Presidential election, 1872.: Proceedings of the National union Republican convention held at Philadelphia, June 5 and 6, 1872 .../ Reported by Francis H. Smith, Official reporter.

CALLS AND PLATFORMS.
51
PLATFORM ADOPTED AT CHICAGO, 1868.
The National Union Republican party of the United States, assembled
in National Convention, in the city of Chicago, on the 20th day of May,
1868, make the following declaration of principles:
FIRST. We congratulate the country on the assured success of the reconstruction policy of Congress, as evinced by the adoption, in a majority
of the States lately in rebellion, of constitutions securing equal civil and
political rights to all, and regard it as the duty of the Government to
sustain those constitutions, and to prevent the people of such States
from being remitted to a state of anarchy or military rule.
SECOND. The guarantee by Congress of equal suffrage to all loyal men
at the South was demanded by every consideration of public safety, of
gratitude, and of justice, and must be maintained; while the question of
suffrage in all the loyal States properly belongs to the people of those
States.
THIRD. We denounce all forms of repudiation as a national crime; and
national honor requires the payment of the public indebtedness in the
utmost good faith to all creditors at home and abroad, not only according to the letter, but the spirit of thile laws under which it was contracted.
FOURTH. It is due to the labor of the nation that taxation should be
equalized and reduced as rapidly as national faith will permit.
FIFTH. The national debt, contracted as it has been for the preservation of the Union for all time to come, should be extended over a fair
period for redemption, and it is the duty of Congress to reduce thle rate
of interest thereon whenever it can honestly be done.
SIXTH. That the best policy to diminish our burden of debt is to so
improve our credit that capitalists will seek to loan us money at lower
rates of interest than we now pay, and must continue to pay, so long as
repudiation, partial or total, open or covert, is threatened or suspected.
SEVENTH. The Government of the United States should be administered with the strictest economy; and the corruptions which have been
so shamefully nursed and fostered by Andrew Johnson call loudly for
radical reform.
EIGHTH. We profoundly deplore the untimely and tragic death of
Abraham Lincoln, and regret the accession of Andrew Johnson to the
Presidency, who has acted treacherously to the people who elected
him and the cause he was pledged to support; has usurped high legislative and judicial functions; has refused to execute the laws; has used his
high office to induce other officers to ignore and violate the laws; has
employed his executive powers to render insecure the property, peace,
liberty, and life of the citizen; has abused the pardoning power; has
denounced the National Legislature as unconstitutional; has persistently
and corruptly resisted, by every means in his power, every proper attempt
at the reconstruction of the States lately in rebellion; has perverted the
public patronage into an engine of wholesale corruption; and has been
justly impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors and properly pronbunced guilty thereof by the votes of thirty-five Senators.
NINTH. The doctrine of Great Britain and other European powers,
that because a man is once a subject, he is always so, must be resisted,
at every hazard, by the United States, as a relic of the feudal times, not