Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1872-05-23


jority Of our countrymen as the harbinser ~
a better day for the republic. do not mis-.
interpret this approval as especially compli.
mentary to myself, nor even to the chiysi.
rous and justly esteemed gentleman with
whose name thank your convention for AZ.
sociating mine. receive and welcome il as
q spontaneous and deserved tribute to that
q lmirable platform of principles wherein
your convention so tersely, 90 lucidly, 10
forcibly set forth the convictions which i'm
PEELED and the purposes which guided its
course--a platform which, casting behind il
the wreck and rubbish Of WORKOUT conten-
tons and bygone feuds, embodies in ct and
few words the needs and aspirations cf to.
day. Though thousands stand ready to con-
denim your every act, hardly a syllable of
criticism or cavil has been aimed at your
platform, of which the substance may be
fairly epitomized as follows:
First-All the political rights and fran
chises which have been acquired through our
late bloody CONFUSION must and shall be
guaranteed, maintained, enjoyed and re-
spected evermore.
Second-All the political rights and fran
chises which have been lost through that
CONFUSION should and must be promptly re.
stored and re-established, so that there shall
he henceforth no prescribed class and no
disfranchised class within the limits of our
Union, whose long estranged people shall
reunlte and fraterniZe upon the broad basis
OF universal amnesty with impartial suf
frage.
Ihird-That, subject to our constitutional
obligation to maintain the equal rights of all
citizens, our policy should aim at self gov
eminent and not at Capitalization; that the
civil authority should be supreme over the
military; that the writ of habeas corpus
should be jealousy upheld as the safeguard
OF personal freedom; that the individual
citizen should enjoy the largest liberty con-
sistent with public order, and that there shall
be no federal subversion Of the internal polity
of the several States and municipalities, but
that each shall he left free to enforce the
rights and promote the we'll being Of its in
habitants by such means as the judgment Of
its own people shall prescribe.
Fourth-There shall be real and not
merely simulated reform in the civil ser
vice of the republic. to which end it is in
dispensable that the chief dispenser of its
vast official patronage shall be shielded from
the main temptation to use his power selfshly
by rule inexoraby forbidding and preclud-
ing election.
Fifth-That the raising of revenues,
whether by tariff or otherwise, shall be rec
ognized and treated as the peoples immediate
business. to be shaped and directed by them
through their representatives in Congress,
whose action thereon the President must
neither override by his veto, attempt to die
tate nor presume to punish by bestowing
office only on those who agree with him, or
Withdrawing il from those who do not.
SXth-Ihat the public lands must be sa-
credly reserved for occupation and acquisi-
ton 10y cultiyators, and not recklessly squan-
dered on the projectors of railroads for which
our people have no present need, and the
remature construction of which is annually
plungingus into deeper and deeper abysses
OF foreign Indebtedness.
Seventh-That the achievement of these
grand purposes of universal benefcence is ex-
peeted and sought at the hands of all who ap-
prove of past affiliations.
Eighth-That the public faith must at all
hazards be maintained and the national credit
preserved.
Ninth-That the patriotic devotedness and
inestimable services of our fellow citizens
who as soldiers or sailors upheld the flag and
maintained the unity of the republic, shall
ever be gratefully remembered and honorably
requted.
These propositions so ably and forcibly pre-
scented on the platform of your convention
have already fixed the attention and COM
manded the assent Of a large majority of our
countrymen, who joyfully adopt them as do,
as the. basis of true, beneficient national re-
construction of a new departure from jeal.
ouses, strifes and hates, which have no long
er adequate motive or even plausible pretext,
into an atmosphere of peace, fraternity and
mutual good will. In vain do the drill SER
geants of decayng organizations flourish
menacingly their truncheons and angrily in
sist that the files shall be closed and straight
ened. In vain do the whippers-in of parties
once vital, becase rooted in the vital needs of
the hour, protest against straying and boiling
denounce men nowise their interiors as trait
ors and renegades, and threaten them with in
fanny and ruin. | am confident that the Amer
lean people have already made your cause
their own, fully resolved that their brave
hearts and strong arms shall bear it on to
triumph. In this fact, and with the distinct
understanding that if elected, shall be the
President, not of a party, but of the whole
people, accept your nomination in the con-
tident trust that the masses of our country
men north and south are eager to clasp hands
across the bloody chasm which has SO long
divided them, forgetting that they have been
enemies in the joyful consciousness that they
are and must henceforth remain brethren.
Yours gratefully,
HORACE GREELEY.