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1872 Liberal Republican Party Platform
- The University of Tennessee Press
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1872 Liberal Republican Party Platform Donald Bruce Johnson, comp., National Party Platforms (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 1:44–45. Founded in 1870 as an anti–President Ulysses S. Grant faction within the Republican Party, by 1872, these Liberal Republicans fused with the Democratic Party in opposition to the enormously popular Grant. Concerned about the continued involvement of the federal government in the affairs of the southern states and having convinced themselves that the racial issues in those southern states had become settled enough to move on, this political movement presented a united front against President Grant. To lead them, the Liberal Republicans choose the editor of the New York Tribune, Horace Greeley, and to balance the ticket Senator Benjamin Gratz Brown of Missouri. Although these politicians presented a united front, Grant’s popularity in the country could not be stopped or slowed, and in the 1872 election, the Republicans won in a landslide. Adding to this odd political movement in United States history, on November 29, 1872, before the Electoral College met to cast its votes, Greeley died. As a result, the electors had no one to cast their votes for when the Electoral College met. Regardless, three electors attempted to cast their ballots for Greeley, but Congress disallowed those votes. Thus, Grant won both the popular election and the contest in the Electoral College, where his primary political opponent received no votes. We, the Liberal Republicans of the United States in National Convention assembled at Cincinnati, proclaim the following principles as essential to just government. First: We recognize the equality of all men before the law, and hold that it is the duty of Government in its dealings with the people to mete out equal and exact justice to all of whatever nativity, race, color, or persuasion, religious or political. Documentary History of the American Civil War Era 174 Second: We pledge ourselves to maintain the union of these States, emancipation , and enfranchisement, and to oppose any re-opening of the questions settled by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Third: We demand the immediate and absolute removal of all disabilities imposed on account of the Rebellion, which was finally subdued seven years ago, believing that universal amnesty will result in complete pacification in all sections of the country. Fourth: Local self-government, with impartial suffrage, will guard the rights of all citizens more securely than any centralized power. The public welfare requires the supremacy of the civil over the military authority, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus. We demand for the individual the largest liberty consistent with public order; for the State, self-government, and for the nation a return to the methods of peace and the constitutional limitations of power. Fifth: The Civil Service of the Government has become a mere instrument of partisan tyranny and personal ambition and an object of selfish greed. It is a scandal and reproach upon free institutions and breeds a demoralization dangerous to the perpetuity of republican government. We therefore regard such thorough reforms of the Civil Service as one of the most pressing necessities of the hour; that honesty, capacity, and fidelity constitute the only valid claim to public employment; that the offices of the Government cease to be a matter of arbitrary favoritism and patronage, and that public station become again a post of honor. To this end it is imperatively required that no President shall be a candidate for re-election. Sixth: 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 reduction annually 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 Congress District, and to the decision of Congress thereon, and to the decision of Congress thereon, wholly free of Executive interference or dictation. Seventh: The public credit must be sacredly maintained, and we denounce repudiation in every form and guise. Eighth: A speedy return to specie payment is demanded alike by the highest considerations of commercial morality and honest government. Ninth: We remember with gratitude the heroism and sacrifices of the soldiers and sailors of the Republic, and...