ought to be protected in all their rights
of citizenship, as though they were nat
ural 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 ii so arrest
ed and imprisoned, it is the duty of the
Government to interfere in his behalf.
10. OF all who were faithful in the
trials of the late civil war there none
entitled to more especial honor than the
brave soldiers and seamen who endured
the hardships of campaign and cruise,
and imperiled their lives in the services
of their country. The bounties and
pensions provided by law for those
brave defenders of the nation are obi
cations never to be forgotten. The
widows and orphans of the gallant dead
are the wards of the nation-a sacred
legacy bequeathed to the nations pro
tecting care.
H. Foreign emigration, which, in the
past, has added so much to the wealth,
development of resources and increase
of power to this nation, the asylum OF
the oppressed of all nations, should be
fostered and encouraged by a liberal
and just policy.
10. This convention declares its sym
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