The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, June 19, 1896, Page 10

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, FREDAY, JUNE 19 1896. 9 e ——————————————————————————————— S SN ————C S ————— e ———— provision of that great instrument is on the public statutes of our country to-day, which cannot be said of the platform of any other political organization in this or any other country.” He also said: ““This contest we enter into is for the main- tenance of protection and reciprocity.” Among the speakers at the convention was Fred Douglass. Only one ballot was necessary to deter- mine the choice of the convention for the Presidential nomination. That bal- lot resulted as follows: Harrison 635, McKinley 183, Blaine 175, Reed 4, Lincoln 1. On motion of McKinley the nomina- tion of Harrison was made nnanimous. Whitelaw Reid was nominated for Vice- President by acclamation. ‘The Republican National platform re- affirmed the American doctrine of pro- tection and called attention to its growth abroad, pointea to ‘‘the success of the Re- vublican policy of reciprocity, under which our export trade has vastly in- creased, and new and enlarged markets have been opened for the products of the farms and workshops’'; and callea atten- tion to “‘the bitter opposition of the Demo- cratic party to this practical measure”; demanded the use of both gold and silver as standard money; demanded freedom of the ballot; denounced “inhuman out- rages perpetrated upon American citic zens for political reasons in certain Southern Staies of the Union”; favored he extension of foreign commerce; con- demned trusts; commended civil service reform; enunciated that ‘‘the construction of the Nicaragua canal is of the highest importance to the American people asa measure of defense and to build up and maintain American commerce ana it should be conirolled by the American Government.” The Democratic convention at Chicago nominated Grover Oleveland and Adlai E. Btevenson for President and Vice-Presi- dent respectively. The Democratic plat- form embraced many provisions. ‘Re- publican protection” was declared to be “a fraud,” and the McKinley tariff law, en- acted by the Fifty-first Congress, was de- scribed as ‘‘the culminating atrocity of class-legislation.” The repeal of the 1C per cent tax on State bank issnes was recommended. There were many other provisions, which are well recolliected by voters. The popular vote was as follows: Cleve- land 5,553,142, Harrison 5,186,931, Bidwell (Pro.) 268,361, Weaver (People’s) 1,038,128, Cleveland’s plurality over Harrison was 866,211. The electoral vote was: Cleve- land 276, ‘Harrison 145, Weaver 23. The words of George 8. Boutwell, taken from his work entitled “Why I am a Re- publican,” may fitly find space here: It (the Republican party) seccepted power when the industries of the country were in- significant in volume, limited in variety and paralyzed by the constant and vigorous war- fare upon every measure designed to foster labor or to add to the security of capital em- ployed in the manufactures and trade. The country was enslaved to the idea thatagri- culture might prosper while manuiactures were neglected. It accepted power when the country was on the eve of a gigantic war,and when all the conaitions and circumstances were unfavor- able to its successful prosecution. It has administered the Government during & fourth part of its constitutional existence. In that period the resources of the country have been so developed, its industries so mul- tiplied and magnified that the era is marked 25 one of unexampled prosperity. In that period & new generation of men has come upen the stage, who cannot, out of their own experience, institute either contrasts or com- parisons between the near and the more re- mote past. I have sought to address myself to that class in the hope that I may enable them to see. a8 in one view, the beneficial changes that have been wrought by the Republican party in con- stitutional law, in public policy, in the educa- tional and industrial condition of the people, and, above all, in the sentiment of nationality, which is better security for the preservationof the Union than can be had in statutes and con- stitutions. The opening sentences of the seventh Repubiican National platform, which was adopted at Chicago, June 5, 1880, make up a presentation of history of Republican achievements which bas much of historical interest. The Republican party, in National Conven- tion sssembled, at the end of twenty years since the Federal Government was first com- mitted to its charge, submits to the people of the United States this brief report of itsad- ministration. It suppressed s rebellion which had armed nearly a million men to subvert the Federal authority. It reconstructed the Union of the States with freedom, instead of ry, &8 its cornerstome. It transformed 4,000,000 buman beings from the likenese of things to the ranks of citizens. It relieved Congress from the infamous work of hunting fugltive slaves and charged it to see that slav- ery does not exist. It has raised the value of your paper cur- rency from 38 per cent tothe par value of gold. It has restored upon a solia basis pay- ment in eoin for all the National obligations, and has given us & currency absolutely good and equal in every part of our extended coun- try. It haslifted the credit of the Nation from the point where 6 per cent bonds sold at 86 to that where 4 per cent bonds are eagerly sought atapremium. Underits administration rail- ways have increased from 31,000 miles in 1860 to more than 80,000 miles in 1872, Our foreign trade has increased from $700,- 000,000 to $1,150,000,000 in the same time; and our exports, which were $20,000,000 less then our imports in 1860, were $264,000,000 more than our imports in 1879. Without re- sorting to loans it has, since the war closed, defrayed the ordinary expenses of Govern- ment, besides the accruing interest on the public debt, and disbursed annually more than $30,000,000 for soldiers’ pensions. It has peid $888,000,000 of the public debt, and by refunding the balance at & lower rate of inter- est has reduced the annualinterestcharge from nearly $151,000,000 to less than $89,- 000,000. Allthe industries of the country have revived, labor is in demand and throughout ihe entire country there is evidence of a com- ing prosperity greater than we have ever en- joyed. : ‘{ ,on this record the Republican party asks for"the continued confidence and support of the people. This brief sketch of the Republican party would be incomplete without call- ing attention to the fact that most of the older leaders are dead. Nearly all those who were members of the Republi{:an Na- tional Convention of 1860 are gone, 'the list including Weed, Davis, Swett, Morgan, ‘Wilmot, Stevens, Curtis, Andrew, Cormln. Giddings and Cameron. The death list also embraces 41l the Kepublicans who bave occupied the Presidency since 1852, with the one exception of Harrison, the Jist embracing Fremont, Lincoln, Grant, Hayes, Jobnson, Garfield and Arthur. T remember, sir, once I was told that the old Republican ship was gone; but, when I steadied myself on the shores bounding the poiitical ocean of strife and commotion I looked afar off, and there I could see a vessel bounding the boisterous billows, with white sails unfurled, marked on her gida, “Freighted with the hopes of wmankind,” while the great mariner above as her helms- man steered her, navigated her to a haven of rest, of peace and of safety. You have but to look again upon that broad ocean of politi- cal eommotion to-day and the time will soon come when the same old eraft, with the same old cargo, will be seen flying the same flag, passing through those tempestuous waves, anchoting herself ct the shores of honesty and justice, and there she will lie undisturbed by strife and tumult, again in peace and safety.— JOHN 4. LOGAN. SWINGING OF THE PARTY PENDULUM. Out of Twenty-Seven Elec- tions Only a Few Were Forecast. Washington the Only President ‘Who Received a Unani- mous Election. Many Exciting Campaigns—Not Since 1880 Has the Same Party Won in Two Successive Battles. The number of Presidential canvassesdn which the result could be foretold from the beginning are surprisingly few. Out of the twenty-seven elections on which the choice of a President depended not more than half a dozen were so one-sided that the outcome could have been foreseen from the beginning. It will be necescary, of course, to leave the two elections of ‘Washington out of the list. The only man who could be considered at all as a possible rival was Benjamin Franklin, and he was 83 years of ageat ‘Washington’s first election and died be- exciting by their contrast with the calm of the two preceding canvasses. Washing- ton desired to step down at the end of his first term, but through the solicitations of the leaders of both parties he was induced to accept a second election. There was no such general desire to re- elect any other man, although the opposi- tion to Jefferson for a second term ,was feeble and the antagonism to Monroe did not reflect itself in the election figures. In his second election, that of 1804, Jeffer- son carried fifteen States and received 162 | electoral votes, as compared with two States and 14 votes for Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the Federalist candidate. Thetie in the Electoral College in 1800 between Jefferson and Burr led to the adoption of the eleventh amendment to the constitution, directing each elector to indicate, on separate ballots, his choice for President and for Vice-President, a re- quirement which has continued to the present day. Madison had a fight on his hands in both his canvasses, although it was not very formidable in the first one, that of 1808. An element of his party in Virginia desired Monroe's nomination instead of Madison’s, and an element in some of the otherStates thought Virginia, throngh the sixteen years of Washington and Jeffer- son, had the Presidency long enough, and wanted to give the rest of the country a chance. Then, too, Jefferson’s embargo policy was unpopular in the North, the commer- cial section. These reasons sent Massachu- setts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Rhode Island back to the Feder- alists in 1808, and dividea Maryland and North Carolina. Madison carried wwelve States, with 122 electoral votes, as compared with five States and forty-seven votes which went to Pinckney, who was again the Federalist candidate. tion to the Democratic party in National ! elections after.1816 until 1824 has given to that period, which covered almost all of Monroe’s service in the Presidency, the name of the ‘“‘era of good feeling," The politicel strife which in ordinary conditions would be between two regu- larly defined parties degenerated at the close of the “‘era of good feeling” into a wrangle between groups and factions nominally arrayed under the same ban- ner. In 1824 there were four candidates— John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Wiiliam H. Crawford and Hepry Clay— for the Presidency, all pretending to be Democrats or Republicans, but shortly after Adams’ election by the House of Representatives the faction to which he and Clay belonged assamed {he name of National Republicans, and that with which Jackson and Crawford were identi- fied soon after Jackson was elected in 1828 formally took the name Democratic, which had been used interchangeably with Republican for over a dozen years at thav time. 1n 1824 and 1828 the contest was close and exciting, for, thoughin the latter year Jackson carried fifteen States with 178 electoral votes to nine States and 83 votes for Adams, the difference in the popular vote was not great, and the result was in doubt along to near the end of the canvass. But in 1832 and 1836 the unexpected hap- pened. Jackson’s vote was 219, as com- pared with 49 for Clay, the National Re- publican candidate; 11 for Floyd, whom South Carolina, in antagonism to Jackson on account of the nullification trouble, threw away its vote upon, and 7 (Ver- mont’s) for Wirt, the anti-Masonic nom- inee. In 1836 the Whig opposition was divided into four groups, with separate tickets, headed by W. H. Harrison, H. L. ‘White, Daniel Webster and W. P. Man- gum, respectively, and Van Buren, the In the canvass of 1852 there was a greater disproportion between the strength of the contending parties in the Electoral College than bad been shown before since Mon- roe’s time, and greater than was revealed afterward, except in 1864, when the eleven seceded States, which, under normal conditions, would nearly all have sided with the minority party of that time, were cut off from the canvass. The Democratic esndidate, Franklin Pierze, carried twenty-seven States, as compared with four—Vermont, Massachusetts, Ken- tucky and Tennessee—which went to Win- field Scott, the Whig nominee, Piarce's electoral vote was 254 and Scott’s 42. There was no such disparity in the popular vote, though, the former’s being 1,601,474 and the latter’s 1,386,578. Now come two canvasses—those of 1856 and 1860—in which the contest was close and exciting. It is often said that if Fre- mont had carried Pennsylvania in 1856, in addition to the other States which he won, he would have been elected; but this is not correct. I, however, he had carried Pennsylvania and any of the four otber Northern States—New Jersey, Indiana, Illinois and California—which went to Buchanan, he would have won. His elec- toral vote was 114, as against 174 for Buchanan. Butin the popular vote the divergence in 1856 was broader than it was in several canvasses when the difference in the Electoral College totals was much greater. In 1860, though the Republican electoral vote was 180, against 123 for the combined opposition—Douglas Democrats, Breckinridge Democrats and Bell Consti- tutional Unionists—the opposition was nearly 1,000,000 ahead in the popular vote. The next three elections—those of 1864, 1868 and 1872—were easy victories for the winning party. For a month or two early in the canvass of 1864 the Republican out- look seemed dark, but Sherman’s and GREELEY NAMED THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, Michigan Had the Honor of Christening the Sturdy Infant. The Great Editor’s Suggestion to Unite All the Opponents of Negro Slavery. Its First Convention Was Held in Pitts- burg, at Lafayette Hall, in the Year 1836. The fortieth anniversary of the birth of the Republican party, on February 22 last, has recalled the fact that while tue first National Convention was held on Febru- ary 22, 1856, at Pittsburg, says the New York Commercial Advertiser, yet the State of Michigan claims the honor of giving to tne mew party its disunctive name. The interesting circumstances are given by Charles H. Moore, & student of political data, and the statement will be read with particular interest at this time. It is as follows: From its start, in 1839, the anti-slavery o B 3 BENJ FBVUTLER o o(fia‘g“uao 7 ! 1l - "{"GEN" JOrN A LOGAN JAMES G.BLAIN N “Bf‘c @ (G144 %fi%%* pinle e o g SR T [ s A fore haif of that term was ended. The ac- knowledgment of Washington’s pre-emi- nence was seer. in the convention of 1787, which framed the constitution, when he was elected by a unanimous vote to be president of that assemblage. Robert Morris, in benalf of his fellow- members of the Pennsylvania deputation in the convention, proposed Washington for this post. A footnote to Madison’s journal of that gathering shows that Franklin, who was another of Pennsylva- nia’s delegates, intended to nominate ‘Washington, but “the state of the weather and of his bealth confined him to his house.” (Elliot’s Debates,” vol V, p. 123.) In the first and second elections, as well as in the third and fourth, every Presi- dential elector cast a ballot for two per- sons without indicating which person he desired to be President, writes Charles M. Harvey in the 8t. Louis Globe-Democrat. Under the constitutional provisions which governed elections uutil 1800, and includ- ing that year, the person getting the high- est number of eleetoral votes, if a majority of the whole number of electors chosen, was to be President, and the second high- est person was to be Vice-President. The sixty-nine electors distributed their votes among a dozen persons, but each elector gave one of his two votes to Wash- ington. Thus Washington got sixty-nine votes, and a unanimous poll. The man who stood second on the roll was John Adams, who received thirty-four votes, and he became Vice-President. The sec- ond election, that of 1792, was a repetition of the first in the respect that Washing-‘ ton again obtained a unanimous vote, and Adams fanked second, and was rechosen Vice-President. The contested Presidential elections be- gan with 1796, and in all except a few of those of the next hundred years the struggle has been active and exciting. l’.l‘hon of 1796 and 1800 were particularly Four years later, however, in 1812, the result was in doubt until the end. De Witt Clinton, who had belonged to Jefferson’s Republican party, and who was about as much of a dictator in that party in New York as David B. Hill was a few years ago, was nominated against Madison by a convention of Republicans in that State. He was indorsed by the Federalists, and carried seven States and eighty-pine elec- toral votes, against eleven States and 128 votes for Madison. Clinton carried New York, but Pennsylvania was the battle ground that year, and that State was held by Madison. A period now appears in which the name of the next President could always be told after the Republicans or Demo- crats selected their candidate. When the war of 1812 closed only one party was left in the countrv. Opposition to that con- flict by the Federalists, and their sup- posed treasonavle designs in the Hartford convention, made them a sort of outlawed sect throughout the country, except in part of New Engiand and in Delaware, where they maintained their organization until about 1821, though they liost all influence in National politics. In 1816 Monree, the Demccratic candidate, car- ried sixteen States, with 183 electoral votes, while Rufus King, the Federalist, had only three States—Massachusetts, Connecticut and Delaware—and thirty- four votes. Four years later, or in 1820, there was no organized opposition to the Democrats, and Monroe received all the electoral vofes cast except one, which was given' tg John Quincy Adams, the Secretary of State in the Monroe Cabinet, who was not a candi- date. A New Hampshire elector, William Plumer, unwilling that anybody except ‘Washington should have the honorof a unanimous election, cast the solitary vote for Adams. The absence of actual organized opposi- 117 | 7 it .0 e o g 8 g I e dgoe ‘ AR 1% Protess G, LS B MATT CARPENTER, r s Democratic nominee, had an easy tri- umph. Four years Inter Harrison had a still easier victory over Van Buren in the log cabin and bard cider campaign of 1840, when he carried nineteen States and 234 electoral votes, as compared with seven States and 60 votes for Van Buren. In the popular vote, however, the difference between the candidates was slight, Harri- son’s total being 1,275,017 and Van Buren's 1,128,702, Not till twelve years after 1840 did an- other one-sided canvass come. In 1844 and 1848 the contest was so close that the “third”’ party of the day, the Liberty in the earlier instance and the Free Soil in the later one, turned the scale. It did this in New York, which was sometimes “pivotal’’ at that esrly day, and which, in- deed, decided the elections even earlier than that time. The Liberty party polled only about 16,000 votes in New York in 1844, and but 62,300 in the country at large, yet those 16,000 defeated the Whigs, destroyed the last chance of that “spoiled child of destiny,” Henry Clay, to ever reach the Presidency, and sent James K. Polk to the White House. The Free Soil party’s vote in New York in 1848 was far larger than its more radical predecessor, the Liberty party, polled in the entire country, or 120,510, and, unlike that of the Liberal party, was drawn chiefly from the Democracy, and de- feated that organization. The Free Soil candidate was ex-President Van Buren, and the Democratic nominee was -Lewi Cass, who helped to beat Van Buren 1n the Democratic convention of 1844, when the latter sought his third nomination and a second term. Thousands of Van Buren's Democratic friends in his own State, who cared pothing for the principles of the Free Soil party, voted the Free Soil ticket to wreak revenge on Cass. They got the revenge and gave New York and the Pres- idency to Taylor, the Whig nominee, Sheridan’s victories in the fall dispersed the clouds and knocked holes in the Dem- cratic war-a-“failure’’ platform and gave Lincoln twenty-twa States, as against three for McClellan. Grant’s election in 1868, when he carried twenty-six States to Beymour’s eight, and in 1872, when he haa thirty-one to Greeley’s six, was never really in doubt, although early in the latter canvass Greeley was a favorite in the betting for a week or two in New York. Then came several elections in whbich the result was uncertain until all the voces’ were counted. Hayes bad only one ma- jority in the Electoral Coilege in 1876, and the vote of New York turned the scale 1n favor of Garfield 1n 1880, Cleveland in 1884 and Harrison in 1888, as it had done for Polk in 1844 and Taylor in 1848. Those were followed by the well-remembered Republican “apathy’’ canvass of 1892, in which Cleveland had 277 electoral votes, Harrison only 145 and Weaver 22. A sig- nificant circumstance reveals itself here. Not since 1880 has the same party won the Presidency in two successive elections. War issues and prejudices had dropped into the background by 1880, and normal conditions began to appear. In such a situation the partisan pendulum swings fresly and frequently, and short periods of power for each party is the rule. I am not before you to garner the scars and disjointed columns of free government. Republic that has been reared by, a century of patriotic labor and sacrifice more than covers its wounds with the noblest achievements ever recorded in man’s struggle for the rights of man. It is not perfect in its administration, nor in the ezercise of its vast and vesponsible powers. But when was it so? When shall it be so? No human work is perfect. * * * The trained lightning flashes the lessons of our civilization to the home of the pyramids, and the god of day sets-not upon the bound- less triumphs of our Government of the people—A. K. McCLURE, 3 party had taken root in Michigan,and in 1844 its candidate for the Presidency, James G. Birney, was a resident of the Peninsular State. Mr. Birney was born in Kentucky, where he freed his slaves in 1834, and was driven from that State for editing an abolition paper. In 1840 and 1844 he was the candidate of the abolition (or liberty) party for President. In 1842 he removed to Michigan, and during his residence he became disabled for political work by a fall from his horse. But for Birney’s nomination the electoral votes of both New York ana Michigan would have been cast for Henry Clay instead of for Polk and the brilliant Kentuckian would have been elected (Lalor’s Cyclopedia of Political Science, article on ‘‘Abolition,” volume 1, page 4). This blunder drove many Abolitionists into the Free-Soil party, and when, after the election of 1848, it was found that tbe Democratic defec- tion, headed by Martin Van Buren, had for its object the defeat of Cass rather than the advancement of anti-slavery principles. Many Democrats and Whigs who had been drawn into the new movement re- turned to the old parties. The Van Buren electoral ticket in Michigan was headed by Mr. Littlejohn of Allegan and James F. Joy. The former went back to the Demo- cratic party, the latter to the Whig. So, The | too, Austin Blair returned to the Whig parly. (Bee letter irom Hovey K. Clark in Post and Tribune, July 6, 1879.) Yet so strong was the opposition to the extension of slavery that no Democrat could have been elected to Congress on a pro-slavery platlform. Indeed, all three Congressmen were pronounced opponents of slavery ex- tension. Robert McClelland, afterward Governor and Secretary of the Interior in Presiaent Pierce’s Cabinet, acquired the name of “Free-Soil McClelland” by reason of a speech in Congress; Charies E. Stuart, who was sent to the Senate later, took ad- vanced ground (in the “Flowerfield Let- ters'’’) against the encroachments of slavery, and Kinsley 8. Bingham was so ageressive an opponent of slavery that be soon found himself outside his party. So satisfactory was McCleliand to the Free-Soilers that they deliberately refused to put an opposition ticker in the field when in 1851 he first ran for Governor. At the State election in 1852 McClelland had & majority over Zachariah Chandler, the Whig candidate for Governor, and Isaac P. Christiancy, the Free-Soil Democratic candidate. The overwhelming defeat of the Whigs in 1852, however, convinced both patriots and politicians throughout the country that the times were ripe for a new party. and in Michigan this feeling found expression in 1853 in the organiza- tion of a political club in Grand Rapids— one whose most active member, Wilder D. Foster, was elected Mayor by a combina- tion of Whigs and Democrats, call- ing themselves the Free Democratic party. The new party was fortunate in having the energetic support of the Grand Rapids Eagle, vigorously edited by A.B. Turner; and when, on the 22d of February, 1854, a State convention of Free Demo- crats nominated a full ticket, headed by Bingham, the Eagle promptly urged the abandonment of the Whig organization and the support of the new ticket. The action of the Free Democrats was merely tentative, and an agreement was entered into by the leaders to withdraw the ticket whenever it should be found that by so doing a fusion of Free-Soilers, ‘Whigs and Anti-Slavery Democrats could be effected. The conferences at which this decision were reached were held at the house of Dr. J. A. B. Stone, president of Kalamazoo College. The Kalamazoo con- vention of June 21, formally assented to the withdrawal of the ticket in case the expected fusion could be accomplished. Events at Washington quickly paved the way for such a combination. On May 30, 1854, the Missouri compromise was re- pealed, thereby giving notice to the coun- try that the South was determined to push slavery into the new territory west of the Mississipi. It wasat this most opportune moment that Joseph Warren, the editor and part owner of the Detroit Tribune, an evening Whig journal, threw the powerful influence of that newspaper into the cause of uniting all the anti-slavery elements of the State in a new party, which should use the established machinery of the Whigs, thus wiping out that party. ‘Che Detroit Advertiser, the morning Whig organ, vio- lently opposed this programme, and bit~ terly fought the new movement in its every stage. Carrying out the plan of ection deter- mined upon, a call for a mass convention of the opponents of slavery extension was circulated throughout the State, and within a fortnight no fewer than 10,000 signatures were obtained. The conven- tion met at Jackson on July 6, 1854. It was a glorious day. From all parts of the State the people came in such numbers that no ball could bold them. 5o thecon- vention adjourned to a beautiful oak grove that covered a tract of land known as “Morgan’s Forty,” where a platform was hastily built and draped with the Stars and Stripes. Among the sturdy oaks, under the free blue sky, the Republican party was tbat day born. David 8. Walbridge, an old-time Whig, was called upon to preside. A committee on nominations, made up of eizhty-eight men, representing all tLe Senatorial dis- tricts, used the Free Democratic ticket as a basis, and placing Bingham at the head filled in the remainder of the places with a judicious mixture of Whigs and Free- Soilers. Thereupon the committee repre- senting the Free Democrats formally with- diew their party ticket and pledged sup- port to the new one. S 2 Meantime the vast assemblage of men and women were addressed by speakers called from the crowd, and the composi- ticn and spirit of the gathering is well illustrated by the brief speech of Zachariah Chandler. There was great applause when Kings- ley S. Bingham’s name was mentioned, for as a pioneer farmer he represented the class of peovle among whom the new party was to take strongest root, and he ‘was recognized as the most available man to head the new ticket of the new party. Among the other speakers was Lewis Clark, said to have been the “George Har- ris”’ of “Uncle Tom’s Oabin,” the son of a Revolutionary soldier and a Kentucky colored girl. He told in simple, effective words how at the death of his father the family was sold on the auction block, and his talk was more powerful than any speech. More important than the ticket were the nominations. Thecommittee of twelve was headed by Jacob M. Howard and among its members were Austin Blair and Erastus Hussey of underground-railroad fame. Withdrawing to a grassy knoll on the edge of an oak-opening, the committee went carefully over the draft of the reso- lutions already prepared by Mr. Howard, making few and unimportant changes. The resolutions truthfully began, “The freemen of Michigan, assembled in con- vention in pursuance of a spontaneous call, emanating from varions parts of the State,” and went on to stig- matize slavery as a great moral, social and political evil, a relic of barbar- ism and an element of weakness. They pledged resistance to the extension of slavery, called for the repeal of the Fugi- tive Slave Law, and the abolitionof slavery in the District of Columbia, and proposed a general convention of free States to adopt measures to resist slavery's encroach- ments. The most important of the resolutions historically is the one in which it is re- solved that **we will operate and beknown as Republicans until the contest is ended.” Here app-ared for the first time the offi- cial designation of the great party, which was to administer the affairs of the Gov- ernment during tirte Civil War. The name was not selected by chance nor applied withont mature deliberation and large purpose. The choice came about in this way: Soon after Joseph Warren began to ad- vocate, through the columns of the New York Tribune, the organization of all the opponents of slavery into a single party, Horace Greeley voluntarily opened a cor- respondence with him in regard to the movement, giving advice and counsel. Mr. Greeley suggested to Mr. Warren the name of Republican, and when Mr. How- ard was made chairman of the committee on resolutions Mr. Warren gave him (ireeley’s letter and urged that the sug- | restion be adopted; wnich was done. i - The action in Micnigan was duly made | unown through the press, and ou July 13 the Wisconsin Free-Soilers, in convention at Madison, adopted the name Republican. The Republicans of the United States de- mand a man who knows that prosperity and vesumption, when they come, must come together; that when they come they will come hand in hand through the golden harvest fields; hand in hand by the whirling spindies and the turning wheels; hand in hand past the open furnace-doors; hand in hand by the chimneys filled with larger fires—greeted and grasped by the countless sons of toil.—Robert G. Ingersoll nominating James G. Blaine at Cincinnatis |