Year: 1868

veation:


WASHINGTON, May 30, 1865.


Hon. j. r. HaOlsy, President Of tie Ma


tionaL Union Republican Committee:


DEARS1R:-The platform adopted by
the patriotic Convention over which
you presided and the resolutions which
so happily supplement it so entirely
agree with my views as to q just na-
tional policy, that my thanks are due
to the delegates as much for this clear
and auspicious declaration of principles
as for the nomination with which /
have been honored, and which 1 CRATE
fully accept. When great rebellion,
which imperiled the national existence,
was at last overthrow, the duty of all
others develying on those entrusted
with the responsibilities of legislation
evidently was to require that the revol'
ted States should be re-admitted in par
ticipation of the government against
which they had erred, only on such a
basis as to increase and fortify, not to
weaken or endanger, the strength ana
power of the nation. Certainly no one
ought TO have claimed that they
should be re-admitted under such a
rule that their organization as States
could ever again be used as at the ope-
ming of the war, to defy the national
authority or to destroy the national
unity. This principle has been the
pole star of those who have inhexibly
insisted on the Congressional policy
your Convention so cordially endorsed.
Bafied by Executive opposition and
by persistent refusals to accept any
plan of reconstruction proffered by
Congress, Justice and public safety at
last combined to teach US that only by
an enlargement of the suffrage in these
States could the desired end be attain
ed, and that it was even more safe to
give the ballot to those who loved the
Union, than to those who had sought
Intellectually TO destroy 1t. The aisur-
ed success of this legislation is being
written on the adamant of history,and
will be our triumphant vindication.-
More clearly, too, than ever before,
does the nation now recognize that the
greatest glory of republic is that it
throws the shield of its protection over
the humblest and weakest of its people,
and vindicates the rights of the poor
and the powerless as faithfully as those
of the rich and the powerful.


Irejoice, too, in this connection, to
find in your platform the frank and
fearless avoWai, that naturalized citi-
zens must be protected abroad, at
every hazard, rs though they were
native born; our whole people are
foreigners or descendants of foreigners;
our fathers established by arms their
right to be called nation it remains
for US TO establish the right to welcome
to our shores ali who are willing, by
oaths of allegiance, to become Ameri-
can citizens perpetual allegiance as
claimed abroad is only another name
for perpetual bondage, and would
make ali slaves to the soil where first
they saw the light. Our national
cemeteries prove how faithfully these
oaths of fidelity have been sealed in
the life blood of thousands upon thous-
ands. Should we not, then, be faith
less to the dead, if we did not protect
their living brethren, IN the full enjoy
ment of that nationality for which,
side by side with the native born, cur
soldiers of foreign birth laid down their
lives. 1t was fitting, too, that the
representatives Of party, which had
proved so true to the national duty in
time of war, should speak so clearly in
time of peace, for the maintenance un-
tarnished of the national honor, the
national credit and good faith as re-
CARDS its debt-the cost of our national
existence.


| do not need to extend this reply
by further comment on a platform
which has elected such hearty approx
al throughout tie land; the debt of
gratitude it acknowledges to the brave
men who saved the Union from de-
the frank approval of am
nesty based on repentance and loyalty; |
the demand for the most rigid econo-
my in the government; the sympathy |
Of the party of Liberty with all |
throughout the world who long for the |
liberty we here enjoy, and the recogni-
ton Of the sublime principles of the
Declaration of Independence, are
worthy of the organization on whose
banners they are to be written in the
coming contest. Its past record can
not be blotted out or forgotten. II
here had been no Republican partv.