Year: 1868




Gen. George W Morgan, Chairman Committee
National Democratic Conuention:


| GENERAL:-I take the earliest opportunity OF


replying to your letter, notifying me of my nomi-


nation for Vice President of the United States


by the National Democratic Convention, recently
| held in the city of New York.


L accept without hesitation the nomination ten


dered in a manner SO gratifying, and give you


and the committee my thanks for the very kind
| and complimentary language in which you have
conveyed to me the decision of the Convention
have carefully read the resolutions adopted
| by the Convention. and most cordially concur in
| every principle and sentiment they announce.
| My opinion upon all of the questions which
discriminate the great contending parties have
been freely expressed on all suitable occasions,
| and [ do not deem it necessary at this time to
reiterate them.
The issues upon which the contest turns are


clear and cannot be obscured or distorted by
the sophistries of our adversaries. They all re-
solve themselves into the old and ever-renewing


struggle of few men to absorb the political


power of the nation. This effort, under every
| conceivable name and disguise, has always char


acterized the opponents of the Democratic party


but at no time has the attempt assumed shape
| SO open and daring as in this contest. The ad-
| versaries of free and constitutional government,
in defiance of the express language of the Con-


stitution, have erected military despotism in
ten of the States of the Union. have taken from
the President the powers vested in him by the
supreme law, and have deprived the Supreme


Court of its Jurisdiction. The right of trial by
jury and the great writ of right, the habeas
corpus-shields of safety for every citizen, and
which have descended to us from the earliest
| traditions of our ancestors, and which our Revo


lutionary fathers sought to secure to their pos
terity forever in the fundamental charter of our
Gberties-have been ruthlessly trampled under
foot by the fragment of a Congress. Whole


States and communities Of people of our own


race have been attainted, convicted, condemned


and deprived of their rights as citizens, without
presentment or trial, or witnesses, but by Con-
gressional enactment of er post .facto laws and


in defiance of the constitutional prohibition deny
ing even to full and legal Congress the au-
thority to pass any bill Of attainder or er post


facto law. The same usurping authority has


substituted as electors in place Of the men of our


own race, thus illegally attanted and disfran-
chised, a host of ignorant negroes, who are sup


ported in idleness with the public money, and


combined together to strip the white race of their


birthright, through the management of Freed


mems Bureaus and the emissarles of conspiratOrs


in other States; and, to complete the oppression,
| the military power of the nation has been placed


at their disposal, in order to make this barbarism
supreme.


The military leader under whose prestige this
| usurping Congress has taken refuge since the
condemnation of their schemes by the free peo-
pie Of the North in the elections of the last year.


and whom they have selected as their candidate
to shield themselves from the result Of their own
| wickedness and crime, has announced his accep-
IL,


maintain their usurpations over eight million of
| white people at the South, fixed to the earth
with his bayonets. He exclaims, "Let us have
peace" Peace reigns in Warsaw" was the an
| nouncement which heralded the doom of the
| liberties of nation. THE Empire is peace"
exclaimed Bonaparte, when free 1om and its de-
tenders expired under the sharp edge of his
sword. The peace to which Grant invites US is
the peace of despotism and death.


Those who seek to restore the Constitution by
| executing the will of the people condemning the
reconstruction acts, already pronounced in the
elections Of last year, and which will, am con-
| vinced, be still more emphatically expressed by
the election of the Democratic candidate as the
President Of the United States, are denounced


as revolutionists by the partizans Of this vindc-
tive Congress. Negro suffrage, which the pop
ular vote of New York, New jersey Pennsyl-
yania, Ohio, Michigan, Connecticut, and other
States have condemned as expressly against the
letter of the Constitution, must stand, because
| their Senators and Representatives have wlled
it. If the people shall again condemn these
atrocious measures by the election of the Demo-
cratic candidate for President, they must not be


disturbed, although decided to be unconstitutional
by the Supreme Court, and although the Presi-
dent is sworn to maintain and support the Con
stitutiOn. The will Of fraction Of Congress-
reinforced with its partisan emssares sent to the
South and supported there by the soldiery. must
stand against the will of the people and the de-
csion of the Supreme Court, and the solemn oath
of the President to maintain and support the
Constitution


1t is revolutionary to execute the will Of the


people! 1t is revolutionary to execute tie judg-


ment of the Supreme Court. 1t is revolutionary


in the President to keep inviolate his oath to


sustain the Constitution! This false construc-
ton Of the vital principle of our Government is
the last resort Of those who would have their
arbitrary reconstruction sway and supersedes our
time-honored institutions. The nation will say
the Constitution must be restored, and the VII
of the people again prevail. The appeal to the


peaceful ballot to attain this end is not war, Is
not revolution. They make war and revolution
who attempt to arrest this quiet mode Of putting
aside military dcspotism and the usurpations of
a fragment Of Congress, asserting absolute


power over that benign system of regulated
liberty left us by our fathers. This must be
allowed to take its course This is the only road
to peace 1t will come with the election of the
Democratic candidate, and not with the election
Of that mailed warrior whose bayonets are now


at the threats Of eight millions Of people in the
South to compel them to support him as can