Year: 1876

GEETLEMEN-When had the honor to
receive the personal delivery of your let
ter on behalf of the Democratic National
Convention, held on the 2Sth of June, at
st. Louis, advising me of my nomination
as the candidate of a constituency repre-
sented by that body for the office Of
President of the United States, i an
swered that at my earliest convenience,
and in conformity with usage, ! would
prepare and transmit to you a formal ac-
ceptance. | now avail myself of the first
interval in unavoidable occupations to
fulfill that engagement.


THE PLATFORM.


The Convention, before making its
nominations, adopted q declaration of
principles which, as a whole. seems to
me a wise exposition of the necessities
of our country, and of reforms needed to
bring back the Government to its true
functions, and to restore purity of ad-
ministration, and to renew the prosperi-
ty of the people. But some of these re-
forms are so urgent that they claim more
than a passing approval. The necessity
of a reform in the scale of public ex-
pense, Federal. State, and municipal, and
in the modes of Federal taxation, justifies
all the prominence given to it in the dec
laration of the st. Louis Convention
The present depression in all the busl-
ness and industries of the people, which
is depriving labor of its employment, and
carrying want into so many homes, has
its principal cause in excessive Govern
mental consumption under illusions of a
specious prosperity. Engendered by
false politics of the Federal Government,
waste of capital has been going on ever
since the peace of 1865, which could only
end in universal disaster. The Federal
taxes of the last eleven years reached
the gigantic sum of "a 500, 100000 Local
taxation has amounted to two-thirds as
much more. The vast aggregate is not
less than s.. 500, 600, 900. This enormous
taxation followed civil conflict that had
greatly impaired our aggregate wealth,
and had made a prompt reduction of ex.
by most unscientifc and ill-adiusted
methods of taxation that increased the
sacrifices of the people far beyond the
receipts of the Treasury. 1t was aggra-
vated, moreover, by financial policy
which tended to diminish the energy,
skill and economy of production and fru-
gality of private consumption, and in
duced miscalculation in business and in
remunerative use of capital and labor.
Even in prosperous times the daily wants
of industrious communities press closely
upon their daily earnings The margin
Of possible national savings is at least a
small percentage of the national earn
ings; yet now, for these ten years, the
Governmental consumption has been q
larger portion of the national earnings
than the whole people can possibly save
in prosperous times for all new invest
ments. The consequences of these er-
rors are now a present public calamity.
But they were never doubtful, never in
visible. They were necessary and inev-
liable, and were foreseen and depicted
when the waves of that fictitious pros
perity ran highest. In a speech made by
me on the oath OF September, 1865, it was
said of these taxes


They bear heavily upon every man. 5
income; upon every industry and every
business in the country, and year by year
they are destined to press still more
heavily unless we arrest the system that
gives rise to them. 1t was comparatively
easy when values were doubling, under
repeated issues of legal tender paper
money, to pay out OF the growth OF our
growing and apparent wealth these taxes,
but when values recede and sink toward
their natural scale, the tax gatherer
takes from us not only our profits but
also portion of our capital. | do not
wish to exaggerate or alarm-I simply
say that we cannot afford the costly and
ruinous policy of the Radical majority of
Congress. We can not afford that policy
toward the South. We cannot afford the
magnificent and oppressive centralization
into which our Government is being con-
verted. We can not afford the present
magnificent scale of taxation" TO the
Secretary of the Treasury / said, early in
1865: There is no royal road for Gov.
ernment more than for an individual OF
O corporation. What you want to dc
now is to cut down your expenses and
live within your income" l would give
up all the legerdemain of finance and Fl


nanciering; / would give the whole of il
for the old, homely maxim: Live With


in your income" This reform will b,
resisted at every step. but it must b,
J pressed persistently. We see, to-day
the immediate representatives of tn,
} people in one branch of Congress, Will,


struggling to reduce expenditures, com
pelled to confront the menace Of tn,