1868 Republican Party The convention of this year was officially called the National Union Republican convention. Held in Chicago, May 20-21, 1868; temporary chairman, Carl Schurz, of Missouri; permanent chairman, Joseph R. Hawley, of Connecticut. By unanimous vote (650) Ulysses S. Grant, of Illinois, was nominated for President. Five ballots were taken for Vice-President. On the first four ballots Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio, was in the lead. The fifth ballot resulted in the nomination of Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, the vote being: Colfax, 541; Reuben E. Fenton, of New York, 69; Wade, 38. Platform: "The National Union Republican party of the United States, assembled in national convention in the city of Chicago on the 21st day of May, 1868, make the following declaration of principles: "1. We congratulate the country on the assured success of the reconstruction policy of Congress, as evinced by the adoption, in a majority of the States lately in rebellion, of Constitutions securing equal civil and political rights to all; and regard it as the duty of the government to sustain those Constitutions and to prevent the people of such States from being remitted to a state of anarchy or military rule. "2. The guarantee by Congress of equal suffrage to all loyal men at the south was demanded by every consideration of public safety, HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK of gratitude, and of justice, and must be maintained; while the question of suffrage in all the loyal States properly belongs to the people of those States. "3. We denounce all forms of repudiation as a national crime; and national honor requires the payment of the public indebtedness in the utmost good faith to all creditors at home and abroad, not only according to the letter but the spirit of the laws under which it was contracted. "4. It is due to the labor of the nation that taxation should be equalized and reduced as rapidly as national faith will permit. "5. The national debt, contracted as it has been for the preservation of the Union for all time to come, should be extended over a fair period for redemption; and it is the duty of Congress to reduce the rate of interest thereon whenever it can be honestly done. "6. That the best policy to diminish our burden of debt is to so improve our credit that capitalists will seek to loan us money at lower rates of interest than we now pay and must continue to pay so long as repudiation, partial or total, open or covert, is threatened or suspected. "7. The government of the United States should be administered with the strictest economy; and the corruptions which have been so shamefully nursed and fostered by Andrew Johnson call loudly for radical reform. "8. We profoundly deplore the untimely and tragic death of Abraham Lincoln, and regret the accession to the Presidency of Andrew Johnson, who has acted treacherously to the people who elected him and the cause he was pledged to support; has usurped high legislative and judicial functions; has refused to execute the laws; has used his high office to induce other officers to ignore and violate the laws; has employed his Executive powers to render insecure the property, peace, liberty, and life of the citizen; has abused the pardoning power; has denounced the national legislature as unconstitutional; has persistently and corruptly resisted, by every means in his power, every proper attempt at the reconstruction of the States lately in rebellion; has perverted the public patronage into an engine of whole sale corruption; and has been justly impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors and properly pronounced guilty thereof by the votes of thirty-five Senators. "9. The doctrine of Great Britain and other European powers, that because a man is once a subject he is always so, must be resisted at every hazard by the United States as a relic of the feudal times not authorized by the law of nations and at war with our national honor and independence. Naturalized citizens are entitled to protection in all their rights of citizenship as though they were nativeborn; and no citizen of the United States, native or naturalized, must be liable to arrest and imprisonment by any foreign power for acts done or words spoken in this country; and, if so arrested and imprisoned, it is the duty of the government to interfere in his behalf. "10. Of all who were faithful in the trials of the late war there were none entitled to more especial honor than the brave soldiers and seamen who endured the hardships of campaign and cruise and imperiled their lives in the service of the country; the bounties and pensions provided by the laws for these brave defenders of the nation are obligations never to be forgotten. The widows and orphans of the gallant dead are wards of the people-a sacred legacy bequeathed to the nation's protecting care. "11. Foreign immigration, which in the past has added so much to the wealth, development of resources, and increase of power of this nation-the asylum of the oppressed of all nations-should be fostered and encouraged by a liberal and just policy. "12. This convention declares its sympathy with all oppressed people struggling for their rights. "13. That we highly commend the spirit of magnanimity and forgiveness with which the men who have served in the rebellion, but now frankly and honestly coöperate with us in restoring the peace of the country and reconstructing the southern State governments upon the basis of impartial justice and equal rights, are received back into the communion of the loyal people; and we favor the removal of the disqualifications and restrictions imposed upon the late rebels in the same measure as the spirit of disloyalty will die out, and as may be consistent with the safety of the loyal people. HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK "14. That we recognize the great principles laid down in the immortal Declaration of Independence as the true foundation of democratic government; and we hail with gladness every effort toward making these principles a living reality on every inch of American soil." Democratic Party Convention held in New York, July 4-9, 1868; temporary chairman, Henry L. Palmer, of Wisconsin; permanent chairman, Horatio Seymour, of New York. There was some discussion about the two-thirds rule, which was retained. Pen Twenty-two ballots were taken for President. The leading candidate at the beginning was George H. Pendleton, of Ohio, who received 105 on the first ballot and made gains until, on the eighth, he had 1561⁄2; his vote then declined, falling to 561⁄2 on the eighteenth, and on the nineteenth his name was withdrawn. dleton's chief competitor on the first ballot was President Andrew Johnson, with 65 votes; but the support given Johnson was mostly complimentary and soon became negligible. Two other candidates, Winfield S. Hancock, of Pennsylvania, and Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana, developed considerable strength as the balloting progressed. But no one who had been voted for from the start received at any time a majority. On the fourth ballot 9 votes were cast for Horatio Seymour, the chairman of the convention. He emphatically protested against the introduction of his name and was not again voted for until the twentysecond ballot was being taken, when Ohio led a stampede to him and he was nominated unanimously. Francis P. Blair, Jr., of Missouri, was nominated for Vice-President by unanimous vote. Platform: "The Democratic party, in national convention assembled, reposing its trust in the intelligence, patriotism, and discriminating justice of the people, standing upon the Constitution as the foundation and limitation of the powers of the government and the guarantee of the liberties of the citizen; and recognizing the questions of slavery and secession as having been settled for all time to come by the war, or the voluntary action of the southern States in Constitutional conventions assembled, and never to be renewed or reagitated, does, with the return of peace, demand:— "1. Immediate restoration of all the States to their rights in the Union under the Constitution, and of civil government to the American people. "2. Amnesty for all past political offenses, and the regulation of the elective franchise in the States by their citizens. "3. Payment of the public debt of the United States as rapidly as practicable: all moneys drawn from the people by taxation, except so much as is requisite for the necessities of the government, economically administered, being honestly applied to such payment; and where the obligations of the government do not expressly state upon their face, or the law under which they were issued does not provide, that they shall be paid in coin, they ought, in right and in justice, to be paid in the lawful money of the United States. "4. Equal taxation of every species of property according to its real value, including government bonds and other public securities. "5. One currency for the government and the people, the laborer and the office-holder, the pensioner and the soldier, the producer and the bondholder. "6. Economy in the administration of the government; the reduction of the standing army and navy; the abolition of the Freedman's Bureau and all political instrumentalities designed to secure negro supremacy; simplification of the system and discontinuance of inquisitorial modes of assessing and collecting internal revenue, so |