The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1872-05-23
Six Dollars Per Year. z
Three Cents Per Copy. 4
MIR. GREELEY,S LETTER

til | could learn how the work of you
Convention was received in all parts of ou
great country, and judge whether tina
work was approved and ratified by tn,
mass of our fellow-citizens. Their re
sponse has from day to day reached M
through telegrams, letters, and comments
Of journalists independent of officia
patronage, and Indifferent to the smiles OIL
frowns of power.
''The number and character of these un.
constrained, unpurchased, unsolicited utter.
ances satisfy me that the movement which
| found expression at Cincinnati has received
the stamp of public approval, and has been
hailed by the majority of our countrymen
as the harbinger of better days for the Re-
public. do not misinterpret this approx
al as especially complimentary to myself,
nor even to the chivalrous and justly-es-
teemed gentleman with whose name |
thank your convention for associating mine.
| receive and welcome it as a spon-
taneous and deserved tribute to that admir-
able platform of principles wherein your
Convention so tersely, so lucidly, and so
forcibly set forth, the convictions which
impelled and the purposes which guided its
course-a platform which, casting behind it
the wreck and rubbish of worn-out conten-
tions and by.gone feuds, embodes in fit
and few words the needs and aspirations of
to-day. Though thousands stand ready to
condemn your every act, hardly syllable
of criticism or cavil has been aimed at your
platform, of which the substance may be
fairly epitomized as follows:
81. All the political rights and fran
chises which have been acquired through
our late bloody convulsion must and shall
be guaranteed, maintained, enjoyed, and
respected eyermore.
"2. All the political rights and fran
chises which have been lost through that
convulsion should and must be promptly
restored and reestablished, SO that there
shall be henceforth no prescribed class and
no disfranchised caste within the limits of
our Union, whose long-estranged people
shall Ieunite and fraternize upon the broad
basis OF universal amnesty with impartial
suffrage. ...
''3. That, subject to our solemn consti-
tutional obligation to maintain the equal
rights OF all citizens, our policy should aim
at local self-government, and not at CEN
tralization; and the civil authority should
be supreme over the military that the
writ of ha6eas corpus should be jealously
upheld as the safeguard of personal free
dom; that the individual citizen should
enjoy the largest liberty consistent 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 be left free to enforce the
rights and promote the well-being of its |
inha bitants by such means as the judgment
Of its own people shall prescribe.
81. There shall be real and not merely |
simulated reform in the civil service of the |
Republic, to which end it is indispensable
the chief dispenser of its vast official
patronage shall be shielded from the main
to use his power seltishly by a
rule inexorably forbidding and precluding
his reelection.
"5. That the raising of revenue, whether
by tariff or otherwise, shall be recognized
and treated as the peoples immediate bu-
siness, to be shaped and directed by them
through their representatives in Congress,
whose action thereon the President must
neither oyerrule by his veto, attempt to
dictate, nor presume to punish by be-
slowing office only on those who agree with
him, or withdrawing it from those who do
not.
"6. That the public lands must be
sacredly reserved for acquisition and oc-
,upation by cultiyators, and not recklesslv
'quandered on the projectors of railroads,
or which our people have no present
need, and the premature construction of
which is annually plungng us into deeper
md deeper abysses of foreign indebted
ness.
81. That the achievement of these grand
of universal beneiicence is ex-
,ected and sought at the hands of all who
pprove them, irrespective Of past aflilia-
ions.
"S. That the public faith must at all
lazards be maintained, and the national
redit be preserved.
SO. That the patriotic devotedness and
nestimable services of our fellow-citizens
vho as soldiers or sailors upheld the flag
nd maintained the unity of the Republic
hall ever be gratefully remembered and
onorably requited. II
"These propositions, so ably and forci-
'ly presented in the platform Of your Con-
ention, have already fixed the attention
nd commanded the assent of large ma
ority of our countrymen who ioyfully
dopt them, as do, as the basis of true,
enefcent, national reconstruction--of
ew departure from .jealousies, strifes, and
ates, which have no longer an adequate
lotive, or even plausible pretext, into an {
tmosphere of peace, fraternity, and mutual
In vain do the drill-sergeants Of |
ecaying organizations flourish menacingly {
heir truncheons, and angrily insist that the
lies shall be closed and Strengthened.
'ln vain do the whispers-n of parties
nee vital, because rooted in the vital needs
{ the hour, protest against straying and
olting, denounce men nowise their infe- |
iors as traitors and renegades, and threat
n them with infamy and ruin. am con-
dent that the American people have al
eady made your cause their own, fully re-
olved that their brave hearts and strong
rms shall bear it on to triumph.
In this faith, and with the distinct un-
that if elected shall be the
resident, not of party, but of the whole I
eople, accept your nomination, in the
ontident trust that the masses of our
ountrymen, North and South, are eager to
lasp hands across the bloody chasm which
as too long divided them, forgetting that
hey have been enemies in the joyful con-
ciousness that they are and must hence
orth remain brethren.
Yours, gratefully,
HORACE GREELEY.
To KEEP A BOUQUET A MONTH";
prinkle it with fresh water, then put it
ltO a vessel nontainino cfan-cudc. take