esty, capacity, and fidelity constitute the only valid claims to public employment; that the offices of the government cease to be a matter of arbitrary favoritism and patronage, and that public station shall become again a post of honor. To this end it is imperatively required that no President shall be a candidate for re-election.

Seventh- We demand a system of Federal taxation which shall not unnecessarily interfere with the industry of the people, and which shall provide the means necessary to pay the expenses of the Government, economically administered, the pensions, the interest on the public debt, and a moderate annual reduction of the principal thereof; and, recognizing that there are in our midst honest but irreconcilable differences of opinion with regard to the respective systems of protection and free trade, we remit the discussion of the subject to the people in their Congressional Districts, and to the decision of Congress thereon, wholly free from executive interference or dictation.

Eighth-The public credit must be sacredly maintained, and we denounce repudiation in every form and guise.

Ninth

A speedy return to specie payments is demanded alike by the highest considerations of commercial morality and honest government.

Tenth

We remember with gratitude the heroism and sacrifices of the soldiers and sailors of the Republic, and no act of ours shall ever detract from their justly-earned fame, or the full rewards of their patriotism.

Eleventh We are opposed to all further grants of land to railroads, or other corporations. The public domain should be held sacred to actual settlers.

Twelfth — We hold that it is the duty of the Government, in its intercourse with foreign nations, to cultivate the friendships of peace, by treating with all on fair and equal terms, regarding it alike dishonorable either to demand what is not right, or submit to what is wrong.

Thirteenth- For the promotion and success of these vital principles, and the support of the candidates nominated by this Convention, we invite and cordially welcome the co-operation of all patriotic citizens, without regard to previous affiliations.

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NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENCY.

543

The Leading candidates for the nomination were Charles Francis Adams of Massachusetts, Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, David Davis of Illinois, Horace Greeley of New York, B. Gratz Brown of Missouri, and Andrew G. Curtin of Pennsylvania.

Beside these, Charles Sumner and Judge Chase were occasionally spoken of, and were the first choice of some delegates. The whole number of delegates was seven hundred and fourteen, and hence three hundred and fifty-eight votes were necessary to a choice. The first ballot resulted as follows:

As soon as this result was announced, and even before it was announced, so many changes of votes took place, that the result was no longer doubtful. The Chairman, Hon. Carl Schurz, announced the following:

Necessary to a choice
Greeley

Adams

358

482

187

The Chairman accordingly declared that Mr. Greeley was the nominee of the Convention. The choice of a candidate for the Vice-Presidency being next in order, B. Gratz Brown of Missouri was nominated upon the second ballot.

Upon receiving the news of his nomination, Mr. Greeley sent the following telegram to Mr. Whitelaw Reid:

To Whitelaw Reid, Cincinnati: :

NEW YORK, May 3.

Tender my grateful acknowledgments to the members of the Convention for the generous confidence they have shown me, and assure them I shall endeavor to deserve it.

HORACE GREELEY.

NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENCY.

545

The official notification was immediately made by letter to Mr Greeley, who did not at once formally respond. His acknowledgment and acceptance finally appeared in the morning papers of May 22. The whole correspondence was as follows: :

CINCINNATI, OHIO, May 3, 1872.

DEAR SIR, The National Convention of the Liberal Republicans of the United States have instructed the undersigned, President, Vice-President, and Secretaries of the Convention, to inform you that you have been nominated as the candidate of the Liberal Republicans for the Presidency of the United States. We also submit to you the Address and Resolutions unanimously adopted by the Convention.

Be pleased to signify to us your acceptance of the platform and the nomination, and believe us, very truly yours,

GENTLEMEN,I have chosen not to acknowledge your letter of the 3d inst. until I could learn how the work of your Convention was received in all parts of our great country, and judge whether that work was approved and ratified by the mass of our fellow-citizens. Their response has from day to day reached me through telegrams, letters, and the comments of journalists independent of official patronage, and indifferent to the smiles or frowns of power. The number and character of these unconstrained, unpurchased, unsolicited utterances, satisfy me that the movement which found expression at Cincinnati has received the stamp of public approval, and been hailed by a majority of our countrymen as the harbinger of a better day for the Republic.

I do not misinterpret this approval as especially complimentary to myself, nor even to the chivalrous and justly-esteemed gentle

man with whose name I thank your Convention for associating
mine. I receive and welcome it as a spontaneous and deserved
tribute to that admirable platform of principles wherein your
Convention so tersely, so lucidly, so forcibly, set forth the convic-
tions which impelled, and the purposes which guided, its course,
a platform which, casting behind it the wreck and rubbish of
worn-out contentions and by-gone feuds, embodies in fit and few
words the needs and aspirations of to-day. Though thousands
stand ready to condemn your every act, hardly a syllable of criti-
cism or cavil has been aimed at your platform, of which the sub-
stance may be fairly epitomized as follows:

"First All the political rights and franchises which have been acquired through our late bloody convulsion must ar1 shall be guaranteed, maintained, enjoyed, respected, evermore.

"Second- All the political rights and franchises which have been lost through that convulsion should and must be promptly restored and re-established, so that there shall be henceforth no proscribed class and no disfranchised caste within the limits of our Union, whose long-estranged people shall re-unite and fraternize upon the broad basis of universal amnesty with impartial suffrage.

"Third

That, subject to our solemn constitutional obligation to maintain the equal rights of all citizens, our policy should aim at local self-government, and not at centralization; that the civil authority should be supreme over the military; that the writ of habeas corpus should be jealously upheld as the safeguard of personal freedom; that the individual citizen should enjoy the largest liberty consistent with public order, and that there shall be no Federal subversion of the internal polity of the several States and municipalities, but that each shall be left free to enforce the rights and promote the well-being of its inhabitants by such means as the judgment of its own people shall prescribe.

"Fourth There shall be a real and not merely a simulated reform in the civil service of the Republic, to which end it is indispensable that the chief dispenser of its vast official patronage shall be shielded from the main temptation to use his power selfishly by a rule inexorably forbidding and precluding his reelection.

66

“Fifth — That the raising of revenue, whether by tariff or

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