freedom of the person under the protecting habeas corpus. We demand for the citizen the largest liberty consistent with public order; for the State, self-government; for the nation, a return to the methods of peace, and the Constitutional limitations of power.

"5. 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 a thorough reform of the civil service as one of the most pressing necessities of the hour-that honesty, 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 a public station shall again become a post of honor. To this end, it is imperatively demanded that no President shall become a candidate for re-election.

"6. We demand a system of Federal taxation which shall not unnecessarily interfere with the industry of the people, and which shall provide the means 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 congressional districts, and the decision of Congress thereon, wholly free from executive interference or dictation.

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

"8. A speedy return to specie payment is demanded alike by the highest consideration of commercial morality and honest government.

"9. 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.

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"10. We are opposed to all further grants of lands to railroads or other corporations; the public domain should be held sacred to actual settlers.

"II. We hold that it is the duty of the Government in its intercourse with foreign nations, to cultivate the friendship, of peace, by treaty with all, on fair and equal terms, regarding it alike hishonorable either to demand what is not right, or submit to what is wrong.

"12. 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."

Thus did a very decided and respectable portion of the Republican party secede from their party, and announce a platform so nearly consistent with Democratic principles, that the Democracy adopted it as their own.

PLATFORM OF 1876—-ST. LOUIS, MO., JUNE 27.—SAMUEL J. TILDEN NOMINATED.

After declaring that the administration of the Federal government was in urgent need of immediate reform in all its departments, the convention declared as follows:

"For the Democracy of the whole country we do hereby reaffirm our faith in the permanence of the Federal

Union, our devotion to the Constitution of the United States, with its amendments universally accepted as a final settlement of the controversies that engendered civil war, and do record our steadfast confidence in the perpetuity of self government.

"In absolute acquiescence in the will of the majority— the vital principle of republics; in the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; in the total separation of the church and state, for the sake alike of civil and religious freedom; in the equality of all citizens before just laws of their own enactment; in the liberty of individual conduct, unvexed by sumptuary laws; in the faithful education of the rising generation, that they may preserve, enjoy and transmit these best conditions of human happiness and hope-we behold the noblest products of a hundred years of changeful history; but while upholding the bond of union, and great charter of these our rights, it behooves a free people to practice also the eternal vigilance which is the price of liberty.

"Reform is necessary to rebuild and re-establish in the hearts of the whole people, the union, eleven years ago happily rescued from the danger of a secession of states, but now to be saved from a corrupt centralism which, after inflicting upon ten states the rapacity of carpet-bag tyranny, has honey-combed the offices of the Federal government itself with incapacity, waste and fraud; infected states and municipalities with the contagion of misrule; and locked fast the prosperity of an industrious people in the paralysis of "hard times."

"Reform is necessary to establish a sound currency, restore the public credit, and maintain the national honor. "We denounce the failure, for all these eleven years of peace, to make good the promise of the legal tender notes,

which are a changing standard of value in the hands of the people, and the non-payment of which is a disregard of the plighted faith of the nation.

"We denounce the improvidence which in eleven years. of peace, has taken from the people, in Federal taxes, thirteen times the whole amount of the legal-tender notes, and squandered four times their sum in useless expense without accumulating any reserve for their redemption.

"We denounce the financial imbecility and immorality of that party, which, during eleven years of peace, has made no advance toward resumption, no preparation for resumption, but, instead, has obstructed resumption. by wasting our resources, and exhausting all our surplus income; and while annually professing to intend a speedy return to specie payments, has annually enacted fresh hindrances thereto, as such hinderance we denounce the resumption clause of 1875, and we demand its repeal.

"We demand a judicious system of preparation by public economies by official retrenchments, and by wise finance, which shall enable the Nation, soon to assure the whole world of its perfect ability and perfect readiness to meet any of its promises at the call of the creditor entitled to payment. We believe such a system well devised, and, above all, entrusted to competent hands for execution, creating at no time an artificial scarcity of curency, and af no time alarming the public mind into a withdrawal of that vaster machinery of credit by which ninety-five per cent of all business transactions are performed. A system open, public, and inspiring general confidence, would from the day of its adoption bring healing on its wings to all our harrassed industries; set in motion the wheels of commerce, manufactures, and the mechanical arts, restore

employment to labor, and renew, in all its natural sources, the prosperity of the people.

"Reform is necessary in the sum and modes of Federal taxation, to the end that capital may be set free from distrust, and labor lightly burdened.

"We denounce the present tariff, levied upon nearly four thousand articles, as a monster piece of injustice, inequality, and false pretence. It yields a dwindling—not a yearly rising revenue--it has impoverished many industries to subsidize a few. It prohibits imports that might purchase the products of American labor. It has degraded American commerce from the first to an inferior rank on the high seas. It has cut down the sales of American manufactures at home and abroad, and depleted the re ́urns of American agriculture--an industry followed by half our people. It costs the people five times more than it produces to the treasury, obstructs the processes of production, and wastes the fruit of labor. It promotes fraud, fosters smuggling, enriches dishonest officials, and bankrupts honest merchants. We demand that all customhouse taxation shall be only for revenue.

"Reform is necessary in the scale of public expense--federal, state, and municipal. Our federal taxation has swollen from sixty millions gold, in 1860, to four hundred and fifty millions currency, in 1870; an aggregate taxation from one hundred and fifty-four millions gold, in 1860, to seven hundred and thirty millions currency, in 1870-or, in one decade, from less than five dollars per head, to more than eighteen dollars per head. Since the peace the people have paid to their tax-gatherers more than thrice the sum of the National debt, and more than twice that sum for the Federal Government alone. We de