Democratic National Convention

“ If the Democratic leaders would and could call a National Convention, to meet in May and formally throw up the sponge, making no nominations, but simply inviting their followers to find “their own” wherever they could, there would be no difficulty at once in organizing a great reform party, with the best elements of the Republican party as its leaders. ”

“ But we propose to make those business agencies do complete justice to our own people. Every dishonest business man will unquestionably prefer either the programme of the Republican Convention or the programme of the Democratic Convention to our proposal, because neither of these programmes means or can mean what it purports to mean. ”

“ Adopted by the Chicago Convention, July 10th. The Democratic party of the Union through its representatives in the National Convention assembled, recognizes that as the Nation grows older new issues are born, of time and progress, and old issues perish. But the fundamental principles of the Democracy approved by the united voice of the people, remain and will ever remain as the best and only security for the continuance of free government. ”

“ The adopted platform of principles was as follows: "The Republicans of the United States, through their chosen representatives, met in National Convention, looking back upon an unsurpassed record of achievement and looking forward to a great field of duty and opportunity, and appealing to the judgment of their countrymen, make these declarations: "The expectation in which the American people, turning from the Democratic party, intrusted power four years ago to a Republican Chief Magistrate and a Republican Congress, has been met and satisfied. ”

“ Again the clerk calls the roll of the States, and each chairman of a delegation announces the votes from his State. In the Republican convention a majority of the number of delegates voting is sufficient to nominate; but no nomination is possible in the Democratic convention except by a vote of two-thirds of the delegates. Then follows the selection of a candidate for Vice-President. In this choice the attempt is made to secure some man who will add strength to the party, and who comes from a different section of the country from that represented by the candidate for the Presidency. ”

“ No state district can have so few Republicans in it as not to be entitled to a representative in the national Republican convention equal to that of the most unanimously Republican district in the country; and a Republican State is accorded as full a representation in a Democratic convention as is the most Democratic of her sister States.
We had to pass through several stages of development before the present system of election by convention was reached. At the first two presidential elections the electors were left free to vote as their consciences and the Constitution bade them ”

“ 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. ”

“ As it was, the rash action of the Democratic Convention made it reasonably clear from the beginning that the ticket was doomed to defeat. The progress of the canvass strengthened this impression; the Democracy was placed everywhere on the defensive; its own declarations shotted every gun that was aimed against it; and its orators and organs could neither make effective reply nor divert public attention from its fatal commitment.
The Democrats however made a strenuous contest and sought to counterbalance the weakness of their national contest by strong State tickets. In Indiana Mr. ”

“ We became slightly cynical at times, in the way of Americans who talk politics heart-to-heart. The national convention, where there is a thrill in the sonority of the very names of the far-flung commonwealths as they are recited on roll-call, is, on the face of it, a glorious expression of democracy at work. But in actual operation every one knows that a national convention is only nominally representative. The delegates in their appointed places are not free and independent American citizens, assembled, as we would believe, to exercise their best judgment as trustees of the “folks back home.” ”

“ At other times they might absorb our attention. But this time the Republican National Convention has, with brutal directness, so that we must face it whether we will or not, forced upon the country another issue, which is infinitely more important, because it touches the vitality of our institutions. It is the question of honesty in government. I say the Republican Convention has forced it upon the country, not by platform declarations, but by nominating for the Presidency a man with a blemished public record. ”

“ Their venerable president had advised, but in vain, constitutional amendments securing this election to the people, and preventing its falling to the House of Representatives. A national convention was the best means of concentrating the popular will, the only defense against a [Pg 259] minority party. ”

“ Therefore with unspeakable interest will the country watch the National Convention at Philadelphia. It may be an assembly (and such is my hope) where ideas and principles are above all personal pretensions, and the unity of the party is symbolized in the candidate; or it may add another to Presidential rings, being an expansion of the military ring at the Executive Mansion, the senatorial ring in this Chamber, and the political ring in the custom-houses of New York and New Orleans. A National Convention which is a Presidential ring cannot represent the Republican Party. ”

“ But in a Republican National Convention, if any man could be found, North, South, East or West, whose integrity, whose life, and whose avowals rendered him unquestionably safe on these questions, and yet who could yet poll one, two or three hundred thousand votes more than any one else, we believe it would be both wisdom and duty, patriotism and policy, to nominate him by acclamation and thus render the contest an assured success from its very opening. ”

“ I firmly believe that there will be some right-minded Democrats at the convention next week, just as there are many rank and file Democratic voters across the country who agree. But sadly, the leaders in charge of the convention will want to take America back to the failed policies of the past. ”

“ The men concerned in the principal secret of the State Convention kept their mouths shut for the sake of self-preservation. But unquiet suspicion was abroad. The Democrats nosed, figured, guessed, and acted with more duplicity than had characterized their usual campaigns against the dominant party. Their leaders gave their party a platform that invited every one to get aboard. Every question was straddled. It was a document of craft expressed in terms of apparent candor. It elevated a demagogue as candidate for Governor, and promised every reform on the calendar. ”

“ The Union candidate, no matter what his name or [Pg 639] antecedents, should be elected by a majority so great as to "coerce" the turbulent portion of the Democracy into submission to the laws of the land, and into respect for the popular will, the last thing for which Democrats have any respect. Had the Union National Convention seen fit to place a new man in nomination, it would have been the duty of the voters to support him with all the means honestly at their command ”

“ While I know that the reform sentiment in the Republican party is growing, I do not think, I regret to say, that it will be strong enough in the National Convention to beat the “machine-men,” without outside aid. ”

“ He's got hold of a wad there in Washington, and can buy up the whole convention if need be. I wouldn't trust any of them Republicans. The Democratic party is above sech doin's. We stand for purity, patriotism—the whole bag o' tricks! ”

“ Boss McGilvray and B. F. Montgomery have it out on
the Floor—Judge W. F. Stone Nominated.
The proceedings of the State Democratic Convention, held at Turner Hall, yesterday, were disgraceful enough to bring a blush even to the cheek of a Democrat. "Liar," [Pg 206] "snide," "put up your dukes, if you want to fight," cat-calls, hooting, and yelling filled up a greater part of the deliberations of the august body. ”

“ A condition in favor of Human Rights cannot be a limitation on a State or on a citizen.
If we look further, and see how the Senatorial equality of States obtained recognition in the Constitution, we shall find new occasion to admire that facility which has accorded to this concession so powerful an influence; and here the record is explicit. The National Convention had hardly assembled, when the small States came forward with their pretensions. Not content with suffrage in the Senate, they insisted upon equal suffrage in the House of Representatives. ”

“ They tell us we are taking from the citizen a right which elevated him by the only means through which he can acquire it. I reply that if it was an honor the career which you will open for them will imprint them with character greater and more in conformity with true equality. Our opponents have not failed either to magnify the inconveniences of changing the constitution. Nor do I desire its change. For that reason we should not introduce imprudent discussions to create the necessity of a national convention. ”

“ In unsullied character and in devotion to the principles of the Republican party no man in the organization surpasses him. No man has contributed more of time and means to advance the just interests of the Republican party."
The National Republican Convention, which assembled at Chicago, in June, 1880, was an exemplification of the popular will. ”

“ This plan, therefore, means that representation from some States in future National Republican Conventions will not be based upon Republican strength, nor determined by Republican votes, but will be fixed and determined by Democratic election officials. In other words, Democrats, and not Republicans, will fix and determine in a large measure, representation in future Conventions of the Republican party. ”

“ The delegates who wanted every man's vote to count alike were sharp in their criticism of giving each State, regardless of population, the same voice in the National Legislature. Madison entreated the Convention 'to renounce a principle wch. ”

“ The political power of this country has always shown itself superior to the judicial power—the latter ever shaping and basing its decisions on the policy of the dominant party. A pledge, therefore, by your convention to secure national protection in the enjoyment of perfect equality of rights, civil and political, to all citizens, will so define the policy of the Republican party as to open the way to a full and final adjustment of this question on the basis of United States supremacy. ”

“ The will of the nation is the only thing essential to be regarded. On the dissolution of the late constitution in France, by removing so integral a part of it as the King, the National Assembly, to whom a part only of the public authority had been delegated, appear to have considered themselves as incompetent to transact the affairs of the nation legitimately. They invited their fellow-citizens, therefore, to appoint a National Convention. ”

“ There has never been a time since the convention policy was adopted—if, indeed, there has been such a time since the government was inaugurated—when the success of the Democratic party in the electoral college was so vitally important as now. If that party should be defeated in the election before the people, every patriot's mind must be filled with gloomy forebodings of the future. ”

“ The nomination of a President, as in the recent Republican convention, by delegations composed largely of his appointees, holding office at his pleasure, is a scandalous satire upon free popular institutions and a startling illustration of the methods by which a President may gratify his ambition. We denounce a policy under which federal office-holders usurp control of party conventions in the States, and we pledge the Democratic party to the reform of these and all other abuses which threaten individual liberty and local self-government. ”

“ I know of no instance in the history of this country when the local caucuses and conventions in towns, districts and States, which had to elect delegates to the National Convention, were so largely and so ruthlessly invaded by postmasters and revenue officers and district attorneys and marshals, as they were this year in favor of President Harrison. Every Cabinet officer was expected to do his utmost, and to present to the President the delegation from his State with his compliments. ”

“ A small group of men, politely called the “organization,” or more harshly the “bosses,” in many states and cities had control of the machinery of the nominating conventions. Where they could not dictate a candidate, they could usually defeat the selection of any man whom they disliked or distrusted. Their power extended to national nominating conventions, particularly in the Republican party, because the Republican delegates from southern states, which almost always voted Democratic, were elected to national conventions by a handful of Federal office-holders and other professional politicians. ”

“ And with that danger threatening, not a man in the convention but felt that all other differences must be buried while the party that founded and builded the Republic rallies to guard the sacred edifice from the vandal hands that are outstretched for its destruction. And thus it was that the great Democratic party reunited, north, south, east, and west 111clasping hands, love of country in every man’s heart and ‘save the Republic’ on each man’s lip, gave its platform and its candidate to the country. ”