Conspectus of the History of Political Parties and the Federal Government/1880 Democratic Party Platform
Democratic Platform, Cincinnati, Ohio, June 22.
The Democrats of the United States, in convention assembled, declare:
First. We pledge ourselves anew to the constitutional doctrines and traditions of the Democratic party, as illustrated by the teachings and examples of a long line of Democratic statesmen and patriots, and embodied in the platform of the last national convention of the party.
Second. Opposition to centralization, and to that dangerous spirit of encroachment which tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism; no sumptuary laws; separation of the church and state for the good of each; common schools fostered and protected.
Third. Home rule; honest money, consisting of gold and silver, and paper, convertible into coin on demand; the strict maintenance of the public faith, state and national; and a tariff for revenue only; the subordination of the military to the civil power; and a general and thorough reform of the civil service.
Fourth. The right to a free ballot is a right preservative of all rights; and must and shall be maintained in every part of the United States.
Fifth. The existing administration is the representative of conspiracy only; and its claim of right to surround the ballot-boxes with troops and deputy marshals, to intimidate and obstruct the elections, and the unprecedented use of the veto to maintain its corrupt and despotic power, insults the people and imperils their institutions. We execrate the course of this administration in making places in the civil service a reward for political crime; and demand a reform, by statute, which shall make it forever impossible for a defeated candidate to bribe his way to the seat of a usurper by billeting villains upon the people.
Sixth. The great fraud of 1876–7, by which, upon a false count of the electoral voles of two states, the candidate defeated at the polls was declared to be President, and, for the first time in American history, the will of the people was set aside under a threat of military violence, struck a deadly blow at our system of representative government. The Democratic party, to preserve the country from the horrors of a civil war, submitted for the time, in the firm and patriotic belief that the people would punish the crime in 1880. This issue precedes and dwarfs every other. It imposes a more sacred duty upon the people of the Union than ever addressed the consciences of a nation of freemen.
Seventh. The resolution of Samuel J. Tilden, not again to be a candidate for the exalted place to which he was elected by a majority of his countrymen, and from which he was excluded by the leaders of the Republican party, is received by the Democrats of the United States with deep sensibility; and they declare their confidence in his wisdom, patriotism, and integrity unshaken by the assaults of the common enemy; and they further assure him that he is followed into the retirement he has chosen for himself by the sympathy and respect of his fellow-citizens, who regard him as one who, by elevating the standard of the public morality, and adorning and purifying the public service, merits the lasting gratitude of his country and his party.
Eighth. Free ships, and a living chance for American commerce upon the seas; and on the land, no discrimination in favor of transportation lines, corporations, or monopolies.
Ninth. Amendments of the Burlingame treaty; no more Chinese immigration, except for travel, education, and foreign commerce, and, therein, carefully guarded.
Tenth. Public money and public credit for public purposes solely, and public land for actual settlers.
Eleventh. The Democratic party is the friend of labor and the laboring man, and pledges itself to protect him alike against the cormorants and the commune.
Twelfth. We congratulate the country upon the honesty and thrift of a Democratic Congress, which has reduced the public expenditure $10,000,000 a year; upon the continuation of prosperity at home and the national honor abroad; and, above all, upon the promise of such a change in the administration of the government as shall insure a genuine and lasting reform in every department of the public service.