Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1872-05-24
Hon. HORACE GREELEY, New York.
MIR. Greeley's Reply.

MIR. Greeley's Reply.
NEW YORK, May 20.
Gentlemen: I have chosen not to acknow-
ledge the receipt of your letter of the Sd instant
until could learn how the work of your Con-
vention was received in all parts of our great
country, and judge whether that work was APP
proved and ratified by the mass of our fellow
citizens. Their response has, from day to day,
reached me through kilograms, letters and the
commons of journalists independent of official
patronage and Indifferent to the smiles o.
frowns Of power. The number and character
of these uuconstrained, unpurchased, uusolici-
ted utterances satisfy me that the movement
which found e Jon at Cincinnati has re-
ceived- the ~ gsasessic approval and been
hailed by majority of our countrymen as
the harbinger of better day for the Republic.
do not misinterpret this approval as espe-
cialy complimentary to myself, nor even to
the chivalrous and justly esteemed gentleman
with whose name thank your committee for
associating mine. I receive and welcome it
as a spontaneous and deserved tribute to that
admirable platform of principles wherein your
Convention SO tersely, so lucidly, so forcbly
set forth the convictions which impelled, and
the purposes which guided its course; plat
form which, casting behind it the wreck and
rubbish of WORKOUT contentious and by-gone
feuds, embodies in fit and few words the needs
and aspirations of to-day. Though thousands
stand ready to condemn your every act, hardly
a syllable of criticism or cavi bas been aimed
at your platform, of which the substance may
be fairly epitomized as follows:
First. All the political rights and franchises
which have been acquired through our late
bloody COMMISSIONS must and shall be guaran
teed, maintained, enjoyed. and respected ever
more.
Second. All the political rights and fran
chises which have been lost through that con-
vulsion should and must be promptly restor-
ed and reestablished, so that there shall be
henceforth no prescribed class. and no dis
franchise6 caste within the limits of our Union,
whose long estranged people shall reunite and
fraternze upon the broad basis of universal
amnesty and impartial suffrage.
Third. That, subject to our solemn constitu
tional obligation to maintain the equal rights
of all citizens, our policy should aim at local
self-government, and not at Capitalization ;
that the civil authority should be supreme
over the military that the writ of habeas COR
pus should be jealousy upheld as the safeguard
of personal freedom; that the individual citizen
should enjoy the largest liberty consistent with
public order, and that there shall be no FEEDER
al subversion of the internal polity of the Sc
veral States and municipalities, but that each
shall be left free to enforce the rights and
promote the well-being Of its inhabitants by
such means as the Judgment of its own people
shall prescribe.
Fourth. There shall be real and not mere
ly simulated, reform in the civil service of
the Republic; to which end it is indispensa-
BILE that the chief dispenser of its vast official
patronage shall be shielded from the main
temptation to use his power sel6sbly by rule
forbdding and precluding reelection; that the
raising of revenue, whether by tariff or other
wise, be recognized and treated as the peoples
immediate business, to be shaped and directed
gress, 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 it from those who do not.
Sixth. That the public lands must be sa-
credly reserved for occupation and acquisition
by cultivators, and not recklessly squancered
on the projectors of railroads, for which our
people have no present need, and the prema-
ture construction of which is annually plung-
ing us into deeper and deeper abysses of
foreign Indebtedness.
Seventh. That the achievement of these
purposes of universal benefcence is expected
and sought at the hands of all who approve
them, irrespective of party affiliations.
Eighth. That the public faith must at all
hazards be maintained aud the national credit
Ninth. That the patriotic devo'edness and
services of our fellow-c tizcns,