The Evansville journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ind.) 1866-1870, 1868-07-24
Union Republican Platform.

The following is the platform adopt
ed by the Republican Convention, at
Chicago, ON Thursday the 21st day of
May, 1868.
The National Republican party of
the United States, assembled in Ma
tional Convention In the city of Chi
cago, on the 10th day of May, 1868,
make the following declaration of
principles:
i. We congratulate the country on
the assured success of the reconstruc-
ton policy of Congress as evinced by
the adoption, in a majority of the
States lately in rebellion, of Consti-
tutions securing equal civil and polit-
zeal rights to all; and we regard it
as the duty of the Government to sus-
tain those institutions, aud to pre-
vent the people of such States from
being RENTED to a state of anarchy.
2. The guarantee by Congress of
equal suffrage to all loyal men lii the
South was demanded by every con-
sideration of public safety, of graft
tude, and must be maintained; while
the question of suffrage in all the
loyal States properly belongs to the
people of those States.
3. We denounce all ferns of repu-
diation as national crimes, and the
national honor requires the payment
of the public Indebtedness, in the
utmost 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.
4. 1t is due to the labor of the ma
ton that taxation should be equalized
and reduced as rapidly as our nation
al faith will permit.
5. 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 honestly be
done.s .
6. 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 inter
est than we now pay, and must con-
tinue to pay, so long as Reputation,
partial or total, open or covert, is
threatened or suspected.
z. The Government of the United
States should be administered with
the ~strictest economy, and corrup-
lions which have been so shame
fully nursed and fostered by Andrew
johnson, call loudly for radical re-
form.
8. We profoundly deplore the un-
timely and tragic death of Abraham
Lincoln, and regret the accession of
Andrew johnson to the Presidency,
who has acted treacherously to the
people who elected him and the cause
he was pledged to support, has usurp-
ed high legislative and judicial funo-
tons; has refused to execute the
laws; has used his high Office to in
duce other officers to ignore and vio-
late the laws; has employed his ex-
ecutTve powers to render insecure the
property, peace, liberty and life of
the citizens; has abused the pardon
ing power; has denounced the Ma
tional Legislature as unconstitutional;
mas perslstently and corruptly resist
ed, by every measure in his power,
every proper attempt at the recon-
structlon OF the States lately In re-
Delllon has perverted the public pat
ronage into an engine of wholesale
corruption, and has been Justly i'm
peached for high crimes and INSIDE
meanors, and properly pronounced
guilty thereof by the votes of thirty
five Senators.
3. The doctrine of Great Britain
and other European Powers, that be-
cause a man is once a subject he is
always so, must be resisted at every
hazard by the United States. as a
relic of the feudal time. NOT author-
lied by TIE law of nations, and at
war with national honor and in
dependence, naturalized citizens be-
ing entitled to be protected In all
their rights of citizenship, as though
they were natural born; and no citi-
zen ct the United States, natural or
naturalIzed, must be liable to arrest
and imprisonment by any foreign
power, for acts done or words spoken
in this country and ifso arrested and