Democratic Platform.

1. Resolved, That the American Democracy place their trust in the intelligence, the patriotism and the discriminating justice of the American people.

2. Resolved, That we regard this as a distinctive feature of our political creed, which we are proud to maintain before the world as the great moral element in a form of government, springing from and upheld by the popular will; and contrast it with the creed and practice of Federalism, under whatever name or form, which seeks to palsy the will of the constituent, and which conceives no imposture too monstrous for the popular credulity.

3. Resolved, Therefore, that entertaining these views, the Democratic party of this Union, through the delegates assembled in general conventions of the States coming together in a spirit of concord of devotion to the doctrines and faith of a free representative government, and appealing to their fellow-citizens for the rectitude of their intentions, renew and reassert before the American people, the declaration of principles avowed by them on a former occasion, when in general convention they presented their candidates for the popular suffrage.

Resolutions 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the platform of 1840 were reaffirmed.

8. Resolved, That it is the duty of every branch of the Government to enforce and practice the most rigid economy in conducting our public affairs, and that no more revenue ought to be raised than is required to defray the necessary expenses of the Government and for the gradual but certain extinction of the debt created by the prosecution of a just and necessary

war.

Resolution 5 of the platform of 1840 was enlarged by the following:

And that the result of Democratic legislation in this and all other financial measures upon which issues have been made between the two political parties of the country have demonstrated to careful and practical men of all parties, their soundness, safety and utility in all business pursuits.

Resolutions 7, 8 and 9 of the platform of 1840 were here inserted.

13. Resolved, That the proceeds of the public lands ought to be sacredly applied to the National objects specified in the Constitution; and that we are opposed to any law for the distribution of such proceeds among the States as alike inexpedient in policy and repugnant to the Constitution.

14. Resolved, That we are decidedly opposed to taking from the President the qualified veto power by which he is enabled, under restrictions and responsibilities amply sufficient to guard

the public interests, to suspend the passage of a bill whose merits cannot secure the approval of two-thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives until the judgment of the people can be obtained thereon, and which has saved the American people from the corrupt and tyrannical domination of the Bank of the United States, and from a corrupting system of general internal improvements.

15. Resolved, That the war with Mexico, provoked on her part by years of insult and injury, was commenced by her army crossing the Rio Grande, attacking the American troops, and invading our sister State of Texas, and upon all the principles of patriotism and the laws of nations, it is a just and necessary war on our part, in which every American citizen should have shown himself on the side of his country, and neither morally nor physically by word or by deed, have given "aid and comfort to the enemy."

16. Resolved, That we would be rejoiced at the assurance of peace with Mexico, founded on the just principles of indemnity for the past and security for the future; but that while the ratification of the liberal treaty offered to Mexico remains in doubt it is the duty of the country to sustain the administration and to sustain the country in every measure necessary to provide for the vigorous prosecution of the war, should that treaty be rejected.

17. Resolved, That the officers and soldiers who have carried the arms of their country into Mexico, have crowned it with imperishable glory. Their unconquerable courage, their daring enterprise, their unfaltering perseverance and fortitude when assailed on all sides by innumerable foes and that more formidable enemy -the diseases of the climate-exalt their devoted patriotism into the highest heroism, and give them a right to the profound gratitude of their country, and the admiration of the world.

18. Resolved, That the Democratic national convention of thirty States composing the American Republic, tender their fraternal congratulations to the national convention of the Republic of France, now assembled as the free suffrage representative of the severeignty of thirty-five millions of republicans, to establish government on those eternal principles of equal rights, for which their La Fayette and our Washington fought side by side in the struggle for our national independence; and we would especially convey to them, and to the whole people of France, our earnest wishes for the consolidation of their liberties, through the wisdom that shall guide their councils, on the basis of a democratic Constitution, not derived from the grants or concessions of kings or dynasties, but originating from the only true source of political power recognized in the States of this Union

the inherent and inalienable right of the people in their sovereign capacity to make and to amend their forms of government in such manner as the welfare of the community may require.

19. Resolved, That in view of the recent development of this grand political truth, of the sovereignty of the people and their capacity and power of self-government, which is prostrating thrones and erecting republics on the ruins of despotism in the Old World, we feel that a high and sacred duty is devolved, with increased responsibility, upon the Democratic party of this country, as the party of the people, to sustain and advance among us Constitutional liberty, equality, and fraternity, by continuing to resist all monopolies and exclusive legislation for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many, and by a vigilant and constant adherence to those principles and compromises of the Constitution, which are broad enough and strong enough to embrace and uphold the Union as it was, the Union as it is, and the Union as it shall be, in the full expansion of the energies and capacity of this great and progressive people.

20. Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be forwarded, through the American minister at Paris, to the national convention of the Republic of France.

21. Resolved, That the fruits of the great political triumph of 1844, which elected James K. Polk and George M. Dallas, President and Vice-President of the United States, have fulfilled the hopes of the Democracy of the Union in defeating the declared purposes of their opponents in creating a national bank; in preventing the corrupt and unconstitutional distribution of the land proceeds from the common treasury of the Union for local purposes; in protecting the currency and labor of the country from ruinous fluctuations, and guarding the money of the country for the use of the people by the establishment of the Constitutional treasury; in the noble impulse given to the cause of free trade by the repeal of the tariff of '42, and the creation of the more equal, honest, and productive tariff of 1846; and that in our opinion, it would be a fatal error to weaken the bands of a political organization by which these great reforms have been achieved, and risk them in the hands of their known adversaries, with whatever delusive appeals they may solicit our surrender of that vigilance which is the only safeguard of liberty.

22. Resolved, That the confidence of the Democracy of the Union in the principles, capacity, firmness and integrity of Jaines K. Polk, manifested by his nomination and election in 1844, has been signally justified by the strictness of his adherence to sound Democratic doctrines, by the purity of purpose, the energy and ability, which have characterized his administration in

all our affairs at home and abroad; that we tender to him our cordial congratulations upon the bril liant success which has hitherto crowned his patriotic efforts, and assure him in advance, that at the expiration of his Presidential term he will carry with him to his retirement the esteem, respect and admiration of a grateful country.

23. Resolved, That this convention hereby present to the people of the United States, Lewis Cass, of Michigan, as the candidate of the Democratic party for the office of President, and William O. Butler, of Kentucky, for Vice-President of the United States.

Whig Resolutions.

1. Resolved, That the Whigs of the United States, here assembled by their representatives, heartily ratify the nomination of General Zachary Taylor as President, and Millard Fillmore as Vice-President of the United States, and pledge themselves to their support.

2. Resolved, That in the choice of General Taylor as the Whig candidate for President, we are glad to discover sympathy with a great popular sentiment throughout the Nation-a sentiment which, having its origin in admiration of great military success, has been strengthened by the development, in every action and every word, of sound conservative opinions, and of true fidelity to the great example of former days, and to the principles of the Constitution as administered by its founders.

3. Resolved, That General Taylor in saying that, had he voted in 1844, he would have voted the Whig ticket, gives us the assurance-and no better is needed from a consistent and truthspeaking man-that his heart was with us at the crisis of our political destiny, when Henry Clay was our candidate, and when not only Whig principles were well defined and clearly asserted, but Whig measures depended on success. heart that was with us then is with us now, and we have a soldier's word of honor, and a life of public and private virtue, as the security.

The

4. Resolved, That we look on General Taylor's administration of the government as one conducive of peace, prosperity and union; of peace, because no one better knows, or has greater reason to deplore, what he has seen sadly on the field of victory, the horrors of war, and especially of a foreign and aggressive war; of prosperity, now more than ever needed to relieve the Nation from a burden of debt, and restore industryagricultural, manufacturing and commercial-to its accustomed and peaceful functions and influences; of union because we have a candidate whose very position as a Southwestern man, reared on the banks of the great stream whose tributaries, natural and artificial, embrace the whole Union, render the protection of the interests of the whole country his first trust, and

whose various duties in past life have been rendered, not on the soil or under the flag of any State or section, but over the wide frontier, and under the broad banner of the Nation.

5. Resolved, That standing, as the Whig party does, on the broad and firm platform of the Constitution, braced up by all its inviolable and sacred guarantees and compromises and cherished in the affections, because protective of the interests of the people, we are proud to have as the exponent of our opinions one who is pledged to construe it by the wise and generous rules which Washington applied to it and who has said-and no Whig desires any other assurancethat he will make Washington's administration his model.

6. Resolved, That, as Whigs and Americans, we are proud to acknowledge our gratitude for the great military services, which, beginning at Palo Alto and ending at Buena Vista, first awakened the American people to a just estimate of him who is now our Whig Candidate. In the discharge of a painful duty-for his march into the enemy's country was a reluctant one; in the command of regulars at one time and volunteers at another and of both combined; in the decisive though punctual discipline of his camp, where all respected and loved him; in the negotiation of terms for a dejected and desperate enemy; in the exigency of actual conflict when the balance was perilously doubtful-we have found him the same-brave, distinguished and considerate, no heartless spectator of bloodshed, no trifler with human life or human happiness; and we do not know which to admire most, his heroism in withstanding the assaults of the enemy in the most hopeless fields of Buena Vista-mourning in general sorrow over the graves of Ringgold, of Clay, of Hardin-or in giving in the heat of battle terms of merciful capitulation to the vanquished foe at Monterey, and not being ashamed to avow that he did it to spare women and children, helpless infancy and more helpless age, against whom no American soldier wars. a military man, whose triumphs are neither remote nor doubtful, whose virtues these trials have tested, we are proud to make our candidate.

Such

7. Resolved, That in support of this nomination we ask our Whig friends throughout the Nation to unite, to co-operate zealously, resolutely, with earnestness, in behalf of our candidate, whom calumny cannot reach, and with respectful demeanor to our adversaries, whose candidates have yet to prove their claims on the gratitude of the Nation.

Buffalo Platform.

WHEREAS, We have assembled in convention as a union of freemen, for the sake of freedom, forgetting all political difference in a common resolve to maintain the rights of free labor

against the aggression of the slave power, and to secure free soil to a free people; and,

WHEREAS, The political conventions recently assembled at Baltimore and Philadelphia-the one stifling the voice of a great constituency, entitled to be heard in its deliberations, and the other abandoning its distinctive principles for mere availability-have dissolved the national party organization heretofore existing, by nominating for the chief magistracy of the United States, under the slaveholding dictation, candidates, neither of whom can be supported by the opponents of slavery extension, without a sacrifice of consistency, duty and self-respect; and,

WHEREAS, These nominations so made, furnish the occasion, and demonstrate the necessity of the union of the people under the banner of free Democracy, in a solemn and formal declaration of their independence of the slave power, and of their fixed determination to rescue the Federal Government from its control: 1. Resolved, Therefore, that we, the people here assembled, remembering the example of our fathers in the days of the first Declaration of Independence, putting our trust in God for the triumph of our cause, and invoking His guidance in our endeavors to advance it, do now plant ourselves upon the national platform of freedom, in opposition to the sectional platform of slavery.

2. Resolved, That slavery in the several States of this Union which recognize its existence, depends upon the State laws alone, which cannot be repealed or modified by the Federal Government, and for which laws that Government is not responsible. We therefore propose no interference by Congress with slavery within the limits of any State.

3. Resolved, That the proviso of Jefferson to prohibit the existence of slavery after 1800 in all the Territories of the United States, Southern and Northern; the votes of six States and sixteen delegates in Congress of 1784, for the proviso, to three States and seven delegates against it; the actual exclusion of slavery from the Northwestern Territory, by the ordinance of 1787, unanimously adopted by the States in Congress; and the entire history of that period, clearly show that it was the settled policy of the Nation not to extend, nationalize or encourage, but to limit, localize and discourage slavery; and to this policy, which should never have been departed from, the Government ought to

return.

4. Resolved, That our fathers ordained the Constitution of the United States, in order, among other great national objects, to establish justice, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty; but expressly denied to the Federal Government which they created, all

Constitutional power to deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due legal pro

cess.

5. Resolved, That in the judgment of this convention, Congress has no more power to make a slave than to make a king; no more power to institute or establish slavery than to institute or establish a monarchy; no such power can be found among those specifically conferred by the Constitution, or derived by just implication from them.

6. Resolved, That it is the duty of the Federal Government to relieve itself from all responsibility for the existence or continuance of slavery wherever the Government possesses Constitutional power to legislate on that subject, and it is thus responsible for its existence.

7. Resolved, That the true, and in the judgment of this convention, the only safe measures of preventing the extension of slavery into the Territory now free, is to prohibit its extension in all such Territory by an act of Congress.

8. Resolved, That we accept the issue which the slave power has forced upon us; and to their demand for more slave States, and more slave territory, our calm but final answer is, No more slave States and no more slave territory. Let the soil of our extensive domains be kept free for the hardy pioneers of our own land, and the oppressed and banished of other lands, seeking homes of comfort and fields of enterprise in the New World.

9. Resolved, That the bill lately reported by the committee of eight in the Senate of the United States, was no compromise, but an absolute surrender of the rights of the non-slaveholders of all the States; and while we rejoice to know that a measure which, while opening the door for the introduction of slavery into the Territories now free, would also have opened the door to litigation and strife among the future inhabitants thereof, to the ruin of their peace and prosperity, was defeated in the House of Representatives, its passage, in hot haste, by a majority embracing several Senators who voted in open violation of the known will of their constituents, should warn the people to see to it that their representatives be not suffered to betray them. There must be no more compromises with slavery; if made, they must be repealed.

10. Resolved, That we demand freedom and established institutions for our brethren in Oregon, now exposed to hardships, peril and massacre, by the reckless hostility of the slave power to the establishment of free government and free territories; and not only for them but for our brethren in California and New Mexico.

11. Resolved, It is due not only to this occasion, but to the whole people of the United States, that we should also declare ourselves on certain other questions of national policy: Therefore,

12. Resolved, That we demand cheap postage for the people; a retrenchment of the expenses and patronage of the Federal Government; the abolition of all unnecessary offices and salaries: and the election by the people of all civil officers in the service of the Government, so far as the same may be practicable.

13. Resolved, That river and harbor improvements, when demanded by the safety and convenience of commerce with foreign nations, or among the several States, are objects of national concern, and that it is the duty of Congress, in the exercise of its Constitutional power, to provide therefor.

14. Resolved, That the free grant to actual settlers, in consideration of the expenses they incur in making settlements in the wilderness, which are usually fully equal to their actual cost, and of the public benefits resulting therefrom, of reasonable portions of the public lands, under suitable limitations, is a wise and just measure of public policy, which will promote in various ways the interest of all the States of this Union; and we, therefore, recommend it to the favorable consideration of the American people.

15. Resolved, That the obligations of honor and patriotism require the earliest practical payment of the national debt; and we are, therefore, in favor of such a tariff of duties as will raise revenue adequate to defray the expenses of the Federal Government, and to pay annual installments of our debt and the interest thereon.

16. Resolved, That we inscribe on our banner "Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor and Free Men," and under it we will fight on, and fight ever until a triumphant victory shall reward our exertions.

IN 1852.

There was little notable change in 1852 from the attitude of the parties to the issues of the day four years previous. The Democratic National Convention at Baltimore June 1, 1852, adopted a platform framed on the principle of strict construction. The Whig convention, which met in the same city June 16, adhered to the liberal ideas of its party and adopted a loose constructionist platform. The Free Soil Democrats met in convention in Pittsburgh August 11 of the same year and presented their principles formulated in the customary platform.

Democratic Platform.

Resolutions, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 of the platform of 1848 were reaffirmed, to which were added the following: